Auctions – aspiblog

An Even First Day

A look back at day one of the third Ashes test in Adelaide and a photo gallery.

The third test match of the ongoing series between Australia and England’s men’s teams got underway overnight UK time. This post looks back at a curious day’s play.

THE PRELIMINARIES

England had announced their team early, in keeping with their recent methods in this department. The fact that Shoaib Bashir missed out for a third straight match, creating the possibility that series will be decided before he plays a game, raised eyebrows. The problem with this selection from England is that they fast tracked him into the test side with this specific series most in mind, which makes then sidelining him for each of the first three matches look bizarre. Australia had intended to drop Usman Khawaja, which could well have ended his test career, but then Steve Smith experienced giddiness and nausea while batting in the nets and it was deemed serious enough to put him out of the match, so Khawaja was back in the side. Australia won the toss, and there was never much doubt about the decision, so it was over to England’s bowlers to see what they could do.

A CURATE’S EGG PERFORMANCE

England did not bowl very well overall, but they had some assistance from the Australian batting, who seemed somewhat infected by their opponents freneticism at the crease. Immediately after lunch, when Marnus Labuschagne and Cameron Green suffered almost identical ultra-soft dismissals in the space of three balls, each hitting deliveries from Archer straight to midwicket and suddenly the score was 94-4 it looked very good for England. Khawaja and Alex Carey regained the initiative for Australia, but then Khawaja tried to go big against the part time spin of WG Jacks and succeeded in holing out Josh Tongue for 82. Carey, supported in turn by Josh Inglis, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc proceeded to a splendid maiden Ashes ton. However Jacks showed something of the original WG’s knack for inducing batters to get themselves out, drawing an injudicious shot from Carey which resulted in a catch to Jamie Smith. The day ended with Australia on 326-8. With temperatures in Adelaide forecast to reach 39 degrees on day two (two degrees above the cut off point for an abandonment during my brief career as an umpire in Under 14s Whites matches there) what happens then will have a big influence on the outcome of the match and thus whether England can get back into the series. If they can get the last two wickets quickly and then bat for the rest of the day, forcing Australia to labour in the field through the fiercest heat they will have a good chance. Cummins has just returned earlier than expected from an injury, and a long, hot innings in the field would be a big early test of just how ready he was to make that comeback. A concern for England, given their controversial decision to overlook the specialist spinner is the fact that it was Will Jacks, definitely a batter who bowls off spin, who ended bowling the most overs for them on day one.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

The first five images are of a gold ducat that has been manipulated in some way – the 1583 date, clearly visible, does not match with the style of portrait. These images did their job, and the coin has been sold for a negotiated price not hugely much less than the original sale price.

A Successful Auction

An account of an auction that did not go to plan but was nevertheless extremely successful, and a large photo gallery.

On Tuesday James and Sons had a small auction of banknotes and coins. I ran the IT side of the auction itself, having also typed all the descriptions and created most of the images. This post looks back at a day that while it certainly did not go exactly to plan was indubitably a successful for James and Sons.

AN EARLY START

With the sale getting underway at 10AM I had to arrive early, and the only way I could do so was to catch the early morning bus, getting into Fakenham at 7:48. I had warned my employer of this detail and he promised to arrive as near that time as he could manage. I got in to Fakenham as planned, found that my employer had not arrived yet, and took myself off for a short walk to fill a little time. He arrived a little after I got back to the shop, and opened up. At 9:30 the person who had done what I was to be doing that day arrived and put me through my paces. At 10 o’clock on the dot we kicked off.

THE SALE ITSELF

The 50 lots of banknotes with which the sale started were fairly quiet, though even one or two of those went well. The coins (lots 51-267 inclusive) fared quite superbly. The star item of the auction, a Stephan Batory 1583 gold ducat, soared to £2,300, considerably more than we had expected. While not going anything close to that kind of figure a lot of the silver coins achieved much higher prices than expected, with prices in three figures commonplace, and over £300 happening multiple times. Lots 268-277 and 281-300 were books about coins, and lots 278-280 were charity coin lots, and my employer’s voice was suffering, so he decided to end the sale at lot 267. I managed to close things down OK. Although there were no bidders in the shop we had active bidders on two online platforms (www.the-saleroom.com and www.easyliveauction.com) and we also had a telephone bidder (an old client who is a big spender, which is why it was permitted even though it meant someone had to be there with the sole purpose of handling these bids), and there were times when it was very intense. However, I enjoyed the day and was pleased overall with how it went.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here is my photo gallery for this post…

The gold ducat mentioned in the text (three images)

Hapless Heat Remain Winless

A look back at today’s WBBL clash in Drummoyne between Sydney Thunder and Brisbane Heat, a note about future posts and a photo gallery.

Today in the Women’s Big Bash League Sydney Thunder were hosting Brisbane Heat at Drummoyne. Neither side could qualify, but a win for Thunder if they managed it would condemn Heat to the wooden spoon (even if Heat had won they would need another win in their final game, another loss for Thunder and a substantial change in net run rates to avoid this fate).

THE THUNDER INNINGS

Thunder, batting first, had a slow start, and were 24-1 after their four over Power Play. That took a turn for the worse in the fifth over when English leg spinner Sarah Glenn making her debut for Heat struck twice in successive balls, bowling Voll with a ball that went straight through, and then bowling Knight round her legs with the next ball. Anika Learoyd and young all rounder Lucy Finn both also fell for single figure scores, and when veteran Laura Harris was LBW for 13 it was 93-6. Phoebe Litchfield, who had survived this carnage, had been dropped twice in the early stages of her innings, and these lapses would prove crucial, as she now found an excellent partner in Em Arlott. At 120 Litchfield’s innings ended for 61, but now, having played the support role for Litchfield, Arlott took control, in a partnership with Taneale Peschel that yielded a further 33 runs off the last 3.5 overs of the innings. Thunder thus had 153 to defend.

THE HEAT RESPONSE

The Heat innings began with Samantha Bates bowling to Charli Knott. The first three balls were all dots, and then Bates took a magnificent return catch to get Knott off the fourth ball. Lauren Winfield-Hill came in at number three, but never got going at all, and the fourth ball of the third over, bowled by Voll, pinned her LBW for 2 (5). In the next over Georgia Redmayne, batting at number four, was caught behind of Shabnim Ismail for 1. At the end of the four over opening Power Play the Heat were 10-3 and the game was effectively done. When Lucinda Bourke had reached 18 she fell to a catch by Voll off Peschel to make it 30-4. West Indian all rounder Chinelle Henry now joined Sianna Ginger, and they fared well for a time, until Henry was hit and retired hurt with the score at 53. Ten runs later Ginger who had scored an impressive 28 was caught and bowled by Arlott. The sixth wicket pair of Annie O’Neil and Mikayla Wrigley more than doubled that total, but were never on terms with the runs rate, and Thunder ran out winners by 23 runs in the end. Heat thus remain winless after nine games, and also remain without an individual 50+ score in this year’s tournament (Litchfield’s innings today was the fifth such score for the Thunder by comparison).

PHOTOGRAPHS

Just before the main purpose of this section a note for the future: I intend to write about yesterday’s auction on Friday – one of two posts I intend to write that day, with the other being about what is happening in the second Ashes test in Brisbane (in over 2,600 test matches to date there has never been a definite result in one day’s play, though MCC v Australia at Lord’s in 1878 was done and dusted in a day – MCC 33 and 19, Australia 41 and 12-1 won by nine wickets – and I do not see this one being done in a day either, even with Stokes’ England being involved!). Now it is time for my usual sign off…

Last night’s moon was approaching fullness…

A Convoluted Path to an Auction

An account of a somewhat convoluted path to a 300 lot banknote and coin auction that is now up and running, plus a photo gallery.

Yesterday, with a little assistance from the former colleague who used to do such things, I sent an auction live on both the platforms James and Sons regularly use, the-saleroom.com and easylive. This post explains about that auction and its somewhat less than straightforward origins.

A FALSE START

Ten days ago sale 2285 was as follows: Lots 1-50 books, all described and imaged, lots 51-105 ephemera, described and imaged, with an unknown number of further such lots to go in, Lots 451-500 Banknotes, described and imaged, Lots 501-737 coin and coin related lots, described and imaged, lots 738-800 yet to be filled, lots 801-900 postcards, described and imaged, and lots 901-1000 militaria, as yet unfilled. Then my employer decided he wanted the coin and banknote lots under the hammer. Originally, on Thursday of last week, we were going to do this a timed-bidding auction, and had sent it live on the-saleroom as such, but then my employer panicked and went back on that, and that sale had to be deleted.

THE REAL DEAL

On Tuesday of this week I prepared as much as I could for a launch on Thursday. On Thursday the auction finally did go live on both platforms, with 300 lots in total, which will go under the hammer on December 2nd (I also have a 1,000 lot, two-day stamp sale complete and ready to go, and sending that online should be much more straightforward) starting at 10AM. Owing to the fact that the images had originally been saved as lots 451-750, and with those numbers, the images files had to be renumbered appropriately before they could be uploaded, which is why the auction does not have all the images yet – I have renumbered and uploaded up to lot 180, and have renumbered lots 181-90 but had no time to upload them yesterday. Fortunately I will not need to renumber the much larger number of images in the stamp/ postal history auction – this auction features about 900 images in total, the larger one some 4,000. I will have the rest of the renumbering done at some point on Tuesday, and may be able to get an email out that same day, or that might have to wait until Thursday. The heart of this auction is a collection of Polish coins spanning about half a millennium. To see what the auction currently looks like on easylive go here, while the catalogue on the-saleroom is still pending approval.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

These sunset shots were taken from a bus that had broken down yesterday evening. We had a wait of about 20 minutes before the replacement arrived.

Welsh Fire Gored by a Gaur

Yesterday afternoon the Welsh Fire and Manchester Originals women’s teams clashed in Cardiff. This post looks back at a command performance from the Manchester Originals bowlers.

THE GAUR CHARGE

Welsh Fire battled first, and Mahika Gaur opened the bowling for Manchester Originals. The Hundred allows bowlers to bowl as many as ten balls straight through before another bowler comes on (more usually five, but bowlers do sometimes bowl ten straight through). Gaur not only bowled the first ten balls straight through, she then came back after the minimum five balls off and bowled another ten straight through, thereby getting through her entire allocation within the Power Play (the first 25 balls of the innings). Gaur took 2-10 from those 20 balls (the five that she didn’t bowl were bowled by Sophie Ecclestone). Fire were 12-2 from those 25 balls, and already looking at a tough task. The rest of the bowlers were also highly impressive. England quickie Lauren Filer emerged with statistically the best figures of the innings, 3-8 from her full allocation of 20 balls, while Ecclestone had 2-11 from her full 20. Only Amelia Kerr 0-24 from 20 and Danielle Gregory with 0-7 from five went for over a run a ball. In the end Fire limped to 73-9 from their 100 balls, after which there was only ever going to be one result, which duly arrived with seven wickets and 19 balls to spare. The Manchester Originals bowlers were superb, but the Welsh Fire batters deserve some censure – of the 60 balls bowled by the trio of Gaur, Ecclestone and Filer, 41 (68.33% of the total) were dot balls, which is frankly ridiculous in this format. Mahika Gaur whose history making performance in becoming the first ever bowler to bowl 20 of the first 25 balls of a Hundred match was put the skids under the Fire was named Player of the Match. About the titles of both this post and the main body of it, the gaur is a species of Asian wild cattle, and the bulls in particular are known for being both immensely strong and very aggressive. Scorecard here, plus a jpg below.

PICTURE GALLERY

This comes from today at work, where I passed the halfway stage in my creation of day one of a two day stamp sale…

An Announcement re Heritage Open Day 2o25

Details of my stewarding commitment for this year’s Heritage Open Day (Sunday 14th September). A picture gallery from today at work.

This post, with a gallery from today at work, is going to be a brief one.

HERITAGE OPEN DAY 2025

King’s Lynn has its annual Heritage Open Day on the second Sunday in September. On this day various interesting buildings are opened for public viewing. This year that second Sunday is the latest possible date – the 14th. In order to ensure that the day runs smoothly stewards are required at the various buildings. Stewards will tell you about the history of the building, will monitor numbers, and at some of the busier and/or more problematic sites will engage in a measure of crowd control. I have been one of the stewards for some years now, and of course made myself available again this year. I have recently found out where and when I will be stewarding. For stewarding purposes the day is divided into thirds – 10AM to Noon, Noon to 2Pm and 2PM to 4PM. I will be stewarding at the Bank House Hotel, whose chief attraction is a remarkable cellar system, dating back to times when rather more goods arrived in and departed from King’s Lynn than the King’s customs guys ever knew about, between noon and 2PM. I am delighted to have been given this venue.

PICTURES

The majority of these were scans. Unlike on Tuesday, when I told you which was which, I leave it to you to see if you can tell…

Lot 150 (four images total). These are high value because they are mint. Although they are quite hard to tell apart each is a slightly different colour.

A Productive Day at Work

An account of my day at work including a full image gallery.

I don’t normally blog on workdays but I felt that today was interesting enough to make an exception to the rule.

COMBINING TYPING AND IMAGING

I am currently working on what will be day one of a two day stamp sale, typing up handwritten descriptions in the correct format for an auction catalogue and also imaging the lots (unlike day two, which I started first and have almost completed, and which is an exercise in recycling old lots these are new lots). At the start of today I had got to lot 54, and had 11 lots ready for the typing and imaging process, which gave time for more lots plus descriptions to be found. After I had dealt with those 11 lots I then typed up a further 20 descriptions, did the imaging (a mix of photographs for the bigger lots and scans for the smaller ones). Then I repeated the process for a further 15 lots bringing the total to a hundred. I still had a little time left, so I did a further five lots as a bonus (lot 100 had been my self-set minimum point to reach to by the end of today). I will resume on Thursday starting from lot 106. As you will see from the image gallery that follows the extra five lots were not just a bonus in terms of being ahead of where I reckoned on being – the last of the extra lots was of personal interest. My approach to the imaging was to take the photographs of the larger lots first, and then scan the smaller ones. Save for lot 101, described in its caption, I took no more than a single scan of any scannable lot – secondary images when I deemed them appropriate were extracted from the original scan.

PICTURES

Here is today’s image gallery…

Record Breaking from England

A look at developments at Old Trafford since yesterday, including Ben Stokes joining not one but two elite clubs this morning. Also two photo galleries of very different types.

Yesterday, as Root went past Ponting to second place in the all time list of test match run scorers I put up a post about England’s progress in the fourth test of their series against India, at Old Trafford. Since then things have moved forward, largely in England’s favour, although KL Rahul and Shubman Gill are currently batting well for India.

STOKES JOINS TWO ELITE CLUBS

Stokes and Root shared a big partnership, ended not by a dismissal but by a retirement due to cramp on Stokes’ part. Eight runs after Stokes’ retirement Root was finally out for precisely 150. That was 499-5. Neither Jamie Smith nor Chris Woakes did a huge amount with the bat, but between them they lasted long enough for Stokes to feel able to resume his innings at the fall of the seventh wicket. Stokes and Liam Dawson saw things through the close of day three, by when Stokes had advanced his score to 77. England at 544-7 were 186 ahead by then.

Dawson was eighth out at 563, but Carse now provided Stokes with good support. Two landmarks came in quick succession – when Stokes reached three figures he was only the fourth England men’s player to score a century and take a five-for in the same test match, the others being Tony Greig, Ian Botham (five times) and Gus Atkinson. Then when he struck a six to move from 108 to 114 that also took his career tally from 6,999 to 7,005 making him one of only three to have achieved the test career treble of 7,000+ runs, 200+ wickets and 100+ catches, the other two members of this club being Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, the most multi-skilled cricketer ever, and Jacques Henry Kallis, the South African superstar. By now Stokes was in full rampage mode. The fun ended for Stokes when on 141 he holed out to Sudarsan off Jadeja. That was 658-9, already a record test score at this ground, and a lead of precisely 300 on first innings. However, Stokes kept England batting, and Carse and Archer accrued 11 further runs before Carse holed out just short of what would have been his second test 50.

GALLERY ONE: AUCTION PURCHASES

James and Sons had an auction this week, which went reasonably well after a very quiet start. I was successful on two items, lot 293, a small barometer in the shape of a helmsman’s wheel and lot 359, an early (1902) set of railway themed cigarette cards. The images I took of these yesterday morning form this gallery…

The first of four images of the barometer taken in my kitchen

INDIA’S SECOND INNINGS SO FAR

There was time for a brief burst at India before lunch, and Woakes struck twice in the first over, removing Jaiswal and Sudarsan for ducks. Since then India have had their best period of the match, not having lost a wicket between lunch and tea, nor any since tea as yet. They are scoring fairly slowly, but holding out. At the moment India are 104-2, needing 207 more to avoid the innings defeat. India probably need to bat until at least tea time tomorrow before they can feel safe, and a victory for them from here is as close as anything in red ball cricket can be to impossible.

GALLERY TWO: GENERAL

My usual sign off…

Raising a Bat to Celebrate Life’s Half Century

A brief post scheduled to coincide with my 50th birthday, There are precisely 50 photos in the gallery.

By the time this post is published I will be nearing the end of a stay in the far west of Scotland that, necessitated by my birthday falling on a Saturday runs from a Sunday to a Sunday. Posting until I am back from that holiday is likely to be light, and may even by non-existent apart from this one.

THE NUMBER 50

50 is double a square number, and equal to a square number plus one. Because we work in base 10 it is a significant number in the game of cricket – a score of 50 is halfway to one of a hundred and is generally celebrated by a batter who reaches it. It is of course this that gave me the title for this post. WG Grace was the first to play test cricket at the age of 50 (subsequently Wilfred Rhodes, who played at the oldest age of any test cricketer, 52 years 165 days, George Gunn and Bert ‘Dainty’ Ironmonger all emulated this feat).

This post is scheduled to appear not only on my 50th birthday, but at the very time of day at which I was born.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I have selected 50 of my pictures to form a special gallery for this post…

James and Sons April Auction

A look back at James and Sons’ April Auction, a brief mention of County Championship action and a photo gallery.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had its April auction, 1,000 stamp and postal history lots across the two days. On day one I was at work, one floor above where the auction was taking place, but had left bids on two lots, the fate of which would decide my approach to day two where I would be following from home.

A MODESTLY SUCCESSFUL AUCTION

The opening day of the auction went well overall for the company, and well for me personally – I got both lots I had left bids on, and both sufficiently cheaply that I was still in a position to bid on more items on day two. Lot 193 was the first of my lots:

Lot 398 was five pages of Russian steam locomotive stamps:

DAY TWO

This could have been a very quiet day, but fortunately it wasn’t completely so. The biggest success of the day was lot 762, which went for £140. My first bid of the day was on lot 701, and I was successful:

Lot 728 was my next success…

Lots 785 and 840 also went to me…

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

Another round of County Championship fixtures got underway today. Due to a meeting this morning I missed the first session of play, and I will be missing most of tomorrow as it is the West Norfolk Autism Group’s annual outing to Pensthorpe. However I have got to enjoy Somerset having superb afternoon and evening against Essex at Taunton. Essex were 115-2 at the high water mark of their innings, but since then it has been one-way traffic – they are now 180-9 with Noah Thain having just gone for 41, caught Rew bowled Pretorius. I am not entirely sure about Kasun Rajitha;s batting credentials, though the fact that he is below Sam Cook, sometimes adhesive (as indeed he was today) but unquestionably a tail ender, tells one something, but Jamie Porter is an absolutely blown in the glass genuine number 11.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

	The First Two Days i… on A Successful Auction
	Marizanne’s Mastercl… on From Victory to Rout in Two…
	From Victory to Rout… on An Extraordinary Opening …
	amsutcliffebtinterne… on Thunder v Scorchers
	Thunder v Scorchers… on Brilliant Bray Bosses Sydney…