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December 10th 2010 Robert Jones II anyone?
Oooooooooh er Mrs, look what's coming up at auction.....a Jones II.
Well, today it came up. So relatively early I headed cross Country to Cirencester, to go view It & hopefully win it for fifty quid. I'd already seen the pictures which showed up a few issues, a piece missing from the badge, with ugly solder, tipped worm, nibbled handle, short spikes. To me, from the pictures it appeared to be about a 6/10 & I had a bid in mind which reflected the condition.
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On arrival at the auctioneers, I quickly registered to bid & soon had the piece in my hand. My glasses, which I rarely wear were donned, I wanted to be thorough in my examination - call me Dr Pete. Quite remarkably, the handle was perfect, the spikes were full length, yes the worm was tipped but the badge which looked quite ugly in the photograph, really didn't detract. The lozenge was crisp, as was the decoration & the maker marks, the threads were perfect, the mechanism was smooth. Oh my, much, much better than I'd thought. Ooooooooooh er, what to bid, what to bid?
I headed off to the town centre to explore a couple of antique arcades that I'd found Online the night before. One boasted 40 dealers on multi floors, how exciting :p Needless to say an hour later, I'd found them, explored them, found nothing in them & left them :(
Knowing I was close to spending our life savings on a Jones II, the Sat Nav was grabbed & local POI was hit, I then entered the magic letter M C & D, & as if by magic, the only lunch I could afford came up on the screen & less than 1 mile away - yeah, Mc Donalds. Big Mac meal with a vanilla shake were scoffed as I contemplated what I was going to say to Ruthie. I came up with 2 options.....
1. Hi Ruthie, how r u babe? Ruthie, today I was walking down the road in Cirencester contemplating life. Babe, I was thinking - we are so lucky, we have each other, we have Holly, we want for nothing & our Mortgage is up next June. I hope you won't be upset Babe. I'm sure you won't be. I bumped into this chap in town, he opened a door for me & asked if I had any spare cash, he seemed such a lovely man that had clearly fallen on terribly hard times. I came over all funny, never felt like it before. I can't explain why but I just felt compelled to take him with me to the Bank & withdraw all our savings & give them to him. By the way, I won the corkscrew.
2. Hi Ruthie, how r u babe? Hare Hare, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna. Babe, there were these really cool people in Cirencester today. You know how I feel I'm still young & funky? Check out my young & funky orange robe & what about my bald head, oh & check out these bangles - cool or what? I've become a Hare Krishna. I've taken out a family life membership, very reasonably priced, we just had enough to cover it in the bank. Do you want to listen to my chimes? By the way I bought the corkscrew.
After my daydreaming had ended I headed back to the auction house & soon bumped into two of my favourite Brit collectors, Richard (The Daddy) Stevenson & John Davis. We drunk tea & shared corkscrew stories. Of course we were soon comparing notes about past Jones II corkscrews & the merits of this one, which we all agreed was much better than we'd expected. Before we knew it, there were twenty lots to go, so we decided to find our spots in the auction room.
We found a couple of spots near the back. In no time - Auctioneer "Right, lot 353, ahh the corkscrew, should have four lines up, all OK? All on? Yep, Ok, starts with me at £350". Heart racing, bid, bid, bid, bid, bid, bid, bid, bid, bid. Heart thumping, bid, bid, bid, bid, bid, bid, bid. Heart close to exploding, bid, bid, bid, bid etc, etc, etc I didn't win it :( I gave it a really good rattle, I have no regrets but I wasn't even the under bidder. It sold for a very tidy sum to a mystery phone bidder.
On the way home, being a gluten for punishment I had a fruitless antiquing trip to Hungerford.
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A cow shed which contains a glass cabinet with a Jones II.
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The Brit pack, Richard Stevenson & John Davis contemplating their bids
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End of the day of fruitless corkscrewing - the picturesque canal bridge in Hungerford, Berkshire.
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