Category: Market

A landmark birthday approaches for an esteemed Market trader from the eighties, Joe Randall. He will be 100 on 10th August!

He was well known as a seller of old military uniforms and made to order regimental blazer badges, buttons and cap emblems. He had a valuable network of contacts among the military tailors in London and could often obtain much sought after items. For example, the large bullion cloth ERII badges made for the Beefeaters at the Tower of London. Michael Burroughs of Anything Military has fond memories of the tea chests full of buttons which nearly brought down his ceiling!

He was always wearing his parachute regiment beret and closed every deal with the question “are you sure you’re happy?” But heaven help anyone who asked him if he was in the Paras!

Joe began his military service aged just 17 in WWII with the then little known RAF Engineers. In the photo here you can see the white training band in his cap. His unit built runways in newlay liberated parts of Europe. An ever present threat was the German planes on their way back to base which would attack them in passing.

Joe was later part of the occupying forces in Germany keeeping the Russians on the trains as they passed through the British zones. He also took part in shore patrols before joining the Parachute Regiment in the Territorial Army. His brother saw active service as part of the SAS in Malaya.

Joe now lives in Teignmouth with his wife Chrissie. Everyone at the Market would like to wish him a very happy hundredth birthday!

Just a reminder that we will be closed this weekend so we can join the nation in celebrating the coronation of HM King Charles III.
See you all next Saturday!

Just a reminder that we’ll be closed this Saturday for the Bank Holiday weekend. We wish all our traders, collectors and friends of the market a lovely Easter. See you next Saturday!

A final reminder that we’re closed tomorrow for Christmas Eve but back on New Years Eve so we’ll look forward to seeing you all then.

To all our dealers, visitors and collectors everywhere: Merry Christmas!

While a train might be as hard to get hold of as this vintage postcard of the Folkestone Express (departing from Charing Cross!), the serious business of collecting goes on.

Calling at all stops from Burgeoning Curiosity to Avid Enthusiast, the Charing Cross Collectors Fair surges ahead regardless with the most fascinating ‘rolling stock’ to be found anywhere in London… See you there!

Of course, we’re open again this Saturday and with the recent passing of Her Late Majesty, the throne falls to the former Prince of Wales, Charles III. And so the second Elizabethan age becomes the second Carolean era (following that of Charles II – that of Charles I is often known as the Caroline Age).

The date is yet to be announced for Charles’ coronation but plans were laid for the ceremony – Operation Golden Orb – many years ago and reviewed on a regular basis. This will in all likelihood be a very religious affair consecrated at Westminster Abbey.

Naturally, stamp, coin and banknote collectors will be following announcements from the Royal Mail, the Royal Mint and the Bank of England closely as our currency changes to reflect our new constitutional reality. In line with tradition, on coins Charles’ profile will face the opposite direction (left) from his predecessor. On stamps, however, the monarch only ever faces left.

A reminder that we will be closed as a mark of respect this coming Saturday 17th September. We’ll reopen the following weekend.

Becoming a world authority on anything is no mean feat. Yet it’s surprisingly easy. A general collector may have a smattering of knowledge about their pastime but once you start to specialise, it’s very easy to be the expert in your field.

Take stamps. If you wanted to collect German ones you’d be hard pressed to rival any of the existing authorities on the subject. Yet once you decide you’re going to specialise in those from the hyerpinflation period during the Weimar Republic, it becomes much easier to get a handle on all you need to know. Drill down further and restrict yourself to stamps which were overprinted with values in excess of a million marks and it’s easier still.

An expert, we’re told, is someone who knows more and more about less and less. But on their turf, you can’t beat them.

So why not pop down to the Market this Saturday and find your niche.

Not that you could ever have doubted it, but we will of course be OPEN as usual this Saturday. Those stamps, coins, military items, autographs, postcards, African ethnography, beer mats, football programs, memorabilia, antique toys, and all manner of everything else just will not collect themselves!

The urge to collect is one of our basic human instincts. Our brain is hardwired to recognise patterns, amassing a huge store of data against which we compare any novelty to see where, or if, it fits in.

Whether it’s coins, stamps, military patches, autographs, football programmes, African ethnography or any one of countless other collectibles, for whatever reason a certain subset of precious things will appeal to us and we have to have one. Before long, it’s two and twenty years later the guest bedroom gives up any claim to be anything other than a shrine to rare vinyl records from the sixties.

NFTs are all very well but no-one has ever, or will ever, be able to touch one with their hand. Thanks all the same but I’ll stick with my WWII Airfix models.