Tag: Postal History

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…

An Announcement re Heritage Open Day 2o25

Details of my stewarding commitment for this year’s Heritage Open Day (Sunday 14th September). A picture gallery from today at work.

This post, with a gallery from today at work, is going to be a brief one.

HERITAGE OPEN DAY 2025

King’s Lynn has its annual Heritage Open Day on the second Sunday in September. On this day various interesting buildings are opened for public viewing. This year that second Sunday is the latest possible date – the 14th. In order to ensure that the day runs smoothly stewards are required at the various buildings. Stewards will tell you about the history of the building, will monitor numbers, and at some of the busier and/or more problematic sites will engage in a measure of crowd control. I have been one of the stewards for some years now, and of course made myself available again this year. I have recently found out where and when I will be stewarding. For stewarding purposes the day is divided into thirds – 10AM to Noon, Noon to 2Pm and 2PM to 4PM. I will be stewarding at the Bank House Hotel, whose chief attraction is a remarkable cellar system, dating back to times when rather more goods arrived in and departed from King’s Lynn than the King’s customs guys ever knew about, between noon and 2PM. I am delighted to have been given this venue.

PICTURES

The majority of these were scans. Unlike on Tuesday, when I told you which was which, I leave it to you to see if you can tell…

Lot 150 (four images total). These are high value because they are mint. Although they are quite hard to tell apart each is a slightly different colour.

A Productive Day at Work

An account of my day at work including a full image gallery.

I don’t normally blog on workdays but I felt that today was interesting enough to make an exception to the rule.

COMBINING TYPING AND IMAGING

I am currently working on what will be day one of a two day stamp sale, typing up handwritten descriptions in the correct format for an auction catalogue and also imaging the lots (unlike day two, which I started first and have almost completed, and which is an exercise in recycling old lots these are new lots). At the start of today I had got to lot 54, and had 11 lots ready for the typing and imaging process, which gave time for more lots plus descriptions to be found. After I had dealt with those 11 lots I then typed up a further 20 descriptions, did the imaging (a mix of photographs for the bigger lots and scans for the smaller ones). Then I repeated the process for a further 15 lots bringing the total to a hundred. I still had a little time left, so I did a further five lots as a bonus (lot 100 had been my self-set minimum point to reach to by the end of today). I will resume on Thursday starting from lot 106. As you will see from the image gallery that follows the extra five lots were not just a bonus in terms of being ahead of where I reckoned on being – the last of the extra lots was of personal interest. My approach to the imaging was to take the photographs of the larger lots first, and then scan the smaller ones. Save for lot 101, described in its caption, I took no more than a single scan of any scannable lot – secondary images when I deemed them appropriate were extracted from the original scan.

PICTURES

Here is today’s image gallery…

The first of the scans.
Back to photography
This lot as you will see had features of interest on both sides.
A close up of the embossed Southwestern Railway Company crest
Extracted from the previous image, the locomotive.
Some more scans.
Back to photography
More scans
Photographs again.
Scans
Photographs
Scans
Photographs
Scans
Photographs
Scans
Photographs
Scans
Lot 101, a composite scan – the lot comprised a total of six stock cards, one double sided, with necessitated three separate scans and then a ‘bolt together’ operation in Paint.
Lot 102, the last scanned item of the day.
Lot 103, double sided, and too large to be scanned.
Lot 104.
Lot 105 – some railway history.

James and Sons April Auction

A look back at James and Sons’ April Auction, a brief mention of County Championship action and a photo gallery.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had its April auction, 1,000 stamp and postal history lots across the two days. On day one I was at work, one floor above where the auction was taking place, but had left bids on two lots, the fate of which would decide my approach to day two where I would be following from home.

A MODESTLY SUCCESSFUL AUCTION

The opening day of the auction went well overall for the company, and well for me personally – I got both lots I had left bids on, and both sufficiently cheaply that I was still in a position to bid on more items on day two. Lot 193 was the first of my lots:

Lot 398 was five pages of Russian steam locomotive stamps:

DAY TWO

This could have been a very quiet day, but fortunately it wasn’t completely so. The biggest success of the day was lot 762, which went for £140. My first bid of the day was on lot 701, and I was successful:

Lot 728 was my next success…

Lots 785 and 840 also went to me…

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

Another round of County Championship fixtures got underway today. Due to a meeting this morning I missed the first session of play, and I will be missing most of tomorrow as it is the West Norfolk Autism Group’s annual outing to Pensthorpe. However I have got to enjoy Somerset having superb afternoon and evening against Essex at Taunton. Essex were 115-2 at the high water mark of their innings, but since then it has been one-way traffic – they are now 180-9 with Noah Thain having just gone for 41, caught Rew bowled Pretorius. I am not entirely sure about Kasun Rajitha;s batting credentials, though the fact that he is below Sam Cook, sometimes adhesive (as indeed he was today) but unquestionably a tail ender, tells one something, but Jamie Porter is an absolutely blown in the glass genuine number 11.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

These coasters (seven images in total) are an early birthday present from my boss.
The Trevithick/ Pen-y-Darren £2

Auction Week at James and Sons

A look back at the James and Sons auction that took place on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, with lots of photos. Also a gallery of my usual hobby photos.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons of Fakenham had their May auction. Tuesday was devoted to stamps and postal history, while Wednesday was a general auction, with lots of different types of stuff under the hammer. This post looks at some of the highlights of the two days.

TUESDAY – STAMPS ETC

I was working above the shop where the auction was taking place, so cannot comment on the sale as a whole. However lot 256 went to me, and was clearly uncontested given how low the hammer price was. These are the images that were available to the general public:

Time constraints limited the size of the image gallery I could produce for this lot, but my own interest in securing meant the gallery had to be as complete as I could reasonably make it.

Here are my own photos of the lot post acquisition, taken at home yesterday morning:

In the folder – for reaons that the final image will make clear I paired the Saint Kitts & Nevis item with something else with a Caribbean connection.
I already had a copy of the Kiribati cover, so I needed five slots in total, hence the earlier image.

DAY TWO

This sale started very quietly (I was watching from home), with lot 526 going to me uncontested. This item will be at the heart of at least one major blog post and possibly more, so I present only the image gallery I produced for it to go under the hammer:

The auction picked up a bit of momentum when some old Guinness advertising posters, all in excellent condition, went under the hammer. Five of the posters fared especially well, lots 622, 641, 658, 661 and 669, which all went for above the top estimates. Here are the images of those lots:

622 (two images – front and back)
641 (two images, front and back)
658 (three images, front, close up of main part, back)
661 (three images, front, close up of main part, and back)
669 (five images – front, close up of each the three ‘layers’ of the front, back)

The star lot of the auction was number 795, which massively exceeded the top estimate. Here is the gallery.

I did not have the luxury of time to make a really detailed assessment of this lot, but I did do a detailed gallery, and my choice of what to feature clearly did its job!

Some of the toy lots in the low 800s also fared exceptionally well with 805 and 806 almost doubling the top estimate, and lots 807, 814 and 815 also going above the top estimate.

The images for lots 805 and 806 were taken by a colleague and edited for me, with the secondary images (one for 805, two for 806) extracted by me from single individual images.
807 (eight images)
814 (six images)
815 (nine images)

PHOTOGRAPHS

There have been a lot of photographs in the body of this post, but I also include a gallery of my usual hobby photographs…

A Working Day

An account of a working day, and the journeys either way, and a photo gallery.

Yesterday was an eventful day at work – finishing the last of the imaging for the March auction, sending a mass email out (the second of two, the first went out on Tuesday) about that auction, and starting the imaging for the April sale. In this post I describe the day in full and say something about each element of the upcoming auctions.

PREPARING

My working hours, constrained by the operating hours of James and Sons and the way in which buses run in Norfolk are short – I start at 10:45 or thereabouts, and finish four hours later as the business shuts down for the day. However I get quite a bit done in that time, even on a somewhat fragmented day such as yesterday was. I generally leave home by 9:30, which allows me to take a scenic route to the bus stop (the direct route is about a five minute walk, but is not that interesting). Then I spend the bus journey reading, and will arrive at James and Sons’ premises in Fakenham clear-headed and ready to go.

IMAGING

My usual practice when imaging at work is photograph about 25 items (one column of lot numbers + indications of how many pictures I have taken of eahc item in my notebook) before loading them on to the computer and cropping and straightening them as required. If I am imaging for a sale that is not already online I will copy the images from the folder I save them in on my computer to the main images folder for that auction on the network drive at the end of the day, but when the auction is already online I also have to upload the new images, and sometimes notify bidders that the images are now available for viewing. I had initially started work on the April stuff, a quantity of which was already in my imaging area, but then had to switch back to the March stuff as there were some lots from day two of that sale (Stamps and Postal History) which had not been imaged. Near the end of the day I was able to revert to the April sale, but the next lot I came to for that sale (Sporting Memorabilia) was one that required a large photo gallery, so I had no time to do any more than that one extra lot.

Day one of the March sale is coins, banknotes and cheques, and can be viewed here and here. Day two, which I was finishing off the imaging for yesterday, is available on the same links, but for those who want to start on the page where the first lots of day two are can go here and here (the new day does not start on a new page because the auction is treated as a single entity on these platforms). I end this section with the image gallery for lot 655, the first item I imaged yesterday…

Lot 655 (seven images, capturing what i considered the most important aspects of it).
This is lot 662 (two images)

THE END OF THE DAY

The next bus back to King’s Lynn after the end of the work day is at 3:45PM, so I generally fill in time by visiting Fakenham Library, as I did on this occasion. I get off the bus home one stop before the very closest stop to my home and walk home from there by way of the Gaywood River Path – always worth doing, especially in daylight, which by now is the case. I appreciated seeing several muntjac as I walked, though I was less impressed by lawbreaking oaf who roared past me (and a number of others) on a quad bike (illegal as it is a motorised vehicle and this path is for the use of pedestrians and cyclists only – an e-bike used with care and consideration would be acceptable, but a dirty great quadbike used with neither care nor consideration is most definitely not). This little section provides a useful lead into…

PHOTOGRAPHS

…My usual sign off…

From Wednesday afternoon’s walk.
Taking the scenic route to from my home to the bus stop yesterday morning…
…I spotted ths unfortunate Tortoiseshell butterfly near Fakenham Church yesterday afternoon.
Four shots from the walk home along the Gaywood river path.
Today’s first walk (will be walking into town for supper this evening).

England Exit but take Pakistan with them

A look back at today’s world cup matches, especially England v Pakistan, , analysis of the group standings with one group match to go, a mention of a couple of upcoming auctions being held by my employer and my usual sign off.

Today saw two group matches at the 2023 ODI World Cup, Australia v Bangladesh and England v Pakistan. Most of this post is dedicated to the second of these fixtures. In the early game Bangladesh posted just over 300, and Australia chased them down very comfortably, Mitchell Marsh setting a new record for an Australian number three in ODIs by scoring 177 not out.

THE PRELIMINARIES

England were already eliminated, while Pakistan had a very outside chance of staying in the tournament. The least vanishingly unlikely scenario to allow this to happen would have seen Pakistan bat first, score a huge total and bowl England out cheaply. Going this way round would still have left Pakistan needing to win by 287 runs to go ahead of New Zealand on net RR. As it happened Buttler won the toss and decided to bat. This meant that the first landmark for England to reach was 169, at which point Pakistan would be in the position of needing at least one no-ball from England even if they hit everything for six if they were to overhaul New Zealand on net RR.

THE ENGLAND INNINGS

In the event England batted the best they had all tournament, and it was soon very obvious that any scenario involving Pakistan overhauling New Zealand was not so much vanishingly as Daniel Dennett’s usage of Vanishingly unlikely (in the book “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”). Various players contributed for England, and all Pakistan’s bowlers took a fair amount of stick. In the end England posted 337 from their 50 overs.

THE PAKISTAN REPLY

Pakistan never looked at the races, and there were times when it looked like their net RR was going to take such a battering that they dipped below Afghanistan into sixth place. The magic number to avoid that was 187, and they reached that figure with eight wickets already gone, losing a ninth shortly afterwards. The last pair of Mohammad Wasim and Haris Rauf then managed to connect with some meaty blows, but long before they were even close to worrying England one such shot went higher than it did long and Stokes managed to get himself underneath it. Pakistan were all out for 244, beaten by 93 runs. Two England bowlers reached career landmarks along the way – David Willey whose retirement is already confirmed reached 100 ODI wickets with the second of his three scalps, and Adil Rashid claimed his 200th ODI wicket. Willey was given the Player of the Match award, making the decision not to award him a new central contract look even sillier than it already did (while the timing of the central contract details being made public, right in the middle of a tournament, verged on the criminally insane). England are in seventh place, and unless the miracle of the tournament happens tomorrow and the Netherlands somehow beat India by a really big margin in the last group match seventh is where they will finish. However, two of their three wins came after their eliminations was already confirmed, and those two late consolation victories should not be allowed to overshadow just how dire a tournament this was for the team who “didn’t come here to defend anything”.

TWO UPCOMING AUCTIONS

James and Sons’ November auctions (on Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd) are now ready to view online.

Tuesday’s auction features stamps and postal history, and contains 500 lots. Lot 105 (below) is one of them:

There are two ways to view a catalogue listing and/or sign up to bid online:

Saleroom Easyliveauction

The second day’s sale features advertising and ephemera. The main feature image is the centrepiece of lot 702, a poster sized picture of the 1891 Boat Race crews in action:

Full catalogue listing online, starting from lot 501

Saleroom Easyliveauction

As a lead in to the final section I have a few more ephemera images, including the rest of the gallery for lot 702…

These last two lots are included because to my mind they illustrate the value of not ignoring anything – in each case the stuff on the reverse side is at least as interesting the supposed main feature of the item.
I abhor the publication that Mr Brown was spruiking here, but it is of interest that they saw him as valuable.

PHOTOGRAPHS

It is getting to the time of year when really good things to photograph become harder to come by, but I do have my usual sign off…

James and Sons April Auction

An account of James and Sons’ April auction.

This Wednesday saw James and Sons’ April auction, the first of three auctions that are devoted entirely to an old client’s collection of stamps, postal history and first day covers (these auctions are interleaved with regular general sales, of which our next will be on May 18th). This post looks back at the day.

A GOOD AUCTION

With a large number of bidders registered, many of them newcomers, we were hoping for a good sale, and we got it in spades. Lot 66 attracted some lively bidding and ended up fetching £80. Lot 85 went for £100

A complete set of FDCs depicting the 1999 Treble Winning Manchester United.

Lot 120 netted £150 after some brisk bidding.

Lot 132 was the most remarkable story of the auction. It included some rare Wonderland stamps, and with the bidding starting at £30 an amazing stampede by online bidders pushed the final price up to an eye-popping £540!

Lots 161-9 were sheets of railway stamps. Two of those lots had attracted my own attention, but I was outbid on them – professionally satisfying, while personally disappointing.

Lot 198 saw another bidding war, a starting price of £60 mushrooming to £200.

Lot 204 raised £65.

Lot 278 was a consolation prize after the railway stamps got away – my opening bid of £8 closed proceedings.

Lot 295 was another I might have been interested in, but the price went too high for me, not very surprisingly in view of Terence Cuneo’s status:

Lot 302 soared to £170.

Lot 396 went to m5 for £55. If you are wondering about this price, which is more than I normally bid for a single lot, it was for a large box of FDCs which I knew to contain some quality railwayana and I was expecting it to comfortably pay for itself – I would select the stuff I wished to keep and would sell the rest. I have already split this lot into the stuff I intend to keep for myself and the stuff I wish to sell. The stuff I will be looking to sell includes some football FDCs and some military FDCs as well as some other stuff.

Here are some pictures showing the division of this lot as it stands currently…

The lid (at rear) contains the stuff I don’t want to keep, while the body of the box contains the stuff I am keeping.

Lots 444 and 445 attracted plenty of bidders, going for £130 and £140 respectively, while lot 489 fetched £100. I have no images for these lots, but lot 462, which I snagged for £8 is below:

These images were taken at home yesterday evening.

The auction took almost five and a half hours (about half as long again as would be expected for a 500 lot auction), and I followed it from home via www.easyliveauction.com.

FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

Just a few pictures from walks near my home:

Three Little Snippets

Exactly what the title suggests!

Just a brief post to remind people of my existence. I shall follow my title precisely…

ONE: HEARING AID

Ten days ago I was fitted with a hearing aid. I have had to change the batteries once (this is in keeping with the advice I was given that these batteries, which are specially made for use with hearing aids, and can be obtained free of charge either at the hospital or at the West Norfolk Deaf Association have a lifespan of approximately one week.

TWO: A MASSIVE AUCTION

A longstanding client of James and Sons is selling his collection. He was a bulk collector of stamps, postal history and first day covers. Yesterday I began the process of imaging these items, which will be going under the hammer in April. Even selling the stuff by the box/ crate, with no small lots, it will be a two day sale. Here are some samples from yesterday…

Lot 396 (I extracted the close ups above at home from this image).

UNUSUAL BIRD SIGHTING

This is today’s sign off – I was out walking earlier (it is sunny today in King’s Lynn, though still cold enough to warrant a coat), and I saw a Little Egret in Bawsey Drain, not very far from my house…

These five images show the Egret