James and Sons March Auction

An account of James and Sons’ March auction with lots of photographs. Also a brief mention of the theme of my next blog post.

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons’ March auction took place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, with the first two days taking place at our premises on Norwich Street, while the third took place at Fakenham Racecourse.

DAY 1: LOTS 1-500

I arrived at the shop at 8:30AM, the setup was accomplished with no serious hitches, and the sale got underway at 10AM as planned. The first lots to go under the hammer were coins, and a few of them sold well, with a large internet presence making up for the fact that we had very few people bidding live. After coins came banknotes and related epehmera, including the first Traveller’s Cheques to feature in a James and Sons auction. Here are some pictures of lots in this part of the sale…

Lot 254 (two images – the first Travellers Cheque lot)

255-b — Lot 255 (six images, the other Travellers Cheque lot)

The remaining lots to go under the hammer on day 1 were cigarette cards, Liebig cards and match attack cards. None of these fared especially well. I therefore end this section with a picture of one lot that did sell and will feature in much more detail in my next post…

Lot 369 went to me. My next post on this blog will be about what I shall be referring as Autism Acceptance Month in preference to the older, less expressive and misappropriated (I won’t name the culprits, but if you want a clue think blue jigsaw pieces) Autism Awareness Month, and I shall display these pictures in the context of talking about special interests.

DAY 2: LOTS 501-950

This was in many ways the most stressful of the three days, because in addition to the middle part of the auction it featured the setup at the racecourse to enable people to preview the third day lots in advance. The auction part of the day was very quiet, although there was one brief moment of excitement around lot 696, a Chinese stamp for which I do not have an image (I rarely do stamps these days because they are easy to scan and my time is better spent doing the more difficult imaging).

After the auction part of the day finished I helped with the unloading of items of the racecourse to be set up for the morrow, took some close up photographs of a couple of items that were needed to enable me to answer last minute queries and walked back to the shop (it takes about 15 minutes from the Prince of Wales Suite, the part of the racecourse where we hold our auctions) to edit the images and answer the queries. I also got a small amount of April imaging done before closing time (having arrived early to ensure that I had time to do the IT setup, and given the day that I knew to lie in store for me on the morrow I was not going to burning midnight oil, and when the last of my shop based colleagues finished his day at 3PM and I had seen him out I called it a day myself. Here are some pictures of the lots I was answering 11th hour queries about…

DSCN5315 — The first five of these images relate to lot 1142.

DSCN5320 — The remaining images relates to lot 1117 – a gun stock without the barrel which would have been stored inside it. Both these items sold for good money in the end.

DAY THREE: LOTS 951-1560

In view of the fact that the catalogue advertised viewing at the racecourse from 8AM I decided to get the first bus of the morning to Fakenham, which leaves King’s Lynn at 6:28AM. I was therefore outside the Prince of Wales Suite at about 7:30AM, and had to wait for someone else to arrive with a key to open it up. Still, while waiting I did get this picture:

With the setup accomplished, and knowing that all was working properly I could get some pictures from the venue (the first had actually been taken the day before):

The books at the near end of this shot did exactly as expected (those familiar with my opinions ion the subject of books at auction will have no difficulty working that one out).

Sadly this sledge failed to sell, largely because at the last moment the vendor put a reserve of £55 on it.

After a fairly quiet start to the day the militaria sold well and the toys/ collectors models also fared well. As on the first two days it was the online bidders (who by the end of the auction numbered some 350) who were responsible for most of the action. The auction finished, it remained to dismantle the sale, load the goods up and transport them back to the shop. This was accomplished just quick enough for me to get the 3:35 bus home. The third day more than made up for the comparative quietness of the first two. James and Sons next auction is on April 24, 25 and 26, with all three days happening at our shop on Norwich Street. Here are a few final pictures to conclude.

951 — This was the first lot under the hammer on day 3.

1110 — This lot was the subject of query that led to the taking of a number of extra images (the sale price justified the extra work many times over)

1301 — This was the first of toy/ collector’s model lots.

1458 — This little thing did not make big money (I will be collecting it and paying for both lots that I won when I go back to work on Tuesday).

A Very Successful Three Day Auction

An account of James and Sons auction, which took place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

INTRODUCTION

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had its second ever three day auction. This one had the additional twist that two different venues were being used, our own premises in Fakenham on days 1 and 2 and the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich on day 3.

DAY 1: FAKENHAM

I caught the 7:30 bus from Lynn to Fakenham, thus arriving at James and Sons at just before 8:30AM (this bus doubles as a school bus, so follows a more circuitous route from Lynn to Fakenham than the usual X29 route and therefore takes 15 minutes longer to make the journey than a regular bus). Thus I was able to get the setup done in plenty of time, and the auction got underway at the appointed hour of 10AM. On this day stamps, postal history and first day covers were being sold. There were a couple of room bidders, and thankfully large numbers of online bidders (over 250 by the end of day 3). Although there were not many things going for big amounts of money a lot of stuff did sell, and the auction had started well. I have no pictures from day 1 of this auction, but here are some images of items that will be going under the hammer in our March auction, which will be on the 27th, 28th and 29th of that month.

1031-a — These first two pictures of lot 1031 in the March auction, which has an interesting story. This item is a grass sledge, designed and built by a craftsman in Sussex for use on the Downs.

394 — The remaining images here are cigarette cards photographed after day 1 of the auction finished and before I went home.

DAY 2: FAKENHAM

The routine was the same as on day 1, but the items under the hammer were different. This day featured photographs, postcards, a few books, records, ephemera, Liebig cards, cigarette cards, cheques and coin first day covers. For most of the day there was no one present at the venue who was not a James and Sons employee, but the internet was very lively for much of the time. I had two moments of good fortune. The first featured…

LOT 864

Here are the official images of this lot:

My opening bid of £10 was unopposed, and here are the photographs I took this morning showing the entire booklet in all its glory:

About 10 minutes later we got to…

LOT 891

Here is the image gallery for this lot:

My opening bid of £8 again went uncontested, and here is a much more comprehensive set of pictures of this lot…

ttrh — We start with front and back images of the cards in sets of six (the complete set contains 30)

ttrh-b — Then we have close ups of some of the more interesting cards – this one is Richard Trevithick’s Pen-y-Darren (that y is pronounced roughly as a “uh” sound), the first commercially operated steam locomotive ever. Steam engine technology predates this by approximately 1800 years – Heron of Alexandria designed a steam operated device for opening temple doors.

ttrh-d — The most famous of all the very early locos – Stephenson’s rocket.

ttrh-f — This Metropolitan Railway locomotive was designed specifically for operating in tunnels.

ttrh-p — Luxury travel on the Brighton Belle

ttrh-t — I travelled on this stock when I visited Scotland in 1993.

ttrh-u — The only other stock in this set of 30 that I have travelled on, the legendary Intercity 125.

Overall this was a better day than we had expected – there were only a few quiet spots.

DAY 3: NORWICH

The fact that we were in Norwich for the final day of this auction meant that the stuff had to be loaded up to be transported over there, which was done at the end of day 2. It also meant that since I was going to have be in Norwich earlier than I could get there using the X29 that I claimed £5.50 in excess travel expenses as the cost of travelling there on the First Eastern Counties X1 is £11 as opposed to £5.50 if I can use the Stagecoach X29 route.

As intended I left my flat at 5:15AM and was on the 5:30 bus from King’s Lynn to Norwich, arriving at the venue at 7:30. I had my laptop with me because James and Sons were one laptop short (two working machines when we needed three). The setup was just about completed before the first viewers started turning up, and there were no issues of any sort.

Here are some photos from that early period:

dscn3894 — This item sold for a fair amount of money.

dscn3895 — The rostrum – the black machine belongs to my employer, and we ran the operator screen (my responsibility) from it, while the white machine is mine, and we ran the auctioneer screen from that.

dscn3899 — Only a few of these big stamp lots sold, although both helmets found buyers.

dscn3903 — A distant view of the main display area, and visible through the window, the wall of the Cathedral Close.

THE FIRST PART OF THE SALE – COINS & BANKNOTES

There were no headline making prices, but most of these lots sold, some doing very well. We had decided to have a 15 minute break after lot 1,300 (we started the day at lot 1,000). Just before the end of the session we came to some commemorative medallions from the Gigantic Wheel, which was a feature of Earls Court between 1897 and 1906. The first was lot 1,286, which I ignored as being beyond my means. Lot 1287 however, which was only a little inferior in quality was cheaper, and my bid of £10 duly secured it. Here for comparative purposes are first the official images, scanned at 600 dpi and brightened up a bit, and then the two photographs I took today:

1287 — For auction purposes I scan each face and then produce a combined image as well as c,lose ups of each face

ecgw-a — The photographs from earlier today.

ecgw-b — For the record, these medallions are approximately the same size as a Queen Victoria penny.

THE SECOND PART: MILITARIA AND STAMPS

The Militaria sold well. A chess set with German markings achieved barely credible £170. Here is the official image gallery:

Plenty of other things did well as well. The stamps predictably enough did not fare very well, but everything else had done enough that the auction was an unequivocal success.

AFTER THE SALE

I had considered staying on in Norwich to attend a Green Party public meeting at which Richard Murphy would be speaking, but in the end after three demanding days I was too tired to even contemplate not being home until 11PM which is what that would have meant, and so after a visit to Norwich Millennium Library I took the bus home, arriving back in my flat just after 6PM.

Conclave – Book Review

A review of Conclave by Robert Harris.

INTRODUCTION

I received a copy of Robert Harris’ latest work, Conclave, as a Christmas present from my sister. I included mention of Robert Harris in the post I created to mark my fifth anniversary as a blogger, the title of which was borrowed from the second volume of his trilogy about Marcus Tullius Cicero. I also mentioned the possibility of reviewing Imperatorm the third volume in the Cicero trilogy, in a couple of other posts but did not actually do so (it is a splendid finale to the trilogy btw).

A BOOK ABOUT CHOOSING A NEW POPE?

The whole of Conclave is devoted to telling the story of the election of a new pope. The scene is set with the announcement of the death of the old pope. To be elected a two-thirds majority, and it often takes several votes for a front runner to emerge. This being a novel, there are of course some extra twists. Four people in total are front runners at various stages of the process but do not win. Two of these people have their chances spoilt when details of past transgressions are revealed to the assembled cardinals, a third makes a speech which effectively rules him out and the fourth is hoping someone else gets elected. At the end a newly appointed cardinal who had gained one vote in the first ballot is elected at the eighth ballot (while I do not know of anyone in real life winning after getting only one vote in the first ballot, Cardinal Wojtila got very few votes in the first ballot of the second Conclave of 1978).

The winner then has to accept the office and choose a papal name. In this case he goes for Innocent, a papal name that has been used 13 times before but not in the last three centuries. There is of course a vast range of possible papal names – very few of those previously used would be unacceptable, while a choice of a previously unused name could also work. There are two papal names I do not see being claimed any time soon however: Pius XIII because of the character of Pius XII, and Peter II because of the sheer hubris involved in choosing that name (although Steve Berry in The Third Secret has someone choose the name Peter II, and yes that person does then come to a sticky end).

Although all the action takes place within the confines of the world’s smallest independent country, the book never flags or lacks interest. An excellent novel and one I heartily recommend.

dscn8595 — A map of the are within which the action takes place.

The Four Legendary Kingdoms – Book Review

A review of Matthew Reilly’s latest masterpiece.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my review of Matthew Reilly’s latest thriller. The book is a continuation of the Jack West series, which started with The Seven Ancient Wonders, The Six Sacred Stones and The Five Greatest Warriors.

A NEW TWIST

Previously in this series we have seen the re-erection of the capstone of the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the rebuilding of a great machine which saved the world from the Dark sun. In the first adventure West and his team faced two sets of foes, a catholic church led group and a US led group. Having been beaten in the first quest, the catholic church played no role in the second, but a new set of foes in the Japanese, determined to end the world, appeared.

Now, eight years on the world faces another threat – a potential collision between the Hydra Galaxy and the Milky Way. The four kingdoms of the title are four shadow kingdoms who rule the world between them, Land, Sea, Sky and The Underworld.

The first stage of the process to save the world from the Hydra Galaxy is the staging of the Great Games of the Hydra, for the fourth time in history (the three previous champions being Osiris, Gilgamesh and Hercules). West is kidnapped so that he has to compete in these games on behalf of the Kingdom of Land.

This means that he faces a series of challenges (along with 15 other competitors) that passed into legend as the Labours of Hercules. It transpires that among the other challengers is Captain Shane Schofield of the US Marines, aka the Scarecrow, whose participation is also not voluntary.

Eventually West and the Scarecrow face each other in a fight to the death (West wins, but Schofield has taken the same drug that Caesar Russell used to cheat death in Area 7…). West then has to take on the younger son of the king of The Underworld plus Mephisto, Fear and Chaos all fighting on behalf of their king’s son. He emerges victorious from this fight, and then faces the final challenge of delivering Cerberus to the king of The Underworld, which he accomplishes by dint of asking permission to so.

He then prevents his own king from receiving hidden wisdom that will make him all-powerful. To save the world and prevent it from being in the grip of a tyranny West mus now find the three hidden cities (there is the title of the next book in this series ready made) and extract their wisdom. I did not see any pointers to the the title starting with two, but I would be fairly confident in reckoning that the last book in the series will be titled The Omega Event.

Given that Scarecrow has put in an appearance in this book what of other Reilly leads? Well I could see roles for William Race and possibly C J Cameron somewhere along the line. Another possibility would be a now grown-up Kirstie Hensleigh (from Ice Station) playing a role somewhere along the line.

This is a fabulous book, which I heartily recommend to everyone.

Before showing some internal illustrations a final speculation: I reckon the Japanese still have a final intervention in them before this series is done. For more on Matthew Reilly’s books check out this post.

Uppsala: The Linnaeus Museum

The latest in my series of posts about my Swedish holiday – today featuring the Linnaeus museum.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my holiday in Sweden. This post is the last to focus purely on Uppsala, although there is still the account of the journey from Uppsala to Malmo to cover.

FROM LIBRARY TO MUSEUM

Those who read my previous post will recall that while there was plenty to see in the exhibition of treasures at Carolina Rediviva I was prevented from photographing most of it, so I was quite glad once I had finished there to get back into action, starting with these pictures…

Shortly after I had taken the above pictures I came to…

THE BERLIN MURAL

This mural, which as the information board reproduced below shows is named because of its origins, is actually four walls, the front and two side walls of which are also reproduced below (I could not get a sufficient distance behind the back wall to be able to photograph it).

We now get to the main meat of this post, starting with…

A ROUGH GUIDE TO CAROLUS LINNAEUS

Carolus Linnaeus lived in the 18th century (he was roughly contemporary with Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of the creator of the theory of evolution by natural selection), and the house in which he lived is in central Uppsala. He was a botanist by training but is best know these days for being the creator of the system by which all living organisms are still categorized. Discoveries made since he was around have changed some categorizations and created some new ones, but the framework and methodology used are still his.

Such names as Homo sapiens (note that with these type of names the first word is always capitalized and the second word never so, even if it derives from a proper name) come from Linnaeus’ magnum opus.

He is also significant in the history of science for reversing a previous trend – whereas previous eminent scientists had taken Latin names to sound more impressive he went the other way, changing his Latin birth name (his father, a clergyman whose birth name had been Nils Ingemarsson had taken a Latin name to emphasize his education), used so far in this post, to a vernacular one, Carl Von Linne. His reasons for making this change were it must be said just as rooted in snobbery as those of folk who Latinized – he had been given a patent of nobility and considered his new aristocratic designation more important than his old Latin name.

Many books on the history of science cover his career in detail, my own personal recommendation being John Gribbin’s magisterial Science: A History 1543-2001.

THE LINNAEUS MUSEUM

As you approach the museum it is made suitably obvious that you are doing so…

Here is the approach to the house…

The rest of this post will be devoted the photographs I took of the objects in this remarkable museum.

James and Sons July Auction

An account of yesterday’s auction, complete with photos, a link to a book review and a (well-merited) swipe at Stagecoach.

INTRODUCTION

This is my account of the latest auction held by my employers, James and Sons, which took place yesterday at the Maid’s Head Hotel in Norwich.

THE JOURNEY IN

Stagecoach, who have subsumed Norfolk Green, have very recently and without anything approaching proper communication cut a large number of services. One casualty of this piece of axe wielding is the 6:10 AM from King’s Lynn to Fakenham, which used to become the 6:55 from Fakenham to Norwich, and would see me arrive at the venue around about 8am, as needed. Fortunately, having been alerted to the mayhem while at work on Tuesday I had the foresight to check the timetables posted at King’s Lynn Bus Station and was able to come up with a back-up plan – I bought a single ticket on the X1 to Dereham and Norwich which is run by First Eastern Counties, departing at 5:55am and was in Norwich at the appointed time. This single fare and the single fare back from Fakenham (having travelled from Norwich to Fakenham as a passenger in the company van) amounted to £10 between them (£6 and £4 respectively) instead of £5.50 for a Dayrider Plus, to say nothing of the uncertainty created by the ham-fisted way in which these cuts were made. Surely if significant cuts to services are to be made (and I consider cutting what was the first bus of the morning on a particular route to be significant on its own – and I also know that half of the services that used to run between Fakenham and Norwich have been axed) the announcement should be made long in advance of the cuts happening, and every bus travelling on an affected route should be well stocked with new timetables that accurately reflect the planned reduction in services. Also, especially given the parlous state of public transport services in Norfolk, I consider any cuts to be unacceptable in any case.

THE LAYOUT

With people arriving to view stuff not long after we had got there, there was not a lot of scope laying stuff out artistically, especially given how much of it there was, but a couple of areas were reasonably well done nevertheless…

DSCN8067 — Part of the toy display – inside that suitcase marked is lot 363 was a large collection of items of rolling stock.

Part of the toy display – inside that suitcase marked is lot 363 was a large collection of items of rolling stock.

DSCN8068 — A little cluttered, but at least the three smartest hats got due prominence.

THE SALE ITSELF

I am glad to be able to report that there were no IT issues at any stage of the sale. While the coins & tokens, some of the militaria and some of the ephemera sold well, the stamps did not go well, and the vinyls did less well than we would have liked.

Once the auction finished we picked out all the stuff that had sold to bidders not in the room, loaded the van up for the return journey and were able to head back. I was able to catch the 17:38 rather than have the dicey prospect of relying on the 18:35 not having been cut (if they can cut the first bus of the day, why not the last?). However, I was not yet at liberty to relax – there was still the matter of watering a few plants at Hampton Court, Nelson Street. Thus, it was almost exactly 14 hours after I had left my flat that my time was my own again.

MY ROLE AND LOT 450

There are two members of James and Sons staff who can manage the IT during the auction, so we swap duties during the day (auction days are the only time I regularly do front-line customer service). My colleague did an IT session between lots 200 and 300, at which point we had a scheduled break. I then did the first 75 lots after the break, before swapping for 100 lots or so, for a period when a few things I was interested in were coming up, before I then went back to IT duties until the end of the sale.

The first items that I was interested in were five sets of railway postcards, lots 391-5:

These as expected went beyond my possible price range. Next to command attention was lot 403, a book of views of Cambridge:

Again, to no great surprise this rapidly went beyond my price range.

The next items of interest were some antique maps, which I was fully aware I would not be able to afford but enjoyed seeing go under the hammer. This set the stage for the last lot to command my interest, and unlike any of the foregoing it was one that I was determined to get if at all possible. Lot 450, “The Bus We Loved: London’s Affair With the Routemaster”, was not an item that I as someone who runs a London transport themed website could happily countenance going elsewhere. There was a mini bidding war as someone else was also interested, but when I went to £10 that secured the item. For more about the book please visit my review of it that is on my website.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

Yesterday was a very demanding day, both physically and mentally. However, everything went fairly smoothly. Given the Stagecoach schemozzle referred to earlier, the travel element of the day was as good as I could have hoped for.

The Last Two Days

Images from the last couple of days at work and a mention of a future plan.

INTRODUCTION

A decision to attend an evening meeting in the fine city of Norwich yesterday somewhat limited my computer access then, hence I am sharing stuff from more than one day.

AUCTION IMAGES

Here are some images of auction lots taken over the last couple of days…

The first of nine images I took of lot 390

391-d — The specs of two supersonic aircraft – fans of Matthew Reilly will recognize the top one as the plane that replaces the destroyed Halicarnassus (Boeing 747) at the end of the Five Greatest Warriors.

392 — Another aviation book that warranted multiple images

392-e — Colour pics of the two supersonic aeroplanes.

Lot 393 – local interest as it is about one of Norfolk’s most famous families.

SOME NON-AUCTION WORK IMAGES

These images were required for use on Ebay…

COMING UP ON ASPIBLOG

On Wednesday I attended the AGM of the West Norfolk Disability Forum, courtesy of an invite that came from Councillor Squire by way of NAS West Norfolk branch chair Karan McKerrow. I hope to put up a post about this tomorrow but for the moment as an appetiser, here is a montage featuring the extraordinary upstairs window of King’s Lynn town hall…

Imaging for the August Auction

A brief account of today at work, with pictures.

INTRODUCTION

I have lots of new pictures, relating to the James and Sons’ August sale (Wednesday 31st). Today’s imaging has involved two types of item…

MILITARIA

You will notice that one item that has been included with militaria is actually not so, but most of these items do count as militaria…

Now it is time to move on to the other auction items I had to image…

EPHEMERA/ BOOKS

This section starts with lot 361, which can be thought of as an anatomisation of a rolls-royce…

The rest of the items were not quite this impressive, but there were a few other good moments…

EBAY IMAGES

In addition to the auction lots I had to image a few records for sale on ebay (the pictures I have included were only some of the records I imaged).

Rapid Progress on the July Auction

An account of today’s imaging, largely told by way of pictures.

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons’ July auction is progressing rapidly. A wide variety of items came my way for imaging.

A BIT OF EVERYTHING

Here are some of the highlights from today’s imaging…

Aftewr today there are only a couple of coin lots l;eft top be filled in this auction. This by the way is lot 1.

A very old coin indeed (cannot make out a date but it is either 12th or 13th century)

Not quite so old – dates from Elizabeth I

136 — A parvenu – a sprightly 127 years old

255 — Two suitcases full of masonic regalia.

352 — The red train is damaged, the black not so – the canopy over the cab is supposed to be removable since…

352-a — …the driver and fireman cannot be seen when it is on.

Faith Versus Fact paperback out soon

If you have not already got a copy of this book take this opportunity to rectify the omission. For more about it see my review here: https://aspiblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/30/faith-vs-fact-book-review/…

Why Evolution Is True

The paperback edition of Faith Versus Fact will be available on May 17, and it will have a fancy gold band on the cover instead of the drabbish band (which was supposed to be shiny gold) that was on the hardcover. It’s about fifteen bucks in the U.S., and you can preorder it from Amazon, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and, as always, the audio version is available from several of those places or from iTunes.

Pre-orders are best for promoting the book, of course, but I’ll be chuffed whenever you buy it. And, as always, if you encounter me in person, I’ll be glad to sign it (or WEIT) for you.

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