A different kind of adult toyshop
Sep. 26th, 2009 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arkessianI have the catalogue for this sale, which contains some awful English! I suspect the collector wrote many of the entries as the standard of Bonhams catalogues is usually better than this. He refers to the first LED calculators as becoming more valuable and "sort after", for example.
However, if you can see past the English mistakes, the catalogue contents are fascinating. I was particularly taken by the wire-guided anti-tank missile (which has been test fired) immediately adjacent to the Sinclair C5 (that quintessentially British technology that somehow failed to take the world by storm). On the next page is a "cast iron pull-along grasshopper" circa 1925 next to a "Bjorn Borg" advertising display tennis racquet circa 1975. There's a full size photographic of the Bayeux tapestry made in 1874, and a selection of telegraph cable sections recovered from the sea bed between Cuba and Jamaica in 1893 after 23 years of use. There's a 19th century Chinese acupuncturist's figurine next to an 1870 medical shock machine. And that's just scratching the surface. The catalogue runs to 119 pages and 758 lots, including some which the collector admits are "lucky dip" lots -- if you buy one and don't understand what you've got, you can email him and he "will try to explain to you what you have bought and what it might be important!"
No wonder the collector thanks his wife for giving him "the freedom to run a business I have described as an adult toyshop."
However, if you can see past the English mistakes, the catalogue contents are fascinating. I was particularly taken by the wire-guided anti-tank missile (which has been test fired) immediately adjacent to the Sinclair C5 (that quintessentially British technology that somehow failed to take the world by storm). On the next page is a "cast iron pull-along grasshopper" circa 1925 next to a "Bjorn Borg" advertising display tennis racquet circa 1975. There's a full size photographic of the Bayeux tapestry made in 1874, and a selection of telegraph cable sections recovered from the sea bed between Cuba and Jamaica in 1893 after 23 years of use. There's a 19th century Chinese acupuncturist's figurine next to an 1870 medical shock machine. And that's just scratching the surface. The catalogue runs to 119 pages and 758 lots, including some which the collector admits are "lucky dip" lots -- if you buy one and don't understand what you've got, you can email him and he "will try to explain to you what you have bought and what it might be important!"
No wonder the collector thanks his wife for giving him "the freedom to run a business I have described as an adult toyshop."
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-26 05:48 pm (UTC)I remember BBC Micros with affection as well, although the computing when I did my Physics degree was done on a mainframe using punched cards — heaven help you if you dropped the tray while you were carrying it across a windy road to queue up to input your programme! Later on, when I was working in IT in the Central Electricity Generating Board, VAXes were our general purpose workhorses. And there was great excitement when the typing pool got a word processor (am IBM system 36, if I remember correctly). Although "typing pool" was a grand term for Linda and Daphne, who were the only ones actually allowed to use it.