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.Â
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.
To explain the title of this post, Kernow is the Cornish name for Cornwall, and that is where I am at the moment, staying for a few days in my parents new home. Here is a map to start things off:
My parents new place is near Kingsand, towards the bottom centre of the map.Â
In this post I will tell you about the stage I left the November auction in, describe my journey down from King’s Lynn and finish with a few pictures from the new house.
JAMES & SONS NOVEMBER CATALOGUE
I had booked Thursday and Friday as leave, and in order to be as up to date as possible before going on leave I agreed to work Monday as well as Tuesday. By the end of Tuesday the imaging was as complete as possible, and I had given my colleague Andrew a start towards the printed catalogue, with a front cover image selected and placed appropriately on the page and the back cover completed. I offer links to the files and also screenshots:
Why two versions of the front cover? Well my employer did not like my initial choice of front cover image, requesting the coin book in its place, and being me I kept both versions.
KING’S LYNN TO CORNWALL
The first part of my journey was on the 9:54 train from King’s Lynn to London, which mirabile dictu ran to time. As far as Cambridge I had the company of Jo Rust, Labour candidate at the last two general elections in my constituency. Ely Cathedral was, as often, a target for my photographic attentions:
On arrival at King’s Cross I headed down to the Circle/ Hammersmith & City/ Metropolitan lines to get a train across to Paddington. The first train was heading for Uxbridge, therefore not one for me to take, but the second was bound for Hammersmith, and hence going by way of the right Paddington, the one that is structurally part of the mainline station, as opposed to the Circle/ District line station that should revert to it’s original name of Praed Street.Â
Looking across Paddington from the H&C platforms (these are platforms 15 and 16 of the main station).
Having a had a decent but not stellar connection at King’s Cross I arrived at Paddington with just under an hour to go before my train for the long-haul section of the journey was due to depart. Although careful to stay close to the information screens that I would not miss the platform number for my train when it came up I did get some photos while I waited for this information.
I did not get as many pictures as I would have liked during the train journey to Plymouth, as my camera’s battery ran out of charge just beyond Exeter (so no pics from Newton Abbot, Totnes or the approach to Plymouth). The train arrived in Plymouth exactly on schedule, making it a jackpot-like two train journeys in Britain on one day that had run to time!
The first stop out of Paddington – from here there was a long fast run to Taunton, then Tiverton Parkway, Exeter St Davids, Newton Abbot, Totnes and Plymouth.Some Cornish refreshment from the on-train bar, although at prices that would have made the proprietor of a plush central London pub blush (£4.50 for a half-litre bottle!)
A first glimpse of the sea on this journey.
Picklecombe Fort, wherein my parents have their new apartment is about 2.5 miles from Plymouth as the crow flies, but the road journey is so roundabout that this portion of the journey took almost the same amount of time as King’s Lynn – London had at the start of the day!
THE FIRST CORNISH PICTURES
This morning, with my camera battery fully charged I took some pictures here at Picklecombe Fort.
The guest bedroom has an ensuite bathroom cunningly disguised as a set of cupboards.Mean spiritedness from the previous owners.My parents library.Three views from my bedroom window…
The rest of these pictures were taken from the balcony, and show the apartment’s #1 selling point – the sea views.
The third picture I took featuring the lighthouse.
An introdfuction to next week’s James and Sons’ auctions.
INTRODUCTION
James and Sons’ October auctions will be taking place next week. A combination of factors, including a colleague being signed off sick for three months, left us somewhat behind schedule, but the printed catalogues should be arriving either today or early tomorrow, and the online catalogue is ready for viewing. The rest of this post details what will be going under the hammer on each day.
MONDAY 23 OCTOBER, SHOP
This auction kicks of with 250 lots of military themed postcards, then 150 lots of ephemera and finishes with 100 lots of cigarette/ Trade cards. Here are a few of the lots:
Lot 97lot 250lot 342Lot 460
TUESDAY OCTOBER 24 – SHOP
Postal History, Stamps, Coins and Banknotes. This sale starts at lot 601 and ends at lot 1100.Â
Lot 601Lot 754Lot 900Lot 901 (three images)
Lot 935 ( three images)
Lot 960 (three images)
Lot 995 (three images)
Lot 1031Lot 1098
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 25TH – FAKENHAM RACECOURSE
This auction features lots 1201-1600. These lots include Jewellery, toys, militaria and other objects of interest.
Lot 1202 (two images)
Lot 1224 (five images)
Lot 1216All the remaining images bafr the final one are of lots 1501 and 1502. Images 1501-a and 1502-a are both on the front cover of the catalogue. Please note that these guns are disabled – they are museum pieces (as all guns should become).
James and Sons July auction catalogue is now ready…
INTRODUCTION
Yesterday the catalogue for James and Sons July auction (24th – 26th, all three days at our premises on Fakenham town centre) was uploaded to the-saleroom and despatched to the printer. Before moving on I ask readers to note that some of the images in this post have been presented in ’tiled mosaic’ form – a left click on your mouse/ single finger push on your control pad on one of the images will open a gallery showing you the images at full size.
TUESDAY
Between locating images of stuff that had already been imaged and imaging other stuff I made significant progress, although the amount that had not been done was still greater than the amount that had been done. Among the new images I created were those of some Confederacy bank notes, including the item selected to be on the front cover of the catalogue:
Images of this and the other banknotes of ithe same type are created using the scanner (200dpi only for these). Here are some more of these banknotes:
Having shown the scanner at work, here are some photos to finish this section, the full gallery of lot 1479:
THURSDAY
Most of the images on this day were transferred, but there were a few new ones, including lot 405 and some lots in the low 1,000s:
This little lot intrigued me.
A few lots of cat themed covers, including some with coins.
FRIDAY
I started this day by imaging some lots for the cover:
Of the rest of the stuff I imaged yesterday the most interesting lots were some police helmets:
LOOKING AHEAD
While there remains some imaging to do for this auction, and stuff for August will sloon be ready for imaging I will also have to put out various auction alerts and press releases next week. I will definitely be contacting buyers of banknotes, cigarette cards, railwayana, stamps and postcards. The railwayana email will feature lot 1451:
If I have scope (i.e. have not reached an email sending limit) I will also send out an email to militaria buyers. Our best item in this category this month is a camera used by the Luftwaffe:
My 1,100th post on aspiblog – features some fun around the number 1,100, a number of links to autism related stuff and some photographs. Read, enjoy and please share!.
INTRODUCTION
Yes folks, this is my 1100th post on aspiblog. I will start with a section on the number 1100, provide a number of autism related links and include some of my own photographs.Â
1100
1,100 = 2 * 2 * 5 * 5 *11.
An ammunition store that contained 20 complete pyramids of cannon-balls each with a base side length of 5 cannonballs would contain a total of 1100 cannonballs:
(1 + 4 +9 + 16 +25) = 55, 55 * 20 = 1,100.
These same cannon balls could also have been stacked in five tetrahedrons each with a base side length of 10.
(1 + 3 + 6 + 10 + 15 + 21 + 28 + 36 + 45 + 55)= 220, 220 * 5 = 1,100
However, it was standard to stack cannon balls in pyramids, and also a the single cannon ball on top of a stack 10 cannonballs high might be rather difficult to reach.
Another option on the pyramidal theme would be a single truncated pyramid with base side length 15 cannonballs, and the top layer of the pyramid having a side length of 64 (225 + 196 + 169 + 144 + 121 + 100 + 81 + 64 = 1,100.
As a teaser what is the minimum base size length needed to stack 1,100 cannonballs in a single truncated tetrahedron, and what if you restrict yourself by insisting that each layer must be a perfect triangle?Â
AUTISM RELATED LINKS
This section is devoted to autism related stuff, so the text, including links which will be in bold and underlined, is all in #RedInstead. My first link comes from the blog aliensfromplanetautismunder the title “What Autism Acceptance Means” Below is a screenshot of the start of the post:
My next offering is also courtesy of thesilentwaveblog, under the title ‘Taking the “pity” out of serendipity‘. It also features an excellent picture, reproduced below.
Bookings are now open for the second running of the Autism Awareness Cup six-a-side football tournament, which takes place at Ingoldisthorpe Social Club on June 4th (and it is free btw). If you are able to come along please click on the graphic below to book:
PHOTOGRAPHS
This is the front cover of the printed catalogue for James and Sons’ April auction, all three days of which are taking place at our shop on Norwich Street. If you click on the image you can view on online catalogue listing and sign up to bid via the-saleroom.com if you are so minded.
ANSWERS TO TEASER
The second part of the teaser was a trick question – there is no combination of consecutive triangle numbers that adds up to 1,100, therefore a perfect truncated tetrahedron is not possible. The first part of the answer is that you can make a truncated tetrahedron of 1084 cannon balls from a base with side length 18 up to side length 7, but there are then only 16 balls left for the next layer which is therefore incomplete.Â
A science based post, with some work related pictures and a link to an online catalogue at the end.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the next post in this series of sharing posts. Our theme in this one is nature, and while most of the pieces I am linking to are about the present, we being with a journey back to…
385 MILLION YEARS AGO
This was when our ancestors first moved from the sea to the land. The usual reckoning is that the key development that led to this happening was to do with limbs, which would seem to be common sense. However, according to this piece on astrobio.net, there is an alternative view now being proposed that the key development was actually to do with vision not limbs. As is now my custom I am using an image to link to the full article:
Now we move back to the present, and we start with a distressing story about…
RHINO POACHING
As wild rhino numbers continue to decline the poachers whose activities are most directly responsible for this decline are becoming more brazen. This story concerns a Rhino in a zoo which was shot for its horn. The saddest aspect of this story is that the wealthy Chinese who buy most rhino horns do so based on alleged properties of the substance that are entirely fictional – this is the same stuff that our own finger nails are made of, and no one would pay big money for those. As usual, the link is in the accompanying image.
LEMURS GET HIGH(COURTESY OF WEIT AND SPY IN THE WILD)
WEIT provide an introduction to the video, which you can read by clicking here. The video itself is embedded below for your delectation:
NEUTRINOS
We end with a look, courtesy of rationalisingtheuniverse, at the neutrino. We have an image to serve as a link again:
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here to finish are some of my photographs:
The printed catalogue for the March auction is now ready. Clicking this image will take you to an online versionAppropriate for a science based post – a telescope (lot 970)
Lot 954 – a silver calling card holderCommemorative coins and medallions are frequently to be found in our sales, commemorative soap bars less so!
These last six images are of lots 977, 978 and 979 (obverse and then reverse of each of these pewter plates)
An account, with lots of pictures, of the main thrust of todat at James and Sons.
INTRODUCTION
The catalogue for James and Sons July auction (27th, Maids Head Hotel, Norwich) went to the printers today. This post is devoted to the images that will be appearing on the covers (outside and inside) of the catalogue.
THE FRONT COVER IMAGE
Lot 151 was, as expected, the front cover image, and it went through several takes…
The original main image for lot 151The first cover imageThe second cover image cropped but not editedThe edited version of the cover image
THE OUTSIDE BACK COVER – COINS
All of the coin lots had already been imaged, but for the sake of uniformity of appearance I was asked to provide new images for nine of the selected coins…
THE INSIDE COVERS
While I had already done some of the images used for the inside covers, most were of new items that I had to image from scratch, which came in two categories…
RECORDS
This is now the third sale at which we have had significant quantites of records, and here they are in tiled mosaic form…
The pick of the above images were used to fill one whole page of the catalogue (this part of the process is not generally part of my job, although I am well capable of it – it merely entails creating a table in word with the appropriate numbers of rows and columns and inserting the images), while on the other inside cover as well as some other lots filling spaces left over were all of the following…
HATS AND HELMETS
Not every image below was used, exceptions will be noted in the captions…
This image was not used because having been adamant that he wanted straight on images of all these items the auctioneer then decided that this one could be best presented at an angle.The image that does feature in the catalogue
This image does not feature as it is a close up of some very impressive decoration.
An account of today at James and Sons, featuring the construction of a press release, a bonus explanation of the origin of the phrase ‘bent as a nine-bob note’, and at the end a couple of important links.
INTRODUCTION
I have some old images to share, some new images to share, and a press release to talk about. Additionally I have a couple of important links that I will be sharing at the end of this post.
THE CREATION OF A PRESS RELEASE
There are several stages involved in creating press releases/ bulk emails. Stage 1 is working out what to cover, which in this case involved two aspects:
The success of the March 30th and 31st auction, with large numbers of internet bidders, and…
Each of the foregoing for maximum effect needed to be accompanied by an appropriate image. Hence:
IMAGE SELECTION
For the March image I was looking for something that had sold for well above estimate, and would look good in an email. Thus my attention focussed on lot 720, which I recalled as being both interesting visually and spectacularly successful in the auction room. Thus I needed to view the full image gallery and select from within that…
This full image is too busy for use in an email
This image showing the coins and ingot in their natural alignment looked good
I could have used this but decided against it
The obverses on their own are not very interesting – it is the reverses that are distinctive
It was close a call for this one.
The ingot on it’s own could not be used, but there were possibilities involving it…
I decided, given the shape of image I was looking for to combine the shot of the four coins and the ingot and the close-up of the ingot into a composite image (I considered the four reverses on their own, but wanted both parts of the image to have the same colour background).
The composite I created for the occasion.
For the image to accompany the text advertising the April auction the task was easier – I went for the front cover item for very obvious reasons.
Incidentally the above denomination of banknote provides the origin for the phrase “bent as a nine-bob note” – ‘bob’ was a colloquialism for a shilling, and as shown above, a ‘ten-bob’ note was kosher while a ‘nine-bob note’ would absolutely not have been.
ASSEMBLING A MAILING LIST
Coming up with the text for the press release is a straight-forward task, and assembling a mailing list is a simple matter of noting which categories of items are prominent in the upcoming auction, selecting the appropriate lists from the database and combining them into one big list. In this instance there were almost 400 names on the final list. As a security measure (and a guard against people hitting the ‘reply to all’ button) I am the designated recipient of the emails (my James and Sons email address, not my personal one) and the true recipients are bcc’d. Thus, given that our system can handle approximately 100 people being bcc’d at a time, this one involved sending the email four times.
THE FINAL PRESS RELEASE
I have a jpg of the final press release, and also a link that will enable you to view the document in its original word format.
In addition to the above, some work on the database and some fetching and carrying there were also a few items that had been catalogued but had not previously been in our possession so still needed imaging…
This ‘claymore’ type sword is an absolute monster – stood vertically it reaches my shoulder!
Finally, to end this post on an upbeat note, a story from the New Statesmanby way of Prides Purgeabout how badly the Tory campaign for London Mayor has come off the rails(attentive followers of this blog and my London transport themed website, www.londontu.be, will know that if I had a vote in that election I would be using it on Sian Berry’s behalf, but whoever ends up benefitting – most likely Sadiq Khan – bad news for Tories is good news for me!)
A mention of the fact that our catalogue is now available in print and some of today’s best images.
INTRODUCTION
Two days ago I put up a post about James and Sons March auction, mentioning that the catalogue was at the printers. That post gives full details of the format of the post. This one, featuring some of the images I produced today is to say that the print catalogue is now available and that it will be online for the weekend.
THE CATALOGUE
Here are pictures of the outside covers of the catalogue…
Front and back cover togetherFront coverBack Cover
SOME OF TODAY’S IMAGES
The bulk of today was spent imaging militaria from one of regular vendors. Then it was time for some scouting.
This image shows that this gun has been deactivated – it is a pure museum piece (lot 163)
An account of the creation of the front cover image for James and Sons February auction catalogue, complete with images, and som,e bonus pictures of very old coins.
INTRODUCTION
The most important thing I did at work today was create an image for use on the front cover of the catalogue for James and Sons general sale on February 24th (we having a First Day Covers sale tomorrow, and a Postal History/ Stamps sale on January 27th as well).
DECIDING ON THE IMAGE
My employer wanted a collection of weapons (museum pieces just to be clear) to feature on the cover, so the plan was to take one image of the whole collection if this could be managed. Thus, to prepare for taking the image, I cleared a table in the shop downstairs on which the items could be posed, reversed the display cloth on said table so that the plain side rather than the red provided a background that could not interfere with the image and set the items out. The lot numbers were 535 through 546, so I posed numbers 536-544 vertically, numbers 545-46 horizontally next to them and lot 535 horizontally either beneath or above the rest of the display depending on which angle one prefers (I have three complete images). Finally, to get sufficient elevation to get everything in a single shot I had position a chair adjacent to the centre of the table so that I could stand on it to take the picture.
THE IMAGES
I emerged with three complete pictures, a close up of lot 535 (which I subsequently augmented with an even closer shot of the maker’s name), a shot of the other bladed weapons and a shot of lots 545 and 546…
With the sword at the bottomWith the sword at the topOne more for luck.
The image of lot 535 extracted from the composite image535 imaged on its ownThe Makers Mark.
BONUS PICTURES
Of course I have done a lot of other imaging for this auction as well, and the items that particularly took my fancy were these very old coins (lots 101-14 inclusive), which I imaged a few days ago with the aid of the scanner…
