Speaking of Scroobius and sticking with a UK theme, today on the headphones is Ghostpoet who reminds me a little of Roots Manuva, which is a good thing. And he did some stuff with Massive Attack so he can only be awesome. And shortly some Burial because when in Rome... (Act Like The Vandals...) (Sorry, so many Obscure References they are writing themselves, I just can't help myself).
Where was we me li'il lovelies? So by now in recapping it's Saturday last, not too far back, and we are in Croydon. I am most proud of myself for leaving the flat (which, I am sure I mentioned, is the 2 bedroom place of dad-in-law to be that he used to live in when working sometimes in London) and walking to the train station without being even a little bit murdered, and catching a train waaaay across the big town to Earls Court. My companion meanwhile headed off to catch up with a friend recently moved to London. I was lonesome, but most happy to be attending the London Antique Arms Fair, held in the luxurious (erm...) facilities of the Ibis hotel.
The conference room of the hotel was packed with vendors from all over the country meaning a fantastic array of weaponry and some armour and other bits to look at... Unfortunately being packed with dealers obviously all the prices were fairly premium and there were not exactly a lot of bargains to be had. If there is one thing I have learned lately it is that dealers in antique and vintage stuff at the moment are riding a massive wave of profits from the recent surge in popularity of "old stuff" in general from many eras, and boy will they happily help any schmuck rid themselves of money. As I overheard one dealer saying to someone in conversation while I was in his shop "Oh don't ever listen to the bullish!t dealers spin to customers about being collectors and enthusiasts themselves, that is utter rubbish, dealers are only in it for one thing... their sole aim is not to generously help you, a fellow enthusiast, find a dream item at a bargain price, it is to tell you what you want to hear and take your money".
Among the items on sale were some very nice pieces but few I would call truely amazing... I would imagine any true gems go quickly to rich collectors and spend little time with dealers. One chap did have a nine barrel volley rifle that was the subject of much attention as they are pretty rare. He was asking £37,000 for it. I didn't bother to talk to the specialist Japanese sword dealers as those are of course worth moonbeams now. There were plenty of other bits for upwards of £10,000. Many lovely pairs of cased pistols in the £10k - £20k range... But again, these were not show stopping sets only average ones. I was certainly born rather a bit too late to be interested in this sort of thing, values across the board have soared in recent years. Guys who have been collecting since the 80s and 90s are now getting very rich off parting with their investment.
My personal items of envy from the show (ok I wanted most of the stuff at the show, but there are a couple of bits I certainly want in particular) were considerably cheaper than those mentioned above but dearer than I need to be considering. Funnily both were from the impressive stocks of West Street Antiques who we visited in Dorking. And as already alluded to, if you want that sort of stuff you need to find it in places like auctions, not pay obscene markups to dealers. The West Street guy was nice enough and good to chat to, but they trade off their name as a very well known and established dealer... If rich folks want to buy from them for peace of mind etc then good on them, but I am not paying them double what something is worth for that privilege. The hard part of course is finding that stuff before the dealers do.
I wandered back to the train and was again most proud of myself for managing to get THREE trains and tubes across town to Angel... Albeit with detailed instructions from my helper. Angel is, by the way, an area, not a person or indeed celestial being. Once reunited with my lovely we looked at more stalls and antique shops and vintage stuff. There was some good stuff, a lot of rubbish. Basically people will try to sell you any bit of stuff older than about ten years now and try to claim it is a classic vintage something somehow. We ended up looking for late lunch and finding Byrons which is a burger chain of unknown origins but their food was super good... Current special a Korean theme with Kimcheese burger and loaded fries and spicy Korean chicken wings etc... Washed down with a Salted Caramel and Bourbon shake... Great stuff.
From here we headed to Bond St where there was a half-hearted attempt by my lovely to find some shoes in aforementioned big stores for a special event...we eventually gave up and wandered Soho, visiting the pub George Orwell used to drink at, The Dog and Duck, and finding an amazing butchery selling ultra-high end cured meats including little cardboard cones of cubed offcuts. In this age of idiotic food trends and PCness it was heart warming to see a mother treating her kid to a cone of cubed meat. We got some too, it was awesome. Being Saturday, and I think World Record Day or something, the area was heaving with trendy people and there was a street party underway a couple of blocks over, so we found a quiet Vietnamese restaurant with a spare table for tea, and it was good. From there, various rail lines back to Croydon. Job done.
Yes that does say £25 per 100gm
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