Calling The Internet Police

I feel very sorry for anyone who is only just getting into collecting vintage costume jewellery, especially plastics,  and who looks online to find genuine honest information.  It really is a minefield of wrong information out there. 

 Whilst double checking facts (for the second time) about older natural plastics (amber, horn and tortoiseshell)  I am stunned at the many websites who quote the same misinformation word for word.

I am told that this is because web site owners go out and copy any article they can find on their chosen subject and then add that text to their own site to somehow increase their web presence.  In this way, what may have started out as a genuine mistake by someone, becomes magnified again and again. 

Today I was double checking information from reference books about tortoiseshell.  I should have stuck to the books, at least most of them are accurate.

Knowing full well that it is extremely difficult to tell horn from bone and either from tortoiseshell, fortunately I am lucky enough to know the basics.

One piece of mistaken information on an atomic scale was quoted my someone we shall call a 'little miss american'.  She was expounding upon plastics, obviously to make her website bigger rather than from any urge to inform visitors of the truth.

 She rambled on cutely about some vague early plastics and waffled on about John Hyatt and his invention of celluloid.   Then comes the usual trite warning "This is a highly dangerous matieral - an exposive!  So never ever stick it with a hot needel (sic)."

But then - she started to tackle Bakelite.  I have to say I laughed out loud.   Anyone who ever read a reference book or even an educational based website knows that bakelite was first used as an insulator as it does not conduct electricity or heat!  Never! No exceptions! 

The necklace shown above, the opaque brown and banana colour rounded oblong beads are made from one of the earliest European colours of bakelite.  You could touch a probe with ten zillion volts onto one, and it would just sit there, looking offended.  But it would NEVER melt, allow the needle to penetrate the material or smoke.

The absolute worst it could do is to leave a very light surface mark of a light purple.  It would only be seen on something like clear or transparent cherry amber bakelite, like the necklace shown below.
Cables carrying huge amounts of lethel electricity were insulated with this material.

This oh so helpful little lady, (who obviously thinks she does indeed know about early plastics), then went on to advise people to stick a 'red hot needel (sic)'  into a part which wont be seen (to test the item as being geniune bakelite).

"The only thing will happen is that the needel will leave a deep red or purple hole.  The smoke will be black and smell yukky, like strong chemicals".

Yet someone else suggesting the dreaded 'hot pin test' which is probably the single biggest destroyer of many an antique item from celluloid to amber to tortoiseshell and back again.

Someone in the great www consortium should try their best to find a way to 'police' the web for facts which are just plain wrong!

It is different if someone is expressing their opinion, but when something is a basic fact and is either true or not true, then it is my firm belief there should be some kind of internet police.

How To Price Items In A Recession - "What's It Worth?"

Anyone selling anything other than standardised precious metal will be puzzling over this question endlessly.  How do they price items to sell and make some money but not over price something so it never sells?

If you have an ounce of 18kt gold whether it is broken vintage gold jewellery or gold in modern jewellery, you have a measurable amount of a standardised product which you can sell for a the agreed rate for gold on that day.

If however you have a very rare piece of vintage costume jewellery which was designed by Archibald Knox for Liberty as a part of the Arts & Crafts movement then the answer is not so clear.

The value for a piece of vintage costume jewellery like that comes from its design, rather than its intrinsic value.  Another factor adding value in the example above would be knowing that the item was made by a certain designer.

 If you were a collector of vintage jewellery from Liberty and specialised in collecting pieces designed by Knox, or the English Arts and Crafts movement, then the perceived value of that item to you would be vastly higher than for someone who knew nothing about either the make or the designer or the design period.

Someone unaware of the Arts & Crafts Movement seeing the brooch featured in this article would simple see a fairly small hammered copper brooch, with the construction being very obvious and with no gemstones or gold.  How could it be worth anything?

 So it seems the answer to the question “How Much Is It Worth?” is really that it is worth as much as someone will pay for it, and no more.

It is simply no good to say well two years ago I paid £700 for this rare Kramer parure and so now today, it must be worth much more. 

Having started my website to downsize my collection of vintage costume jewellery, mostly inherited from family, it is extremely difficult to put a price on items.  Some things I know are exceptionally rare  (like the c1800 tortoiseshell brise fan shown above, other things are more mundane but still collectable.  

As a result of this I have decided not to place prices on my items for sale on my website.  I am simply inviting ‘Best Offers’ from people, and if someone makes me an offer which I consider is reasonable, then I will sell it to them.

The long amber bakelite necklace shown above sold recently for under £100  -  the guaranteed Jakob Bengal necklace shown below is still for sale and all offers will be considered.

I have everything from very early Bohemian to signed Har and Boucher pieces. Kramer and Weiss are plentiful as are guaranteed Delizza & Elster pieces.

Visit www.yesterdays-treasures-today.com  and snag a bargain.  Hopefully we wont be locked in a recession for too long, so grab it while you can.

Death By British National Health Service

Does anyone in the government here in the United Kingdom monitor deaths caused by negligence and lack of facilities in the hospitals here?  If they ever did, then that position is sure to be part of the 'cut backs' to make up for previous governments mistakes.

Having recently returned from the private sector of health in Europe, I today went for a consult with the surgeon who is the next to gut me then stitch me up.

There were two nurses in attendance at the meeting, but neither of them checked my blood pressure or asked about my weight or any other medical complications.  One did ask which perfume I was wearing.

This is the hospital which recently awarded the person in charge almost a quarter of a million pounds in a ‘wrongful dismissal’ suit when more than four dozen people lost their lives whilst under her care - the result of poor hygiene on the wards.  My gran (who was an old style hospital matron) would be very angry at this national disgrace called the NHS.

All those lessons on hygiene learned the hard way through Florence Nightingale simply ignored with a waft of the governments magic recession wand.  Disgraceful is far too lenient a judgement in my book. 

But then I am a simple person who believes that to do things properly (after people have paid a lifetime into the so called ‘National Health System’ for their healthcare) is something not to be taken lightly. The victims of this general negligence are dead, their relatives (if they have any) too grief stricken to realise.  It surely is a win-win situation for the politicians.

The beaurocrats of today are simply cutting costs with the essentials in life of the common man,  whereas the fault (and the cause of this so called recession) is with the administration of previous governments.  But heaven forbid that anyone official should admit this.  It is the ordinary man in the street, the ordinary pensioner who lives a miserable life cost cutting in the cold because she cannot afford to heat her one bedroom flat who suffers.

It has seemed to me for some time now that the medical profession (and doctors in general) have been relying on homeostatis, rather than providing proper medical care.  The know your body will fight to return itself to natural health, given time.

Homeostatis for those who do not know, is the bodys own will to return itself to full health.  That permits the medics to be lax and sloppy about many things.  I am amazed that no-one else has realized that this has a great deal to do with the medicine today.