People who sit on "know-how"

Judging by the use of the "text speak" WAG it appears most people do - as they should

 

Thank you for that! And you can rest assured that I gladly accept ANY and ALL medications they prescribe. Once in a while I do get to the point where I have to slow down and miss a dose or two, only so I can clear the mind and think clearly. But all told, this is not too steep a price to pay for the otherwise fairly wonderful life I have been blessed with. The true pain is in having it wind down under my current circumstances. I almost (but NOT quite) wish my life had ended before the ill health, financial woes and family tragedies starting draining the sparkle out of life...............

But youse guys can rest assured that you are NOT getting rid of me until I decide that I am leaving this home away from home.................


Edited to add: This board and its members have put a bit of sparkle back into my life, and for that I am ever grateful!

 

Thank you!

 

I agree with Mansons and the others, after decades in the business or as collectors or historians, you often just don't know the origin of all that information. And you get a sense for things or know how they feel.
I have only been a member for a short time, but I am happy and impressed with the knowledge you guys share. And if it is a hunch, or even wrong, it prompts me to research further. That enriches the mind.

 

And Heaven knows that with all of the crud clamoring about in MY mind, it can certainly use a bit of enriching!

 

I know the feeling, I have had a severe chronic illness for most of my life. You lose so much more than your health.

 

Very familiar. And after several bouts of encephalitis/meningitis it is good to find parts of my brain still wake up occasionally.

 

Mansons, not too graphic at all but, living in a country where cannabis is an illegal class b drug, I had visions of the boys in blue paying you a visit ! From my perspective, whatever gives you relief from chronic pain, go for it!!

 

I have a medical prescription for it. It costs me a yearly license fee and per "dose" because no insurance will cover it, and as much as I disliked it when I was younger (about the ONLY illegal substance I didn't care for), I do find it helps now. It does dull the pain and it does sooth the mind, so all told its not a bad thing..............besides, I take 14 other medications a day, what can a little pot hurt!!!!!

 

BTW Bluemoon (love that moniker), this was quite a discussion. Thank you for the opportunity to indulge in it. I'm sure it has provoked thoughts of all kinds of perspectives!

 

To each his own.

 

Even if we don't, Chrome and others have a "translate" button! I read several myself, and can dig things out of a few more with a little concentration. Of course if it's Hindi we might have a bit of bother digging up a boardie who can sort the heads from the tails.

 

The mention of Hindi reminds me of something that happened yesterday. I visited one of the photography collector groups on Facebook and for some reason decided to re-read the pinned post at the top of the group. The post was written in English, and below it there must have been a "translate" button that I didn't notice. I accidentally clicked that, and the same paragraph appeared again in English, but in a more "fractured" and ungrammatical version than the original had been in. Under that was a link about rating the translation. I clicked on that, and one of the things it asked was to let Facebook know if the original was not in Hindu! Not Hindi, but that was not the funny part.

It was possible to type in what the original language was, so I typed in "English." Anything to help improve Facebook!

 

(LOL) Please tell me why I"m not in the least surprised.

 

Another big issue, if you want to make it one, is that of DATING items. Sometimes it's really easy to date something. Whistles, razors, watches, etc. You have serial-numbers, stamps or models that you can look up.

But other things are just impossible to date. All you can do is look at it and go: "Yes that's old", or "No it's not". Asking for a specific date, even a specific ERA and getting an answer, is almost impossible. This is because some things are so generic, or because they made the same model or type or style for DECADES. Sometimes even centuries.

It's not that people don't want to help - it's just that sometimes it's not possible to help.

I'll give you an example.

I have four antique telescopes in my collection of old optical equipment...



I know they're old. I can tell that just by looking at them and feeling them. But if you asked me which one was the oldest, I wouldn't be able to say. They made the exact same style for about 200-300 years! All four of these are assembled, and disassembled - exactly the same way.

They all have draw-tubes with threaded couplings. They all have five lenses inside them. They all have two-piece lens-housings. They all have erector-lenses inside the barrels. They all have sliding shutters over the eyepieces and they all have accommodation for a brass lens-cap to protect the glass (only one of them still has its cap, though, as you can see in the photo). So dating them is not going to be easy.

I date the two in the middle to AROUND 1890-1910. That's based on old advertisements I've found online. But I might be off by as much as 10 years either side. And there'd be no way to prove that either way, unless there's a maker's mark or a date engraved on them - which there isn't. The big one at the back was sold to me as being from the 1850s. I have no idea if that's true or not. Sometimes these things are just not possible to find out.

 

We often say something is Victorian but when you think how long the Victorian period lasted quite often you can only narrow it down to Early, Mid or Late Victorian.

 

Yes, dating some items is nearly impossible unless you go to the microscopic level to have the adhesives, metal mixtures and such analysed in a lab.
That's why sometimes auction houses list certain objects as "presumably" or "probably" of a certain era.

 

To make matters worse, some Edwardian pieces get lumped into that, so add another decade.

With jewelry you can generally narrow a specific design style down to about 10-15 years, but not always, and some "revival" pieces ...good luck, if you're working from a photo. That's true even of precious metals with gemstones, since while a stone cut may give the game away stones are often reused. My mom's 1965 engagement ring has diamonds in it that were cut circa 1865. (best guess - old mine cuts plus family history) Old genuine Roman or other bits were set in newer settings. The list goes on.

 

I do know a couple of people over here, who, if they handled those 'scopes could date them pretty precisely. But that's because they've handled hundreds or thousands of them and can define the fine and tiny minutiae of making that allows dates to be narrowed.

I have modern jewellery with Roman glass. I love it.

 

My pet peeve is the desire for information that really does not matter. In the majority of cases, the maker of an article is no more than some men in a shed somewhere, fully interchangeable with some other men in another shed.

Rarely,, a maker or designer is so good or so influential (not the same thing think Faberge and Disney) that it makes a difference, but usually it is an easy thing to spot the important names, everyone else can be lumped in as 'all the rest'.

Far more important is the question of the quality of manufacture and design, and that can be assesed from the object alone.

The ubiquity of brand names for modern products has conditioned people to think that makers are important. For antiques, they usually are not. The important skill is to be able to tell the excellent from the mediocre on sight and touch, without labels.

Of course, there is money in names, so people will always pursue them.
I have some paintings by an almost unknown artist that are to me, so good I can feel the sunshine, smell the air and hear the bees. No money, though.
I was looking at a painting by Constable in a museum once, and thinking "That is a pretty mediocre picture". Loads of money, though.

My point, if any, is that things are what they are, good, bad or indifferent and if you learn to avoid the latter two classes, it's about all you need.

It does take a bit of time, and often by the time you have the knack you are well on the way to dead.