Where am I?

For those of you who have been reading - and enjoying - my blog, thank you. I have been away from the blog for a while now obviously, but I plan on coming back to it.

There have been a lot of changes in my life since the last post, some of which I hope to share with you soon.

Please check back in a little while. I promise to try and update this blog and continue the discussion of collectibles that I had so much fun starting.

Nellie

Collecting goes to the dogs

:) I love that title! :P

Christie's, you know the big art auction house, is having a big sale on dog art... Yep, paintings of dogs... And you can pick up one for as much as $1.2 million. You read that right.

"Neptune" is a portrait of a Newfoundland dog by Sir Edwin Landseer. It's life-size, and could be sold for between $800 000 and $1.2 mill. (Lucky dog! My parents lab would never sell for that much ;) )

Incidentally, Suzy saw a photo of it, and loved it (she's an artist), so that's got to count for something.

Read more about it here.

It's not a dog... but here's a pig origami.

Weekly collectors collection

I've found a lot of great and fun (and interesting) blogs on collecting, and I thought instead of blogging about them individually every time they post something I like, I'd do a weekly update of my... I don't know, say top 5 blog posts of the week. So here they are:

1. Do What Now has a very funny picture of an old magazine ad, where the actors are... well, awful!




2. Ephemera interviews a futuristic advertisement collector, where he notes that research is your best friend when it comes to buying collectibles




3. Kitschy Kitschy Coo offers up 13 ways to know that you are obsessed with collecting




4. AKPhilately mentions that stamps in the late 1800s were given out to postal workers, so they knew what each stamp looked like (and from there work out the fakes from the real ones!)



5. About Postcards has a nice little intro to silhouette postcards; what they are, the history behind them, etc.

New commemorative stamp

Some new collecting news about stamps, which will make my uncle quite happy!

The Stamp Collecting Round-up last week posted about the news that the late President Ford will be presented on a new stamp. The image of President Ford will be on the 41-cent stamp which will be on sale after August 31st. Normally, presidents are given a commemorative stamp on the anniversary of their birthday (once the presidents have died that is), but apparently the family chose to release the stamp in August - Ford's birthday was July 14. ... So now Uncle Bob has yet another stamp to collect (and if he sets me this 'task', I can say I already know - won't he be pleased! :) )

And for origami collectors - and I know you're out there - the Fitful Flog has continued his awe-inspiring designs with the Stellated Curved Tetrahedron Redux. I don't think I'll be doing this one for a while! I barely mastered the butterfly above! (Shut up James :P)

Shopping for the sports fan

I was just trying to find a gift for James, who's a big fan of the 49ers. It's pretty tough because I'm not really into football, and I don't really know what to get him (on a budget too!). There's a few ideas I've had, from buying him something autographed, to buying a jersey... there's just too many options!

I'm kind of thinking of getting him something from this new sports memorabilia shop, called Memothentic. Particularly the: Wendell Tyler Series I 49ers Memothentic "THE FIRST RING". It's all about how Tyler was able to get his first Super Bowl ring, and I know James would love it... I wonder how much these things cost?

Anyway, why I'm so entranced with this as a present is that it not only combines the usual sports memorabilia (autograph, picture of the athlete, and jersey framed), but they also get the athlete to hand write (!!!) something that they remember about the particular photo. It makes it a really great personalized gift!

I couldn't find much info on where these items are sold... oh, now I did. They're sold at NFL Shop... and from the looks of the prices, it's a bit too much out of my price range. But hey, maybe I can save up for Christmas!

Interesting autograph tips

Taki recently lent me her latest copy of Autograph Collector magazine. There's some good articles in this month's issue. 'In the trenches' mentions some good tips to novice autograph hunters that I'd never though about before. Like not taking more than a couple of items for someone to sign, because otherwise the person might think that you are only there to sell the items later on ebay (and we all know how my experience with ebay turned out!).

The article, 'Greetings from Ohio' suggests that having a unique way of contacting a star may provide better results in getting autographs, like sending a camera with your request, or sending an item of clothing (this is such a good idea for stars like Jessica Simpson, who have their own labels).

And lastly, the article 'Off the Wall' gives us good reason to start autograph collecting when we're younger! A teacher in NY has been getting her students to write to stars and ask for autographs - getting them to be more sociable, teaching persistence and patience, and most importantly, getting them in touch with their heros! What an inspiration!



Actually, all of the articles in the mag suggest that autograph hunting is a matter of persistence. In which case, I may have to teach Taki a little of it :)

Illegal quarters

Just when you thought it was safe to find a quarter in your pocket, like I did in a previous post, you may stumble onto a 'fantastic' illegal coin!

The movie 'Fantastic Four' (based on the comic) has a promotion out. 40 000 quarters were printed with some of the characters in the movie on them. Pretty cool promotion, until you find out that the US Mint actually said that the printing was illegal. All of the quarters used were state quarters for California, and about 800 of the promotional coins have been released in every state.

(And if you're a keen collector, you can submit your find of the Fantastic Four coin to win a private screening of the film!)

Read more about it here.

And while we're on the topic of coin collectors, I stumbled onto Coin Collector, which has lots of useful information for the numismatist (new word for the day! I promised Taki I'd stop using it; she thinks it's a naughty word :P ). Plus there's a coin trivia day each week, where you have to really know your coin stuff to get the answers right!