V is for Vanity Case

Here's something completely different. I was in TKMaxx the other day, still looking for the broken astronaut - I don't think that's going to happen! And I discovered they had some aftershave gel, a rarity these days, common as muck fifteen years ago, but bloody-hard to find these days (possible subject of a future rant), and while grabbing that, saw these;

 

Now, my first thoughts were, why on earth would young-men today, feel the need for a set of tools such as these? In the age of hot & cold running water, exfoliating facial scrubs and textured cloths, sponges, loofahs, pumice-stones and Japanese scrubbers, why would you subject yourself to medieval instruments, last seen in Edwardian bathrooms? My second thought (I'm not interested in the answer to the first), was five-quid for ten useful sculpting/fine-modelling tools?!! Take my phuquing money!

 

Ideal for sculpting Plasticine or modelling materials such as air-drying clay or Milliput, fine etching, particularly in plastics, and getting old paint out of tight folds and undercuts in otherwise stripped figures, and at a pound a tool, a bargain, I thought!

 

To which I've added these, mostly inherited from a bathroom which did have it's origins in the Edwardian era (my Mother's), although I suspect the two twisty ones (silver, or silver-plate) may be pipe-cleaning tools, subsequently used as tooth-picks? Below them are a strange, small, bladed-tool and a more conventional nail file, cleaner and quick-shaper, in ivory - I think? With a steel insert.

 

The former may be a surgeons bone knife? A once very sharp blade and now equally blunt chisel-end, but both thick, heavy blades, on a short, possibly stainless-steel, but substantial handle, suggest the finishing of bone, after amputation? While, on the subject of bone, I feel if the nail-file was bone it wouldn't hold that curved point, or the fine scoop for pushing back quicks, in the way the finer material presented by ivory can?

 

Anyway, they will be going in with the modelling tools, for what's left of my natural term! I wonder who else has unconventional modelling tools?

K is for a King Does Not a Republic Make!

I bought this in the Phillis Tuckwell charity shop in Farnham on Tuesday, I have to say the Phillis Tuckwell shop in Farnham has some very, very, very smart stock, lots of old collectables, stamps and ephemera, white elephant, ceramics, fabrics and clothing, old toys (a tray of good condition Yesteryear's), I could have spent a fortune, but this was in the window, and while not cheap, is near perfect, so I settled on this.

 

For reasons, I WILL bore you with another day, this is how you are supposed to display a chess set for sales purposes, one of each piece in one colour and a pawn from the opposing side. The set is bone, not ivory, I do have an ivory set or two, and one day we'll have a mini season on chess sets, but for now, these happen to be in front of me!

 

Exquistely hand-made threads on all the base discs, and several sections of the Kings and Queens, I don't know if these are a Napoleonic POW's work, or something more commercial, or later? I suspect something a little more modern, as the joins are all tight, unlike earlier sets, where some threads can be quite loose. Suggesting the maker had a jig, if not a modern tap & die set?

 

You can tell it's bone, at a glance, none of the warmth of ivory, nor yellowing with age/handling, and clear striations in the material, along with some rough areas like this crown underside, all easy clues to it being bone rather than ivory.

 

The greatest variation is in the Pawns where some look visually quite different, simply by being a millimetre higher, or a little fatter or thinner, and I think one Castle (first image above) may be a replacement, but it's quite a good, sympathetic one, just a slightly shallower battlement/longer neck.

 

The black side was fully coloured before fiddling cleaned/wore the threads. I suspect the whole side has been 'enhanced' with a marker pen, and at some point I will give them an alcohol dip and rinse, to remove anything like that, and then either re-stain with old India ink, or rub melted boot-polish into them with an old toothbrush, and buff with a soft cloth! Nice find!

O is for Older Charity Shop Stuff

These were procured between January and October 2022, and are from a larger folder we will dip into a couple more times to empty, and there's a run-up to Christmas post on Charity Shop purchases coming too.

We're going from the sublime to the ridiculous in this post, and while not ridiculous, this little set from Red Deer hasn't turned-up in either of the Red Deer haunts Peter Evans or me have been sourcing Red Deer from! But it turned-up in a charity shop for less than a quid? Mini-vinyls!

 

This and the next one, were real finds, they were a few quid each, can't remember how much but not enough, maybe £3.50p each, something like that. They are almost certainly ivory, and not bone, they are too fine a texture, and a few years ago they would have been worth a lot at auction, if not thousands, certainly hundreds, especially for this one, as it's a recognisable character figurine of The Mahatma Gandi?

 

But I'm not so sure now, selling ivory without provenance is hard (I've kept the receipts to establish provenance for futures sale), but they are both 'clean' enough to be illegal, modern pieces, which is what the legislation is designed to clamp-down on?

 

This one is possibly a goddess, or priestess, and with a slight patina, could be a little older, I have a fair bit of ivory in the collection from teeny little Indian cracker-toys, and bracelet charms, from before the last war, to Japanese pieces better than these.

 

But it is all a bit of a liability now, it's fine to own the stuff, but selling it and/or buying it can be problematical, so one day it will probably all go to a Museum, but not until I've put them all on an 'Ivory' page in the A-Z's, or here?

 

Santa is a cat person! Hey, it's not the 6th yet, but three folders of crackers, baubles and cake decorations have now joined Brian's nativity shots for an eleven-month sleep! And I can't remember if the Tortoise was resin or PVC, but I thought it was worth a punt?

This was another real find, a cold-painted 'Vienna bronze', probably German and despite the chipping, a really nice piece of antique novelty figurine, and again eminently saleable in the hundreds, so one day I will part with it, to finance a gap-filler/grail piece, but for now I rather like them and they stay!

T is for There Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens

I was apologising to a correspondent and regular Blog Fan, the other day, for leaving not one but two poultry posts at the top of the home-page for three months (an irony in itself as the fascist Folgor once accused me of only posting 'cartoon mice and ducks' or something similar!), when he suggested I'd have been better-off calling the second one "There's nobody here but us chickens", which gave me this great idea!

I will get back in to posting in a week or so, one can't mope forever, but in the meantime; here are those chickens . . . 

They are some of the finest ivory carving you're likely to see, each pegged to the stand with a separate rod of ivory, funny stuff these days as you can't buy it, and you can't sell it, for perfectly obvious and 'good' reasons, so you can only enjoy the surviving stuff from yesteryear, while hopefully remaining conscious of what was wrong with it all along . . . Trump's Mid-West matrons might still believe in the Old Testament's invitation to us to hold dominion over everything, but it hasn't worked out that well has it?

About a perfect 54mm compatible, the cock slightly larger (but more fluffed-up) than the Britains' ones, it's an odd game of pooh-sticks isn't it, which will come first; the last living elephant or the loss of the right to even own something like this?

Cheers Andy!

One night farmer Brown was takin' the airs
Locked up the barnyard with the greatest of care
Down in the hen house, somethin' stirred
When he shouted, "Who's there?"
This is what he heard

“There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
So calm yourself and stop that fuss
There ain't nobody here but us
We chickens tryin' to sleep and you butt in
And hobble, hobble hobble hobble with your chin”

“There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
You're stompin' around and shakin' the ground
You're kickin' up an awful dust
We chicken's tryin' to sleep and you butt in
And hobble, hobble hobble hobble, it's a sin”

“Tomorrow is a busy day
We got things to do, We got eggs to lay
We got ground to dig and worms to scratch
It takes a lot of settin', gettin' chicks to hatch”

“Ohh, there ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
So quiet yourself and stop that fuss
There ain't nobody here but us
Kindly point that gun the other way
And hobble, hobble hobble off and hit the hay”

“Tomorrow is a busy day
We got things to do, we got eggs to lay
We got ground to dig and worms to scratch
It takes a lot of settin', gettin' chicks to hatch”

“There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
So quiet yourself and stop that fuss
There ain't nobody here but us
And kindly point that gun the other way
And hobble, hobble hobble off and hit the hay”

“Hey, hey, boss man, what do ya say?
It's easy pickings
Ain't nobody here but us chickens”

Late shot - Britains hen comparison

L is for Little and Large

Bears;

Little and Large!

Carved, painted wood, probably from Bavaria or the Black Forest region on the left, an off-cut of elephant's tusk on the right. It's still hot. Is he on the right or is he underneath? Is this a duplicate post? My brain's not working . . . the heat, the heat . . .

V is for Very Small Elephants