Antique Collecting advice from Quinney

Found- a small, rare pamphlet Don't: some concise and useful hints for the collector by Thomas Rohan (Bournemouth: A. Rohan, 1933). Rohan was a dealer in antiques and wrote many books on the subject (Old Beautiful, Confessions of a Dealer etc.,) He is said to be the original of Quinney the antique dealer hero of the novel and play (and movie) Quinney's by H.A. Vachell. At one point there were 5 antique shops in Britain called Quinney's and there is still at least one. His hints for collectors are still of use:

DON'T. 

So many just for the want of thought go wrong in collecting, commiseration is of little help, after the event, so I thought just a few concise words of advice, set forth in brief paragraphs would be of help. Recently a gentleman said to me, 'I shall never forget what you said at your first talk to the Alton Art Society - never purchase anything however old it is, if it has not been beautifully made - Age will not add value to bad craftsmanship.' I suppose I have made this remark hundreds of times. 

DON'T buy anything unless you can always live with it.

DON'T be in a hurry to purchase anything, however pleasing momentarily to the eye - meticulously examine the article whether it be furniture, china or glass.

DON'T be satisfied with the name of a supposed make, be quite satisfied that it is of the period of the maker -  for example - a piece of furniture by Chippendale,

Fanny Kemble and Charles— autograph supplier and autograph hunter

Eaton Place, off Belgrave Square, has always been one of the most exclusive addresses in London. In the 1840s, no 99 was the home of the opera singer Mrs Adelaide Sartoris, younger sister of famous actress, novelist and memorialist Fanny Kemble. It was here too, on 23 June 1848, that Chopin gave his first public concert in London before a select audience of 150 that included Swedish diva Jenny Lind.

We don’t know if Fanny was present on this occasion, but thanks to the letter, which was discovered among a pile of other miscellaneous correspondence, we can guess that she occasionally stayed with her sister at no 99 following the breakdown of her own marriage to an American slave-owner. This undated letter, to ‘Charles’, possibly Charles Legh Arkwright (born 1845), a scion of the wealthy Arkwright family of Cromford, Derbyshire, into which the Kembles married, was sent in response to his  letter thanking her for sending him some signatures of her aunt, the celebrated Mrs Siddons. We don’t know whether by ‘signatures’ Fanny meant signed letters, or whether Charles had originally asked for many more autographs of famous actors and actresses, but Fanny could only find a few examples. Here anyway is her reply:

Dear Charles,
You owe me no thanks for the autographs I sent you & I am very glad that they were acceptable. I have only signatures of Mrs Siddons’, so could give you nothing else---I am very glad to hear of the favourable results of the examination---your father & grandmother are well, likewise poor Beppo, whose London existence seems to be like my own, lamentable.
Believe me, my dear Charles,
Yours very truly,
Fanny Kemble. 

Who this Beppo was is not certain. We know that Fanny became 'infatuated' with Byron’s poetry, which included Beppo (1817),so perhaps Beppo was a pet name for a close friend or relative. [RR]

Doctor Who fan solicits Abu autograph

An interesting fan letter from 2005 found among a collection of TV memorabilia. A very polite and thoughtfully composed letter from an ultra-keen collector of 'The Doctor.' He even goes as far as enclosing a pen, a good idea for an autograph hound on the street but unusual in a soliciting letter (surely?). 850 autographs is pretty good going...could only find one photo of Terence Brown in his role as Abu. By the way the factoid about the early use of dry ice sounds convincing but how true is it?

Dear Mr Brown

I am writing in the hope that you can add to my collection of Doctor Who autographs.

If possible, I should be grateful if you would sign the enclosed cards, which relate to the Doctor Who story The Krotons in which you appeared as the doomed Gond  student "Abu."  His death at the hands of the croutons  was one of the first major uses of dry ice in television drama, and was the catalyst for the Doctor and his friends becoming involved in Gond society. Also enclosed is a pen, which should help with signing certain cards, and a return envelope with sufficient postage for both the cards and a pen.

Of course, I appreciate that Doctor Who is only a very small part of your career, and that you make the firm not to sign certain cards, but I should be grateful if you would return them in any event.

Terence Brown as Abu

Please could you also let me have a signed photograph. I 
have made one using images from the Doctor Who website, as I realise you may not have any available, but please accept my apologies for the quality. I much prefer a signed picture of the actor, rather than their role in Doctor Who, so I should be grateful for a current photograph if at all possible. These items are solely for my personal collection of over 850 actors and crew from the programme, and I'm quite happy if you would like to dedicate them.

The Krotons is one of the Doctor Who stories for which I have only been able to obtain a couple of autographs, most recently from actor Gilbert Wynne.

I do hope that you will find the time to reply…

Paul Klee- bookplate for Dr. Louis Michaud

Paul Klee's bookplate for his fellow Swiss school friend Louis Michaud (1880 - 1957) the clinician, scientist and teacher. Klee's only bookplate, with the printed initials 'P.K.' in the corner. A copper plate etching measuring 161 by 181mm, the design itself measuring 148 by 105mm. Listed in the Catalogue Raisonée (Kornfeld) as Klee's engraved Opus no 2. Known in only a handful of examples. Within a tree trunk frame Mephistopheles, seated in Dr. Faust's office addresses an eager student. Surrounding them are various objects comically recalling medical studies - a skull with a pipe in its mouth, a nude female torso, a retort, an inkwell, a baby in a wire covered jar and a stuffed hanging fish. Above and below merged, as it were, with the tree are a snake or lizard-like  figure. A cartouche at the top bears the owners name with 'Ex Libris' above, below are the first lines of a famous verse from Goethe's Faust- "der Geist der Medizin ist leicht zu fassen!" (The spirit of medicine is easy to grasp...") Ironic  in style, the bookplate also shows (according to Benoit Junod) 'the first signs of that distortion of forms of the living world which Klee was later to develop.' Sold several times in the last 2 decades for about £1600. No one ever plonks down the money, you usually have to take post-dated cheques and books and bookplates as swaps -- bookplate collectors are fairly cautious. However there is a new breed emerging in the Extreme Orient who buy high and without demur-- they tend to favour erotic bookplates...  

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A Jean-Louis Trintignant phone card

Souvenir of a business trip to Biarritz in the mid 1990s - a 120 Franc plastic 'Telecarte.' At the time collecting these cards was very popular (possibly still?).  Collectors / dealers used to find the best ones abandoned in phone booths at railway stations and airports (favoured because these places often had older ones brought in by visitors who had bought them on previous trips.)

This one appears to be worth about 1 Euro now - with higher prices (up to 20 Euros) for examples still 'as new' in the plastic film and blue tear-strip in which they were issued. One Canadian site is selling 15 'Cartes téléphonique TÉLÉCARTE FRANCE usagées' for 100 Euros - these feature:

Catherine Deneuve
Romy Schneider
Simone Signoret
Roman Polanski
Jean Gabin
Jeanne Moreau
Johnny Depp
Claude Lelouch
Bernard Blier
Michel Piccoli
Christian Clavier
Michel Serrault
Gérard Lanvien
Jean-Louis Trintignant
Gérard Depardieu & Christian Clavier

The image on the card is from the 1994 movie Three Colors: Red (dir:Krzysztof Kieślowski) in which JLT plays a troubled judge who eavesdrops on his neighbours' private telephone conversations.  Were all the other cards related to phone scenes in movies?

[The hobby is called telegery and hobbyists (apparently?) refer to themselves as fusilatelists. The rarest phone cards are those produced in limited quantities to test the market but then discontinued before catching on. They started in Italy in 1975 and are now regularly traded on Ebay.]