Return to Work – A Story Three Years in the Making

A post about my recent return to work and some of things associated with it.

Regular followers of this blog will be well aware that I had a very serious illness in 2018 (I put up various posts about this). This post tells the story of my path back to work (albeit on a very part time basis).

A False Dawn – Winter 2019 to Spring 2020

By the time a year had elapsed since the worst of my illness I was thinking about the possibility of returning to work, but I did not feel that winter was the right time (some long term lung damage and a compromised immune system influenced this). The plan which my employer was fully on board with was that I would return in April 2020. Then of course the covid-19 pandemic hit, preventing any possibility of a return to work at that stage. However, on July 1st of this year I returned to work on a one day per week basis…

PUBLIC TRANSPORT NIGHTMARE

At the time of my illness Lynx Bus had taken over the services between King’s Lynn and Fakenham (the town where I work), and at the time of my illness they had been starting to provide a proper service. Unfortunately, as I discovered when checking out bus times for my return I discovered that the pandemic had reduced their services to skeleton levels, and to date that has not changed. James and Sons open their doors between 10AM and 3PM. There are three options, all far from ideal for getting into Fakenham in the morning: 7:00AM direct bus, gets to Fakenham at 7:49, leaving me a couple of hours to kill in Fakenham, leave at the same early hour and go via Hunstanton and Wells, arriving in Fakenham at 9:30, or 10:00, getting to Fakenham at 10:50. Of these three only the latter is really practicable as a route in. Getting home is worse still: there is no direct bus between 1:00PM and 6:00PM. Therefore I board the 3:00PM bus and take the scenic route back to Lynn (Fakenham – Wells – Hunstanton – Lynn), usually arriving home at about 5:45PM. It is these issues with travel that prevent me from committing to more than one day per week.

PRESS RELEASES

The auction of August 31st and September 1st 2021 was notably successful. I put out a press release about lots 1 and 2, two Steven pennies, which went for £700 and £900 respectively.

Many other items sold for huge money at that auction. A gold bracelet of Egyptian pattern attracted particularly vigorous bidding, going for £1,150, while a gold hunter watch went for £600, and a pair of diamond earrings fetched over £400. Here are some the images of lots that sold well…

Lot 613 – a pair of diamond earrings which fetched over £400

RECENT IMAGING

My most recent imaging has been for our October auction, in which a number of swagger sticks feature…

Three images minimum per swagger stick – the whole stick at an angle of about 45 degrees, a close up of the military insignia and a composite like this.

THE SEPTEMBER AUCTION

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had a two day stamp auction. By and large things went well. I was a successful bidder on three lots – 663 (French railway stamps, hammer price £5), 892 (Benham mini FDCs, railway themed, hammer price £18) and lot 936 (Channel Tunnel opening FDCs with certificates of authenticity, hammer price £8). I did not originally image these lots, but have done so in great detail since taking possession, and I end this post with those images…

Rain Delay At Old Trafford

An update on developments from Manchester, a mathematical teaser, and some pictures plus and update regarding my employment status.

INTRODUCTION

The predicted rain has arrived at Manchester in spades, but England are still in a very strong position thanks to their efforts yesterday.

THE MATCH AS IT STANDS

Having secured a first innings advantage of 172 England batted well second time around. Sibley made a half century, Joe Root scored at a very rapid rate throughout his unbeaten half century and Burns managed 90, his dismissal triggering a declaration which left the West Indies 399 to make to win the match and England six overs to bowl yesterday evening. Broad who had terminated the first West Indies innings with extreme prejudice earlier in the day produced another magnificent spell of bowling, bagging the wickets of John Campbell (84 runs in the series for the opener, a performance reminiscent of that of another left handed attacking opener, David Warner in last year’s Ashes) and nightwatchman Kemar Roach to take his tally of test wickets to 499. The West Indies ended that mini-session at 10-2 off six overs, needing a further 389 to win. There has been no play thus far today due to the rain, but it is no longer raining in Manchester (it is rodding it down here in King’s Lynn) and the umpires have thrown down a challenge to Jupiter Pluvius by declaring that they will inspect at 3PM if there is no further rain. Of course England declared yesterday evening precisely because we were expecting little if any play today, and the forecast for tomorrow is good (and Old Trafford is, as it needs to be, a quick draining ground). Unless one of the remaining West Indies batters can somehow channel the Lord’s 1984 version of Gordon Greenidge the only question is whether we will see enough cricket today and tomorrow for England to get those final eight wickets.

SOLUTION TO YESTERDAY’S TEASER

I offered the following choices:

a)1.00-1.25
b)1.25-1.50
c)1.50-1.75
d)1.75-1.99

Brilliant had offered as it’s three possible answers less than 1, between 1 and 2, and 2. Anyone who has read about fractal geometry knows that the fractal dimension of a line is always between 1 and 2, so this selection of answers constituted a give away, reducing a three-dagger problem to a one-dagger joke.

In this case the calculations give an answer of approximately 1.33, so the correct choice from the selections I offered is b) 1.25-1.50.

Here is a published solution by Mateo Doucet De Leon:

PICTURES AND AN UPDATE

Today’s pictures are of coins. A return to employment with James and Sons Auctioneers is on the horizon, although current circumstances make it impossible to predict when this will happen, but I have agreed to do some imaging from home in the meantime, and the first consignment of stock to be imaged arrived yesterday. The auction can be viewed here. Below are some of the lots I have already imaged…

1-p — I tried a photograph as well as the scan, but the scan is undeniably better.

A Massively Successful Auction

An account of yesterday’s splendidly successful auction.

INTRODUCTION

On Wednesday James and Sons had a small but very important auction featuring gold coins and proof sets. We were anticipating a very considerable success, because we knew that there were bids of sufficient size on every lot that everything would sell, and we also knew that some of the items had a very large number of watchers online (one had no fewer than 17). The rest of this post tells the story of a truly amazing auction.

TUESDAY – FINAL PREPARATIONS

In view of the high value of the gold the only items that were set out on display were as many of the proof sets as I could lay out on one large table. I also made sure that the IT was all fully functional, as the last thing we wanted was for a glitch to affect this auction. I was able to enjoy the NAS West Norfolk Steak Night at The Globe later that evening in the knowledge that all had gone as smoothly as it could have (I restricted myself to a modest two pints of Ringwood Fortyniner in view of the importance of the following day).

WEDNESDAY – A DAY OF TRIUMPHS

I awoke a few minutes before my alarm was due to go off (not uncommon with me – the alarm is more insurance policy than necessity) and left my flat precisely as intended at 6:45, ensuring that there was no chance of missing the bus. Arriving at the shop, I unlocked, deactivated the alarm, then relocked the door as in view of what was in the shop I did not want customers coming in while I was there on my own. I then began to set up for the day. The auctioneer arrived not very long after me, and I was able to complete the setup, verify that everything was working and take some photographs. Before nine o’clock customers started arriving, and by 9:30 it was standing room only in the shop, as no fewer than 16 potential room bidders were present, in addition to over 60 online bidders and not a few who had put commission bids in in advance of the sale.

P1190889 — The proof set display, with lot 135 front centre

P1190886 — One of the two significant coins from lot 139…

P1190888 — The setup before anyone else had arrived.

P1190892 — Potential room bidders (three pics)

: Lot 139 on the big screen.

THE AUCTION STARTS

The first five lots were 1974 Krugerrands which were expected to make approximately £800 each and did exactly that. Then came lot 6, the James II Guinea which was one of two items that had been the subject of a query the previous day as a result of which it had extra images above the regular image gallery for such an item. Estimated at £500-750 the interest it had attracted saw the final hammer price reach exactly £1,000.

The first three images constitute my regular image gallery for a single coin.

6-c — One of the questions asked about this coin related to the edge, and to help back up my own comments on the edge of this coin I took two photographs that between showed it in its entirety.

Lot 7 was a William III Half Guinea, which in relative terms fared even better since with an estimate of £300-500 it actually went for £900!

Lots 8 to 24 inclusive were half sovereigns, and all sold well, most going for around the £100 mark. Lots 25 to 90 incluisve were…

SOVEREIGNS FROM VICTORIA THROUGH ELIZABETH II

These we knew would sell respectably, because a major and long standing client whose job is to sell gold items had put in commission bids of £180 a time on the whole lot, confirming our auctioneers valuation was on the mark. Most of the sovereigns actually sold for more than that, £190 being a common figure and a few of them going to and in some cases beyond £200. Then came…

LOTS 91-5 – THE HUGE SUCCESSES

The first four of these lots were high value gold proof sets which we were expecting to be on or around the four figure mark. Actually, and barely believable they went for £1,600, £2,000, £2,000 and £1,600 respectively!!

Lot 95 was a sovereign in a gold mount with a gold chain and 8 1mm diamonds (in otherwords a very fancy necklace). Estimate at £300-400 it eventually sold for £550.

After these it was time for…

THE REGULAR PROOF SETS

Of course after what gone before the proof sets were a little bit “after the Lord Mayor’s show”, but there were still a handful of highlights to come.

LOTS 113 AND 114

These were respectively a Scottish and Welsh proof set (hence the split colouring of the heading) each expected to make £8-12. The Scottish set went for £20 and the Welsh for £18

These were a mere curtain raiser for…

LOT 121

A 1992 proof set featuring an EEC 50p coin the rarity of which turned a £10-15 estimate into a £50 hammer price!

The next big success was…

LOT 128

This 1999 proof set featuring a Diana Princess of Wales £5, a bimetallic rugby £2 and Scottish coins from £1 down to 1p had an estimate of £15-20 and ended up going for £32.

Then came two successive monster successes with…

LOTS 135 and 136

Lot 135, a 2009 proof set, featuring as it did the highly prized Kew Gardens 50p, the Henry VIII £5, and the Darwin and Burns £2 coins was estimated at £100-120 but ended up going for £220!

135-d — A close up of this one was mandatory.

135-e — I also deemed the Darwin £2 worthy of a close-up

Lot 136 was a 2010 proof set featuring a Restoration of the Monarchy £5 (350th anniversary thereof), A Florence Nightingale £2, a London £1 and a Girl Guiding 50p. Estimated at £20-25 it sold for £100!!

Not long later came…

LOT 139 – A BITTERSWEET IMAGER’S TRIUMPH

This London Underground 150th anniversary proof set had been badly misdescribed, with one of the £2 coins mentioned as featuring trains, and the roundel coin not even mentioned, but the imager’s efforts more than compensated for this. Estimated at £25-30 it attracted sufficient interest to push the final price up to £52 (and inter alia out of the imager’s reach, hence the heading of this section).

139-c — The ’roundel’ coin which is fairly rare.

139-b — The other London Underground 150th anniversary coin, which is much less rare.

That was the last of the yearly proof sets, but there were still a few lots to go, and two of them provided noteworthy results.

LOT 148 – A SENEGALESE STUNNER

This 1975 Senegal Triple Crown, solid sterling silver, Euroafrique 150 franc coin, boxed and with a certificate was estimated at £15-20, but a lively bidding battle pushed the final price up to £48.

Finally, came…

A STRONG FINISH

Lot 151, the final lot in this small sale, was an accumulation box containing a few good bits and some ordinary stuff. Estimated at £40-50 it ended up going for £95.

Once the auction setup had been dismantled and the last room bidders had gone it was time for me to attend to other matters. You can view a catalogue for the general collector’s auction we have next Wednesday here.

THURSDAY – PUTTING TOGETHER A PRESS RELEASE ABOUT THIS AUCTION

Yesterday morning I produced a PR piece about the success of this sale, going big on the images as well. I conclude this piece with a link and a screenshot:

GOLD COIN AUCTION GIVES FAKENHAM AUCTIONEER BEST RESULT IN YEARS

A Small Auction That Could Make Big Money

An overview of James and Sons’ upcoming Gold coin and proof set auction.

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons have just finished two militaria auctions, which both went fairly well, next Monday we have a general collector’s auction which contains some interesting lots, but the auction that will shape our August is coming up on the 22nd.

GOLD COINS AND PROOF SETS

We have been consigned a lifetime collection of gold coins and proof sets, and these are forming a very small (147 lots) but potentially immensely valuable auction. As well as some seriously big money items (five 1974 Krugerrands, a James II (or VII north of Hadrian’s wall) gold Guinea and a William III gold Guinea) we have a number of half-Sovereigns and Sovereigns (60 of these latter from the reigns of Victoria through to Elizabeth II, and simply because it is pure gold even a Sovereign that has no features to appeal to a collector will fetch somewhere in the vicinity of £180-200 depending on the exact price of gold on the day). A full catalogue listing can be accessed via the James and Sons website – it is the second auction to which there is a link – look for the image of the James II (VII) coin.

FROM THE IMAGE GALLERY

This section features the official press release, some of the more significant lots and a couple of proof sets that I have at least half an eye on.

Lot 130 (two images), one of the two that are in my sights…

130-a — …in its case because of the Trevithick £2)

Lot 139 – four images, the second lot that is in my sights)

139-a — These two coins celebrating the 150th anniversary of the opening London (and the world’s) first underground railway.

A Successful Day At Fakenham Racecourse

An account of yesterday’s auction at Fakenham Racecourse.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday James and Sons had an auction at Fakenham Racecourse, the first in 2018 to take place anywhere other than our shop in Fakenham, and the first at that venue with me in sole control of the IT side of things (the latter being a cause of some trepidation). The auctioneer and I had visited the racecourse the Friday before to establish that our IT setup (including the card terminal as part of the IT setup) would work there, and the auction lots and IT stuff were moved down to the racecourse on Tuesday.

GETTING THERE

I caught the 7:00 bus to Fakenham (the earliest, and my regular one on workdays anyway these days) and on what was already a warm sunny morning enjoyed the walk from Oak Street to the Racecourse (which is located not as its name suggests in Fakenham but just outside the adjoining village of Hempton), arriving at the venue at just before ten past eight. The auctioneer arrived a few minutes later and I was able to accomplish the IT setup before any viewers arrived. We had Croc’s providing catering at the event, and I took the opportunity in a quiet period to fortify myself with a bacon bap.

Mute Swans — Crossing the Wensum en route to the racecourse I spotted this pair of mute swans enjoying the sun.

Mute swans approaching the bridge — This bridge across the Wensum gives Bridge Street, Fakenham its name.

A BRIGHT START

For various reasons (to do with a combination of over-ambitious planning and an important member of staff being absent for a long period of time) this auction had some odd numbering of lots (it started at lot 741, and then there was a 50 lot gap between the end of the first section and the start of the coins at lot 901, then a massive gap after the last coin lot, no 1072 to the start of the Militaria at 1,466, then another major gap from the end of the militaria at lot 1,620 to the start of final segment at lot 1,920, with the last lot of the sale being lot 2,000), but although there was a range of almost 1,300 between the first and last lot number there were only 503 lots in the sale. We originally planned to take a short break at the end of the coin section before starting on the Militaria, but this as you will see changed part way through.

The first big success of the auction came at lot 747, three gold rings, which had been valued at £70-100 but ended up selling for £150…

Then lots 757 and 760, a ladies cigarette case and a ladies powder compact of similar styles, both esitmated at £30-40 went for £65 and £60 respectively, both to the same online bidder.

These however were a mere curtain-raiser for…

LOT 764 – A PHOTOGRAPHER’S TRIUMPH

There were indications that this elegant Mantle Clock, with a case carefully designed to show off its workings was going to do extraordinarily well, but we were all absolutely gobsmacked by what actually happened. The item had gone in with a modest valuation of £10-20, but I having noted the effort to which the makers of this clock had gone to put the workings on display created an image gallery for it which reflected this:

764 — The main image, showing the whole clock.

764-a — This metal plaque was obviously of some significance, hence a close-up photograph of that.

764-b — And since the makers had been so determined to make the workings visible I devoted no fewer than four photographs to ensuring that thsi was reflected in my online image gallery.

The opening bid was £310! Then, a bidding war between four internet bidders who all obviously saw something that eluded those who are not experts on clocks pushed this already barely credible looking price up to an eye-popping £750!!

Incidentally, just for the record, the valuer himself said that it was the photographs that did it for us, hence my title for this subsection. Here are some photographs of this item that I took during the break:

UP TO THE BREAK

After the events described above almost anything else was going to feel a little anticlimactic, but a few items fared well nevertheless. Lot 919, a forged 1791 farthing estimated at £5-10 ended up going for £35.

The other effect that the early excitement had was that we were progressing slower than normal, and in the end the auctioneer brought our midauction break forward to lot 1,000.

AFTER THE BREAK

We finished the coins, ending with lot 1072, which went to me for £4 (it is a small medallion, which I considered to be railwayana by association since it refers to Isambard Kingdom Brunel):

The Militaria section went pretty well, with most items selling, and two doing very well indeed:

1552 — With this lot of badges being sold as one I could not spare the time to provide close-ups of all the badges…

1552-a — …so I nselected a couple of what I considered to be good ones…

1552-b — …the lots had been valued at £100-200, but interest possibly stoked by my choice of close-ups, pushed the final price up to £300.

The other big success in this range was lot 1584, valued at £80-100 and going for £140.

The books fared poorly, although The Royal Liverpool Golf Club by Guy Farrar which I had given a deliberately cautious estimate of £15-20 fetched £55.

The auction over, all that was left was the clear up, which was done by 3PM. I had one worrying moment when it seemed that a problem was developing with the internet connection, but fortunately it never got serious.

On Saturday the action shifts to The Maids Head Hotel, Norwich and the focus to cigarette cards. A full caftalogue listing for that auction can be viewed here.

A Three Day Auction Extravaganza

An account of James and Sons’ April auction – very successful overall, and to my immense relief free of any technical issues.

INTRODUCTION

This week saw James and Sons’ April auction, a three day affair on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Overall it was very successful, with a couple of disappointments, but lots of sales.

DAY 1: SPORTING MEMORABILIA, BOOKS AND EPHEMERA

In order to avoid being rushed during the preliminaries I caught the first bus of the morning, and got to the shop at 7:10AM. I attended to an urgent query first thing, and then it was time to complete the IT setup. To my great relief there were no hitches at all, and everything was in working order. During this period the auctioneer also briefed me about the May auction, and what was required in terms of imaging a very large quantity of military badges. In view of this I decided that I would have to leave some of the railway photographs unimaged, although it was a necessity from an ethics point of view to image lots 1203-12 as I was intending to buy a couple from that range, and it would not do for there to be any suggestion of influencing things in my favour by not making images available to the public.

We got underway bang on schedule at 10AM, and while there were no headline making prices a decent quantity of the sporting memorabilia did sell. Then came some books, and a few big sales. Lot 260 had an estimate of £50-75 but vigorous internet bidding pushed the final price up to £220.

Lot 260 – old and rare, and a big hit (two images)

Willie Hoppe’s “Thirty Years of Billiards”, lot 279, was in with an estimate of £20-30, but caught the eyes of online bidders to such an extent that the final hammer price was £180!

Less dramatically, lot 282, Levi Riso’s “Billiards in a Lighter Vein” had an estimate of £15-20 and actually fetched £30.

Lot 302 had an estimate of £10-20 and went for £30.

Near the end of the first day lot 340, a curious little item, attracted no interest from anyone other than me:

Lot 340 – my first purchase of this auction.

After lunch I started work on the badges for the May auction.

DAY 2: COINS AND MILITARIA

Another early arrival, and another hitch-free preliminary before going live at 10AM. We had three coin buyers in the room, and some internet interest, so the coins sold well. Lots 475, 501 and 695 all went signifiantly above estimate, and most of of the other coin lots also found buyers.

We had a 15 minute break between the coins and the militaria, which kicked off in style with lot 700. Lots 704, 705, 711, 719, 727, 761, 802, 823, 824, 828, 830, 831, 832, 837, 838, 844, 846 and 847 all also went significantly over estimate, and almost none of it remained unsold.

Lot 700 (two images) – £470 hammer price

Lot 704 (four images) – est £100-200 actual hammer price £440!

Lot 705 (four images) est £60 – 80, actual £120

Lot 711 (two images) – estimate £15-20, actual price £55

Lot 719 0- estimate £35-40 – actual price £85.

719-a — This close up of the two rings was in response to a query.

Lot 802 – only just above top estimate, but the buyer was somebody to whom I had sent an image of the reverse of this badge in response to a late query.

Lot 823 – a holster with no gun – est £10-15, actual £28.

Lot 844 – These images (alo incl those for 846 and 847) were suppliued by the vendor, along with descriptions

DAY THREE: POSTCARDS AND RAILWAY POSTCARDS

I arrived early once again, did some badge imaging and then paid a visit to Tony’s Deli (Thursday is market day in Fakenham, and this food stall is excellent value for money). For the third straight day there were no hitches in the preliminary stage – although I was not especially happy about doing the official sound check at 9:57, not least because I already knew it was working. A couple of early postcard lots (856 and 857) achieved big prices, and most of the postcards found buyers.

The other notewaorthy postcard lot was 1047, which became my second purchase of the auction. I will at some stage be giving this lot a whole post to itself, but here are some pictures for the present:

ML ex 1047 — An old Metropolitan line train near Wembley.

NL ex 1047 — Abstract art featuring a Northern line train of 1959 stock

PL ex 1047 — A picture of one of the original ‘gated stock’ trains that ran services on what was then the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway – this scene would have taken place in 1906 or not long after.

The Railway Photographs did not attract any interest, although this was not helped by the fact that the auctioneer was hurrying through them. The only three to sell were all bought by me – lot 1071 (locomotive at Haworth), 1208 and 1209 (respectively arriving at and leaving Mallaig – for more on this journey go here):

1071 — The images available to the public (three per lot – nine in total).

1071h — And to finish, now that the items are bought an paid for, unwatermarked images taken at home (three in total)

1209h — The departure from Mallaig, with Skye visible in the background.

A few more badges imaged for the May auction, and I was able to make my last ever journey on a Stagecoach X29 (on Tuesday, when I return to work it will be on a Lynx Bus number 49, since squillionaire bus company Stagecoach have deemed their Norfolk services insufficiently profitable and bailed out on them),.

Imaging For a Three Day Auction

A heads up about James and Sons’ April auction – a monster three-day affair.

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons’ April Auction will be spread over three days – the 24th, 25th and 26th. I worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week so that we could get the catalogue to the printers and had enough images done to upload it to the-saleroom as well. Then, after some negotiation at the end of Wednesday I also went in yesterday to do another day’s imaging. In the rest of this post I will take you through some of the highlights of this monster sale.

DAY 1: SPORTING MEMORABILIA, EPHEMERA AND BOOKS

Lots 1-250 consists of sporting memorabilia of various types, including speedway, football, tennis and cricket. Here are a few highlights from that section:

Lot 208 – the signature on this scorecard is that of Zimbabwean fast bowler Heath Streak

Lot 92 – Some Tennis stills of recent vintage.

190-a — Lot 190 (two images). This was the first FA Cup final played at Wembley, just a fe weeks after the stadium was completed, and for the record Bolton Wanderers beat West Ham United to claim the silverware. This item will fetch in the high hundreds or possibly even into four figures.

Most of the books and other ephemera are fairly unremarkable, but here are a couple of highlights from that section:

DAY 2: COINS AND MILITARIA

Both these categories are already attracting attention. A few coin highlights:

464-a — A close-up of the big coin – it is not often that one sees a coin with a map on it.

Highlights from the militaria section:

716 — Lot 715 – this Naval Ensign flag is so huge that I had to spread it out on the floor of the shop and stand on a chair to get it all in shot.

716-a — The print on the edge of the flag

DAY 3: POSTCARDS AND RAILWAY PHOTOGRAPHS (PART 1 OF THE W A SHARMAN ARCHIVE)

I have imaged all of the postcards, but I am only about one-third of the way through the Railway photographs which will end this auction. Here are some highlights from the postcard section:

Lot 1040 – I have already answered one enquiry about this lot.

I have been imaging the railway photographs by using the scanner, at 400dpi. I image the photograph itself, the typed label on the reverse, and combine those to form the master image, and when I have a decent number of such images I watermark them so that unscrupulous operators cannot cheat us by printing out the images on photo quality paper. Here are some of the highlights from the watermarked images:

I finish with a couple of pictures which have extra features of interest:

Lot 1091 – a photographer’s pick – note the clever use of the arch to frame the approaching train.

A Tough Three Days

An account of a tough few days at work.

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons had auctions on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I was then back at work yesterday, doing various things. Also, as will be revealed in the course of this post something else came up after Tuesday’s auction.

TUESDAY

Tuesday’s auction was a specialist stamp sale, and what should have been a fairly quiet afternoon actually became the most stressful period of the week.

THE AUCTION

I have already posted a report on both these auctions on the James and Sons website. This auction did not feature any headline making sales, although quite a bit of stuff did sell. I am going to focus on just three lots, starting with…

LOTS 794 AND 795

In the run up to this auction I fielded a query about these lots, providing images to an interested party. It was this very person who subsequently bought both lots. Here are the images I produced.

LOT 966

This lot was one I had an eye on, and it was duly knocked down to me. I have lots of pictures of it, starting with the images I produced for public consumption, continuing with some images from during the auction the feature it and ending with the ones I took of it today.

Folder close-up — Displayed at the auction – next to it is lot 959.

Philately layout — The full display (most of the big albums were left upstairs)>

P1120460 — A close-up shot taken at the same time.

P1120466 — Lot 966 displayed on the big screen

SJI — Note the insert, which tells us what this cover is all about – this is the first of the images I took today.

AFTER THE FIRST AUCTION

Having consumed my sandwiches I sought to update our website and discovered that it had been suspended due to a malware attack. This necessitated getting it professionally cleaned, and also arranging for it to protected in future. An hour and a half of exchanges with technical support staff at sitelock, discussions with my employer about which of various options we would go for, and a considerable amount of stress later the matter was settled, and I was able to head home knowing that the matter was being dealt with. At about 6PM I got an email sent to my personal email address confirming that the clean-up was complete and that they were informing Host Gator, who would reactivate the website.

WEDNESDAY

In view of the information contained in the paragraph above it will be no surprise that I was determined to be at James and Sons early, and I managed to be on the 6:23AM bus, arriving in Fakenham not long after 7. A quick check up confirmed that the website was back up and running. It remained only for me to reset the password (one does not take chances when there has so recently been an issue of that nature) and do some editing. I then had plenty of time to help bring down auction lots for display and get the IT side of the auction up and running.

This sale went well overall (see here for more details). There was however one serious annoyance. There had been a confusion over lots in the range of 165-200 and I had had to remove a lot of images from the-saleroom, and renumber them and upload them again. The screengrab below, taken from the ATG Media toolbox shows conclusively that I had done this, but nevertheless, when we came to those lots on the day the wrong images were in place.

Here some images of the layout of this auction…

POST AUCTION

One I dismantled the IT stuff and replace it all where it belongs, and then consumed my sandwiches, as I was able to get some more work done, editing the website and also updating the company database with details of online bidders.

THURSDSAY

A quiet day, in which I completed the updating of our company database, started imaging for the end of April auctions and took some parcels to the Post Office. I now have the long weekend to recover from these three days, the first two of which were very draining.

Setting The Stage For Tomorrow And Monday

Setting out my stall for tomorrow and Monday, answering one problem and setting another. Also demonstrating the creation of a poster.

INTRODUCTION

Between work, an important meeting on Tuesday and editing photographs from last weekend I have not been able to put up any blog posts since Monday. This post will set out what is on the agenda for tomorrow and Monday, give a solution to one problem and set another.

UPCOMING

I have already produced two posts in my “Autism Events” series, which take that story up to the end of the Norwich event (see here and here), and covering Saturday’s event in London will certainly take two posts, possibly three. Additionally the photographs I have of the journey between King’s Cross and Uxbridge will form the backbone of a couple of posts (at least) on my London transport themed website.

A SOLUTION

In Midweek Medley III I posed the following problem:

Below is the answer and a published solution from brilliant.

A NEW PROBLEM

Another one from brilliant:

CREATING A RAILWAYANA POSTER

This is one of the tasks I had to perform at work this week. I actually produced two versions due to a dispute over which photograph to use as the official sample. The brief was to produce a poster that looked like the front cover of a catalogue, advertising the fact that part 1 of the W A Sharman collection of iconic steam locomotive photographs will be going under the hammer:

Dent Head Viaduct main — This was the choice of former railway worker Paul, one with which I am in full agreement…

Nicholas Nickleby main — …but auctioneer David liked this one, so I produced two versions of the poster. These images were obtained by scanning the original photographs at 600dpi.

SharmanSM1 — This is a screenshot of my preferred version.

Flyer 2 — I also produced flyers for Paul to use at an event he was attending.

Below are the links to the original word documents.

Sharman poster 1

Sharman poster 2

In Between Auctions

Brief mentions of last week’s auctions and a longer look ahead to the March auction.

INTRODUCTION

Last week James and Sons had two auctions, a small postcard auction on Tuesday and a much larger Postal History and Ephemera Auction on Wednesday. We are now moving towards completing the catalogue for an auction on March 28th which will feature a wide variety of stuff. We have snow around at present, which is provoking the usual British display of wimpiness about rough weather – I was supposed to be attending a meeting in Swaffham this morning but it has been cancelled due to concerns about the weather. This was the view out of my door at 8:30 yesterday morning as I set off to catch the bus to work.

The view is similar today.

THE POSTCARD AUCTION

With only 134 lots going under the hammer this sale was over and done with quickly. Most of the lots found buyers.

EPHEMERA AND POSTAL HISTORY

The centrepiece of this auction was a collection of the Ecclesiastical and Political Correspondence of the Rev J Marriott. The people currently in charge of the property he bought had got wind of this collection, which meant some big money sales, because they were determined to secure as much of it as they could to reunite it with his old home. Lot 18 on its own went for over £2,000:

The stock for this auction as displayed in the shop.

The original image of lot 18. It must have taken a lot of brass neck to produce this petition.

THE UPCOMING AUCTION

Our auction on March 28th will start with some sporting memorabilia, including a framed ticket for the 1923 FA Cup Final (the first to be played at Wembley, just three weeks after that stadium was completed). For the record Bolton Wanderers beat West Ham United to win that year’s FA Cup. I do not yet have a lot number for this item, but it will be early in the auction.

A standard price for a ticket from this fixture in this condition is in the region of £800.

We have some old fishing reels and som billiards stuff as well…

Lot 23 (two images, a sample of the fishing reels)

The billiards memorabilia begin at lot 44 with the first of two scoreboards

From lot 46-58 inclusive are cues, first four lots of large numbers of loose cues, and then individual cues in cases or bags, starting with lot 50 pictured here.

Then from lot 59 to 71 we have sets of balls – note that in billiards there are two cue balls, one of which is distinguished from the other by the presence of a black spot, and the only other ball used is one red one.

We also have some bygones, of which I will feature a few that particularly caught my eye while I was imaging them:

Lot 124 – the fiugurines are made of some sort of balck ceramic, and as the second image, a close-up of two them shows, they are of very good quality.

147-a — …that can be used to store trinkets.

Other categories featured include toys, crockery, and though I have not yet had any to image, stamps. Here are some toys and crockery…

Toys in a box that has been disguised to look like a book (lot 262)

265-a — Lots 264 and 265 occupy the next four images.

The next 12 images encompass lots 301-4.

SOME EXPERIMENTS IN WATERMARKING

We have a vast collection of railway photographs, taken with a Soviet-era camera which is also in our possession and will be going under the hammer. Obviously we need to identify our images of these pictures as just that – our images – in order to stop unscrupulous types from printing the pictures out for no more than the cost of ink and the appropriate paper. Hence, I have been looking into watermarking the online pictures. I am aiming at marking the pictures in a way that will not interfere with anyone viewing them, but will prevent anyone from cheating. Here is a sample of what I have arrived at us possibly the best solution:

The positioning of the watermark does not spoil the picture, but does prevent it from being removed, since cropping the image sufficiently to eliminate it most certainly does damage the picture.

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