Red cross Magazine 1917

Here are a couple pictures from inside the November issue of the Red cross magazine for 1917.
 Remember the war was not over yet, and feelings were very patriotic.

Little Nell's presume grave

    Last weekend I was in the UK for a little business trip. I had very little time, but on the last day I took a quick look at the world's smallest cathedral. The church of st Bartholomew.
    Charles Dickens made the local town famous in his novel 'The old Curiosity shop', in the story the heroine Little Nell is buried in the graveyard. The story is fiction, but to accomodate the growing number of tourist someone took the initiative to have a presume grave for the famous Little  Nell.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Curiosity_Shop

St Bartholomew, Tong

The presume grave of little Nell

Mrs chippy

    I recently saw the mini serie about Shackelton's adventure in Antartica. He was planning on doing a trans-Antartic expedition in 1914 when his boat- The Endurance- got caught in pack ice.
    The story of the men's adventure and survival, and the captains promise to bring them all home alive is a story that will live on as a tale of unsurpassed courage.
   But, what about the animals that were on board ? When the order came to abandon the ship as it was slowly being crushed, they set up a camp on the ice and moved all their dogs there. Regrettably they knew the few puppies they had and the ship’s cat would not survive. The captain ordered them shot.
   Mrs Chippy, the carpenters cat, who was actually a male , was fed a last dish of sardine before being shot. His owner never forgave the Captain for it.
   In time the rest of the dog would also be killed and eaten by the desperate men, but in the end every man was rescued and some even accompanied Shackelton on one more expedition.
    You can read more about Mrs Chippy’s adventures, and how he had to be rescued after he became a ‘ cat overboard here :  http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/famous/chippy.html 

Mrs Chippy and Blackborow

   The story doesn't here, in 2004 a life size bronze statue of Mrs chippy was placed on his owners grave in New Zealand.

Harry McNish's grave with the statue of Mrs Chippy

scrimshaw

Scrimshaw was the hobby of sailors who had time on their hand, and were far away from home.
Using bone, teeth, ivory or such natural material from whales, or other animals the artist would scratch the pattern with a sharp tool, or needle and finally highlight it with ink, or other pigments.

There are many artist who keep the technique and who produce beautiful little items, with intricate drawings.
 Here is a beautiful nautical scened on a magnifying glass, and paper cutter set I got from an amazing ETSY seller. It was to be a gift so I asked her to engrave the initials on the back.

You can see more of her work here : http://www.etsy.com/shop/lindalayden

Lovely scrimshaw

Details

Nicolas cage is a vampire ? You be the judge ...!

I just had to add this photos, it is for sale at the very reasonable price of  100 000,00 $ from this seller :

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/77640543/nicolas-cage-is-a-vampire-cdv-photo-from

The late 1800's portrait of a man who is said to resemble the actor Nicolas Cage.

Do you see a similarity ?

1870 portrait

 

Two antique card holders

In the 1800's calling cards were very popular, and if you had cards, you needed a card holder. Here are two examples from our collection.

Both are ladies card cases, the one with the little chain is in mint condition, and has a monogram. The filigree one is beautiful, but is missing the metal case that would have been inside the pretty cover.

A ladies' card holder

 Lovely filigree case

Écarté card game

Here is an 1800's French card game called ' Écarté ' .

Écarté is a  two player card game that was popular in the 19 th century, you can read more about it, and find the rules at the link below :
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cart%C3%A9

The cards, and the deck were bought seperatly, one of the cards has a little blue tax stamp saying :

Republic francaise

Decret du 12 Avril 1890

French Écarté cards from the 1890's

Card game tax stamp