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Yep! So to fit it, a hole has to be broken out of the shower tiling to make a recess, which is why I didn’t think it was a soap holder. Also the combination of brass, soap, sweat, intricate detailing to hold the soap and sweat to the brass, and a hot humid atmosphere probably makes it look like it came out of the ‘Titanic’ after a few months.
I got into a long drawn-out discussion yesterday about why I sold a “Warners Safe Cure” bottle for £1 more than I paid for it (I made a mistake in buying it).
Now I have the Knoblock Rule to quote:
“Speed through your inventory; don’t squeeze it for every dollar”
(Walter Blake Knoblock’s video is linked in the “Atlantic” article)
I don’t think I’m going to try it, though. Knowing my luck, I’d end up with a pallet-full of knob locks without their keys.
Hi I’m Terry. Location: Leicester. State: post-industrial. According to the BBC I live in a Deobandi village, in a city most recently famous for the discovery of a king in a car park. This place has more cultures than one of Alexander Fleming’s petri dishes.
Hi Sharyn
no 3 might be a sev maker (Indian fried noodles) if it’s got a loose plate with holes at its base. Looks like a grinder, with a long handle.
I’ve got a death pile of bicycles… spring will come soon.
A death pile of books. I’m doing a shift tomorrow at a thrift shop sorting out their books, so that’s going to be added to their death pile. Which is huge, ‘cos they’ve got a policy of pricing just above what the market will bear. Shop-full of browsers yesterday, buying nothing.
A death pile of miscellaneous, which is going sometime to the car boot sale in Melton Mowbray to sell to the farmers’ wives.
I stopped selling on Amazon because I got fed up of doing battle against the bots (e.g. the World of Books bot mentioned above), which reduce the price of their listings to maintain their position as the cheapest. eBay doesn’t seem to have the same problem.
Re book prices on Amazon; a friend purchased a copy of “Build Your Own Solid State Oscilloscope” for £6 from World Of Books on Amazon. It was one of three copies listed by WoB for the same price; two in good condition and one in acceptable condition. He realises after ordering that he purchased the ‘acceptable’ copy by mistake, so he contacts WoB who tell him to return the book for a full refund, and then purchase another copy.
The book arrives, and he’s satisfied with it, so doesn’t bother. However the price of the two remaining copies was then increased to £125. I assume WoB’s software did that.
Something I didn’t buy, but unfortunately took a photo of with my phone, a battery-operated pink rubber toy, 12 inches long and about 3 inches wide at a house clearance sale. Forgot about the photo, and accidentally showed it to a lady when I was showing her some photos of a miniature Schnauzer.
“Oh, that’s his favourite toy- he’s always chewing it.”
Just out of curiousity (using the Wiki page for an answer) I totalled up the number of steam locos under construction in 2019. UK has 24 projects, USA has 2 projects. Admittedly some of those 24 have been under construction for years (e.g. LNWR Bloomer) and the locos are a lot smaller!
I suspect the model train markets are very insular- I see few European locos up for sale at live auctions here and no US ones.
Do you think the train cars would sell better with some little hoboes glued on to them?
Regarding charity shops in England; try the re-use shops located at council recycling depots. This is where stuff brought in by people clearing their junk ends up. A need to keep a rapid sell-through keeps the prices relatively low.
The shop I work at prices stuff according to what they’ve found similar on the internet. And thta’s not sold prices either, so they’ve got a reputation as being expensive. I’ve got to sort out around 2,000 Sci-Fi books tomorrow (part of a collection of 4,000 that’s been donated) and I don’t even like Sci-Fi! I have the attitude that “Pulp fiction” is an activity not a category.
Other charity shops get browsed constantly by resellers. It takes me between 30 seconds and a couple of minutes to check out a shop, or 5 seconds if I’m just looking through the window. Or half an hour if I go with my partner!
Otherwise head to the Cattle Market in Nottingham at 6 a.m. on a Saturday with a torch and a couple of strong carrier bags for the junk market.
The antique fairs are usually a dead loss. Newark’s okay, but you have to browse at a stiff walk. High prices are the norm- they have some guff about “Trade days” but I’ve never seen any benefit. Allegedly the more rabid buyers can get in at 6 a.m. by paying £50.
I stand at a car boot sometimes; set-up is around 6.30 and gates open to the public at 8.30, which allows a couple of hours for dealers to buy stuff. On a good day I’ve sold all my junk before the public arrives, to fellow stall holders.
A franchise selling “killer prawns” has just opened up here in the premises of a recently bankrupt music shop. In the UK restaurants and other feeding/watering places have to display a sticker rating their hygiene from 1 to 5. This prawn place scored a ‘4’, despite their brand-new kitchen equipment. Guess the prawns failed inspection.
Thanks Mike, yeah wax crayons. I’ve got a copy of Bamber Gascoigne’s “How To Identify Prints” but I haven’t opened it in a while!
Re fading: back in the early 1980s I was using a Canon inkjet printer and found that the magenta ink faded within a few hours if exposed directly to sunlight. Under glass it faded over a longer period; however if the print was in contact with the glass it lasted, I’ve got prints on my walls that haven’t faded (but they’ve only been exposed to room illumination). I had the suspicion at the time that oxidation activated by UV caused the fading- it appeared to require sunlight and air.
As for oil paintings at the moment I can pick these up for between 2 GBP and 10 GBP at local thrifts and consign them to auction in Nottingham where they fetch 20 to 40 GBP. So there’s a small profit. Except where they don’t sell- I had to walk three miles yesterday carrying an oil of a river scene from the auction house to the nearest thrift shop. Over the bridge that’s in the final scene of the original version of “Smiley’s People”- I did think of throwing the damn thing into the river!
Look at it at a slant, and see if there’s any difference in reflectivity of the different areas, or slightly raised areas. I do this to check watercolours.
Even so, there’s some odd prints out there. I’ve got three works by William “Bird’s Nest” Hunt. A presumed original, with gouache layered over a thick surface of white paint. A litho reproduction overlaid with gouache. And a “hand-finished lithograph by W. Giles after Hunt” (label on back). The prints have a kind of fine stippled look from (I think) the chalk used to draw on the stone.
I sold a large framed drawing on Saturday that had as a background hand-drawn woodgrain. The artist had drawn in about two square feet of realistic grain- took me a few minutes to work out it wasn’t a woodblock print!
“Squeeze the teabag”? (feels vaguely nauseous) It’s funny- I see these things around (usually topped with a couple of desiccated teabags and some brown slime) but if I pointed at one and said “what’s that?” I don’t think anybody’d have a name for it. I didn’t know.
I mistook a small bowl for one at a dinner party last night, and the salad dressing it contained got a bit of “tannin and caffeine” kick as a result.
Don’t know exactly where in this blog but this print dealer mentions that they only sell prints unframed.
On the other hand taking them out of the frame can reveal some nasty faults, such as ‘mount burn’ where the acid in the mount has browned the edges of the print. Sometimes the print has been glued down to a board- I bought a print from 1760 recently which has had this done. Also I’ve seen some bad framing practices by professionals, such as using masking tape to attach the print to the backing.
