Value & Worth

Having been in the Jewellery Trade for well over 40 years, value & worth have been on my mind for a long time.

Fashion & taste have had a massive impact on this trade for as long as it has existed as well as on clothes, decoration & interiors for the same period.

I have very strong views on this subject, most of which other people will disagree with however, I am still going to inflict these views on my readers & feel free to discuss or argue with or against as you see fit.

It's a huge subject so I am going to restrict my comments to just two pieces recently on the market which, in my opinion show the huge disparity between taste & value.

I have deliberately chosen two items which a jeweller & silversmith would not normally sell so that my (& I stress my) taste would not be influenced by my true love of diamonds, gems & silver.

My first choice is a wine glass. It was described in the catalogue as: A rare Jacobite wine glass, the drawn trumpet bowl engraved with an heraldic rose with single bud and a thistle emanating from the rose stem, together with an oak leaf and "FIAT", raised on a plain stem with tear and conical foot engraved with the Prince of Wales feathers, c.1745, height 14.4cms. PROVENANCE Tennants, Middleham. 

This is, in my opinion a remarkable piece & dates from the late 17th Century (for those who don't know when the Jacobites were around) & bearing in mind that it's glass & therefore fragile & in the hands quite often of people who were less than sober, I find it a minor miracle that it has survived.

It is spectacularly beautiful & elegant & for something over 300 years old shows a fantastic skill & talent in producing such a piece. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a glass expert or aficionado but I would love to own a piece of fragile art, and I don't use the word lightly, as this and feel it would be an honour to drink my wine from such an item.

What is more remarkable is the estimate (June 2016) of between £1000 & £2000 ($1500 to $3000) whilst this is not cheap it is also not particularly expensive for a survivor of such material, It is also useful.

My comparison piece is a print by Bob Carlos Clarke who I'm sure was a very talented artist but it is a print, in my opinion, that means a copy. Mr Clarke was a photographer and whilst I love photography, in my opinion it does not quite compare with painting, so what we have here is a print of a photograph, not quite such high art.

Slightly more worrying is the subject, The title of the piece is Vanessa & dates from 1989 & so is less than 30 years old, one tenth the age of the wine glass. The Artist model appears to be snarling at the audience & bluntly, would you want a snarling woman, however attractive, snarling down at you from the wall, sorry, but I don't.

As an aside, another copy of this print sold at Christie's in 2012 for £5625.00 but whilst the original was dated 1989, that copy was dated 2001 so they can in reality keep churning these things out, but limited editions means they probably shouldn't, but do you believe this?

This copy, dated 1989, also has an estimate of £3000 to £5000, June 2016, ($4500 to $7500) and if you were to buy this you would have, as I said earlier, a copy of a 30 year old photo of a lady, who is undoubtedly normally very pretty but appears to be snarling at you or possibly sneering at you for paying such a sum for her picture whereas for half (or less) the money you could have had a 300 year old wine glass.

OK, my comparison rant on value & worth is over for the moment, but I'm sure I will return to this subject at another time, Discuss?

So Long & Thanks for all the Jewels

So Long & Thanks for all the Jewels

Well peeps, its been a blast, all 43 years of it, but the time has come to call it a day.

I started out in 1972 at Mallorys of Bath working under the brilliant Patrick Mallory & under the mentoring of Mrs Gear, 43 years later I have my own successful Jewellery Valuation Company & I couldn't have done it without their help,  but the time has definitely come to retire.

I am closing Jewellery Evaluation Service  as from the 1st September 2015 & I want to thank all the people that have helped me on my way, some, very sadly, no longer with us.

Firstly obviously, Patrick Mallory & all the members of his family & not forgetting Mrs Gear (Hankie) & her wonderful husband Tom for whom I will be eternally grateful for constantly beating me at chess.  I will never forget actually beating him once & thinking I had it nailed, but it wasn't to be, just a fluke!

After a brief dreadful time (profitable but awful) with the Prudential, I would like to thank the partners at David Christopher for our short time together & reminding me why I love this business so much,  & then a great big shout out to Mr Vincent of Vincents of Frome,
All I can say about that is that it was wonderful & I apologise for not keeping a tighter rein on He Who Cannot Be Named for screwing it all up.

I would like to mention Harvey & Thompson, even though I had to take them to the industrial tribunal, you need to work on Human Relations there chaps. Hatton Goldsmiths deserve a mention, great fun there but the mileage was just too much in the end for me.

LMG again reminded me that I was a jeweller & valuer first & ethics was the most important part of my lifestyle & Safeguard reinforced this, sorry people I just cannot value by rote, it's my name at the bottom even when its yours at the top, I could never have fitted in as part of a Valuation Mill, good on you though for making it work for the multiples, that's work I didn't want.

I have met some great people on the way & a few that deserve mention are Brian Dunn, a massive

Paul Templeton

talent & sadly missed, Paul Templeton again massively missed, Gabi Tolkowski who taught me more about diamond cutting over a coffee than I had learnt in the previous 30 odd years.

Of course I couldn't forget Adrian Smith of AIJV fame who created my brilliant website & helped enormously when I started out on my own, so much so that I am donating www.jewelleryvaluer.com to him after I retire.

Michael Inkpen for his brilliant lectures on Jewellery photography, Shirley Mitchell for her wicked sense of humour & all the other great Independent valuers in the AIJV & larger jewellery community.

I cannot leave without mentioning Michael Norman, probably the most ethical & honest valuer I ever met & that is not to belittle his teaching ability which was beyond compare, David Callaghan for his wonderful talks, especially the one on The Victoria Cross, Eric Emms for his stance on Diamond Grading, didn't always agree but always respected his views. I have to mention James Riley, dating back to his days at Backes & Strauss & the diamond pricing grids, so much easier than Rap, & his taking Gem-A properly into the 21st Century, Pravin Pattni gave us so much information on High Carat Gold work & did sterling work as head of NAG.

I have to mention Philip Stephenson & his watches & the great times at Loughborough & finally my last mentions are Richard Gerrard & his love of great music & also Catherine Parsons & Lyn Jordan from my time at Goldsmiths.

There are so many other wonderful people who I have met at conference (Thank you Sandra Page) that I cannot mention them all but you are all brilliant & wonderful examples of our trade Thank You from the bottom of my heart.

I was particularly struck by the wealth of international talent that turned up in Loughborough every year, thank you all for sharing your expertise.

Of course I could not have done it without the support of my amazing wife Jane, after a previous excursion into married life in the 80s & 90s which left me bruised battered & much much poorer & almost homeless, meeting someone like Jane was beyond belief. I had intended to retire at 55 originally & open a specialist Antique shop, probably in France, open by appointment only, but circumstances rendered that impossible & beyond my means, the new horizons now available are fantastic & my only regret is leaving all the wonderful friends I have met over the years behind, but it has to be.

I couldn't have made it alone without the strong support from my friends in the retail trade, those jewellers who entrustred me with their valuations, so a big thank you to, Denhams of Loughborough, DeVille of Melton Mowbray, Petersons of Leicester, Silk Diamonds of Leicester, Hallams of Nottingham & Jollys of Mansfield, I would also like to thank the Police from Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire (especially Wigston) & Derbyshire as well as Operation Titan based in Liverpool for their strong support. All the jewellers above are fantastic & professional, I cannot recommend them enough.

I am going to be pottering, with ceramics & the dogs from now on but somehow I know, that I will never be able to pass an antique shop, jewellers or silversmiths without a wistful backwards glance.

I am not closing my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/JewelleryEvaluationService?ref=bookmarks so if people still want to post beautiful jewellery or wonderful silver then I will still be happy to share, I may even still help out with the odd enquiry but will not be able to give valuations for you.

Just to reiterate, I am closing Jewellery Evaluation Service at the end of August so, as from the 28th of August 2015, I regret it will be no more, if you need to find a brilliant & highly qualified valuer in your area after this date you can do no better than to check out http://www.independent-jewellery-valuers.org/find_appraiser_valuer.html

Thank you all for your help

Ian Dunbar

Old Sheffield Plate

On the 17^th September 1788, The Derby Mercury published the following obituary, "On Thursday se’night died at Whitley Wood, near Sheffield, Mr Thomas Boulsover aged eighty-four. This gentleman was the first inventor of Plated Metal: which like many curious arts was discovered by accident."

The obituary goes on to describe this “accident”.  As in all great discoveries, sometimes myth & legend make a more interesting history than the truth however this is the story.

Around 1750 Thomas was working at his cutlers shop in Sheffield, which was of course the centre of the world for cutlery & flatware at the time, when he was tasked with repairing a knife haft which was composed of silver & copper.

He apparently was struck with the way the two metals had fused together and with the practicality of manufacturing plated articles. He then started making plated snuff boxes & buttons.

It is probably more truthful to believe that he applied the blowpipe heat torch a little more forcefully than needed and the heat needed to melt the silver had also melted the copper.

So, what is Old Sheffield Plate & how is it different from what we call Silver Plate today?

The story with Thomas Boulsover continues with the idea that he discovered that if you take a brick of copper & a sheet of silver that have fused together, run the whole thing through a rolling mill the resultant sheet will expand together, producing a sheet of copper with a covering of silver, it behaved as one material.

Prior to this point the only way to produce a plated article was to make the item and then solder sheets of silver to it, which was so expensive, even with the labour costs at the time that it was totally uneconomic.

Boulsover went on to make a highly successful career out of his plated wares, but did only concentrate on small items such as the boxes & buttons mentioned earlier, in fact by 1869, he found it even more profitable to make saws & other edged tools and leave it to others to develop & capitalise on his invention.

One of the earliest to take up the process was Joseph Hancock another cutler working in the same workshop as Boulsover, in fact it has been said that he rather than Boulsover is the “Father of Silver Plated Manufacture”

One of Joseph Hancock’s earliest pieces is shown here, it is a Saucepan. This one is only plated on one side, in this case the inside, however the plate is of unusual thickness.

There are also spoons & forks that are claimed to be by Hancock, these are made in two parts & soldered together as at the time, plating was only done on one side. He is also known for a great variety of larger items such as Tea-Urns, Coffee Pots, Tankards, Cups & Candlesticks.

Somewhat like Boulsover he also realised that he could be more profitable elsewhere, by the mid-1760s he was the owner of rolling mills, making the plate & leaving it to others to make the finished articles.

Another great innovator at the time was Samuel Roberts, he was apprenticed to Thomas Law and made many improvements to the process & design of items. His partner  George Cadman was the first to put silver wire edges to the items, and the firms also had the idea of rubbing in a silver shield so that armorials could be engraved without cutting through to the copper base. Samuel Roberts was the author of several patents & introduced stamped silver feet, handles & mounts.

He himself wrote a letter to a Sheffield Newspaper in 1843 in which he describes the early years of Old Sheffield Plate manufacture, “By about 1865 it was clear that the trade had become considerable, there were about six houses engaged in it and almost all kinds of goods had then become plated metal which had been made in silver”

Sheffield was fiercely proud of the quality of their wares & were indignant at the “articles of a very inferior quality being manufactured for the foreign market”

They took a stand against the “depravity” of some of the itinerant workmen and determined to raise the status of the quality works until it was as high as any other of the workmen of Sheffield. This was a way of inducing “our bad workmen & the depraved characters to leave us and go seek employment elsewhere”

In Birmingham however was the famous Soho workshop of Matthew Boulton. His father had originally set up as a “toymaker” a term at that time meaning a manufacturer of small items such as buttons & boxes etc. The son took over the Snow Hill site in 1759 on his father’s death and, at the age of thirty two became one of the countries leading manufacturers.

One of the most important of the products to come out of the New Soho works was Sheffield & Silver plate, he in fact became the largest single manufacturer of fused plate in the country and alone amongst the Birmingham makers offered a challenge to the Sheffield Quality pieces.

In 1784 a new duty was applied to silver having the effect of pushing the prices of silver articles up by as much as 25%, meaning a silver teapot, previously costing £7 might now cost £9, silversmiths tried to counter this by reducing the thickness of the metal, you will have noted that late 18^th Century items are usually of a much more light & delicate design than the heavy items of the mid-century.

The imposition of this tax was a boon to the Fused Plate manufacturers and armorials on surviving pieces show that the gentry & even the nobility were not averse to buying Fused Plate over silver at the time in order to save money.

As has been said earlier, the first fused plate items were only covered with silver on one side, the insides of cups etc. often being tinned, I have already noted the spoons & forks being made by joining two half stampings however somewhere between 1763 & 1770 sheets of silver were being fused to both sides of the copper block & so double sided plating was born.

The silver edges introduced by Samuel Roberts & George Cadman hid the raw edges and piercing,

usually done with a saw in silver was effected by a carefully designed stamp which pinched the edges of the cut together, thus hiding the edge.

One of the most prolific items made in fused plate were candlesticks, bearing in mind that candles were pretty much the only source of artificial light available, this is not surprising.

    Circa 1760   Circa 1780          Circa 1790-1800    Telescopic Circa 1820-30

All good things must come to an end however and during the 1830s & 1840s many manufacturers began using “German Silver” now more commonly known as Nickel Silver in preference to copper for the base as it was harder & more durable, it was also a better colour, so that when the silver began to wear, it was a whiter metal beneath rather than the lovely rich copper colour (is my preference showing here ?)

Again it was Samuel Roberts in the forefront, developing a patent where a thin sheet of nickel silver was first fuse to the copper before fusing the silver sheet to that, from about 1845, Nickle silver has been the metal of preference for the base of plated wares.

Also from this time, “electro plating began to make an impact, mostly led by Elkingtons of Birmingham as they could make the same articles at a lesser cost than the fused platers could. Even as late as the Great Exhibition of 1851 however judges were still expressing doubts about the viability of this new process on goods made by Elkington, in fact awarding the prize to TJ & N Creswick for goods, “plated by the old process of uniting metals by heat”

Electroplating is a process where the item is made, using all the traditional methods, stamping, spinning, raising etc. and then immersed in a bath with an electric current running from a bar of the metal that is to form the coating (anode) to the item (connected to the negative terminal becoming the cathode) As the current is turned on the silver solutions in the bath and the anode transfer their material to the cathode, coating the item in silver.

This process is so much cheaper than the fused plate process however the coating is pure silver and therefore softer & less durable, unless treated it will also tarnish much faster. The item can be stripped & replated without too much difficulty, unlike Fused Plate where the coating is Sterling (92.5% pure) silver and if electro-plating repairs are applied to this product the colour match is abysmal.

The end was however in sight, a few firms lingered on for some years but most seemed reluctant to adapt to the new process and it found its true home in Birmingham rather than Sheffield, Brummagem had won.

Some of the makers mentioned herein made punch marks, similar to hallmarks as they were so proud of their production, I reproduce a few here below. Unfortunately, no mark has ever been traced for Thomas Boulsover.

Joseph Hancock

            Samuel Roberts & George Cadman

 

Matthew Boulton  

Elkington & Co

Being Successful & Independant

Back in the early 1990s I had a little shop in Frome, Somerset, Vincents of Frome, it was a very old fashioned Jewellery shop, pillars were painted black and the tops were gilded, all our rings were in little old boxes and we sold old jewellery, old silver & good quality second-hand watches such as Rolex, IWC, Breitlings and the like. We wore suits & ties.
The shop was number 1 in the street & was so successful that we took over next door & called it Vincents 2 & sold silver & amber, trophys and lower price point pieces.

No 4 Cheap Street was the other Jeweller in Frome, Charles Hart and he had a totally different image. He appealed to the young & hip (sorry) He employed pretty young staff and there was music playing quietly in
the background. I am not judging you understand, just describing.

Now being so close to each other you might think we were rivals but in fact we worked so well together that between us we had all the jewellery business in the area.

It was odd, there were people that came to us looking for presents for their grandchildren, like a Swatch Watch, now clearly we didn't sell them but Harts did so we suggested they pop 2 doors up, the response was usually along the lines of, "Oh couldn't possibly go there, its too bright & loud" so we told them we would see what we could do and asked then to call back in a couple of days.

We then popped into Harts, who was a stalwart of the Swatch Collectors Club, borrowed a few, called the client back in & let them choose one.

The reverse also happened, Customers would go into Harts, ask for a nice piece of Old Jewellery and when advised to pop 2 doors down were usually told, "Oh No couldn't possibly go there, they are so old fashioned & stuffy", Chris would come down, borrow a few pieces in the right price range & usually make the sale.

I know that a National Jewellery Chain, came to look at Frome as a possible site for one of their outlets, went away as there was simply no gap at their price points, Harts & Vincents were The Jewellers of Frome.

Saturday night I was reminded of this wonderful collaboration, sitting outside our new favourite Watering Hole, The Chequered Flag here in Castle Donington. Its a great Micro Pub & serves Flat Cider as good as I used to drink when I lived in Somerset.

This guy came up to us, wearing a suit, sort of, a bit scruffy but a suit, Saturday night on one of the hottest evening of the year, and started to tell us abut his plans for the empty shop next door to the pub. Apparently he has this idea that will close the Chequered Flag down in a week.

Now the street the Micro Pub is in has two Indian Restaurants, A great Italian Restaurant, A bar/restaurant, A deli & a nice little cafe in it, as well as the best Fish & chip shop in the village so it's a busy little street and on nice evenings its bustles. It bustles due to the range of the competition.

I simply do not understand the idea that to succeed, you have to close down the competition, I work within 50 miles of one of the largest Valuation Companies in the UK, they are my competition, some of the jewellers in Nottingham, my nearest big town along with Derby have their own valuers, there is a semi-independent within 20 miles, I don't want them to close down, the big company has a big advertising budget which I don't and some of their advertising rubs off on me, They have contracts with the Multiples with hundreds of shops, I couldn't cope with that level of work, so I'm happy to let them have that.

I see the same idea on the TV with the American shows where they buy old storage units & unclaimed baggage, they all want to get the competition to over spend & hopefully close down, I'm sorry but that is failing Business 101, competition is good, it spurs me on to offer the different, the better, the quicker. That way I am differentiated from the competition, the same way we were in Frome and my goodness were we successful? you betcha!

Oh and the "idea" that was going to drive The Chequered Flag out of business in a week, Well it was a sort of club, the guy was going to buy the shop outright & then sell "membership" at a £1000 each, Then sell drinks a a lower price, he said £3.00 a pint when decent cider is £3.50 next door so not much cheaper, as soon as he had enough "investors" he takes the money & walks away. What a great "Business Plan", something you could be proud of eh?

Lets keep our family run business going, lets hear it for the small hard working Independants & lets help keep these so called "Businessmen" out of our High Streets.

TANSTAAFL

As a local independent jewellery valuer, I see all sorts of unusual items & this year has been no exception.

I see unusual Georgian & Victorian pieces as well as modern designer items, both from the UK & abroad, this is my meat & drink and one of the main reasons I love both my job & the trade as a whole.

Occasionally however I come across scams & these make my blood boil, The jewellery & silver trade is a beautiful place to work, not that well paid but ultimately very satisfying.

I have come across two scams so far this year and its only the second week of February, this post is about one, I'll get to the other in a later post, this one is of more immediate concern.

I work in a great little village, nearly a town in the Midlands and there is a local Serviced Office complex a few hundred yards from my office. One of the residents rang me and asked if I could examine a ring he had just bought on Ebay as "it smelled funny".

Now I have been a jeweller for over 40 years and never considered smelling jewellery as a test, acid testing or electronic testing the metals yes, Refractive index etc. on gem stones but smelling is a new one on me, however I agreed to pop over & take a look.

Ugly looking brute isn't it, beauty is however in the eye of the beholder, but it is stamped "18k" & "750" & weighing 11.6 grams. so if 18ct gold it scraps for a smidgin under £280.00.

My potential client had paid £265.00 so got a pretty good deal.

Unfortunately the ring is not gold at all, despite the Ebay description which I append below.

Item specifics

Condition:	Used: An item that has been previously worn. See the seller’s listing for full details and description of any imperfections. See all condition definitions	Material:	Gold
Gold Type:	Yellow Gold	Gold Quality:	18 Carat

18 Ct gold mens ring, Ideal for investment.

Now that is very bad and not a little illegal. The law reads that it is illegal to describe an article as Gold, Silver or Platinum unless it is hallmarked or exempt. A common exception is an item weighing less than 1 gram, as this weighed over 11 grams that did not apply.

As you can see from the image, it is stamped but that is not a hallmark, under magnification just how crude the markings are is revealed. In fact I don't think it is stamped at all, I think the marks have been cast when the ring was made.

Anyway, the good news is that I agreed to test the ring and show that it was not any sort of gold, never mind a purported 18ct gold, write a report so that my client could get his money refunded from Paypal.

I had a very similar ring in my "naughty" collection showcase just outside my office and was able to show what a con this was, I got mine a few years ago when a popular con around Loughborough was to flag motorists down with a petrol can & a stopped car offering to exchange "gold rings" for enough money to get some petrol. The cons were being carried out by persons of an Eastern European persuasion, I had thought however that the police warnings at the time had closed these down. How wrong I was.

On the 30th of January this year I got the following email from Leicestershire Police,

Leicestershire Police has issued a warning to the public after two motorists were the victims of a scam.

Police have received two reports of motorists travelling on the M69 being approached in a layby at junction 2 by a man who claimed he had ran out of fuel and didn’t have any cash to pay for more.

During both incidents he asked for money in exchange for some gold jewellery. Following the exchange the victims have checked the jewellery and realised it was not genuine.

During the first incident the man was driving a light blue vehicle and the second incident involved a red Vauxhall estate.

PC Steve Morley of the Force’s contact management centre, said: “The man sounded very plausible and assured the victims that he would get in touch the following day and return the money but gave them some gold jewellery in the meantime which wasn’t genuine.

Clearly the con is still being perpetuated and the conners have also moved on to trying Ebay as well, a very quick check on that site found two more similar rings being offered for sale.

Moral of this story, There Aint No such Thing As A Free Lunch, and if you are considering a jewellery purchase on an auction site, get a professional valuer to check it out first, Never Buy jewellery from a man at the side of the road.

Banking in the 21st Century

More years ago than I care to remember, Ok it was 1971, I left college To work for one of the main High St banks, The Midland and although it wasn't my first choice, they made the offer first so, thats where I went.

I was a Rem Clerk, for far longer than I should have been but in between that most boring of jobs, I also learnt to operate what was then the acme of technology, a computer.

It wasn't really a computer, but a terminal, the actual computer was owned by the Post office and was in Bootle, I was in Bedminster Bristol, and the terminal was £250, 000, didn't have a screen but had 2 tally rolls instead & was programmed by a roll of punched paper that was kept in a small tobacco tin.

In those days It took 3 days to clear a cheque from one of the major 4 banks, National Westminster, Barclays, Lloyds or Midland. They were known as "Walks" as when the cheques reached head office in London, they were "walked" round to the other head offices.

That was 41 years ago, The Midland bank is long gone & owned by some far eastern Company, I also no longer bank with them. we now we have ATMs which can dispense cash 24 hours a day and remove money from your account in an instant. Computers are now much more powerful and they even have machines in branch to pay in, pay bills etc without any human intervention.

I know, its common to hammer bankers, particularly since 2008 and the big crash, for which we all, including me, are still suffering but and its a big "but", one thing I really do not understand is this, Why, when money can be moved around the world in an instant does it now take 4 days to clear a cheque?

What is even worse is that it is 4 "working days". Apparently computers and money handling programs do not work on bank holidays.

On New Years Eve at about 10am I paid a cheque into my account (via a machine as requested by the bank staff) On the 2nd of January It was not even showing on my account, so I queried it. apologies were forthcoming from the branch, they had a "glitch" but the cheque was registeruing wiuth them and it would be cleared by today (3rd January).

Well guess what?, it wasn't, Not only that, I was told it now takes 4 days to clear a cheque and it should not really be cleared until Friday as New Years day doesn't count.

Now presumably they have had use of my money from the moment it is paid in, so they are earning interest on it, the payer no longer has it in their account so is loosing interest on it. I cannot pay for my car repairs to get my wife to her radiotherapy appointments every day but do they care? No they don't.

I have to assume that the banks no longer "Walk" cheques between Head Offices as they did over 40 years ago, I have to assume its all electronic transfer today, so perhaps somebody in a bank can explain why it takes so blasted long.

All I can take as comfort in, is that I no longer work for such an organisation today and that when my clients come to me, they go home with everything they came for. Oddly enough that is amostly all due to the fact that world has moved on in the last 40 years, one thing the banks seem to have not noticed.

Reflections

Well its interesting, As of 10am, Tuesday 10th April 2012, I will be celebrating 40 years since I first walked through the doors of E P Mallory & Son at 5 Old Bond Street in Bath to become a Junior sales assistant and take the first steps to becoming a jeweller.
This was Mallorys Antique & Second Hand Jewellery & Silver Dept and I spent almost 15 very happy years here absorbing all that Pat Mallory could pass on to me.
A lot of Water has passed under Pultney Bridge since then but the lessons I learned there have stayed with me and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Pat, his wife and incidentally his father & grandfather who started the business in the 19th century and whose passion I now share.
I owe another huge debt of gratitude to Hankie, or more properly Mrs Gear (nee Miss Hanks) a formidable lady who very nearly caused me to turn around & walk out on that first day. She was the spitting image of my previous boss at the Midland Bank in Bristol and whose mission in life was to make junior clerks' lives Hell on Earth. Fortunately Hankie was a dream, very hard but with a soft centre, I learned more from her (and Tom her husband) about life and living it than from anyone else, ever. She was a brilliant artist and I still have 3 of her pictures in my office today. Having the theater in Bath meant that I met many famous people, Lesley Crowther was a regular visitor as was his equally famous son in law from Thin Lizzy one of my fave bands at the time, Phil Lynott. Not just British Stars either, Richard Thomas (John Boy Walton) & his wife were memorable visitors as were many others too numerous to mention.
One of my best memories of Mallorys is the 3 Glass car hood ornaments in the attic, still brand new, still with their price tickets (in Guineas) dating from the 1920s, Original Laliques, never sold and probably never would be.
Advertisement taken from Punch the London magazine of June 1929, quote:

"Shinning Scintillating, lovely Lalique Car Mascots (the crystallised thoughts of the artist master craftsman Rene Lalique) are making their way to the bonnets of the cars of connoisseurs, there to stay poised, the dernier cri of aesthetic taste. Breves Galleries are the sold concessionnaires for these mascots for England and would urge you to make your choice while there is yet time, for only a certain number of them are being made, and when these are produced the moulds will be broken, thus ensuring rarity. Made of highly metallised glass, practically unbreakable, they are illuminated so that you can at once pick out your car at night.
Mascots for radiator or dash (usual fitting) £3.3.0
Mascots (with light fitting) £4.4.0"
I remember this one from the collection but there was a wonderful horses head. I wonder if they are still in the shop? Mallorys left Old Bond Street a few years ago but are still at Bridge Street where they started and I wish them all well.
Time moved on however I was now married and my wife was pregnant, I wasnt earning much and needed money, I made the second biggest mistake of my life and left to pusue wealth instead of happiness and joined the Prudential, Yes, I was one of the "Men from the Pru" when that still meant something. I gave it a good try, I started on the Monday & by Friday, knew I had made a mistake but stuck it out for 5 years as my wife was busy spending the unbelievable salary.
Eventually however I saw the writing on the wall & got out, just in time as they did away the whole job about a year later.
I somehow found my way back to Frome in Somerset where I joined up with an ex colleage from Mallorys (who is going to be nameless for many reasons but Tommy, you know who you are)
I had been a Frome Grammar School boy and knew Mr Vincent, A local 2nd generation jeweller in the town from my early drinking days at the Vine Tree. He asked "Tommy" & I if we would take on his Jewellery shop, T H Vincent & Son in Cheap Steet, It was a "No Brainer"
What a wonderful time we had, the only other jeweller left was Chris Hart and we had a great relationship with him, He catered for the young smart set and we catered for the older more staid type clients, between us we "owned" that town.
We expanded very quickly and even took over the shop next door, adding silver & amber jewellery, trophys & Engraving to our portfolio. We even bought out our jobbing jeweller & installed him in the building. Our traditional old silver & jewellery business boomed but it wasnt to last. We had an armed robbery, unsuccessful but life changing all the same for many reasons and "Tommy" & I agreed to go our seperate ways. I know Chris Hart is still there but regrettably Vincents is no more, I hope some "Vincents" watches are still going strong however.
I moved to Cannock to concentrate on Valuation work and added several more bits of alphabet soup after my name, courtesy of the NAG. A later move to Leicester (and a divorce) was to come and lead to eventual happiness here in the Midlands with a new wife (and several dogs & cats)
Armed with this background I now just work for myself, valuing what others believe valuable and help as many as I can. I haven't done it alone however, Pat Mallory, Hankie, even Tommy have made me what I am today and I couldn't have done any of the last bit without the unflagging support of my wife Jane and it is to her that I dedicate the last 40 years, lets hope there are many more to come.