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:

1. The success of the March 30th and 31st auction, with large numbers of internet bidders, and…
2. Advertising the April auction, complete with a link to the online catalogue listing.

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.

INTERNET INTEREST SPARKS JAMES AUCTION SUCCESS

SOME LATE ARRIVALS

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!

A COUPLE OF LINKS

First up, courtesy of WEIT comes a horror story about a secular blogger being hacked to death in Bangladesh.

Finally, to end this post on an upbeat note, a story from the New Statesman by way of Prides Purge about 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!)