Each month this year we’re bringing you a post under the general title “Things that Count in [Number]” where [Number] will be the month. And naturally each month’s post will contain the [Number] of items (so just one for January, up to 12 for December).

For our purposes the definition of counting includes things which either come in groups of [Number] (eg. four suits in a pack of playing cards) or things which count in [Number] (eg. decimal coinage counting in tens).

Things which Count in Nine …

1. Ladies dancing
2. Cats’ lives
3. Worlds in Norse mythology
4. Members of the Fellowship of the Ring
5. Innings in a baseball game
6. Muses in Greek mythology
7. Circles of Hell
8. Lights on a Hanukkah Menorah
9. Orders of Angels in Christian mythology

Having moaned a bit a month or two back about the recently poor amusement value of our local auction house, this month they’ve come up with some stunning lots. And I’ve included some of their images (below the descriptions).

An antique Chinese seed pod necklace with string tassel, centred by a wooden personal family seal carved as a seated figure and inscribed in Chinese ‘Bao Men Huang Shi Xiang Xin’, together with an ebony bead muff chain and a gilt-metal wristwatch

A mid-19th century Continental silver posy-holder with metamorphic tripod base, on chain, another posy-holder in gilt-metal and mother-of-pearl, a silver wirework zarf, and a cut-steel chatelaine
No I didn’t know what a zarf was either and had to look it up!

A shelf of china comprising a Hadleigh part tea service, Hornsea Fauna ware jugs and planters with applied deer, a glass clown and fish bottle, two pairs of decorative china shoes, a quantity of cottage ware including a teapot, a 1950’s Wade dish, end of glass vases and fish ornaments, a musical novelty decanter ‘The Last Shot’, a Nao figurine of a clown and a quantity of Disney comics

A mixed lot including tools, garden equipment such as loppers and a hose, two wicker wall hanging shelves, three small garden planters, a radiator, tent, watering can etc.
We turned out the shed.

A mixed lot including a shredder, a boxed electric menorah, a boxed set of six silver plated cake knives, a box of vintage patterns, two wall clocks, a boxed Junior ‘Guider’ hydrometer, an Oriental vase and cover, a Royal Albert cake plate, a set of scales, a quantity of cutlery, a Phillips toaster, an oval silver plated tray, an all wave signal generator plus two smaller similar, a small Samsung television and a Heat Kit oscilloscope
We turned out the attic too!

Approximately 17 motorbike helmets and a quantity of canvas bags

A large wooden model of a Mississippi steamer on four levels on stand

A large wooden model of the 17th century Swedish Vasa galleon. A fine model with ten masts and cannons.

An impressive wooden model of the 17th century French ship Soleil Royal, with twelve masts and cannons on stand with painted decoration and brass mounts

A cast lead ram’s head fountain mouth

A pair of designer novelty Christmas trees made from scouring pads on silver plated bases and a pottery hand ornament
Do what! That just has to be a candidate for “lot of the year”!

A framed and glazed wooden model of a galleon with three masts and a bow sprit and canons plus a smaller similar

A magnificent short sword in 16th century style, late 19th century Continental, with parcel-gilt blade, the bronze hilt cast as a Saracen threatening a maiden, and with finely cast bronze scabbard, 55 cm
There’s something sinister about this, to the extent that I would let it in the house.

A mixed lot over two shelves comprising wooden cat and bird ornaments, place mats, photograph frames, a boxed Explorer Dynamo Condensor, a Grecian copper and brass jug, a barometer, two pairs of sunglasses, a mickey Mouse Disney watch etc.
An interestingly compact collection of old toot.

A large bronze sculpture of a stylised svelte female with bare torso, probably circa 1950s/1960s, signed A Moreau, 170 cm
Well I’m glad you tell me that’s what it is.

A very decorative modern sculpture of a bird with outspread wings, in silvered and bronzed carved wood, on tall marbled square pedestal, 170 cm overall

Eight Military folding chairs and four locking Military storage boxes one of them very large, and a Samsung light apparatus possibly for a lecture theatre.

So yes, a few stunning pieces and some real oddities.

More as and when.