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Using the Wiki table and Google translate, it gave “Ethiominimian” (don’t know how I came up with “fitejoni”!) Anyway, the first part [ኢትዮሚ] is “Ethioc” (checked against Ethiomedia’s name on their web page) as in ‘being Ethiopian’. No idea about the second part- Google suggests “Kenyan”.
First part says “Fitejomi” according to the chart on the Wiki page. It appears Ge’ez script is a way of writing Amharic. At least you know how old the scarf is!
The script’s probably Amharic, though the colours aren’t in the flags of Eritrea or Ethiopia.
Marks like the black marker on page edges are put on remaindered books (presumably by the distributor). I suppose someone runs a marker down the edge of a pallet of books. Sometimes there are holes or nicks in the book. Another thing is “price-clipped”- the dust jacket’s had the price removed from the front inside corner.
Yes, but the stock’s a bit pricy! And (apart from the books) mediocre. Good line in secondhand wedding dresses though (apparently). Room upstairs with about 50 dresses, donated by a Mr. Bluebeard.
If I want something I have to get someone else to price it, and then the purchase gets logged next to my name. Last thing I bought was a wooden box that had been languishing in the storeroom for a couple of years. The pricing got delegated to the assistant manager- took him a couple of weeks to come up with a price of £25 (had a name plaque on it). There’s actually very little staff purchasing- I kind of have a feeling of fairness towards any resellers or collectors that’d come in the shop and I suspect the others do. I’m at the receiving end on a Saturday, when I go to a flea market in Nottingham, and the vendor starts telling me “That shouldn’t be there -[so-and-so] should have picked it out”. Well, sack ’em and employ me instead:)
The mental and physical benefits are good. I get a constant reminder of what a death pile looks like, and I have to physically move half a ton of books to make room for me to work! The drawback is that the sales process is clogged. The manager’s aware that I sell stuff online, and they have accounts to do so, but there’s no room or time in the shop to make a go of it. Hence there’s probably a couple of hundred old books up on the shelves just sitting there. And shelves of board games and pottery that should really be taken to a car boot sale.
I do a couple of shifts as a volunteer in a thrift shop, sorting and pricing books. Today’s pile was about 20 sacks of books, each weighing about 50 pounds.I can use a barcode scanner, connected to a computer, inputting to Amazon and Abe, but I only do that for a few books.
The books I dump include hardback fiction, trade paperback fiction, autobiographies by nonentities, some diet books, out-of-date cookery books unless they involve Jello and Spam, technical books in which the field has progressed significantly since the book was published (e.g. computing) and Guinness Book of Records/Ripley’s/annuals of any sort.
Scanning can give a rough idea of desirability- most books turn out to be between 1 penny (or cent) to a couple of quid (or dollars). It being a shop, the stuff gets priced at 1.99, 2.99 or 3.99. I try not to put the sticker over the barcode 🙂
I (kind of) gave up on .99, since a lot of my meagre sales are to overseas buyers, and I feel that it just confuses them. Maybe the decimal point versus comma thing would also have an effect.
You could have fun, though. Price Islamic items at 7.86, Chinese items at 8.88 and (insert your choice here) at 6.66!
Listened to it, and it kind of explains why if I sign in at home I usually don’t have to do a Captcha, because there’s a Gmail account signed in on the computer. Elsewhere I spend up to two minutes clicking away.
Good luck with it, Sharyn! I had a brass candelabra with dried-on polish. Used soaking, scrubbing, vinegar, caustic soda, ultrasonic cleaner, dental pick, Barkeeper’s Friend, Vim, Toilet Duck, Brasso. I learned something… 🙂
“Steampunk dragon” is kind of getting there. You’ve got the dragon and pearls, but it doesn’t look Chinese in style.
What’s the crud in the eye of the left-hand dolphin? I thought it was dried-up brass polish.
I like that sort of buyer. Turns a long-tail item into someone else’s long-tail item. I know this ‘cos I get word back about some of the items I sell through an antique shop, which are still clogging up some dealer’s inventory. Tip: don’t buy Pall Mall glassware… or any stamps printed after 1841.
