Setting out my stall for May, including a forthcoming series of posts about my #Autisticspecialinterests
INTRODUCTION
April is behind us, so I am going use this post to set out my stall for May. As a lead up, here is a screenshot of a tweet by Autism Mom:
A NEW SERIES SPECIFICALLY FOR MAY
Eve Reiland of internationalbadassactivistssuggested a theme for #actuallyautistic people for May:#AutisticSpecialInterest – a theme I am more than happy to run with, so, starting tomorrow I will be producing posts dealing with my special interests through the month.
THE EFFECT THAT THE NEW BUSES HAVE ON MY WORK
Those who have read my blog recently will be aware that today was my first day travelling to work on the Lynxnumber 49, which has replaced the Stagecoach X29 route. It runs considerably less frequently, but the buses are comfortable, the staff are friendly, and at the moment it has a score of 1/1 for punctuality, which after Stagecoach feels near miraculous.
AN UPCOMING HOLIDAY
I will be off for a week in Greece, leaving King’s Lynn on Friday May 11th, late in the evening so as to get to Gatwick for the flight to Kalamata, which takes off at 5:40AM. Therefore I will accept that sleep ain’t happening that night, and spend a few hours waiting at the airport. I will arrive back in the early afternoon of Saturday May 19th. I will endeavour to keep up to date with everyone during that period, but there will almost certainly be days on which I do not manage to access the internet.
IMAGING FOR MAY’S AUCTIONS
In May we are having a one-day cigarette card auction, followed by two days of military badges (and these will be on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after I return from holiday). Here to finish things off are some images…
My employer wanted an insert of badge pictures for the catalogue, and to enable that as well as in the interests of speed the badges were numbered up on their boards, and I took pictures of the entire boards and then extracted individual images from the whole.
There are 750 lots of cigarette cards, in a total of 67 albums, of which I have imaged 51, covering four whole albums and 1 from a fifth.
An account of James and Sons’ April auction – very successful overall, and to my immense relief free of any technical issues.
INTRODUCTION
This week saw James and Sons’ April auction, a three day affair on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Overall it was very successful, with a couple of disappointments, but lots of sales.
DAY 1: SPORTING MEMORABILIA, BOOKS AND EPHEMERA
In order to avoid being rushed during the preliminaries I caught the first bus of the morning, and got to the shop at 7:10AM. I attended to an urgent query first thing, and then it was time to complete the IT setup. To my great relief there were no hitches at all, and everything was in working order. During this period the auctioneer also briefed me about the May auction, and what was required in terms of imaging a very large quantity of military badges. In view of this I decided that I would have to leave some of the railway photographs unimaged, although it was a necessity from an ethics point of view to image lots 1203-12 as I was intending to buy a couple from that range, and it would not do for there to be any suggestion of influencing things in my favour by not making images available to the public.
We got underway bang on schedule at 10AM, and while there were no headline making prices a decent quantity of the sporting memorabilia did sell. Then came some books, and a few big sales. Lot 260 had an estimate of £50-75 but vigorous internet bidding pushed the final price up to £220.
Lot 260 – old and rare, and a big hit (two images)
Willie Hoppe’s “Thirty Years of Billiards”, lot 279, was in with an estimate of £20-30, but caught the eyes of online bidders to such an extent that the final hammer price was £180!
Lot 279 (three images)
Less dramatically, lot 282, Levi Riso’s “Billiards in a Lighter Vein” had an estimate of £15-20 and actually fetched £30.
Lot 282 (two images)
Lot 302 had an estimate of £10-20 and went for £30.
Lot 302 (three images).
Near the end of the first day lot 340, a curious little item, attracted no interest from anyone other than me:
Lot 340 – my first purchase of this auction.
After lunch I started work on the badges for the May auction.
DAY 2: COINS AND MILITARIA
Another early arrival, and another hitch-free preliminary before going live at 10AM. We had three coin buyers in the room, and some internet interest, so the coins sold well. Lots 475, 501 and 695 all went signifiantly above estimate, and most of of the other coin lots also found buyers.
Lot 475Lot 501 (two images)
Lot 695
We had a 15 minute break between the coins and the militaria, which kicked off in style with lot 700. Lots 704, 705, 711, 719, 727, 761, 802, 823, 824, 828, 830, 831, 832, 837, 838, 844, 846 and 847 all also went significantly over estimate, and almost none of it remained unsold.
Lot 700 (two images) – £470 hammer price
Lot 704 (four images) – est £100-200 actual hammer price £440!
Lot 705 (four images) est £60 – 80, actual £120
Lot 711 (two images) – estimate £15-20, actual price £55
Lot 719 0- estimate £35-40 – actual price £85.This close up of the two rings was in response to a query.Lot 727 – est £15-20, actual £50Lot 761 est £60-80, actual £150.Lot 802 – only just above top estimate, but the buyer was somebody to whom I had sent an image of the reverse of this badge in response to a late query.
Lot 823 – a holster with no gun – est £10-15, actual £28.828831832837838Lot 844 – These images (alo incl those for 846 and 847) were suppliued by the vendor, along with descriptions
846847
DAY THREE: POSTCARDS AND RAILWAY POSTCARDS
I arrived early once again, did some badge imaging and then paid a visit to Tony’s Deli (Thursday is market day in Fakenham, and this food stall is excellent value for money). For the third straight day there were no hitches in the preliminary stage – although I was not especially happy about doing the official sound check at 9:57, not least because I already knew it was working. A couple of early postcard lots (856 and 857) achieved big prices, and most of the postcards found buyers.
Lot 856 sold for £80Lot 857 sold for £100
The other notewaorthy postcard lot was 1047, which became my second purchase of the auction. I will at some stage be giving this lot a whole post to itself, but here are some pictures for the present:
These are modern reproductions rather than original pictures, hence why no one else showed any interest in this item.
An old Metropolitan line train near Wembley.Abstract art featuring a Northern line train of 1959 stock A picture of one of the original ‘gated stock’ trains that ran services on what was then the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway – this scene would have taken place in 1906 or not long after.
The Railway Photographs did not attract any interest, although this was not helped by the fact that the auctioneer was hurrying through them. The only three to sell were all bought by me – lot 1071 (locomotive at Haworth), 1208 and 1209 (respectively arriving at and leaving Mallaig – for more on this journey go here):
The images available to the public (three per lot – nine in total).
And to finish, now that the items are bought an paid for, unwatermarked images taken at home (three in total)
The departure from Mallaig, with Skye visible in the background.
A few more badges imaged for the May auction, and I was able to make my last ever journey on a Stagecoach X29 (on Tuesday, when I return to work it will be on a Lynx Bus number 49, since squillionaire bus company Stagecoach have deemed their Norfolk services insufficiently profitable and bailed out on them),.
A heads up about James and Sons’ April auction – a monster three-day affair.
INTRODUCTION
James and Sons’ April Auction will be spread over three days – the 24th, 25th and 26th. I worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week so that we could get the catalogue to the printers and had enough images done to upload it to the-saleroom as well. Then, after some negotiation at the end of Wednesday I also went in yesterday to do another day’s imaging. In the rest of this post I will take you through some of the highlights of this monster sale.
DAY 1: SPORTING MEMORABILIA, EPHEMERA AND BOOKS
Lots 1-250 consists of sporting memorabilia of various types, including speedway, football, tennis and cricket. Here are a few highlights from that section:
Lot 1Lot 208 – the signature on this scorecard is that of Zimbabwean fast bowler Heath StreakLot 92 – Some Tennis stills of recent vintage.Lot 190 (two images). This was the first FA Cup final played at Wembley, just a fe weeks after the stadium was completed, and for the record Bolton Wanderers beat West Ham United to claim the silverware. This item will fetch in the high hundreds or possibly even into four figures.
Most of the books and other ephemera are fairly unremarkable, but here are a couple of highlights from that section:
Lot 332 (three images)
Lot 340
DAY 2: COINS AND MILITARIA
Both these categories are already attracting attention. A few coin highlights:
Lot 511Lot 514Lot 539Lot 540Lot 464A close-up of the big coin – it is not often that one sees a coin with a map on it.
Highlights from the militaria section:
Lot 715 – this Naval Ensign flag is so huge that I had to spread it out on the floor of the shop and stand on a chair to get it all in shot.The print on the edge of the flagLot 761Lot 762Lot 763Lot 764Some interesting plaques.
DAY 3: POSTCARDS AND RAILWAY PHOTOGRAPHS (PART 1 OF THE W A SHARMAN ARCHIVE)
I have imaged all of the postcards, but I am only about one-third of the way through the Railway photographs which will end this auction. Here are some highlights from the postcard section:
Lot 997Lot 1009Lot 1018Lot 1022 (two images)
Lot 1040 – I have already answered one enquiry about this lot.Lot 1047
Lot 1048
Lot 1050 – the last postcard lot.
I have been imaging the railway photographs by using the scanner, at 400dpi. I image the photograph itself, the typed label on the reverse, and combine those to form the master image, and when I have a decent number of such images I watermark them so that unscrupulous operators cannot cheat us by printing out the images on photo quality paper. Here are some of the highlights from the watermarked images:
I finish with a couple of pictures which have extra features of interest:
This one has Bronte connections – not only is this Haworth, where they lived, Branwell Bronte worked on the railways briefly (he was based at nearby Luddenden Foot for the record)Lot 1091 – a photographer’s pick – note the clever use of the arch to frame the approaching train.
James and Sons had auctions on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I was then back at work yesterday, doing various things. Also, as will be revealed in the course of this post something else came up after Tuesday’s auction.
TUESDAY
Tuesday’s auction was a specialist stamp sale, and what should have been a fairly quiet afternoon actually became the most stressful period of the week.
THE AUCTION
I have already posted a report on both these auctions on the James and Sons website. This auction did not feature any headline making sales, although quite a bit of stuff did sell. I am going to focus on just three lots, starting with…
LOTS 794 AND 795
In the run up to this auction I fielded a query about these lots, providing images to an interested party. It was this very person who subsequently bought both lots. Here are the images I produced.
LOT 966
This lot was one I had an eye on, and it was duly knocked down to me. I have lots of pictures of it, starting with the images I produced for public consumption, continuing with some images from during the auction the feature it and ending with the ones I took of it today.
A six image gallery from work
Displayed at the auction – next to it is lot 959.The full display (most of the big albums were left upstairs)>A close-up shot taken at the same time.Lot 966 displayed on the big screenNote the insert, which tells us what this cover is all about – this is the first of the images I took today.
AFTER THE FIRST AUCTION
Having consumed my sandwiches I sought to update our website and discovered that it had been suspended due to a malware attack. This necessitated getting it professionally cleaned, and also arranging for it to protected in future. An hour and a half of exchanges with technical support staff at sitelock, discussions with my employer about which of various options we would go for, and a considerable amount of stress later the matter was settled, and I was able to head home knowing that the matter was being dealt with. At about 6PM I got an email sent to my personal email address confirming that the clean-up was complete and that they were informing Host Gator, who would reactivate the website.
WEDNESDAY
In view of the information contained in the paragraph above it will be no surprise that I was determined to be at James and Sons early, and I managed to be on the 6:23AM bus, arriving in Fakenham not long after 7. A quick check up confirmed that the website was back up and running. It remained only for me to reset the password (one does not take chances when there has so recently been an issue of that nature) and do some editing. I then had plenty of time to help bring down auction lots for display and get the IT side of the auction up and running.
This sale went well overall (see here for more details). There was however one serious annoyance. There had been a confusion over lots in the range of 165-200 and I had had to remove a lot of images from the-saleroom, and renumber them and upload them again. The screengrab below, taken from the ATG Media toolbox shows conclusively that I had done this, but nevertheless, when we came to those lots on the day the wrong images were in place.
Here some images of the layout of this auction…
POST AUCTION
One I dismantled the IT stuff and replace it all where it belongs, and then consumed my sandwiches, as I was able to get some more work done, editing the website and also updating the company database with details of online bidders.
THURSDSAY
A quiet day, in which I completed the updating of our company database, started imaging for the end of April auctions and took some parcels to the Post Office. I now have the long weekend to recover from these three days, the first two of which were very draining.
Brief mentions of last week’s auctions and a longer look ahead to the March auction.
INTRODUCTION
Last week James and Sons had two auctions, a small postcard auction on Tuesday and a much larger Postal History and Ephemera Auction on Wednesday. We are now moving towards completing the catalogue for an auction on March 28th which will feature a wide variety of stuff. We have snow around at present, which is provoking the usual British display of wimpiness about rough weather – I was supposed to be attending a meeting in Swaffham this morning but it has been cancelled due to concerns about the weather. This was the view out of my door at 8:30 yesterday morning as I set off to catch the bus to work.
The view is similar today.
THE POSTCARD AUCTION
With only 134 lots going under the hammer this sale was over and done with quickly. Most of the lots found buyers.
EPHEMERA AND POSTAL HISTORY
The centrepiece of this auction was a collection of the Ecclesiastical and Political Correspondence of the Rev J Marriott. The people currently in charge of the property he bought had got wind of this collection, which meant some big money sales, because they were determined to secure as much of it as they could to reunite it with his old home. Lot 18 on its own went for over £2,000:
The stock for this auction as displayed in the shop.The original image of lot 18. It must have taken a lot of brass neck to produce this petition.Lot 18 in its folderThe big screen.
THE UPCOMING AUCTION
Our auction on March 28th will start with some sporting memorabilia, including a framed ticket for the 1923 FA Cup Final (the first to be played at Wembley, just three weeks after that stadium was completed). For the record Bolton Wanderers beat West Ham United to win that year’s FA Cup. I do not yet have a lot number for this item, but it will be early in the auction.
A standard price for a ticket from this fixture in this condition is in the region of £800.
We have some old fishing reels and som billiards stuff as well…
Lot 23 (two images, a sample of the fishing reels)
The billiards memorabilia begin at lot 44 with the first of two scoreboards
From lot 46-58 inclusive are cues, first four lots of large numbers of loose cues, and then individual cues in cases or bags, starting with lot 50 pictured here.
Then from lot 59 to 71 we have sets of balls – note that in billiards there are two cue balls, one of which is distinguished from the other by the presence of a black spot, and the only other ball used is one red one.
We also have some bygones, of which I will feature a few that particularly caught my eye while I was imaging them:
Lot 124 – the fiugurines are made of some sort of balck ceramic, and as the second image, a close-up of two them shows, they are of very good quality.
Lot 147 – a brass fly……that can be used to store trinkets.Lot 146, a brass grasshopper……which is also a mini stapler.
Other categories featured include toys, crockery, and though I have not yet had any to image, stamps. Here are some toys and crockery…
Toys in a box that has been disguised to look like a book (lot 262)
Lots 264 and 265 occupy the next four images.
The next 12 images encompass lots 301-4.
Lot 346 (two images)
Lot 350 (again two images).
SOME EXPERIMENTS IN WATERMARKING
We have a vast collection of railway photographs, taken with a Soviet-era camera which is also in our possession and will be going under the hammer. Obviously we need to identify our images of these pictures as just that – our images – in order to stop unscrupulous types from printing the pictures out for no more than the cost of ink and the appropriate paper. Hence, I have been looking into watermarking the online pictures. I am aiming at marking the pictures in a way that will not interfere with anyone viewing them, but will prevent anyone from cheating. Here is a sample of what I have arrived at us possibly the best solution:
The positioning of the watermark does not spoil the picture, but does prevent it from being removed, since cropping the image sufficiently to eliminate it most certainly does damage the picture.
James and Sons had their first auction of 2018 on Wednesday, and this post tells the story of that auction.
TUESDAY – SET UP
Most of the setup work for the auction was accomplished on Tuesday. First, some stock had to be cleared away from the tables that were to be used for the auction, and then the stock we brought down (lots 1-488, after which would be taking a break, and might bring down the second half lots if it seemed necessary) was laid out on one table, and the IT setup completed on the other. I did a preliminary test to make sure that all was working.
THE AUCTION
Everything went smoothly on the morning of the auction, and we started as intended at 10 o;clock. Lot 7, a small collection of Masonic medals, with a modest estimate of 30-50 ended up selling for £200.
Lot 7 (four images total)
THE STORY OF LOT 17
This lot had had a lot of advance publicity, and what happend to it was crucial to the overall success or otherwise of the auction. Before Christmas I had put out various emails and press releases about this item, one result of which was an advertisement on the armourer website. It had also been the front cover item on the printed catalogue. In the run up to the auction I had received a query asking for close-ups of maker’s marks on the Russian Order of St Anne gold medal, which was the key part of the group in terms of its value. One of the two people I sent such pictures two did not respond and the other sent an exceedingly insulting response. I had been checking onthe-saleroom.com andf noted that this item had 15 watchers. So, it came to time for it go under the hammer, and following the-saleroom.com standard rule of 60% of lower estimate, the opening price was £3,600. The bidding proceeded at such a pace on the internet that by the time the auctioneer had finished announcing the item £5,000 had come and gone. Eventually the hammer went down at £8,200. You can find visit the two articles I wrote about this yesterday:
A specialised article focussing only on this item for military publications.
After that it was not going to matter much what happened for the rest of auction. As it happened there were a few more bright spots. Lot 718, a large collection of penny reds and the odd twopenny blue, all with GWR perfins, went for £120:
Lot 852, one of three lots subsituted after the catalogue was printed (three Victorian era hunter watches that replaced three other less significant items) which went in to the online version of the catalogue with an estimate of £50-60 sold for £140. Here are images of all three items:
Lot 852, the lot that sold so well (this is a composite image showing both the face and the workings – one of four images for this lot)
Lot 851
Lot 853
Even then there was still one spectacular sale to come. Lot 864, four vintage gold-nibbed pens with some restoration required, had been expected to make £30-50, but had attracted plenty of interest before the auction, and ended up selling for £180.
Lot 864The nibs, imaged in response to an internet enquiry.Two of tghe pen ,lids were damaged (this pic and the next), again picked up on while responding to an internet enquiry.
Announcing that the catalogue for James and Sons’ January auction is now available for viewing online and showing some of the highlights.
INTRODUCTION
The catalogue for James and Sons’ first auction of 2018, which takes place at James and Sons HQ in Fakenham on January 31st is now available for viewing online (and we expect printed copies to be ready by the end of this week). The rest of this post shows some of the highlights awaiting you, category by category.
LOTS 1-100 MILITARIA
Of course this section is dominated by lot 17, the Jutland medal group (see here for more details), but that is not the only item of interest by any means:
This Trench Mace will kick of thbe auction.Lot 17Zulu Spear – lot 26Lot 72
LOTS 101-248 POSTCARDS
LOTS 249-380 COINS
LOTS 381-500 BANKNOTES
LOTS 601-849 STAMPS
There are no lots in the range 501-600. I have already covered the stamps in a previous post.
LOTS 850+ SILVER AND OTHER STUFF
A mixture to end the auction…
Lot 856Lot 857Lot 858Lot 859Lot 860 – a close look athe markings on these pens will tell you why there are four of them in the set.The next three images (lots 881, 882 and 883) are motoring badges from yesteryear.
Lot 861 – there are 24 slides in total in the wooden box……of which my employer wanted close-up shots of four……and a very close up shot of this one to feature in the printed catalogue.We end with lot 855 (four-image gallery) – a very interesting little commemorative clock.
An account of my work on the stamp section of James and Sons January auction.
INTRODUCTION
Over the course of Thursday and yesterday I was finally able to start the work of imaging for James and Sons January Auction (30th and 31st January). I was dealing with stamps, and most of the rest of this post deals with the two days work in question.
A BANNER ON THE ARMOURER WEBSITE
One of the publications I contacted regarding a very rare Jutland medal group that will feature in our January auction was The Armourer, and although we were too late for their print deadline they agreed to put something on their website. Here is a screenshot of the top of their current homepage…
STAMPS – FRAMEWORK
The stamp lots in this sale are numbers 601-850. Over the course of the two days I imaged all the lots, moved them to where they were being stored prior to auction, labelled said storage area and made sure that this section was as complete as I could make it. Some of the items had already been imaged, and in those cases I located the images and transferred them to the new file. Otherwise I photographed the large items and scanned the small ones.
THURSDAY – LARGE ITEMS
I dealt with the big stuff first, and when that was all done I went through the smaller items deciding which could be scanned and which needed photographing, and photographed the latter, leaving the scanning and final organisation for the Friday.
FRIDAY – SMALL ITEMS AND ORGANISATION
My employer was at a collector’s fair in Diss, leaving me in charge at the Fakenham end of things. I scanned the small stamp lots, checked the image sequence for gaps, noted the gaps, created labels for the shelves where the stamps were being stored, and also for the binders and boxes containing the smaller stamp lots (A4 size sheets in binders, smaller lots in boxes). Labelling the binders involved measuring the width of the spines so that I knew how wide each line of text could be and could set appropriate margins. At the very end I created a document to go in the front of a binder containing stamp lots that had not been given their numbers which detailed which numbers in the stamp range had not been used thus far. This done it remained only to finish my ersatz ice-coffee (a regular cup of coffee which because I had not had time to drink it had cooled to become an ice-coffee!) wash the cup, make sure all the images were in the auction file, close my computer down properly, gather my stuff, turn out the lights, activate the alarm and lock the place up.
The secondary images for this lot and lot 749 were my only photographs of the day.
An account of some work I have done with some very rare and valuable medals.
INTRODUCTION
Although work has barely started as yet on the James and Sons January auction, there has been one huge development, in the form of some very high value medals.
ABOUT THE MEDALS
There are two groups of medals in this story, a very rare group awarded to Chief Gunner A E Seymour for the Battle of Jutland, which include a Russian Order of St Anne Gold Medal awarded to foreigners (exceedingly rare) and a group of World War Two medals awarded to his son.
MY WORK ON THE MEDALS
On the 12th of December I was asked to photograph the medals, making sure that we had top quality pictures available for use in advertising and promotional materials. These are the pictures that I took, starting with the Jutland group:
The first seven shots you will see are of the front side of the Jutland group
The next three shots are of the back of the Jutland group
The exceedingly rare Russian medal.The naming on the back of the bronze medal.The World War Two setThe front of the WWII medalsThe back of the WWII medals
Until yesterday, barring a print out of some of the better pictures that I had produced for my employer’s use that was all that had been done…
PRESS RELEASES AND BULK EMAILS
As well as the document that I used as the email/ press release I had to create two mailing lists. One, a list of everyone who had bought medals from James and Sons in the past and had an email address was easily extracted from the client database (designed, created and maintained by me). The second, a combination of contact details for military publications and for everyone who advertises in the Medal Yearbook had to be assembled manually. In addition to these I had of course the regular press to contact, but those details are already available at a click in my work email account.
The bulk email recipients merely got the document itself, plus the images actually used in it as attachments. Those who were being sent this as a press release got the full image gallery. At the end I also had send a jpeg of the press release to The Armourer, as we had missed the copy date for the printed magazine, but they were going to display it on their website.
An account of James and Sons’ final auction of 2017.
INTRODUCTION
James and Sons last auction of 2017 took place at our own premises in central Fakenham on Wednesday, and in this post I tell the story of that sale.
THE PRELIMINARIES – TUESDAY
On Tuesday we moved the stock for auction downstairs, and with that laid out, and the smaller high-value lots in the vault until the morning I then brought down and set up such of the IT equipment as I could (we are a laptop down at present so I would be pressing my own machine into service once again) and carried out a brief test which suggested that all was in order and that there should be no issues.
THE AUCTION ITSELF
I arrived at work bright and early since not even Stagecoach can contrive to have the first bus of the day run seriously late. For those living in Norfolk and uncertain regarding buses in the holiday period services will stop early on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, there will be no services at all on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day and a “Saturday service” will operate from the 27th to 29th of December inclusive (and since that day is actually a Saturday presumably also on the 30th).
Coffee made, emails checked and a few things gathered up to go downstairs I went back downstairs at 7:45AM. The IT setup went smoothly, and I had the slide show running before any bidders arrived (there were a few room bidders on this occasion). Here are some pictures from this period:
BANKNOTES AND COINS
The auction kicked off with some uncirculated banknotes which went for very high prices. Lot 43, a display book showing old and new format New Zealand banknotes, brought the curtain down on that segment, going for £440.
Lots 44-50 were less valuable banknotes. Then lots 51-56 were very rare coins. Unfortunately the reserves had been set too high to attract bidders, with the exception of lot 51, a 1787 gold guinea which went for £600.
The remaining lots of coins and banknotes went fairly quietly, although there were a one or two good prices achieved.
Imaging these uncirculated banknotes was a fiddle. They had to be imaged through the plastic covers they were encased in to avoid damage, and the black bakcground was needed for use in the catalogue. Additionally, since both sides were required what you see are two images joined to become one.
Lot 51.
POSTCARDS
Lots 151-300 were postcards, mainly military themed, and while there were no headline grabbers in this section, most of them did find buyers.
STAMPS
Not quite on a par with the extraordinary happenings of November 29 (see here for more details), but much better than our stamp sections have historically been.
EPHEMERA
The last 100 lots (501-600) to go under the hammer at James and Sons in 2017 were all ephemera. I expected a fairly quiet end to the auction, and that is what eventuated. Lot 545, with a modest estimate of £20-30 went for £75.
Immediately before that an optimistic bid I placed on lot 544 met no opposition. At some stage I will probably do a whole post about this lot. This is the picture that everyone was able to see:
aspiblog 