April

Spring is here and that typically means good weather and lots of wind in Merritt. Recent outdoor events included a local car show, the fish and game club's Black Powder Shoot fest, and an Easter oriented event in the park. My sister was visiting from the coast and quite enjoyed the medieval re-inveners and rendezvou-ers at the black powder shoot.

I offered to show her 'Windy Canyon' (formerly Coal Gully) but she was too tired and passed but Othmar came with me. In hindsight it was for the best as it was surprisingly soggy in the canyon because of a small stream of runoff that made the clay and sandstone extremely slippery.

It was quite fascinating to find remnants of what Merritt was founded on- coal. There were visible outcrops of coal seams to be seen as well as scraps of metal from the ore mining operations. At the top of the gully we had a great view of Merritt. It was much easier coming back down, as there are very good dirt bike trails all along the hillsides. A few other notable events were the Valley Visual Artists 18th annual Art show and sale on March 23rd-25th, a hunting promo in Kelowna, and a Whitetail Deer hunting seminar last Saturday to benefit the Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club.

Collection Agencies!

The title is a play on words. :)

This past week two collectors organizations sent out their crews to scour the land for valuable coins and antiques. The Canadian Collectors Roadshow was in Merritt last week (their website doesn't appear to be finished) and this week The Treasure Hunter's Roadshow is here and they are buying, among other things, jewelry, toys, silverware and coins based on silver and gold value.
Generally they offered 5 to 7 x face value on my silver coins (depends on the year and consequent silver content) but one surprise was a little elephant that was assessed to be worth 400 dollars ( as a collectable) by the CCR.

NO WAY DUDE! (or words to that effect regarding the worth of the little silver elephant)

The THR didn't look beyond the silver content of the elephant which kind of surprised me but overall I enjoyed the experiences- especially talking with other people prior to having my items evaluated...I had the good fortune to talk to a coin collector before the CCR folks looked at the coins I had brought in and he gave me quite a few good tips on determining coin worth.
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One lady brought in a miniature ladies razor...the box was just over an inch long.

Ephemera from the past...

Today I finally found a tin of old coins I had been looking for but the contents weren't that exciting so I decided to hang onto them for a bit longer but did get all my old and broken jewelry together. I felt quite a bit of relief to be rid of them as I'm not a fan of jewelery to begin and finally had an opportunity to get rid it.

It should be mentioned that foreign coin is purchased in 'bulk' by these groups when they do determine there may be gold/silver present I was told. While I have chosen to hang onto my few coins I don't think it's the worst idea to get rid of silver and gold in this way- providing you know that you are not potentially selling a collectible coin for just it's metal's worth!
The two following photos show the type of items the Canadian Collectors Roadshow looks for.









Before going to one of these types of venues it would pay to invest in some time to evaluate your collectables- write down the denominations and years of your coins and make a note of their condition and then find a coin catalog at the library or online. There are key dates for almost every coin- some are scarcer than others or may have aberrations that make them uniquely valuable.

Treasure Hunters Roadshow Display

Jewelry and ornaments are another matter as well- look for maker's stamps to find out more about your pieces. Likewise toys that have manufactures or makers labels attached- sometimes you can find information on your piece by describing it with key words using a search engine like Google.

This photo was taken quickly, outdoors. I wanted to focus in on the absent number. The man who wanted to sell it at one of the venues believed it to be a rarity... but the assessor claimed to be able to see a number. I sure couldn't. After I came home and looked at the photo at full resolution it is plain to see that there are scratches beside the 2...but not in the area where the fourth number should be which is very smooth. It's a curious piece...there also appeared to be a lump of additional silver between the 9 and the 2 but I obviously can't tell for certain.

And if you decide to take photos of your pieces to post online here are some tips:
Have your item well lit but not so that there is glare on it.
Get as close to the item with your lens as the camera allows to still maintain sharp focus. Use a tripod or otherwise stabilize the camera.
Photograph each piece from a few angles- especially if there is a 'good' and 'bad' side. Coins naturally have two sides. If  you have a laptop it's quite convenient to set the coin on the monitor frame with a white background and shining a light on it.

Carnival Photography Archive

Winter is the perfect time for doing something with a photo collection- specifically those photos that are real- as in NOT Digital. I'm sure even the most technologically avid photographer prints out his favorites. But what I'm really talking about are collections of photos from a part of someone's life that form a kind of separate entity when it comes to showing it as a collection. In my case that would be a year in the Columbia Icefelds, 7 years as a traveling salesperson on West Coast Amusements, 3 years in Chome-Long Xiangjiang Safari Park....they are very distinct from one another.

The cost of scanning prints has come way down and in many cases can be done at a local retailer by yourself or have the staff do it within minutes. Scanning negatives is another story but I imagine the day may come where even this becomes more user friendly.

I invested in a film scanner a few years ago and when I have time and sufficient motivation I work on scanning my families old negatives and slides. While it's a relatively easy task, like all scanning work it is time consuming. Scanning prints and slides is something I do as a service as well and the inevitable result of scan will show all the imperfections of the original media in shocking detail and clarity. That's where the photo retouching skills come into play.

But sometime scanning large archives is not feasible. My latest project of getting online a collection of photos from the days (years actually) I worked on the carnival circuit with West Coast Amusements and Wagner Shows had to be scaled down in some way as these particular photos act as a reference to the actual image. I didn't count but I think it's around 300 images I wanted to share. I decided the simplest thing would be to photograph them directly in the album and if anyone is interested in a print or digital file would do the actual scanning at that point. The project has been interesting in terms of response- a lot of the people I knew in those days are still around- and a sad number have passed away. I got a lot of friend requests out it about half of which I couldn't respond to because I don't remember all those people- I was a SERIOUS shutterbug in those days who saw many people come and go from year to year on the carny circuit- I was all about capturing a face on film and didn't make many close friendships.

But life is settled now and I can give some time to showing who these people are- or were.