Hello and welcome to the start of this blog. It may acquire an independent life of its own but at the outset it is a placeholder to cement my place in the system and to link to the other incentive to be here which was a response to an invitation to blog on What's New at Specialist Auctions (so look that one up). What I have done though is to drop in posts made at that blog and consolidate them here. Our big interest (of several) is transport and travel ephemera so do check out our own website www.forsythe.demon.co.uk or www.fionnconsultancy.co.uk .

Friday, August 22, 2008

High Speed Train Intercity 125 HST

First of all a welcome as this is my first contribution to the Specialist Auction blog. For a topic I've chosen one of the most popular of the subjects that I sell. Anything related to the Intercity 125 or HST trains that have run around on Britain's railways since 1976. To get an idea of what I sell covering the subject a search on Specialist for High Speed Train or Intercity 125 should always get some results. We will usually be able to offer some timetables or leaflets from the first few years with a good assortment later on. These trains have since privatisation operated in many different liveries and trying to find official literature for all these options can be quite challenging. Cross Country, Midland Main Line, GNER or First Great Western are all searches which should produce more results relevant to the HST train and with any luck an HST model might be available from another vendor on Specialist.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

There's no doubt that one of the big areas of my interest, both for my own collecting and for what I sell is the Irish Sea. Believe it or not, only a fraction of the material available for other collectors is yet listed but already there is plenty of choice on Specialist Auctions. The story of how this area of the collection grew is interesting. A book was part of the process. I am an author as my own website http://www.forsythe.demon.co.uk/ explains. One of the books which I have written is Irish Sea Shipping Publicised and yes, you can get signed copies via Specialist at http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1055557 . Another day I will post about the limited but select books that we vend via Specialist. For now, back to the Irish Sea. The book was written, and as a result, another author made contact and the upshot was that I was offered the Raymond Brandreth collection. Raymond had unfortunately passed away but he had a very good innings from his base at Meols on the Wirral during which he cruised happily with a Contactors ticket on the Isle of Man Steam Packet, Liverpool and North Wales' St Tudno, P & A Campbell etc. And on his trips he packed up handfulls of paperwork. We have been selling from his collection since 2003 and much has moved on. If this interests you, recommended searches which bring up results quickly on Specialist would be Irish Sea, Steam Packet, Norwest, Heysham, Holyhead, Liverpool & North Wales, Belfast, Llandudno, White Funnel, Wirral, Mersey. By the time you have done that I am sure you will have the picture.