It was a hectic morning, with fourteen eBay parcels to be packed and sent off before the Post Office closed at lunchtime. We would have managed it easily, working together as a well-oiled machine, if it hadn’t been for the arrival of a shopful of customers.
It’s a real dilemma – we want to provide a quick and efficient eBay service, but our core business is based on the customers who come to the shop so we can’t neglect them.
We were expecting a quiet day as two of the Saturday regulars came in on Friday, but it didn’t work out like that. Within the first hour we were full with people buying and selling and the post had to wait. We got most of it done in time, though some will not be going into the post until Monday. Such is life. It’s not ideal but we are still within the time allowed for posting.
During the rush I managed to sell a nice Victorian sixpence to a young collector who is just starting to collect coins. Hopefully it will be the start of a lifelong collecting habit, and hopefully he will continue collecting good stuff instead of modern decimal coins. We owe a lot to decimal coins, as they are fuelling a great interest in coin collecting, but I can’t help wondering if it will still be popular in ten years, or if it will be a bubble that bursts.
In the afternoon we also managed to sort more shillings, put several lots on eBay and polish the counters. One of the later customers bought us samosas from the Indian shop across the road, which proved to be an acceptable snack with our afternoon coffee.
I’ve described one of the sweetheart brooch lots as having a pin that has been “replaced at sometime in the past”. I resisted the temptation to tell them that it had actually been replaced by me five minutes before I took the photos for eBay. It’s not a bad job, even if I say so myself. It came from the back of a cracked enamel badge that said Delegate and involved two sets of long-nosed pliers and a certain amount of muttering.
This is the brooch – a WW2 mother of pearl sweetheart brooch for the Royal Armoured Corps.
We have several more on sale, including these two for the Middlesex Regiment. The one on the left is a silver and enamel tie-pin or bar brooch, the one on the right is silver, with hallmarks for 1915. It’s an interesting subject for collecting, with all military units depicted in a variety of styles, though I often wonder who gave them and if they came back.
So impressed by your knowledge of coins, broaches, and other collectibles. Wow!
Yes, if you drift through life without a proper job it’s amazing what knowledge you can accumulate. 🙂
Really amazing things you’ve got in the shop.
Yes, we’re lucky being able to work with these things.
I’m always seeing something here I had no knowledge of! Not a collector of anything, but fascinated–and the shop stories always spark my imagination. I can just imagine the scene.
Not collecting things is good. In many ways I wish I’d never started collecting things… 😉
I also love these brooches.
They are fascinating. I have some pictures of people wearing them – I will have to look them out and publish them.
I look forward to that!
I’ll start looking for them tonight. 🙂
I liked the ingenious use of “replaced at sometime in the past”. Have you thought of politics as a career?
Despite the evidence, I’d like to think I’m too honest for politics.
Those are beautiful brooches, Quercus. 🙂
They are an interesting subject for collecting – I have about 300 and am trying not to add any others, despite their availability on eBay. 🙂
An interesting and informative blog!
This reminds me of the Indian restaurant we used to frequent when staying with my sister, Elizabeth. The food was excellent, but you needed all evening because they gave takeaways top priority. We were often the only inside diners.
We rarely go out now, we just ring and have it delivered. Times, as they say, are a changing.
🙂
Change is the one constant in life. 🙂
🙂