W is for ♫♪♪♫ Well, There's a Small Boat, Made of China . . .

. . . and a silver one, covered in gold! ♪♫♪♪

 

It's chapter three of the 'Brown Water Navy'

 

Chapter one - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/09/b-is-for-brown-water-navy.html

Chapter two - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/04/g-is-for-growing-brown-water-navy.html

These are very different from the previous (and each other), yet strangely similar, the smaller being the sort of chopstick-rest, a smart Chinese restaurant will let you take, at the end of the meal, as a keepsake of your dining experience, and people collect the rest in their own right. A simple glazed porcelain, in 'Blue & White', it's similar to the boats in chapter one!

 

While the other was inherited from my late Mother, and follows a common pattern, so, while very-much a handmade and hand-finished item, certain of the components were 'mass-produced', along the lines of a factory process, but at a craft level where things changed from time to time, or varied between batches/regions. The best bit it the crewman, who's about 25mm!

 

There's also a lovely cloisonné turtle on the deck, I'm not sure if it is a mate of the pilot, or supper! I guess it depends whether it is on its back, or the right way up! It doesn't actually belong to the model, of course, and the stand is carved wood, I wondered at the crudity of the carving, but suspect a deliberate thought, to represent rough seas?

 

This is referred to as silver nef, but is very much the late 19th/20th century substitute for the real deal, a growing middle-class with disposable income wants what the truly-wealthy have, but can't afford a large three-mastered galleon on wheels, so settles for something like this, or a filigree gondola!

 

And, also, very much a tourist piece, but up-market tourism, of the colonial administrators returning to the motherland at the end of a posting, type thing, or presented to someone upon retirement, or posting-out, you get the idea. And it needs a really good clean, as it is silver and silver-gilt under all that oxidation and dust!

 

The basket for the fish, being protected by the 'top hat' outer, has kept the shine of the gilding a little better than the rest of the vessel! You can also see from this, that the ropes and ties on the vessel seem to be twisted copper wire, some of which hasn't taken the plating terribly well?

 

The Chinese Junk style sail on mine is a pressed pattern of woven palm-fronds, while a couple of similar raft-vessels I've found on the Internet have actual interwoven, fine silver ribbon, which must have taken someone, probably a kid, hours and hours!

 

Both vessels are of simpler construction (apart from the intricate sails), and have a lower freeboard than mine, but they are also 12-trunks across the deck, to the nine bamboo poles of mine. Although both seem to be incomplete, so it's not a fair comparison, and I only use them to confirm their ubiquity, out there, rather than work out the who's, why's and what for's, of things which would have been made in different places, maybe decades apart.

 

♪♪♫♫ Everywhere you go'ho'hoh, always take a navy, take a navy, with yoooou! ♪♪♫♪

D is for Discovering Shire Albums in the Shire Library

Continuing with the meander through my collecting library, both for the general interest and/or hell of it, and as an illustrated bibliography which may or may not be of interest to readers, new or loyal, as to suggesting titles they might want to track down.

 

Shire Publications began with UK-specific travel and local geographic guides, known as the Discovering series, which I don't think ever got a full numbering system, even as they expanded into wider hobby interests, beginning with cultural/rural/folk stuff. That led to the larger format Shire Albums, which were renamed Shire Library when Osprey bought the intellectual property a couple of decades ago, now Osprey itself has been bought by Bloomsbury, and the future is unknown. Shire Albums were numbered more formally, and there are a couple of useful lists of early volumes, here;

Discovering series -  https://www.publishinghistory.com/discovering-series-shire.html 

Shire Albums -  https://www.publishinghistory.com/shire-albums.html

The main storage collection, as it stood about five years ago, these are the smaller Discovering series, with a few similarly formatted softback/pamphlet type publications. I don't know the full argot or jargon of book sizes, and as anyone who has a library will know, they creep in either height or depth by increments of millimetres, with hardbacks complicating things by having internal pages smaller than the dimensions of the whole 'box'. But both formats from Shire Publications were 'standard' sizes used by many other publishers/printers.

 

Here we see a MAP (Model [and] Allied Publications) guide to early plastic kits, which I mentioned while looking at the Burns guides in previous posts on the far right, and on the left a Hamlyn 'All Colour' guide to war-gaming on the left.

 

The Discovering's cover war-gaming and modelling, uniforms and militaria, artillery, horse-drawn transport and horse furniture, and while they are all small, are still very useful for research, especially when you are looking for something specific, or on the tip of an increasingly forgetful tongue (old age bites!), each is like a better illustrated Wikipedia page, you only need to reach for, no Googling lots of useless crap!

 

The larger format Shire Albums include an early tome by James Opie, and are in an even commoner format (A5), so we see an Argus Publishing plans book, and several self-published efforts, including the late John Clarke's diorama's, Britains [horse-]racing colours, and both the Spot On guide and overview of a private collection of cartoon die-casts are self-published, I think.

 

The Airfix history was one of the last new titles added to the Shire stable, numbered at 598, while the W&H list should be with the catalogues, where I have several more, it was a yearly thing for some years, I believe.

 

Added the next day - I thought there were a bunch missing! The core of the toy-related volumes are in the larger format Shire Album size, and here's their shot! 

 

Cropped out of a larger image we'll see in a future post, I grabbed this in the last few years, firstly because 'once you're collecting these things . . . ', and secondly I thought it might help ID some farm/Santon type stuff, and lastly, there is a bit of a costume sub-library in any case!

 

These were all issued as 'free gifts' in Military Modelling magazine, and used to be stapled into the centre-fold, but (with the exception of the one on top, which was a different size for some reason), they were all A5.

 

Private publications, there is very little in these which is still relevant or useful now, but they remain in the library, as all books should, in part as part of the history of the library, and against the concept of 'you never know'; always worth a flick if you're looking for something specific, like a code-number. I have no idea how many titles were issued in this private, or club (?) series?

 

Covers are different, contents are the same, -Album versus -Library.

 

Another MAP, they tended to be compendiums of material previously published in their stable of hobby magazines, and interesting to see an early publication from Pat Hammond, who would go on to become better known for his work on Hornby, Tri-Ang and Binns Road.

 

The MAP is an ex-library copy, both a useful source of old titles, and a guarantee of cheap-price, as true 'collectors' (Bibliophiles) don't rate them, so neither do the second-hand book trade!

 

 Four more minor publisher/self-published types, including more trams (all useful for manufacturers data), and three peripheral tomes, but it all builds the whole, and appendices often have useful stuff in them, lists of manufactures, or after-market (now 'garage') producers.

 

 More of the same.

 

One of the first of the new Library titles, and a useful little overview. Really belongs with the Atlantic Wall/Channel Island subsection of the military library, but should be with its brother volumes, a perennial problem when a figure or book sits firmly in two camps. Does it belong in Cake Decorations, or Ceremonials? Is it Fantasy or Medieval? Bought new, a few years ago, from Waterstones in Basingrad.

 

A visit to the secondhand bookshop in Alton, 2021.

 

Three titles I inherited, as I was sorting my late Mother's estate out, over the last few years, I have a subsection, or subsections on tiles and mosaic, so a useful work, while Shire Archaeology is a third series, running - to date - to 91 titles, listed here;

 

Shire Archaeology - https://www.librarything.com/nseries/15546/Shire-Archaeology

 

Three more interesting tomes, particularly the schools one, not something I have much on, in the library as a whole, an old ex-Public Library book on school architecture in the arts section, maybe? But an interesting read.

 

I don't know if anyone caught the history of Boarding Schools by Nicky Campbell, the Radio1 DJ, on Radio4 recently, but as someone shoved through that flawed and damaging system, I found it both poignant and nostalgic in equal measure.

 

Also inherited, these share one code in the partial numbering of Discovering's

Mum's own fields included furniture, silverware, and latterly oriental art and ceramics.

 

 Another visit to Alton!

 

The most recent but one visit, and seen before, we've also seen Horse Drawn Commercial Vehicles and a second edition of Antique Maps, from a visit this year. While 487, Garden Gnomes, has so far escaped me, but it's only a matter of time! Discovering Book Collecting is a good full stop to this post!

A is for ♪♫♪♪♫ All-in-All, Theyyyyy're All Just Bricks in the Wall ♪♫♪♪♫

Definitely ticking the 'other collectables' Tag, these are a fun novelty which seem to have been with us forever, or at least the mid-1970's, when I got my first, but, being a magpie, I now have four! Fake sponge bricks!

 

The collection,

"More than two of anything . . . "!

 

My original Christmas stocking brick, one of the 'practical' gifts which were always included; novelty soap, toothbrushes, combs, wiggly straws, things which, however-much fun they were, were also meant to be used daily! It's a soft bath-sponge material.

 

This was my second, it's a harsher foamed polyethylene, still a batheable foam, but more like garden-game balls, or pet-toys, and was given away at corporate newspaper events, or even with a daily-paper? I can't remember the promotion now, but I dare say, given it's The Sun, that they were for throwing at 'Lefty' politicians, or foreigners?

 

Once I had two, the track was inevitable, and over a few years I picked up two of these, more modern brick design, and made of recycled foam-rubber granules, much heavier, and not so good for washing!

 

In the US, they remain a strong, current phenomena, with corporate logo's to the fore, I think they are for throwing at referees' in disgust at their decisions, although I've never seen a clowud of them hitting the pitch, so I guess, once you've paid money for one, your desire to retain your investment in bricks & mortar, mean you hang on to it and just shake it threateningly toward the Man In Black?

 

While this is Art! A design by Alexander May, for a concrete-block sponge!

 

There was a trend for mattresses made out of the same heavy, granulated-foam, of my third brick, but often in greys or neutral colours, and they were a favourite of early fly-tipping when they started to break up, and you'd see this stuff in the rubbish pile, odd-shaped lumps, which looked exactly like concrete!

 

A very commercial one here, from Milton Bradley (MB Games - that's almost like LB for Lik Be!), and hitching a ride on the trend . . . nay, 'craze' for all things Karate, back in the 1970's - "Ah, Soh, Grasshopper!".
 

Contemporary one, available, new on the Internet as I write, this is expanded-polystyrene, and looks to be pre-coloured, so a few chips or a knocked corner would only add to its aura of realism!

 

Also current, but a bit naff, and more of a face-cloth? There's a sponge-foam core, but it's covered in a printed-pattern fabric 'pillow', sewn-flush, and over-printed with crude holes, I'd leave this on the self, as the point of the collection is that they look vaguely like bricks, and this doesn't! Although, I guess it does, if you don't display the 'holes'!

K is for Kitchenalia!

All sorts of stuff has come out of the woodwork, or the kitchen cabinets over the last three years, some I've photographed, some has gone to storage, some went to charity and some went in the bin. Here's three pieces of kitchenalia which may trigger the odd nostalgia button or two?

 

I can half-remember the birthday party where these were used, and they were 'dead posh' and modern, bring plastic rather than waxed-paper/card (how times have changed!), but it has left them brittle. They did have matching Magic Roundabout paper plates and napkins/serviettes, and I think the cake was Mum's rendition of Dougal dog!

 

Every 1970's kid appreciated a curly-wurly drinking straw, didn't they? I think they did, even if they didn't admit it! I seem to recall these were Christmas stocking presents one Christmas morning, and would have been christened with milk or tea . . . possibly milk with food-dye in it, as "It's Christmas"!

Kiddy cutlery, the cat was usually mine, the snoopy was my Brother's and I think we shared the Disney knifes, depending upon who grabbed which first! I should find some kid/s to pass them on to, but all my friends' kids have grown-up and gone to collage! Maybe a hospice for kids would be a thought?

B is for Bookplates - 5 - Mine

Some of you will be pleased to learn this is the last of these . . . for now; we will return to them in the fullness of time, along with the previously mentioned book-marks, one of which, a novelty polymer one, came in with a mixed-lot this afternoon!

So having been introduced to bookplates at a young age; 6 or 7 maybe, and knowing Mum had one, I had a hankering for one as I began to accumulate books myself, in my teens, when I was also visiting Thomas Thorp's myself, as a customer, on my way to and from Art Collage!

 

And these sketches date from that time (1981-3), I was actually working on an/my graphic interpretation of Celtic artwork, quite the hippy! These were in part for a Tattoo I never actually got done! Something which ironically pleases me now, given that every other buggers' got them, they've rather lost their cache, in their commonality.

 

You can see there's a bit of 'Slimfont' work going on as well, and a simplified version of the dragon ended-up on my carved tile, might-be-Roman, coaster.

This is where it would lead about 15 years later, these are a few colour studies I did on some photocopies, in various sizes, with my treasured magic markers - long since dried-out. Colour really doesn't work on bookplates, I don't know why, but they almost demand to be left understated! If I had to use one in would be the browns on the right, I'm a sucker for Autumnal colours!

 

Working out the layout and lettering, clearly 'slimfont' wasn't far away once I'd gone with the circles or bubbles concept! And my middle initial 'D' was dropped as it was going to obscure the tail . . . yeah, it's an embryo!

 

The two scraps of paper top-centre look like they might be the margins of 'Model and Collectors Mart'! Long-gone now I think!

 

I don't know what I was doing here, the cut-outs are presumably because I thought about reversing the image (no computer still! '97-98?), while the larger image (actually the same size as both the cut-outs and the tracing) might have been half-an-idea for a sundial?

The little blue sketch may be the first version, but therein lies the problem with the whole design, I eschewed the designs which used the tracing of rights-free stuff, and commercial lettering, for something wholly my own work . . . for my own bookplate; makes sense, right?

But . . . one of the books I bought at Thorp's, back in the nineteen-eighties, was the English-language, full-colour version of Frenchman Philip Druillet's Lone Slone/Delirius, published by Dragon's Dream, and, on the large, double page spread of his lovemaking with some universal god-head's daughter/princess (or something, I can't check as it's in storage), there are a bunch of bubbles and planets and stuff at the top of the page/panel, including something looking suspiciously like this?

 

And there is issue; there is a child produced by the union, it is being conceived in the panel-image, so it is an embryo! Now it would be wrong of me to claim this is an original, if it's derivative of the master's work!

 

In my defence, at art collage you are taught to sketch anything you like, anything that takes your fancy, something which was only reinforced many years later when we had to visit museums and produce copious works of what we saw, while at university as a mature student. After all, the great architect Santiago Calatrava is known to have based his overhead rail gantries on a sketch of a bull's head!

Now when I was working on the bookplate, I was sure I was dealing with a funny little sketch of a planet or something, and while I decided it did indeed look like an alien embryo and, if developed along those lines, would have connections to the embryonic ideas that come out of reading &etc . . . I also have to face the fact that by subconscious accident or forgetful design, I probably ripped-off Mr. Druillet! Hay-ho, I'm stuck with it now and it's stuck into thousands of my books!

But it's only stuck into the art/architecture/design and collectables/modelling/wargaming libraries, so I may return to the old designs, or make a new one altogether, when I get the rest plated-up in the next few years.

 

Perhaps one of the Oriental ones (previous-but-one post) could be used for my late mother's library of oriental art, ceramics and persian carpets, with a new one (I have half an idea for one with a rabbit in the bottom left corner and a distant warren in the background, top-right) for the natural sciences? And I'll need one for the History/military books? I wouldn't use bookplates for fiction, I find it an ephemeral art!

Oh, and if you find this bookplate in either of Michael Maughan's 1st or 2nd volumes of the Timpo guide, the Great Book of Corgi OR any of the Hornby Companion series (landscape hardbacks), they are mine, and the person who has them - shouldn't have, I think some may be in Colorado, if not they are long gone as the other suspect (and there were only ever the two) is dead! But the books are still mine!

B is for Bookplates - 4 - Drafts

We arrive at my efforts! It took me a while to get round to doing a bookplate for myself, although there were half-hearted attempts at them when I was a teenager, those efforts are somewhere in the storage unit!

Here I've copied some stuff, a woman, and some graphics from Mecanorma and/or Lettraset catalogues, which I've enlarged, in order to better trace those elements I wanted to use/transfer to the draft design.

 

Now, I can't for the life of me remember how I arrived at these coloured copies of the lady, or where she came from? At that time I had no copier, no computer . . . and the corner shop's photocopier might have had an enlarge feature, but I don't remember it being a colour machine, nor do the Lettraset and Mecanorma (French equivalent of Lettraset) catalogues have any colour artwork, as far as I can remember?

 

These sketches will date from around 1997/8, and I just don't know how I had the ability to produce these working scraps, but clearly I did! And having done so, got to work on them . . .

 

. . . first by reversing the image, and again; how? No feature like that on a photocopier? No computer until 2007? How can one totally forget a whole process? I normally have a very good memory (it's one of the features of Asperger's), but this is all a blank!

 

Anyway, you can see how I was going to join the two girls hair together to make the outer frame of the design, while on the right I'm using tracing-paper to lift some of the dry-transfer elements and try to bring them together in a more unified structure, I've drawn some new hair in, having traced her without her hair.

But again adding to the mystery, the two girls in the left-hand image have had all their lines go A) very broad and sausage-like, and B) there's a negative, white-space, thing going-on where the lines cross . . . I do have a vague memory of that being a negative-feature of the enlarging process, maybe I had help producing the preliminary materials from the studio guys at the sign fitting company I was working at.

 

They had Adobe, I think, matched with CorelDraw? Probably running on Windows 95? If she's a rights-free piece of clip-art, it would have been easy for Jason or Matt to enlarge, reverse one, and print them off for me?

 

However, I seem to have lost interest in a naked, fantasy princess bookplate, quite quickly and moved on to something more oriental, again using tracing to take images from a rights-free, images portfolio, which I'd bought from the previously mentioned Thomas Thorpe's in Guildford, many years earlier while at art collage!

 

And yes, that's a typo, but it took me until I was today-year's-old to realise it is Mecanorma, not Mecanorama . . . classic word-blindness! Googling Mikado as a typeface leads to a kids-friendly 'chunky' design and a couple of bog-standard and rather boring sans-serif types, which wouldn't have interested me then or now.

But, I did find a seller on Etsy who has a few sheets of the Mecanorma original for sale, and you can see that the note (on the back of the design - you can just see it through the paper) was pointing to a nice oriental typeface for which to produce the 'Ex Libris' and/or any name.

 

Meanwhile, this design had also been taken to, if not a near finished stage, at least a stage where you could see what the final design would look like? It may even have come before the one above - it has a certain air of abandonment about it?

 

I guess I would have been looking for a bamboo effect letter type? And no; I have no idea what happened or was due to happen on the 22nd, nor indeed, which month, but again, 1997 is a safe bet, or 1998!

I may return to these and get them finished as commercial prospects in a year or two, these days there's plenty of places like evilBay and Etsy to shift this kind of bespoke stuff, and production costs have come right down with home-computing, desktop publishing and the like, and I think there's a ream of licky-sticky paper in my stuff somewhere, but it may be a solid brick by now!