In my last blog piece I introduced readers to Jefferson Davis Cohn, colourful character, lounge lizard, charmer, wealthy businessman, horse breeder and man-about-town. I hoped you were interested in hearing about this rather overlooked figure who operated just off the centre of high society in the 1920s and 1930s, but I might have detected just … More Lounge Lizard: Chapter 2

I’ve been blogging recently about the contents of an old leather suitcase which belonged to a very wealthy gentleman from the West of Scotland. Fitted out as a top-quality travelling dressing case, it was stored unopened for 80 or 90 years and has only very recently come to light. It contained all kinds of interesting … More Lounge Lizard: Chapter 1

In my last-but-one blog piece (called Flea Market Supplementary) I said I’d get back to you about two envelopes discovered inside a suitcase belonging to a wealthy Scottish sporting gentleman. One of the envelopes didn’t have anything interesting in it but is of interest in itself (well, of interest to me, anyway), and I’ll write … More A Day at the Races

  A picture that I bought last week in my local auction room features a portrait of a 71-year-old Jewish gentleman, balding, with a grizzled grey beard and oval wire-rimmed glasses. Please note that any possible resemblance between him and this blogger is entirely coincidental. Anyway, I’m only 70 years old. What originally attracted me … More Degenerate

I ended my last blog piece like this:  “When Mary’s sister-in-law heard that Mary was going to take a stall at the flea market, she got an old suitcase out of an outhouse and asked her to sell it for a few pounds. And guess what? Both the suitcase itself and its contents turned out … More Flea Market Supplementary

My wife and daughters worry that I might be a hoarder. For evidence, they cite the fact that every horizontal surface in my house is crowded with ceramics of all descriptions. And there are all those shelves and boxes-full which seem to have aggregated in the attic. And the groaning shelves lining much of the … More Flea Market

Here are three jugs. They were in a single lot at a recent Edinburgh auction. I liked the look of one of them, so I bid £30 and won them. Of course all three came home with me. More jugs. Just what I need. They didn’t all have to come home. I could have just … More A Quiz of Three Jugs

I’ve hit the big time! I have joined the ranks of the greatest billionaire collectors of the world. J Pierpont Morgan. John D Rockefeller. J Paul Getty. Henry Clay Frick. Calouste Gulbenkian. William Randolph Hearst. Andrew Mellon. An assortment of Rothschilds. And me. What gives me the effrontery to claim membership of this illustrious band? … More World-Class Provenance

It’s been quiet on the blog front in recent weeks. Preoccupied with the summer holidays and a whole bunch of other highly pleasurable activities, I just haven’t had time or inclination to settle down to serious writing – or even to frivolous and facetious jotting. If I sound intolerably smug to any reader who has … More A Tale of Two Jugs

I’ve been thinking about figurative versus abstract art. Art that tells stories versus art that uses only colour or pattern or shape or material. Very possibly I could do some research to find out what the art theory experts have to say about this difficult topic. Probably a lot, very little of which I would … More Pottery and poetry