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According to (cough) Wikipedia, Tommy Bahama was founded in 1993, or 1992 according to the employee’s handbook quoted by one editor. If it’s “a lifestyle of never leaving the beach” how come they’re selling ties? Do they make extra-long ties for the naturist beach? 🙂
It’ll play on an older Apple Mac, but you’re restricted as to the number of times you can change the region code. (that’s from maybe unreliable memory)
I was at the eye clinic a couple of days back, and had to sit through an entire episode of “Homes under the hammer”. One of the “homes” was a back-to-back house in Halifax.
Yeah, Glastonbury’s on in a couple of weeks. I gather when the festival ends, the site’s left with hundreds of abandoned ‘pop-up’ tents.
I sold a pair of frayed and faded swimming trunks a while back- it was the sewn-on proficiency badges that sold it. So I guess it might be worthwhile emphasising the badges (and maybe describing them as scout badges- I saw ‘BSA’ and assumed they were Birmingham Small Arms badges!)
On the other hand, maybe there’s some ‘vintage hiking groups’ out there… Those framed rucksacks always gave me earache though.
Not entirely relevant, but you may find this useful.
I listed a heavy piece of electronic test equipment (about 3 kilos or 7 pounds) on auction. Got 87 watchers and a couple of very interested bidders from Spain, one of whom won it. Turned out that the GSP was 15 GBP (about 22 USD) for insured airmail, for an item worth about 350 GBP.
There’s two pieces on this site which calls the pattern “Oriental Art Deco”.
(wild guess) Pot made for a Japanese or Japanese-style product or restaurant.
The symbols are vaguely reminiscent of Shinto (gateway), the handle looks Meiji era-style, the Porcelier company’s American and there’s a similar pot with similar symbols listed as “1930s Chinese restaurant” (link was via Google images to an aggregator site which failed to provide a direct link)
I once knew a naive artist. He made a number of oil paintings, and got a friend to photograph them. The prints were submitted to a gallery, who agreed to mount an exhibition.
Unfortunately the small size of the photos disguised the nature of the art, which was bleak and depressing. On opening night the invited guests huddled in the middle of the gallery, with their backs to the paintings, trying to avoid looking at the damn things.
After the exhibition closed the artist abandoned his art, left town and became a traffic warden in London. I dumped the paintings, except for one of a seagull flying over some grey sludge. Eventually that went in the bin as well.
I used my eBay moniker as the name for a Wikipedia account. I got caught up in a dispute between a deranged UK-based editor and an Alabama editor (as did several others). Crazy guy gets kicked off Wikipedia, takes his crusade to an anti-Wikipedia site, gets kicked off that for being offensive, and sets up a website specifically to attack the Alabama editor. Starts getting curious as to who I am, and also starts inviting prisoners in a jail near Manchester to contact him. At that point I finally realise that my eBay account has my home address, so I quickly change my eBay moniker before this effwit turns up on my doorstep with a bunch of thugs.
I learnt a lot about online expression of personality disorders from the thug life on Wikipedia.
The mention of garage clearouts reminded me of a possible business idea. A few years back there was a big drive by the UK government to get the attics of houses lagged with fibreglass insulation. A lot of houses had so much junk stored in the attic that it was impossible to lay the matting. Some drawbacks- stuff in the attic is usually covered with dust and grit, there’s usually no flooring so you have to step on the rafters, and the access hatch is often small and high up. I suppose in the US you also have to contend with rabid squirrels, raccoons and hoboes 🙂
Article from the Guardian- Grand Disasters.
Hi Amatino. I think the UV torch is used on artwork to find areas of restoration. I know it’s used on postage stamps to show up security features (on British stamps, “phosphor bars” AFAIR) If what appears to be a contiguous area of paint shows up to have areas that glow differently then it’s been repaired.
I look at framed pictures obliquely to see if there’s any raised areas of paint- i.e. the picture’s a painting and not a print. Another use if it’s a print of an oil painting, with impressed brush strokes- you can see that the “brush strokes” don’t line up with the image. Or, say, if you’re looking at a signature in pen or pencil and it looks flat then it could be a printed signature.
The teeth thing is apparently a way of detecting repairs to pottery- the dealers on the television say the texture feels like a bar of soap. Never done it- don’t really want to stand in a shop nibbling an old cup 🙂
I took a coin into a dealer’s a couple of weeks back to check if it was silver. He smelt it. His wife explained that he can smell silver…
Many years ago I was taken to an auction by my grandmother. She told me that the dealers sprinkled pepper on their coffee. So, even in those days of gas lamps and horse-drawn aeroplanes, dealers were easy to spot.
It’s actually quite easy to spot a dealer. They turn pottery and furniture upside down, look at the flyleaves of books, and browse at a much faster speed than anybody else. The hardcore ones carry UV torches and jeweller’s loupes, look at pictures from a very oblique angle, run their teeth over the edges of porcelain and sniff the metalware. The antique runners (ones who buy to sell to dealers) look like Columbo on a bad hair day.
Then there’s the would-be dealers and amateurs, who have a peeved expression on their faces and are clutching a mobile phone.
Went into a thrift shop yesterday to inquire about something they had in the window. Got to the counter, looked down and saw a large mechanical calculator. I said “Blimey!”, the lady serving said “Oh, we’ve waiting to get it priced; dealers pay quite a bit for that sort of thing.”
Only problem is, and it seems to be general, they knock about 10 to 20 per cent off a perceived retail price when marketing to resellers. Something’s listed on eBay (e.g. a guitar) for £80. The shop checks, and offers an example of the same model at £70, without taking into consideration the condition etc. (Rusty pickups, shop in the High Street, Ashby de la Zouch)
Oh, it’s green, yellow and red! Looked black on my monitor. The colours of Rastafarianism, which has a settlement in Shashamane Ethiopia since 1948. That’ll sell!
Used to be a Rasta house at the end of my street. The men wore long robes, carried long staffs and had their dreadlocks in two-foot high woolly hats.
