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Wasted on me

I bought a pair of these for £1 off a junk table in the market (fingers for scale). It’s a British Navy thing. The pages of these two are completely blank – not ruled or anything – but also not written upon.

I don’t know what sort of notes the navigating officer was supposed to take, but I found references to detailed notes of WWII naval engagements.

This one on Ebay had fourteen sketches from on board various ships. In the end, it sold for £6.50, which made me sad. What people value, eh?

Anyway, I bought them thinking I’d use them as sketch books, but I can’t bring myself to sully them. So they’ll probably go in a box somewhere and ultimately end up back on the junk table of a market. Best case.

Have a good weekend, folks! Wait…you mean…I don’t have to go to work tomorrow?

Comments


Comment from LesterIII
Time: July 9, 2021, 7:59 pm

A friend of mine is a long time WWII reenactor, and focuses on US Army Signal Corps. He has amassed quite the collection of working equipment, including teletypes that are used during large events. He also has collected manuals and reference of all sorts, and has been accurately reproducing every form and bit of minutiae for accuracy during events.

One very notable event is D-Day Conneaut:
https://www.ddayohio.us

It takes place in Conneaut Ohio, and is AMAZING! Amphibious landing reenactment of D-Day, tank battles, flyovers, a USO dance with a Big Band; it is quite the event and takes over the entire town and surrounding area on the shores of Lake Erie. They bring any WWII veteran in the US via Honor Flight, and host them. It is really something to behold.

Well, this friend who participates has established a working US Army Signal Corps at the event. They set up a comm-post, wire the entire encampment (he built all the wire-poles/reels/etc to specification), field phones, telegraphs… it’s mind boggling. He is linked up with others around the world, and they get a streaming feed of civilian news and military comms, accurately transcribed FROM 06JUN1944, which is then converted to interface with the teletypes in real time. There are runners, WACS, WAVS, and a host of others that scurry about amongst the reenacting units and make it as believable as possible. It is fascinating. Check out their website.

Items like these that you found are TREASURE to people like him, of which I am sure you have in your neck of the woods.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: July 9, 2021, 9:09 pm

Friend does British 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment (AARR). You can tell they’re British because of the way they spell the word Armoured, which my spell check claims is WRONG WRONG WRONG!

They actually have an operational American Glider transportable TANK, an M22 Locust – although the 6th used Tetrarch light tanks deployed from British Hamilcar gliders.
They use it to re-enact Operation Varsity – a Rhine Crossing.

So as not to trigger the paste eater in the White House who thinks private citizens can’t own cannons, this tank has a false turret and a butane/propane charged ‘cannon’.

Here’s a link that contains info on both the Locust and the Tetrarch, for anyone who knows or cares about tanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M22_Locust

As for the Hamilcar gliders that could carry the tanks.
You can find info on them in Wiki as well.

No wonder we refer to these folks as the Greatest Generation, going to war using some of this gear.


Comment from drew458
Time: July 10, 2021, 1:02 pm

“What people value, eh?”

A retail cased original 1987 Legend of Zelda NES video game cartridge was just auctioned off for $870,000.

The price of a really nice home, for a plastic box with a $3 bit of chip inside that you can’t play, probably no longer plays, and looses most of it’s value if you even open the retail security case, and all of it’s value if you open the cartridge box.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/9/22570401/legend-of-zelda-nes-sealed-copy-heritage-auctions-most-expensive-game


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: July 10, 2021, 7:25 pm

drew458: Or you could pay 627,500 pounds for this.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: July 10, 2021, 9:46 pm

@Drew – I wondered about that being unplayable. There’s a box in the attic, and one sitting about 3 feet from me that contain the ‘old’ game units, with games from when the boys cycled up through the Sega units and Xboxes.

No analog color tv to play them on though.

Clearly some people have way more money than they know what to do with productively.


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: July 10, 2021, 11:29 pm

@durnedyankee — It looks like you can get an adapter to hook up your old video consoles to a newer tv for not a lot of money, plus there are multiple YT “how-to” videos.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=old+video+console+new+tv+adapter&ia=web


Comment from Ripley
Time: July 10, 2021, 11:53 pm

From my long ago, I have some of the Wehrmacht Operation Seelowe “guidebooks” created for the invasion of England (ironically in some cases using postcards and snapshots), to aid landmark recognition. While they appear to have some value, I’d rather donate them TBH.


Comment from BJM
Time: July 11, 2021, 12:21 am

@Stoaty…that’s the beauty of our system…you’re free to make as much money as you can and use however you wish. What makes me sad is the dismissal of the people who carried such a book in a time of war.

The market in pre-1890’s toy soldiers, especially 16th & 17th century campaign collections is in 6 & 7 figure range. I guess it depends on the toys the boys want, eh? A 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO sold for $70 mil in 2018. And it ain’t just the boys.. don’t get me started on china or dolls…a friend began collecting dolls as a child and has at least a million invested, and most of them are rather creepy looking. At least one can drive the Ferrari and eat from the china…but that ain’t the point, is it?


Comment from Drew458
Time: July 11, 2021, 2:17 am

Nice home indeed … in Scotland, if you have that kind of money, you can either buy a video game cartridge or an ENTIRE CASTLE, on 21 acres, in fairly livable condition.

https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/historic-castle-scotland-for-sale-less-than-average-london-house-price-b944225.html


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: July 11, 2021, 12:34 pm

@BJM – funny you thought of spending it as they wish. I realized after my comment that someone just put $870K back into public circulation, more or less.

Chances are if you can buy a multi million dollar car, real or toy, and spend $870k on a video game cartridge, well, you SHOULD have been flying in to meet with the other members of the IllumiBilderburgDavosians in Sun Valley Idaho!

All that’s really changed is how the “robber barons” are amassing and spending their money I guess.


Comment from BJM
Time: July 11, 2021, 6:53 pm

@Durned One only need look at the summer “cottages” that line the cliffs in Newport, or the Biltmore to see that robber baron spending hasn’t really changed…now the focus is off-world real estate. Branson went into space today… the guy has balls that’s for sure.


Comment from Anonymous
Time: July 11, 2021, 9:25 pm

Hmmm.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/wombats


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 12, 2021, 5:34 pm

Hmmm.

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