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If the base is somewhat thick (can’t tell from the photo) it could be a small mortar. Might be bronze if it is. The dolphin handles look a bit 19th century (Victorian) and the stamped numbers definitely look modernish. The head looks like a woman’s, like you get on a cameo, with a Roman nose (apparently you can get a rough idea of the age of a cameo from the schnozzle- modern noses are pert!).
As for the dried Brasso- maybe warm water and a toothbrush. Damn stuff has a habit of disappearing when wet and re-appearing later. Think the crusty residue is some kind of silica, not affected by acids or alkalis.
Seems to be wearing a crown, looks male, looks mad, therefore must be King George III. He suffered from porphyria, which makes you mad and purple- note that the figure’s got purple arms. 🙂
I think the artist was Norman Saunders; apparently he’s most well-known for a series called “Mars Attacks!”. Had to find out after looking at card 73 “Through the swamp, Grey Embers GA” featuring a Union soldier spearing an alligator. Is the Battle of Grey Embers featured in Ken Burns’ documentary? 😉
I have a problem with giving feedback to buyers. I just use a generic “Many thanks!!!”, which seems somehow ungrateful, but anything else just seems a bit pompous. Or something. “Yeah, I listed this for £25 and you offered £10 but because I found it in a dustbin with a rat chewing on it and it’s just cluttering up my place and giving me diseases I accepted your measly offer and Many Thanks!!!”
Greg- these are them (warning! graphic images). First issued in the US in 1962 by Topps. Seem to go for between £50 and £80 now for a UK set from 1965 (without banknotes).
Brought back memories of the bubble gum I bought as a kid; cards showing scenes from the American Civil War (soldiers getting impaled on sharpened tree trunks, and sailors burning to death on sinking ships- that sort of thing), Came with reproduction Confederate money. Think it got banned pretty quickly- I’m not going to go looking! Nor do I want to chew a big flat pink square of some rubbery stuff ever again. Damn, I can still remember the taste and texture.
I scored 8 ‘Coronation 1936’ forks a few weeks ago; can’t remember how I identified them but there must be another site with some more patterns. The silver plate came up nice after a bath in hot washing soda and aluminium foil. Now all I’ve got to do is sell them! The hard part…
They might have white lead or red lead paint as primer or undercoat. Red lead used to be a common primer for steel and iron; don’t know about brass- whatever paint was used might have reacted with the copper or zinc. Maybe strip one and find out what state the surface is in
What I didn’t know about Dysons, until I stripped down and rebuilt a couple, is that they start to clog up if the load line is exceeded. The cyclones acquire a skin of dust. They’re pretty easy to maintain. However (from online forums) it appears that Henrys are preferred in the UK. Probably explains why I’m always seeing dumped Dysons, but never a Henry.
I rent half a cabinet in an antique shop. I have a total “floor space” of three 12 inch by 12 inch shelves for which I pay £22.50 a calendar month. If there’s space the owners will display larger items elsewhere in the shop (e.g. the window) or keep them in the back room for dealers calling in.
I “guesstimate” the takings in total of the shop to be around £500 a day (this is a very rough guess- I get told on occasion how they’re doing). This isn’t an “antique mall” but part of a 14th century barn which is part of a complex of outbuildings converted into small shops, the whole owned by the lord of the manor, who lives in the hall next door. So there’s some inertia in upgrading facilities (because of historic buildings etc.) Think “quaint”!
Stuff that sells- mmm… dunno! I probably take about £75 a calendar month. It’s almost akin to gambling, with most of the sales low-quid stuff (that’s the UK equivalent of low-dollar) and the occasional big hit. The big hits being in the region of £20 to £30.
My takeaway from this (and this is not what I’m doing, since I can only get to the shop twice a month)- rotate and refresh the stock as often as you can. You’re selling to people who don’t know nothing about antiques, and to dealers who are looking for “cheap”, so it’s a good place to get rid of stock that’s got flaws- you’re not going to get returns or negative feedback, and you don’t have to pack the stuff. Also the people who are actually doing the selling are the store owners (or their staff) so you’re at their mercy.
Be careful cleaning if it is a collotype (and there does seem to be instances of Marsh being published in collotype back in the 1940s). Bought one last week (for a quid), an old photo of Cologne. The ink is “rich” but lies on the surface of the paper.
Re packing- beware of giving your buyer “packing rage”. I listed a ‘Tramp Art” picture frame, packed it carefully in hopes of getting a sale. No-one bit so I decided to consign it to a local auction. Took me a quarter of an hour to unwrap it; I was so enraged that I gave myself negative feedback.
I had a number of magazines listed under the wrong name. Sold three (one to a large library in London) when I got a message that they weren’t the “British Journal of Photography” but the “Royal Photographic Society Journal”. Well in my defence it says “Journal” in big letters and it’s about photography… Unfortunately I’d just sold one before the message came in, so I’m going to post it and tell the guy if it’s the BJP he wanted I’ll refund him and he can keep the mag.
I did have a magazine returned recently. Return reason- “Didn’t like it. Was expecting to learn about embroidery.” Buyer managed to select one of a series of magazines about the art of embroidery, with the contents page scanned, so basically they picked one at random and thought it’ld have something about how to push a needle through cloth.
Since I have “seller pays return postage” I ended up paying something like 4 GBP for the disgruntled customer to return it in the original envelope, unsealed. Learnt my lesson there- tell ’em to chuck it in the recycling instead.
The middle kanji is similar to, but not identical to, “spirit” (some difference in the ‘asterisk’ at the bottom left). So “year spirit water”? Maybe it’s a bad translation from Korean to Japanese 🙂
Back in the 1980s I found an Everards beer mat in a bar I was sweeping. About 2002 I put the beer mat on auction on eBay, starting at 99p. After a couple of days I checked, and found it had been bid up to £90. Got a message from one of the bidders, saying it was a rare pre-war beer mat and that he confidently expected it to go higher. It sold for £220.
Really thick cardboard, if you were wondering 🙂 I suspect the enthusiasm was something to do with the real ale revival at that time- sold a load of pump clips from a skip then, and I doubt now whether they would sell as well.
