Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I can’t find a reference for it now, but some years back there was concern that silver jewellery from China contained small amounts of lead. Appeared to be something to do with recycled solder from old electrical items. This was at a time when large amounts of silver-looking cheap jewellery were appearing on market stalls. So it may be that this cheap stuff did contain solder, and people thought that all silver from China contained lead.
Auctioneers in the UK use the terms “white metal” and “yellow metal” if the item doesn’t have a British hallmark. My friend sells Polish and Russian jewellery through an antique shop- they have an electronic tester to confirm the marks.
As for humans- on the one hand they can’t read properly and as customers they get to be a pain in the derrière. On the other hand they can’t read properly and are visually illiterate so they fail to spot the bargains that we see!
I just consigned some paintings to an auctioneer’s in Nottingham. They accept lots on a Monday. put the catalogue on the web on Wednesday, sell on Saturday and pay out in cash on the next Monday. Which is straightforward.
Another auctioneer, based in Market Harborough, attracts the more “upper class” lots (they’re ‘County’- foxhunting and all that). I’ve consigned a few items to them in the past. They sell on a Tuesday and pay by cheque, with is dispatched by second-class post on the third Wednesday after the sale so that it arrives at the vendor’s on a Saturday when the banks are closed. Of course they’ve been paid in cash or by debit card on the day of the sale. Sneaky!
It was in another thread- a parasite that is transmitted from cats to humans has been found to increase entrepreneurial tendencies!
I just bought a set of fish knives and forks today from a thrift shop, price about 6 USD for six pairs. The knives are marked “E P N S” in separate shields to make it look like a hallmark. The collars are silver with hallmarks for Sheffield 1912. I think the forks are stainless steel; on the knives the plating’s worn off in places. Don’t think the handles are bakelite- some kind of plastic with a sort of longitudinal grain just visible.
I suppose this type of blunt knife was usable in the Edwardian days of boiled fish and two veg!
So it’s the bakelite that makes them worth something? Only I’ve got a few of these fish knives and forks that were thrown out by a thrift shop and I was going to smash the handles off to get the silver rings, like I did with the last lot that was thrown out. Mmm… I’m not thinking entrepreneunarilly enough. Got to go find a cat 🙂
Usually that type of cutlery has electro-plated nickel silver (EPNS) blades with silver collars. The British makers often made the EPNS marks look like hallmarks; I don’t know what US makers did. There’s a market in the US for these? In the UK they’re unsaleable, except for the silver content.
“7. Go toe to toe at the auction.”
No. I can relate a number of auction anecdotes where either I screwed myself doing that or some dealer worked himself over paying above retail.
20. (From Drew Pritchard) Work through the pile of junk to the back of the shop, make sure you’ve seen everything.
21. (From Bendor Grovesnor) A dirty oil painting is often worth more than the same picture cleaned, because it holds out the promise of profit to a buyer. Don’t clean nuffink till you’re sure it’ll sell for more.
Hi Daniel
I don’t know- there are street traders who deal in short-dated foodstuffs and since suncreams have a use-by date they might have some- but it’ld probably be low-end stuff. Otherwise Boots (who seem to have a large range) or Lloyd’s or Superdrug.
I had a look at the difference in sunscreens. Appears that EU creams offer better protection against UVA because manufacturers can use any of 7 approved chemicals. The 2 chemicals approved by the FDA are less effective at blocking UVA rays. Both EU and US types seem to be equally effective at blocking UVB.
I’ve not checked, but I suspect that sunscreen in the UK might be available at reduced prices right now- it’s another six months before anyone here has to start thinking about UV rays, and by that time we’re all suffering from Vitamin D deficiency anyway so we’re out in the streets, bow legged from rickets and butt naked, pointing at that strange glowing orb in the sky.
You should be able to pick up a suitcase or similar for between £2 and £5 at a charity shop, or maybe find one on the street. Some airports offer a plastic wrap service which will secure any valise. Don’t know about sunscreen- I’m surprised that a country whose weather is like living in a grey Tupperware bowl has better sunscreen than the US, but then sunscreen in Australia is more expensive than the UK even for the same factor.
Maybe kit yourself out with clothes from a charity shop as well- trousers £2, t-shirt £2, jacket £5- so you won’t look out of place when you’re scavenging! Best of luck!
It’s cheap brown paper, where the acid in the paper has weakened it over time- hence it gets torn easily.
Sometimes the frame’s been re-used and the original picture has been overlaid with a photo or print. I bought one recently where a group photo of Great War munition workers was overlaid with a school certificate. There, the backing was ripped all the way round.
You could use a magnifying glass to examine the picture- generally prints show dots (like a Liechtenstein painting but much smaller) whereas photos don’t have dots.
What I don’t understand is that if 84% of French people are infected, why doesn’t the French language have a word for “entrepreneur”?
(cough) Toxoplasma gondii -“felids such as domestic cats are the only known definitive hosts in which the parasite may undergo sexual reproduction.[…] A number of studies have suggested that subtle behavioral or personality changes may occur in infected humans[…} previous estimates have shown the highest prevalence of persons infected to be in France, at 84% […] recent research showed that T. gondii infection “drives risk-taking in business, helping to promote entrepreneurial activity. … Professionals attending business events were almost twice as likely to have started their own business if they were T. gondii positive.”
I started voluntary work a few weeks back in the back room of a thrift shop, sorting out and shelving their books. The price labels have a code showing the week that they’ve been priced and put out for sale. Due to the volume of books coming in (probably about half a ton a week) the shop shelves are regularly weeded of “slow sellers”. They’re put in yellow sacks to be sent on to other shops in the chain.
So… this week I’m winnowing and weeding, and I fill six sacks weighing about 25 pounds each. Manager says “Those get put upstairs”, and as everybody else in the shop is a four stone apology and I’m two separate gorillas I take ’em up. To an office. Where there is a pile of around forty yellow sacks in front of a fully-stocked bookcase twelve feet long by eight feet high.
You think you’ve got death piles!
I used lighter fuel on a taped-up game, but it takes some time. Poured the fuel around the edges of the tape, lifted up an edge and used a small paintbrush to wash the fuel under the tape whilst slowly pulling it off. The fuel evaporates without any residue, but it may dissolve and spread the glue. This happened when I removed a price sticker from an old book- ended up with a circular stain of old glue. Old tape that’s gone brown leaves a stain that’s almost impossible to remove. Apparently the tape adhesive contains dissolved rubber, which goes brown and hard.
