James and Sons March Auction

An account of James and Sons’ March auction with lots of photographs. Also a brief mention of the theme of my next blog post.

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons’ March auction took place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, with the first two days taking place at our premises on Norwich Street, while the third took place at Fakenham Racecourse.

DAY 1: LOTS 1-500

I arrived at the shop at 8:30AM, the setup was accomplished with no serious hitches, and the sale got underway at 10AM as planned. The first lots to go under the hammer were coins, and a few of them sold well, with a large internet presence making up for the fact that we had very few people bidding live. After coins came banknotes and related epehmera, including the first Traveller’s Cheques to feature in a James and Sons auction. Here are some pictures of lots in this part of the sale…

Lot 254 (two images – the first Travellers Cheque lot)

255-b — Lot 255 (six images, the other Travellers Cheque lot)

The remaining lots to go under the hammer on day 1 were cigarette cards, Liebig cards and match attack cards. None of these fared especially well. I therefore end this section with a picture of one lot that did sell and will feature in much more detail in my next post…

Lot 369 went to me. My next post on this blog will be about what I shall be referring as Autism Acceptance Month in preference to the older, less expressive and misappropriated (I won’t name the culprits, but if you want a clue think blue jigsaw pieces) Autism Awareness Month, and I shall display these pictures in the context of talking about special interests.

DAY 2: LOTS 501-950

This was in many ways the most stressful of the three days, because in addition to the middle part of the auction it featured the setup at the racecourse to enable people to preview the third day lots in advance. The auction part of the day was very quiet, although there was one brief moment of excitement around lot 696, a Chinese stamp for which I do not have an image (I rarely do stamps these days because they are easy to scan and my time is better spent doing the more difficult imaging).

After the auction part of the day finished I helped with the unloading of items of the racecourse to be set up for the morrow, took some close up photographs of a couple of items that were needed to enable me to answer last minute queries and walked back to the shop (it takes about 15 minutes from the Prince of Wales Suite, the part of the racecourse where we hold our auctions) to edit the images and answer the queries. I also got a small amount of April imaging done before closing time (having arrived early to ensure that I had time to do the IT setup, and given the day that I knew to lie in store for me on the morrow I was not going to burning midnight oil, and when the last of my shop based colleagues finished his day at 3PM and I had seen him out I called it a day myself. Here are some pictures of the lots I was answering 11th hour queries about…

DSCN5315 — The first five of these images relate to lot 1142.

DSCN5320 — The remaining images relates to lot 1117 – a gun stock without the barrel which would have been stored inside it. Both these items sold for good money in the end.

DAY THREE: LOTS 951-1560

In view of the fact that the catalogue advertised viewing at the racecourse from 8AM I decided to get the first bus of the morning to Fakenham, which leaves King’s Lynn at 6:28AM. I was therefore outside the Prince of Wales Suite at about 7:30AM, and had to wait for someone else to arrive with a key to open it up. Still, while waiting I did get this picture:

With the setup accomplished, and knowing that all was working properly I could get some pictures from the venue (the first had actually been taken the day before):

The books at the near end of this shot did exactly as expected (those familiar with my opinions ion the subject of books at auction will have no difficulty working that one out).

Sadly this sledge failed to sell, largely because at the last moment the vendor put a reserve of £55 on it.

After a fairly quiet start to the day the militaria sold well and the toys/ collectors models also fared well. As on the first two days it was the online bidders (who by the end of the auction numbered some 350) who were responsible for most of the action. The auction finished, it remained to dismantle the sale, load the goods up and transport them back to the shop. This was accomplished just quick enough for me to get the 3:35 bus home. The third day more than made up for the comparative quietness of the first two. James and Sons next auction is on April 24, 25 and 26, with all three days happening at our shop on Norwich Street. Here are a few final pictures to conclude.

951 — This was the first lot under the hammer on day 3.

1110 — This lot was the subject of query that led to the taking of a number of extra images (the sale price justified the extra work many times over)

1301 — This was the first of toy/ collector’s model lots.

1458 — This little thing did not make big money (I will be collecting it and paying for both lots that I won when I go back to work on Tuesday).

James and Sons November Auction

An account of James and Sons’ November auction

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons’ November auction took place yesterday at the Long Bar, Fakenham Racecourse. This post covers both yesterday and the aftermath today.

THE PRELIMINARIES

The setup was accopmplished on Tuesday, with more than a few hints of trouble ahead (see here for more details). There was a heavy frost in evidence when I set forth to catch the 6:28 bus to Fakenham (now that they have reduced the number of morning bus services I cannot get in early enough on an auction day on any other bus). The bus left on time, but only made it as far as Littleport Street (its first outward bound stop if anyone is there) before breaking down. The replacement bus took longer to arrive than it should have, given that the depot is only couple of miles away. This bus did make it to Fakenham, arriving at approximately 7:30, although it had no heating. The Long Bar is, for all its grand title, a wooden hut, and the heater would not work at first. When we did get it to work it pumped out smoke.

The IT setup did work however, and the auction started promptly.

dscn7682 — As well as posters and prints there are jockey’s silks on display at the Long Bar

THE AUCTION ITSELF

The auction started with coins, which fared very well. The coins were followed by banknotes, which sold phenomenally well. Then came the militaria, which was good in parts. After that came some aviation postcards. Lots 350-377 were toys, first toy cars, starting with the ‘Goldfinger’ Aston Martin DB5 in mint condition, and progressing through more toy cars, Hornby, Triang and a few dolls. After that we were into collector’s models – a few boxes of lead soldiers and a large quantity of model aeroplanes, which appropriately enough went sky high.

The stamp lots were patchy, and apart from a few bits of jewellery very little after lot 550 did anything of note, partly because the auctioneer was hurrying through things by that stage. A box of interesting beer mats went to me for £9.

Once the auction was concluded I was able to consume my sandwiches before helping with the clear up. I managed to get the 16:37 bus back, and this time I arrived in King’s Lynn in the same bus I had left Fakenham in! The only problem was the early evening traffic in Lynn (basically from Gaywood to King’s Lynn town centre was gridlocked).

TODAY

My only involvement with the aftermath of the auction was helping to unload to van – while three of my colleagues attended to the invoicing I was imaging some bulky stamp and cigarette card lots for our next auction on December 14, and in the process rendering the kitchen area navigable.

This was lot 268 – the last lot I imaged today.

Lot 478 – can you spot the ‘jewel in the dungheap’?

James and Sons July Auction

An account of yesterday’s auction, complete with photos, a link to a book review and a (well-merited) swipe at Stagecoach.

INTRODUCTION

This is my account of the latest auction held by my employers, James and Sons, which took place yesterday at the Maid’s Head Hotel in Norwich.

THE JOURNEY IN

Stagecoach, who have subsumed Norfolk Green, have very recently and without anything approaching proper communication cut a large number of services. One casualty of this piece of axe wielding is the 6:10 AM from King’s Lynn to Fakenham, which used to become the 6:55 from Fakenham to Norwich, and would see me arrive at the venue around about 8am, as needed. Fortunately, having been alerted to the mayhem while at work on Tuesday I had the foresight to check the timetables posted at King’s Lynn Bus Station and was able to come up with a back-up plan – I bought a single ticket on the X1 to Dereham and Norwich which is run by First Eastern Counties, departing at 5:55am and was in Norwich at the appointed time. This single fare and the single fare back from Fakenham (having travelled from Norwich to Fakenham as a passenger in the company van) amounted to £10 between them (£6 and £4 respectively) instead of £5.50 for a Dayrider Plus, to say nothing of the uncertainty created by the ham-fisted way in which these cuts were made. Surely if significant cuts to services are to be made (and I consider cutting what was the first bus of the morning on a particular route to be significant on its own – and I also know that half of the services that used to run between Fakenham and Norwich have been axed) the announcement should be made long in advance of the cuts happening, and every bus travelling on an affected route should be well stocked with new timetables that accurately reflect the planned reduction in services. Also, especially given the parlous state of public transport services in Norfolk, I consider any cuts to be unacceptable in any case.

THE LAYOUT

With people arriving to view stuff not long after we had got there, there was not a lot of scope laying stuff out artistically, especially given how much of it there was, but a couple of areas were reasonably well done nevertheless…

DSCN8067 — Part of the toy display – inside that suitcase marked is lot 363 was a large collection of items of rolling stock.

Part of the toy display – inside that suitcase marked is lot 363 was a large collection of items of rolling stock.

DSCN8068 — A little cluttered, but at least the three smartest hats got due prominence.

THE SALE ITSELF

I am glad to be able to report that there were no IT issues at any stage of the sale. While the coins & tokens, some of the militaria and some of the ephemera sold well, the stamps did not go well, and the vinyls did less well than we would have liked.

Once the auction finished we picked out all the stuff that had sold to bidders not in the room, loaded the van up for the return journey and were able to head back. I was able to catch the 17:38 rather than have the dicey prospect of relying on the 18:35 not having been cut (if they can cut the first bus of the day, why not the last?). However, I was not yet at liberty to relax – there was still the matter of watering a few plants at Hampton Court, Nelson Street. Thus, it was almost exactly 14 hours after I had left my flat that my time was my own again.

MY ROLE AND LOT 450

There are two members of James and Sons staff who can manage the IT during the auction, so we swap duties during the day (auction days are the only time I regularly do front-line customer service). My colleague did an IT session between lots 200 and 300, at which point we had a scheduled break. I then did the first 75 lots after the break, before swapping for 100 lots or so, for a period when a few things I was interested in were coming up, before I then went back to IT duties until the end of the sale.

The first items that I was interested in were five sets of railway postcards, lots 391-5:

These as expected went beyond my possible price range. Next to command attention was lot 403, a book of views of Cambridge:

Again, to no great surprise this rapidly went beyond my price range.

The next items of interest were some antique maps, which I was fully aware I would not be able to afford but enjoyed seeing go under the hammer. This set the stage for the last lot to command my interest, and unlike any of the foregoing it was one that I was determined to get if at all possible. Lot 450, “The Bus We Loved: London’s Affair With the Routemaster”, was not an item that I as someone who runs a London transport themed website could happily countenance going elsewhere. There was a mini bidding war as someone else was also interested, but when I went to £10 that secured the item. For more about the book please visit my review of it that is on my website.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

Yesterday was a very demanding day, both physically and mentally. However, everything went fairly smoothly. Given the Stagecoach schemozzle referred to earlier, the travel element of the day was as good as I could have hoped for.

A Selection of Images

After my last post was pure text I suppose you c ould describes this one as compensating for the photographic deficit!

INTRODUCTION

As well as items that feature in James and Sons July Auction I have some pictures taken in my own time to share.

AUCTION LOTS

The images here are some of those I have produced since Thursday…

Now for some…

NON-AUCTION PICS

SNAILS

These snails were brought out by early monring rain yesterday.

Moving on to a rather more garecful creature beginning with s…

SWALLOW

These three pictures all come from the same original shot, edited differently. Swallows like flying low over the Nar outfall, although they still fly very fast, hence this being my first successful shot of one.

A MIXED BAG TO FINISH

DSCN6943 — The first of five pictures from the Five Greatest Warriors (Matthew Reilly) to appear here – this is Genghis Khan’s shield, depiciting the six temple shrines wherein a pillar has to be placed – by the time West gains possession of this item two of the pillars have been successfully placed.

DSCN6944 — Descriptions of all six vertices in the Word of Thoth, a language comprehensible only to the Siwan oracles

DSCN6915 — The first of two decorative plates in the window of the Salvation Army shop.

DSCN6970 — A bee – we need more of these!

Rapid Progress on the July Auction

An account of today’s imaging, largely told by way of pictures.

INTRODUCTION

James and Sons’ July auction is progressing rapidly. A wide variety of items came my way for imaging.

A BIT OF EVERYTHING

Here are some of the highlights from today’s imaging…

Aftewr today there are only a couple of coin lots l;eft top be filled in this auction. This by the way is lot 1.

A very old coin indeed (cannot make out a date but it is either 12th or 13th century)

Not quite so old – dates from Elizabeth I

136 — A parvenu – a sprightly 127 years old

255 — Two suitcases full of masonic regalia.

352 — The red train is damaged, the black not so – the canopy over the cab is supposed to be removable since…

352-a — …the driver and fireman cannot be seen when it is on.

COINS, TOYS, MILITARIA AND A FEW LINKS

Some of the highlights from the early lots in the July auction, and a few good links.

INTRODUCTION

Although the links I shall be sharing have nothing in common with the main part of this post, which is about the start of imaging for James and Sons July auction, there are not enough of them to justify a post all to themselves, so I am tacking them on.

THURSDAY: COINS

On Thursday the imaging I was doing was all of coin lots…

Lot 60, the lowest numbered lot that I imaged on Thursday (I scanned these lots at high resolution, a number of lots at a time – scan each face, and bolt together to make the main image…

60-a — …while keeping the individual images to enable viewers to see them in closer focus.

108 — These ‘cartwheel pennies’ were produced only in 1797, because it was discovered that the amount of copper in them was worth more than the face value of the coin. They were therefore removed from circulation, which had the effect of causing a coin shortage.

FRIDAY

Yesterday’s imaging was more varied, featuring a few more coin lots, toys and some militaria…

This is lot 151, and will start the militaria section – the four sets of medals that I arrnaged around the commemorative plaque were awarded to four brothers who served together.

151-a — The first of five close-ups of parts of the whole.

LINKS

First of all, a link to an excellent in=depth piece about the murder of Jo Cox, written by kittysjones.

Then a link to two excellent letters in the Guardian about the Baker Small scandal – the first has among its signatories Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society.

My two remaining links are both from weownit, one being to a petition against a plan by the government to ban councils from setting up bus companies to run their own services, and the other to some more detailed information as to why publicly owned buses would be an improvement.

Imaging

A brief and mainly, indeed almost entirely, pictorial account of my day at work.

INTRODCUTION

Today we were getting the catalogue for the auction on June 29th ready to go to the printers, which meant a lot of imaging for me.

A WIDE RANGE OF IMAGES

My days imaging started with some cigarette/ trade card lots…

These look like old coins but they are actually well disguised cigarette cards based on those coins.

Next up came some left over coin and stamp lots…

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

Then there were a few small flags…

Then came 28 vinyl records, some of which are likely to fetch serious money…

Lot 751, first of the records in this sale

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

Although I restricted myself to showing 10 of the 28 records this one had to be included.

Lot 778, the last of the records.

Once the records were done, there was a stereograph and some accompanying slides, which occupied 20 odd lots between them…

The Stereograph

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

When viewed through the stereograph you get a single picture in 3D

The stereograph was followed by a handful of toys…

The last items of the day were two highly decorated, framed title pages of atlases, for which I provide complete image galleries, all as individual images…

Two Days of Imaging

Some highlights from yesterday and today at work.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday and today were both work days for me, and I stayed overnight in Norwich as I was attending an evening meeting in that fine city. I will not be covering said meeting in this post as I plan to write about it and about tomorrow’s protest against the possible closure of the Fermoy Unit in detail in another post. All my images today are presented as ’tiled mosaics’ – to view an individual image at full size click on it.

THURSDAY

Thursday was all imaging for the May auction. I finished the militaria imaging before moving on to some other stuff. Here a few highlights from these lots…

After the militaria I dealt with the coin lots that were unsuitable for being scanned…

These last two lots (three images each) are ex-coins that have been turned into jewellery.

There was then a mixture of items to finish the day…

Lot 275

Lot 392

Lot 397 – an item of local interest.

FRIDAY

Some of the last lots in the April auction (this Wednesday in Norwich) were located, and there was some interesting stuff for the May auction to image as well. I start with some of those April lots…

This scrapbook is lot 714 – it has some Norfolk interest because the girl who assembled it back in the Victorian age lived in Trunch.

Lot 730 – four very miniature books in a plastic case

Lot 726 (two images for this one)

Lot 717 – an interesting old picture. One of Susanna Gregory’s Chaloner novels features London Bridge, and Edward Marston’s Elizabethan book-holder Nick Bracewell almost certainly finds himself on this birdge at some stage in his adventures.

Lot 725

Now for some of the lots for the May auction that I imaged today…

Imaging For a Catalogue Cover

The pick of my recent images for James and Sons.

INTRODUCTION

This post is about today at work. There was a lot of imaging to do for the cover of our March catalogue (auction takes place at Fakenham Racecourse on the 30th and 31st March), also a van to be loaded up with stuff for tomorrow’s auction, and I also got a few other lots imaged.

THE COVER IMAGES

The images for the cover of this catalogue spanned a great range of items, some of which I had already imaged but most of which needed doing today. The early lots to feature are 83, 110, 124 and 135, one a framed photograph and the other three military items…

124-c — The naming on the rim of lot 124

Next we come to a selection of…

SMALL COINS

These coins, the first of which is lot 209 and the last 269, we done using the scanner at high resolution – and for safety I did both faces of each coin and assembled composite images.

We next have three items of ephemera, nos 301, 311 and 359:

We then come to four images of…

SPEEDWAY MEMORABILIA

Ex422 — A second image of the extract from 422

The last of the new images needed for the front cover were of…

A TOY, SOME PROOF COINS AND A JAPANESE MEDAL

The toy is lot 562, and I was particularly pleased by this choice for reasons that will be instantly obvious to anyone familiar with this blog! The Japanese medal is lot 686, part of small run of militaria in among the proof coins, of which lots 665 and 728 were also to feature on the cover.

I was particularly pleased that this toy (lot 562) was chosen to feature in our catalogue!

The full gallery for lot 665 starts here (six images total)

A HANDFUL OF GENERAL IMAGES TO END

The non-cover images I did today were less special, but a few are worth sharing:

390 — An MCC tobacco pouch? Yes – at one time smokers versus non-smokers was a regular fixture.

James and Sons: Auction and Aftermath

An account of James and Sons’ July Auction and its aftermath, with plenty of pictures. Also a mention of a Calendar being sold by The Art of Autism.

INTRODUCTION

This post, with one exception, deals exclusively with yesterday and todat at James and Sons. The exception which I shall deal with now is a link that will be appearing again in this blog. The Art of Autism are selling 2016 calendars for $12 each. If this takes your fancy, more detail is available in their post announcing the offer. I will be doing a more substantial blog post later.

A picture to show you why as well as wishing to support the activity I am genuinely enthused by this calendar.

YESTERDAY: THE AUCTION ITSELF

Being in Norwich, the auction necessitated a seriously early start (certainly ridiculous o’clock, possibly even qualifying as ludicrous o’clock), but being a fairly small auction it finished reasonably early, and I was home only twelve and a half hours after having set off (for a Norwich auction that is not too bad).

There were some spectacular triumphs, some flops and lots of middle of the road sales. Old football programmes fared well, one which was not expected to get more than £10 going for £28. Overall, it was a successful sale, and here are some pictures from yesterday…

This little display section was organised by me

Not an auction pic, buth I just had to include the rainbow flag fluttering from Norwich Castle.

A close up shot with the cover of the display case removed.

The obsidian arrowheads found a good home!

DSCN9778 DSCN9776 DSCN9775 DSCN9773 DSCN9772

Reoghrnasing these display boxes to better effect.

The whole auction in all it's glory — The whole auction in all it’s glory

TODAY

Most of my day at work today was taken up with making sure I had full and accurate records of all the people who had registered bid online via the-saleroom but I did also get some work done on the August sale, imaging a couple of new lots and locating images in our archive of items that were being given another chance to sell…

195 349

These Pevsner's are in impeccable condition - let's hope it is second tiem lucky for them. — These Pevsner’s are in impeccable condition – let’s hope it is second tiem lucky for them.

552 561 564

AFTERWORD

Sharing is a running theme of this blog, and I hope that some of you have enjoyed this post enough to share it with others.

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