The Bishop of Liverpool and Christmas Cards

An Anglican bishop has got me out of bed this morning! Since he has had his rant in the Daily Telegraph, I will have mine. E Xmas greetings is the subject. I think all the Bishop achieves is to show how hopelessly out of date and ignorant he, and those who are like him in the Anglican church, are. 500 years ago he would have been saying the only proper way to communicate is with a vellum manuscript. In an age (and a day) where the PO announced the possible end of universal delivery, the seachange in communications has to be embraced. I love paper but it is immensely wasteful of time, resource and cost. With Christmas cards, which to my mind represent an over commercialised expression of sentiment of even less use than a railway timetable, it seems to me they would be the last area where a community leader would seek to justify allocating his time and money to processing 60 of the things a day between now and Christmas. His total is some 600. If an institution wished to proclaim how completely out of touch it is, I cannot think of a better move. I road tested this with my 14 yo daughter and she thought he was barking. Does anyone seriously imagine Jesus of Nazareth preferring stone tablets as a mean of proclaiming the gospel! A samidzat would be his style (the cheapest and most effective means of radical communication at any given time). And yes nothing is perfect, and Facebook's management must be responsible for supporting terrorism if they don't act. Libertarianism cannot work if it is a total free for all. Finally if you are a Facebook friend it is very unlikely you will get a posted printed Christmas card from me. I hope to create an appropriate e greeting. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11253604/Twitter-and-Facebook-threaten-spirit-of-Christmas-warns-bishop.html .

Sublime in its awefulness

If you open  (successfully) http://www.librarything.com/catalog/RobertForsythe&deepsearch=Transport+Ticket+Society you will find an analysis of the 12 Transport Ticket Society books that I have. This might seem unaccountably boring but it is anything but. This morning a large white envelope came through the door. I have been a member of the TTS for years but this does not mean my finger is on the pulse of everything and in publishing their occasional books the TTS timeline can be fluid. What has just been achieved is the publication of the 2008 and 2010 presidential addresses. The latter by Matthew Davis is a very useful guide to contemporary credit card sized tickets used on the national British network.

The other that fell out of the envelope prompts my post title "Sublime in its awefulness". They say of war that it is an awful lot of frightened boredom and a few minutes or hours of active hell. In most wars, most of a population do their best to carry on. This naturally includes transport systems and Marco Moerland in his 2008 presidential address made it his task in 74 pages to look at the impact Hitlerism made on transport tickets. Wow. What a poignant and staggering result as step by step these little pieces of paper chart civilisation's disintegration and recovery. There is a definite political edge to the presentation with the author's view and therefore treatment that World War Two lasted from November 1918 to October 1989. I learnt that the Warsaw ghetto ran its own tramline, that Rotterdam had Nazi styled tram police and there are many examples showing the territorial aggrandisement of the Reich. A Stuttgart tramway map ticket is turned over to become a bullying piece of propaganda. Russian towns started having to issue German language tickets. Pen portraits of key personnel in the abuse and their transport impact are given.The impact of the chaos is shown even in Britain and in the immediate post war recovery and division of Europe. Many of the arrangements were quint-essentially ephemeral. The TTS is an organisation dedicated to ephemera and here in this volume is an apex of that dedication.

Guilty Tickets by Marco Moerland is published by The Transport Ticket Society. ISBN 978-0-903209-76-2. Priced £14.95 or 18 Euro.

Virtually seeing some of the Collection

This is going to be a dual purpose post. It will appear in my twin blogs Robertatforsythe and Robert Forsythe blogs the National Railway Museum. Since the snow just before Christmas, I have been working Facebook and establishing various presences. You are invited to follow Robert Forsythe, Fiona Forsythe, Robertatforsythe and Tyne Valley Line Rail Users Group (also Shepherds Dene for the Christian component).

Part of the task had been to allow a Facebook presence to serve as an introduction to the material at York. This has been accomplished by showcasing both duplicates and some solo pieces from the collection. Here is an album. A lot of what appears has either also been sold or is for sale (where we had multiple copies). There are still plenty of pieces looking for new homes so do check it out. I shall also remind folk of a very good appreciation of the collection. To close, as I was preparing this, I was reminded of some scans of a definite highlight of the collection. This was a brochure I bought from ebay quite soon before it all went to York. It is a corker and a couple of scans are here and here.

Transport, tickets and specialist collecting magazines.

Specialist Auctions works brilliantly for all sorts of niche subjects. In turn many of these subjects have specialist organisations furthering their interests. Where possible it is nice to create a relationship between the auction site and an interested organisation. Here is an example of how this can be done. The Transport Ticket Society (see http://www.transport-ticket.org.uk/) was established in 1946. Their journal is one of the most august of these types in literature in the transport heritage field and there are many such. In Number 546 for July 2009, your author and Specialist Auctions moderator has managed to place a page of copy which also deploys the "model bus" advert generated earlier this year.Hopefully this will bring new folk to list at Specialist Auctions and they will also take advantage of the quite wide spread of ticket material already listed.There are two obvious categories to check at Specialist Auctions and these are:http://www.specialistauctions.com/categories.php?parent=5045

for the rail tickets

http://www.specialistauctions.com/categories.php?parent=10807

for the bus tickets.Other tickets can be found at Specialist Auctions including aviation and sporting examples. Mentioning the area of of specialist collecting journals, a little searching of the site revealed that some good examples of these are also being listed. For instance from the Huddersfield Canal Society http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctionsearch.php?posted=1&keywords=Huddersfield%20canal&category=0 . An especially rare title which was being offered as I typed was a group of 19 Corgi Club Magazines from the early 1960s. This is the diecast car sort of Corgi not the woof-woof. See them at http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctionsearch.php?posted=1&keywords=corgi%20club%20magazine&category=0. I offer a number of onboard magazines from railway operators past and present like http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1261736 . Specialist magazines do not just cover transport collectables. There are many in the Specialist site for the craftworking theme like http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1365214 .

Collecting leaflets is much more fun than downloading websites

I am just back from the RPSI railtour around Ireland. What a wonderful success. Full marks to all involved from the society and railway administrations. For me, it was the second tour in a row. Before that in 1986 and 1995 I was over to chase it from the car. 1986 was Westport and number 4 so it was really lovely to be there again in 2009 with the same engine. She can really make steam and her shrill whistle in the Irish landscape was a joy. We could upload hundreds of train bus and tram pictures but for us the one that does it was taken Saturday night by my friend Alex Nelson of Chester Le Track when the two of us had walked the old railway to Westport Quay and found ourselves staring at the pilgrim mountain Croagh Patrick. One day maybe I will get up it and give thanks. And the title? It's a nice little aphorism and explains so much about what we do and going to Ireland to collect transport leaflets absolutely fits the bill. I came back well laden.

Railway Postcards and Photographs

Listings in the railwayana and public transport sections of http://www.specialistauctions.com/ keep expanding and in the last little while a new vendor devabob has helped fill the
Collectables > Railwayana > Postcards category at http://www.specialistauctions.com/categories.php?parent=5047 . When I looked there were 810 listings. Other vendors include myself robertatforsythe, cargo365 and interestingtreasures .
Because you can list in two categories for nothing, items can also be found in
Collectables > Postcards > Railway.
Individual examples that I think are bit special include
http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1339577
the Glasgow Subway
http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1339585
Douglas Station Isle of Man in 1969
http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1339596
one of a number of Czech railway postcards
http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1339617
an example of a number of American cards.
If you like railway postcards, you are sure to find something and by the way if maritime imagery is your thing there's a large number of tug photos on the site as well like
http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1334882Finally here's one of mine
http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1066938
which is the entry illustration of this post.

Model Memorabilia

Over on Yahoo a new group has appeared. It is called the
Toy Train Paper and Memorabilia Group . Setting up this group is a good idea. Model memorabilia has long been an interest of mine. And although most of the Forsythe Collection of Transport and Travel Publicity has been purchased by the National Railway Museum in York UK, the model memorabilia was excluded. We must have about 25 shelf feet of this material and a lot of duplicates.

Some of you may recognise my name from Model Rail and other British magazines. I write a great deal about model history. My last Model Rail feature reviewed 1959 and used a deal of memorabilia. For those who wish to find out more about what we do, our own extensive website is http://www.forsythe.demon.co.uk/ and there is a also a blog at: http://robertatforsythe.blogspot.com/
Look at that and the scope of what we sent to York can be seen.With the spare items I use Specialist Auctions to find new homes. This is a search on LGB . But searches on Marklin, Lledo, Trix, Peco will get results as well. An older piece available is from the Model Railway Club and from these leads, a lot more material can be found.

Other folk do list on Specialist Auctions like Jimanato who has many old modelling magazines available. We both show a good number of feedbacks which should give buyers confidence. Interesting Treasures is another vendor with this material and there are a further number who list actual models. bwarcher is one of those and he lists catalogues amongst his items. They also show up with his other identity as tetedevapeur.

Anyone wishing to sell this sort of memorabilia will find a category readily available: http://www.specialistauctions.com/categories.php?parent=5773 or Category: Toys & Models > Railways & Trains > Literature & Catalogues . Listing on Specialist Auctions is very advantageous to the vendor as a check on the terms and conditions will show.

Major James Forsythe MBE TD on-line references

Having in the previous post mentioned that much of the Forsythe Collection is now at York and the National Railway Museum, it is a good complement to mention my father's material. He was instrumental in a number of waterway and ship preservation projects between 1949-2004. Fortunately some on-line resources apart from our own website http://www.forsythe.demon.co.uk/ are now appearing for him. I clip in two urls:

http://www.wherryalbion.com/history/halloffame/forsythe.php

and

http://nrocat.norfolk.gov.uk/Dserve/dserve.exe?dsqServer=128.60.0.31&dsqIni=dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=((text)=forsythe)
The first is a nice tribute from the Norfolk Wherry Trust and the second is the Norfolk Record Office summary catalogue of his papers. Much that is there nicely amplifies what is in the Forsythe Collection at York, Prudhoe and Cambridge (details in the link).

The Forsythe Collection has moved to York

This is a major moment worth bringing to folk's attention. The majority of the Forsythe Collection of Transport and Travel Ephemera has been purchased by the National Railway Museum at York. It will be accessible to the public through their Search Engine facility. The picture accompanying is NRM copyright and shows about half of the collection in its new home. A brief introduction to what you will find in the collection which is upwards of 125,000 pieces is available.

Lighthouse

I moderate certain auctions on www.specialistauctions.com . One of my own lighthouse lots is http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1262065 but I was impressed when I searched the site and by entering Lighthouse returned 124 hits. These ranged from postcards, through stamps to publications. Amongst the publications :FAMOUS LIGHTHOUSE HISTORY OF THE OLD WESTItem ID: 1258248 caught my attention as it seemed like a good opportunity to obtain an old periodical article focussing on the subject. Lighthouses often appeal to maritime enthusiasts but can also be relevant to civil engineering fans and family history researchers. The item referenced certainly hits these interests. Do you have anything more to offer related to Lighthouses? And if you list on Specialist Auctions remember to use your free second category. A lighthouse collectable might be a postage stamp, it might fit the geneaology category but do make sure it appears somewhere in the Collectables Nauticalia headings.

Can you sell on Specialist Auctions?

I am Robert Forsythe and in this blog I hope to describe the practical ways by which I have made selling on Specialist Auctions work. There will be comparisons with the inevitable market leader but I hope they will be realistic and invective free. My online trading uses the nick robertatforsythe. Every vendor will have their own rationale but I want my buyers to easily find and recognise me in the areas in which I trade.

http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1119825


I joined ebay on the 4th February 2000 and Specialist Auctions on 29th June 2006. October 22nd 2008 was a significant date in my Specialist Auctions relationship. I recorded my 400th sale and 275th piece of positive feedback. By that date we had 1324 items live. The ebay feedback comparison was 4168 on feedback, all positives on both sites.

The number crunching is significant. ebay set out to be a market place where niche traders would flourish and for a long time I found that to be so. I think however that that ground has shifted. The litmus test is simple: could I afford to keep 1300+ lots live on ebay until they sold. The answer must be pretty obvious: no way. In itself that is not ebay's "fault". It is a consequence of what I sell and this is the education bit. What do you want to sell? And how long does it need in the market place before it will find a buyer? In my case, I have a good supply of highly Specialist material for which there are a limited number of buyers but those buyers are themselves usually dedicated and determined people who know their subject. They may want to spread their spending. I am active in a low cost collecting field. Have I ever sold any individual lot on Specialist for more than £10? No and I don't think any of my individual lots on ebay have fetched more than £100. We are not high value sellers but we are selling material that in the main cost nothing to obtain and usually ends up in the bin (draw a comparison to Reginald Perrin and grot). The point is because most of the time it ends up in the bin, used and abused, the items that survive gain interest.

We explained a lot about this in a blog for Ephemera . Very roughly speaking for every four items I have uploaded onto Specialist, one has sold. Apart from my time (which is the major cost), uploading items onto Specialist has been free. When there is a sale, the fee structure is straightforward at 3%. Failure to sell has not incurred a penalty. The logic says Specialist Auctions is playing a long game. Build up what you have to offer so that your lists show plenty of choice. The chance is someone interested will always then find something that connects to them. It has taken time. The growth to 1300 lots has taken over two years because we do have a life outside on line auctions! Given time, we guess we could quite easily reach a figure of 5000 lots. It is having that rich realm of choice that has grown business. The feedback will show many of the buyers keep on coming back to more. Inevitably positive relationships with individuals who bought from my other listings have been established. ebay cannot stop its vendors getting to know their own customers directly! Those individuals have had the confidence to move their business. But like all good business this revolves around trust and communication. Generally, when I upload lots I have one or two potential buyers in mind. I will often send them a positive alert. I will ask a regular buyer to tell me about their collecting interests and their requests so that when material surfaces I can think of them.

http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1215560


Words about start prices are important. Elsewhere the urge is on setting a low start price. If your lot does not sell, you will be financially penalised and the hope is that a low start attracts buyers. But if the item is a niche item and the buyers are simply not there that week or miss your lot in the sheer bulk of choice, what is the point in listing at 99p start? Specialist Auctions is offering a more measured and less frenetic model.


This is my pricing philosophy. On the criteria of time spent, time listing, time packing and posting, it is not really comfortable to sell a lot for a £1-£1.50. My rough rule of thumb is that a lot needs to realise £3 for me to think that was worth the effort. With Specialist Auctions you can do this. You can set a range of pricing from a realistic, not necessarily bargain basement start price and end at a higher snap it up. Usually my lots show a price range this way between the minimum price that I am comfortable with and what on a good day I do think a lot can achieve. After all, the joy of Specialist Auctions is the sheer flexibility. If the buyer thinks differently and if you have clicked the right box, a haggle can develop. Some people are uncomfortable with this, but there is no obligation to participate and no obligation for the vendor to agree. Many of my sales have been haggles and often in the median range between the two prices shown on the listing. Sometimes I have been persuaded to settle for less than the start price. It can happen. Not often, I usually resist. But if the low haggle is in the context of someone placing a considerable order over a number of lots, it may be considered. Where you decide to end a haggle is often a question of the business context that you have with the other party.

If you are reading this and wondering whether to start listing with Specialist Auctions my summary advice: are you prepared to give the task time? Be patient, be prepared to keep on uploading to build up presence, it will not cost you money. Do you have other outlets where you can draw attention to what you are doing? Do you have an already existing customer base who you know and with whom you communicate? Remember that Specialist Auctions offers a good number of real people keen to help. Nosing around the forum discussions will show that.
Accompanying the blog will be several illustrations which give chapter and verse for actual realisations over the last few months on Specialist Auctions from our material.



Left is sale no 400, sold for £2.95 on 22nd October 2008 as Specialist Auctions no. 1066403.

Ephemera - an interview

I have had the privilege of an interview on Ephemera. Check it out at

http://ephemera.typepad.com/ephemera/2008/09/the-forsythe-co.html

Isle of Man

I just searched Isle of Man on Specialist Auctions and got 241 results from inputting Isle Man. That is a good return. The 30 mile long Isle of Man is widely recognised as a beautiful tourist island in the middle of the Irish Sea. It has a long and proud history. Tynwald claims to be the the oldest continually running Parliament in the world. It was an island settled by the Vikings whose influence is still apparent. A version of a Celtic language is Manx. Another very identifiable symbol is the three legs of Man symbolising the difficulty of overthrowing the Manxmen. Yet another classic image of the island is the Laxey Wheel, the Lady Isabella. This huge waterwheel has been a tourist attraction ever since it was built around 1854 to drain the lead mines. Passengers on the Snaefell Mountain Railway have a good view as they pass to the 2036' mountain summit from where on a good day five kingdoms are on view. That railway is just one of five vintage systems left in operation. The railways have produced plenty of collectables as have the shipping and aviation lines that have served the island. The island plays up to its history and Manx stamps and coins are collectables in their own right. I am about to upload the item just above which is a newsletter about these from a couple of years ago just when they celebrated their own car building industry. This was the Peel microcar made in that little fishing port around 1960. Amongst the 241 listings were many of my own for ephemera from the railways, buses and ships serving the islands. More unusual items cover a competitor to the Steam Packet (another good search) called Norwest who worked from Fleetwood. The Laxey Wheel, Steam Packet ships and the railways readily appear in some of the stamps being listed. There are even Manx stamps on offer produced for use in mainland Britain during one of our postal strikes. The term Manxman is a good search as it covers one of the most famous ships which before it ceased working in 1982 became a film star in Chariots of Fire. The Tourist Trophy TT, Manx Grand Prix or Six Day Trials are worth searching for. These refer to the motor cycle races for which the island is famous. I can offer shipping handbills covering these operations and there are stamps and covers available from other vendors ( TT Races as a search got results). A number of attractive first day covers from the island are on offer from Specialist Auctions. A newish function is that the Isle of Man has its own heading now in Books>History>Local History>Isle of Man so hopefully that can grow. All in all we are not doing the island badly but we will as ever welcome more bidders and vendors.

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.