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That’s good!
I’ve been helping a friend deal with her diesel-powered VW Golf. The damn thing would go into limp-home mode, which turned out to be the exhaust gas recirculation unit. This costs around a thousand dollars to replace, ‘cos it’s lurking in the deep just like a U-boat, and requires a team of navvies to get it out. It’s a lump of aluminiun acting as a cooler, with a small electronic sensor on one end. The sensor gets choked by soot unless you give the car a 45-minute run at motorway speeds every week.
The solution (apparently) is to find a backstreet mechanic to disconnect it. Then you enter a legal gray area, which is kind of typical for Britain. There’s also a diesel particulate filter, which is definitely a no-no to tamper with. I guess to get your coal rolling that has to be removed, and then you’d have to adjust the combustion so you’d get black partly-burnt exhaust, and not white smoke like you’d just announced a cardinal decision.
Thankfully I’m tall – this layout SUCKS for short people.
There’s an old 19th century term, ‘skied’. It’s where an artist finds that their painting’s been hung near the ceiling in an exhibition because the hanging committee hate it. Happens so often with art in thrift shops that I sometimes think I should carry a pair of binoculars.
Three tins of vintage buttons- you all know what that means! Incessant categorisation.
Probably eBay’s twitchy about anything to do with vehicle emissions since Dieselgate.
I’ve done a little browsing with the Merchat AI search tool. One thing that did strike me is that plain white backgrounds make the item stand out. I looked at Moorcroft pottery vases- for example there’s a nice vintage vase but it’s photographed in front of some white vitreous tiles, as if the seller uses a public lavatory to stage their photos. Well, that’s halfway there…
Next step, AI trains the sellers.
Is the IKEA cafeteria in Derbyshire area as delicious as the one in my beloved Newark, NJ IKEA?
Don’t know, the cafeteria’s halfway through the maze, we didn’t stop! Left to my own devices I walk in through the exit and go straight to the junk part, but my friend’s an IKEA enthusiast, so I get the tour! Followed by a double hotdog as a reward.
I recommend a tour round an overstuffed antiques centre to give yourself the motivation to tackle your death piles. Try and find something you want to buy, at a decent price. First your eyes start hurting, because there’s so much stock. Then you realise that there’s so much stock because the prices are too high or the stock’s boring, ugly or fake.
Did that on Wednesday at Heanor, Derbyshire. Came home with a small bag of vintage Sylko cotton reels. The IKEA store nearby has started putting up signs in the local dialect- ‘Wottyer gerrin Duck?“- so I guess this trend of localisation will be extended to the product names.
Pilacrap bookcase. Yomukkibogga mop and bucket.
Just now picked up a Bordallo Pinheiro Portugal plate for £2. Normally I’d ignore Portuguese pottery, but I found out this week that these can fetch big bucks! Vine leaf pattern in a mustard yellow.
I’m impressed by the AI search facility and the display of similar items. The AI item text is still horrible 🙂
This beautiful wooden rocking chair is the perfect addition to any home. Crafted from high-quality wood, this chair is not only durable
buyers have 72 hours to return the item for any reason for free
Apparently Mercari failed in Britain within two years in part because they allowed buyers to be refunded and keep the item if the buyer declared it was ‘fake’. The British operation was run by Japanese staff, who assumed that it would operate as it did in Japan, where scams are rare.
Also, loading fees onto the buyer post-purchase probably wouldn’t work in the UK or Europe, where legislation makes brick-and-mortar shops show the plus-VAT price on shelves. Online, both prices are shown where there’s B2B sales.
The style of the eyes seems pretty distinctive. Says “USA” on the base, and the wood is some kind of open-pored type.
Well, that was interesting! Half the cards had creases so I guess it was someone’s personal childhood collection. Also the cards were starting to offset print on the glass.
I bought a set of the British version of the A&BC Civil War News bubblegum cards at the junk market for £20. They’re in four double-glazed frames which must have cost a couple of hundred pounds from the framer. Not the kind of wall decoration I’d choose!
