ENDPAPERS

Second-hand Rings

By LESLIE ADRIAN

I need not have worried. Every item, from the smallest 'wooden bygone,' has been authen- ticated by committees of experts, who meet every day the fair is open to vet new arrivals for display. And by new I mean those pre-1830 objects that exhibitors have decided to add to their stand, a point that should satisfy those dis- putants who date an 'antique' at anything from seventy-five to a hundred years old. The year 1830 is taken, a trifle arbitrarily perhaps, as the beginning of the Victorian era of craftsmanship and the decline of the superior traditional styles.

But the fair, while it may not be for the bargain hunter (the stuff on sale ceased to be a bargain when the expert's eye lit on it), is still not necessarily for millionaires. Many a small and curious survival from a richly littered past costs as little as 30s. and a piece of hallmarked silver can be in the L15-£20 bracket.

Silver, of course, is among the easiest classes to understand, consumer protection having left us with the assay-office marks to guide us to the name of the craftsman and the date and place of origin. But nickel and German silver are not silver at all, being chiefly nickel. At Grosvenor House, this would be on the label. At the junk stall, it might be every man for himself and devil take the ignorant. John Bedford's little book Looking in Junk Shops (Max Parrish, 1961, 12s. 6d.) is a valuable guide to terms, though he naturally could not cover everything and says nothing about, for example, netsukes and Chinese snuff bottles. Both these are having a great vogue as collectors' items.

There is even a magazine on snuff bottles, pub- lished by Hugh Moss who collects them himself

and staged the first exhibition of them ever to be held in London last March. Like all dealers, he is dazzlingly expert on his own subject and know- ledgeable about most branches. But even he might not know offhand what a chopin was (a Scots pewter measure of one and a half pints), an argyle (a gravy-warming jug said to be named after the Duke) or astragal (the beading at the edge of cupboard doors before 1750).

Such jargon is the small change of the dealer's business, and it is almost unheard of for a cus-

tomer of a pADA member not to get value for

money, thanks to their intimate and lovingly acquired expertise. The recent fall-out from the

British Antique. Dealers' Association over the vexed question of the 'knock-out' is testimony to the sincerity of the official majority. The knock-out (the private auction after a 'ring' has kept down the bidding at the public sale) cannot be stamped out altogether, but big rings will be unable to 'operate for sonic years to come, according to council members to whom I spoke.

The rings, of course, are concerned with buy- ing below auction prices, and will sell for what- ever the market will bear. The honest expert is content'to buy at or near an auction price, though he would be a rare kind of human being if he did not occasionally walk off with a bargain. The 'find' is part of the reward for his painstaking knowledge, though some of the stories of ac- quisitions for shillings being resold for thousands of pounds, supposing only a few of them to be true, leave a nasty taste.

Looking at the business from afar (to the relief of my bank manager), I find all this talk of the Chinese preference for muttonfat jade (the white, soapy kind), the description of Yuan as 'a dull period,' the rhapsodies sung over oyster veneers in olive and laburnum, the con- troversy as to whether cockfighting chairs should not be called conversation chairs (the men straddled them to preserve the smoothness of their tailcoats), all part of a rich, strange world into which once a year we are given a peep. After my first visit I shall feel junk shops a little beneath me for quite a while.

•

Someone asked me did I remember when Penguin books were sixpence. Realising the tacit admission, I said yes. He was provoked by the price of the Penguin guidebook Travel in Europe, written by Nigel Buxton (17s. 6d.), all of 800 pages thick and packed with useful infor- mation and numerous Buxtonian opinions. After a quick aside about the Penguin Gibbon costing only 15s. for 924 pages, I stopped him open- mouthed by pointing out that here for the first time was a travel book which could be kept up to date. Sixteen pages have been left blank at the back of the book for clippings from Mr. Buxton's column in the Sunday Telegraph which from time to time will summarise the latest travel informa- tion such as important new services or changes in essential documentation.

A good idea, and one among many that dis- tinguish this impressive travel compendium from its predecessors. There is a group of sections on beaches, mountains, lakes and islands, two sec- tions on countries, western and eastern Europe. There are commonsensical how-to-travel chapters (the three-page introduction on air travel should strengthen the resolve of all amateur travelmen)

and shrewd thumbnail essays on travel agents and their brochures (in them 'no custom which is not "ancient" and "traditional"; no city that is not "fun-loving" and "gay".'), on travellers' rights, on food and wine, money, insurance, children, tipping. There is a bibliography, a glos- sary of terms (this would make a splendid game for the air terminal : What is a narthex?), con- version tables. You name it; Buxton did it and Penguins printed it.

Bumpus's bookshop is at 96 Mount Street, WI, and not at the address given on June 4.