Month: February 2019
…and still have change from half a crown.
15 February 1971 marked the wholescale adoption of decimal currency – a seismic event for UK numismatists. However, these experts would be quick to tell you that the first decimal British coin was the florin minted back in 1849 and worth two shillings. (Definitely one for the serious pub quizzers that one!)
A Victorian Valentine’s Gift
Not your typical ValentinesDay gift but all the more memorable for it…. Queen Victoria herself paid for tins of chocolate like this to be sent to the men serving in South Africa during the Boer War (1899-1902). Many soldiers kept the tins. Few managed to resist the temptation of eating the chocolate so this is an exceptional find. A much less well preserved one turned up only last year -https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/07/10/queen-victoria-chocolates/
Just another great example of the sort of collectibles turning up at Charing Cross Market every Saturday, 7am – 3pm.
Rocketmail!
Bird? No.
Plane? No.
Original franked letter strapped to a gunpowder rocket and fired over a mountain range in the Eastern Himalayas in 1935? Oh yes.
This remarkable relic of postage history was the brainchild of one Stephen Hector Taylor-Smith, an Indian aerospace engineer who was officially authorised by the king of Sikkim to pioneer mail delivery by rocket. Although the experiment worked, this was a short-lived method (as a few of the rockets exploded, incinerating the ‘rocketgrams’) so examples like this are much sought after. The only ordinary thing about this is where you might find it…. Charing Cross Market – the usual place for discerning collectors. Every Saturday 7am – 3pm.
Battle of Britain Combat Report
“As I made my way back I noted a Hurricane going down on fire…”
Read the words of one of 601 Squadron’s front line pilots as he describes his latest sortie over Central London on 26 July 1940. This is one of a pair of actual written reports on enagagements with the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. It’s not every day that you get to see items of such genuine rarity and historical significance. It’s just Saturdays. Between 7am and 3pm. At Charing Cross Market.