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.
A look at day four at the SCG, a link and a photo gallery.
This post deals with day four of the final test match of the Ashes series, at the SCG.
A NEW TALENT ANNOUNCES ITSELF
Play resumed on day four with Australia 518-7, already 134 runs ahead of England on first innings. The last three Australian wickets boosted that total to 567, an overall lead of 183. England were further handicapped as they prepared for their second innings by a muscle strain suffered by Ben Stokes. Ben Duckett contributed 42, his highest score of the series. There was also a score of 42 from Harry Brook. Will Jacks, who as I have said elsewhere is actually more batter than bowler failed horrifically to take advantage of a promotion to number six, Stokes having decided to bat later in the order, playing a horrible shot to his second ball to give Cameron Green a catch off the bowling of Beau Webster. First to go had been Zak Crawley, LBW to Starc for 1. That meant that Jacob Bethell, batting at number three in spite of never having scored a first class hundred had to come in right at the start of the innings. He rose to the challenge brilliantly, playing a proper test match innings, showing skill, technique and the right temperament for the job in hand. It was during the stand with Brook that he reached that maiden first class century (while it is not commonplace for this to happen in a test match it is not super rare either – Charles Bannerman’s 165 in the first ever test match was his maiden FC century, and there is another member of the current England setup to have done the same thing, Gus Atkinson). Even after Brook’s dismissal and the Jacks howler referred to earlier he went on unperturbed, finding some support from Jamie Smith. Brydon Carse helped the eighth wicket to advance the score by 30, and at the end Matthew Potts was supporting Bethell, who ended the day unbeaten on 142, having faced 232 balls and hit 15 fours, with England 302-8, 119 to the good. Bethell’s innings was England’s third three figure score of the series, and both the previous two were scored by Joe Root, a universally acknowledged master of test match batting technique. I am not yet fully prepared to renounce my scepticism regarding Bethell’s selection, but I see no reason for this century not to be the first of many, and if he continues to deliver the goods as he did this day I will acknowledge that fact.
PHOTOGRAPHS
First I have a link to share, from science.org, to this article about how multi-cellular life may have come about. It is an appropriate share since my gallery includes pictures from all three of the multi-cellular or eukaryotic kingdoms. Now for my usual sign off…
A pair of swans on the Gaywood RiverA purely plant picture – a leaf lying on grass.Three cormorants perched on the structure I have named in their honour, with a large gull in among them.A Little Egret just far enough into the Nar to be reflected back by the water.And just a tad later on the wing.A lapwing at the edge of the Nar.A bracket fungus of some sort fairly high up a big tree. The sculpted sections of the Gaywood, in The Walks, clearly did freeze to some extent (and bear in mind that today has been less cold than Monday or Tuesday and that there was rain overnight).A kite flying above Bawsey drain.
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