It’s a long time since we’ve had a selection of the weird and wonderful things which appear at the sales in our local auction house. This is mainly because recent sales have been relatively uninteresting, although the most recent sale contains 200 or more lots of alcohol, mostly whiskey. Nevertheless here is a selection of the “best” lots from the last few months – it’s the variety and odd combinations which are always so interesting. I mean what has a cuckoo clock got to say to a set of assay weights? Yeah, right: cuck-oo!
A collection of jugs including milk and gravy.
[One assumes the milk and gravy were dried on.]
A selection of wooden items including an 18th century ‘character marker’, a pair of oak bookends, a hardwood book shelf, two small picture frames, a round-head wooden mallet, a small wooden chess box, 6 wood carver’s chisels, a printer’s block to print ‘This Lease’, plus slate roofing tile measures and an extending metal toasting fork.
A vintage Society of Arts Blowpipe Apparatus in original pine case, a cased set of draughtsmen’s instruments, two cased sets of precision weights including one by Oertling, a circular box of assay weights also by Oertling, and a cuckoo clock.
A cased and glazed taxidermy fox with a rabbit and another of a barn owl.
A Husky fridge in the shape of a football.
A large interesting lot mainly of stools from the 19th and 20th century including milking, tall stools, long stools and round stools, also a pine clothes airer, a 19th century mahogany commode, a 19th century Pembroke table on turned legs, and three chairs.
A pair of leather and metal driving goggles, old stamped envelopes, and a collection of minutes and menus for the Theodore White Temperance Lodge.
Two letters from Reg Kray, brother of Ronald, one on lined A4 white pad paper with punched holes, the other on two pieces of pink writing paper and a Christmas card along with a Broadmoor Hospital Form 134-1A that relates to opening mail and a Teen and Twenty Disc Club fan letter signed Jimmy Savile, undated.
A large quantity of used golf balls – a dustbin full.
A carved wood rocking pig ride-on toy.
A mounted and glazed taxidermy heron.
[Well you’d look glazed if you’d been stuffed!]
Traditional Scottish gent’s dress including a green tweed jacket, three black jackets with Lynton, Kinloch Anderson and Hector Russell labels, a kilt, two pairs of tartan trousers, waistcoat, ties, belts, two sporrans, skean dhu, pins, etc., also two fur coats and a green satin robe.
A full set of Spice Girls on Tour dolls, boxed and unopened – Baby, Ginger, Sporty, Scary and Posh.
An interesting collection of original military cap badges, a collection of military buttons and an old Lyons coffee tin.
A silver-plated reproduction punch bowl, a decorative metal tea set on tray, a modern model copper and brass diver’s helmet, and a Viner’s canteen containing steel cutlery in two differing patterns.
A quantity of walking sticks, hockey sticks, etc., a leather horse saddle, turned wood handled copper and brass warming pan, a cased singer sewing machine, rolls of wallpaper, a leather belt, etc.
A carton of glamour magazines including Mayfair, Whitehouse, Penthouse, Playboy, etc.
A vintage bagatelle board and a boxed vintage chest expander.
An Olympia cased typewriter plus another, a collection of walking sticks, a vintage tennis racket, a quantity of pots and pans etc. and a prayer rug.
An early 20th century rhinoceros foot tobacco jar with hinged lid, in conserved condition. (Note: this lot is accompanied by a letter from the owner confirming that it originated from his great-great-grandfather, who was posted to Africa.)
An interesting Chinese bronze large lid, possibly Ming dynasty, dodecagonal, cast with characters and the eight trigrams, 38 cm.
A wooden box containing an old collection of large beetles, old military photographs, etc.
Approximately 100 miniature teapots from The Miniature Teapot Collection, with magazines, still as new in cellophane packets.
Motorbike parts, including high quality stainless steel twin exhaust pipes, number plate, sides by Ogg, LC8 engine-part cover, and a quantity of power parts.
A large pair of heavy brass Eastern table lamps, a large pair of carved wooden African busts, two copper and brass kettles, a pair of wall mounted antlers, a pierced copper wall tray, a silver plate and blue glass cruet set and a carved African hardwood stool.
A mid century 8 1/2 ft wooden model of the Queen Mary ship with four red funnels.
Two framed and glazed taxidermy owls, a pair of mounted horns etc.
Maybe 2019 will bring greater amusement.
So here is this month’s un-Christmas-y selection of recently encountered quotes.
I put friend coins in the woman and sex didn’t come out – I think she may be broken.
[unknown]
(Sadly still an all too common belief.)
I’m not an atheist because I’m ignorant of the reality of scripture. I am an atheist because religious scripture is ignorant of reality.
[unknown]
Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.
[Alan Watts]
A contempt for expertise is inevitably expressed by those who, without experts contributing to society as they do, would be lucky to have a voice to speak with, let alone a platform on which to use it. Expertise, like democracy, is far from infallible; each, however, is always preferable to the alternative.
[David Bennum; Guardian; 31/11/2018; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/30/brexit-britain-crisis-uk]
Don’t think about what can happen in a month. Don’t think about what can happen in a year. Just focus on the 24 hours in front of you and do what you can to get closer to where you want to be.
[unknown]
First you forget names; then you forget faces; then you forget to zip up your fly; and then you forget to unzip your fly.
[unknown]
The person we’re … working for is so cool, laid back and unconcerned, I seriously wonder if he moonlights as a jazz correspondent.
[Andrew J Baker]
Asking Maradona what he thinks about Mexican second division football is like asking Beethoven what he thinks about Girls Aloud.
[Adrian Chiles]
My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.
[Boris Johnson]
The idea that winter could actually be enjoyable would never have occurred to Ramtop people, who had 18 different words for snow. (All of them, unfortunately, unprintable.)
[Terry Pratchett, The Wyrd Sisters. H/T June Laurenson]
Science is the most beautiful and elegant tool that humanity has yet developed with which to actually investigate the physical universe, to measure it, to test it. Science evolved out of magic.
[Alan Moore, author of Watchmen, in New Scientist, 8 December 2018]
If you think that every second is eternal, don’t do anything that you can’t live with forever.
[Alan Moore, author of Watchmen, in New Scientist, 8 December 2018]
What if there were creatures, entities, that were made up purely of ideas, purely of language or something – wouldn’t that explain everything from Smurfs to gods, to demons, to angels, to leprechauns, to all of this nonsense that we have been obsessed with throughout our development as a species?
[Alan Moore, author of Watchmen, in New Scientist, 8 December 2018]
The Fates permitting, we’ll see you on the other side of the festivities.
