Tag: GWR medallion

James and Sons January Auction

A look back at James and Sons’ January auction and a photo gallery.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had its January auction, a two day sale devoted entirely to stamps and postal history. This post looks back at the auction.

AN OUTLINE OF THE AUCTION

The first day featured mainly British stamps, with descriptions handwritten by someone else and typed in by me. The second day featured items from all over the world, and these lots were describe entirely by me. I also did all the imaging for this auction and uploaded it to the two online platforms that we use. On the days of the auction I handled the IT side of things.

A SUCCESSFUL SALE OVERALL

Both our online platforms were quite lively, and a number of items fared very well. On day one the most consistent success was enjoyed by stamps from the ‘seahorse’ range. Day two saw all sorts of things sell well, including a number of bidding battles. By the time the last lot went under the hammer I was very tired (in addition to a stressful though satisfactory two days at James and Sons I had had a WNAG commitment on the Tuesday evening).

THREE SUCCESSFUL BIDS

I had put bids in on a number of lots on day one, and on three items I was successful. Lot 105 was my first moment of good fortune:

The first seven pictures are those that were available to auction viewers.
The remaining nine were taken at home today.

Lot 166 was the first of three items of its type, and I was outbid on the other two, which was professionally satisfying.

The first two pictures are the ones available to auction viewers, the other four were taken today.

Finally lot 262, which from my personal perspective was the star item of the entire auction.

The first nine images (number nine being a composite of numbers six and eight) were available to auction viewers, the other eight were taken at home today.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

A crescent moon in the predawn sky of Wednesday morning.

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…