I was just thinking about this guy last night. I’m glad his caretaker gets him out in nature sometimes. He gets some exercise and fresh air, he gets to explore and enjoy all the outdoor smells, and he gets to maintain all those basset senses other than sight.
Yeah, I love that people take such good care of their pets that have limitations. I had a guy that spent his last 7 or 8 years deaf – I think that was easier to deal with than a loss of sight though.
I’ve spent a lot of my life selling collectibles, including quite a bit of costume jewelry, and a little “real” jewelry… never enough to call myself a “jewelry dealer”, because that implies a level of expertise I just don’t have.
But I’ve had friends who were dealers in gold and gems…. Mostly on the antique store level, not the sort who appraise fine jewelry for Sotheby’s.
I’m sure that I’d recognize that this necklace was decent jade… probably could tell it was jadeite (generally the better of the two stones called jade), not nephrite. The translucence, the color, a certain feel to it… One big clue that some people overlook is that if the clasp is real gold, it’s probably fairly nice.
If I saw it at a thrift shop for $25, I’d know I should buy it (I hope!), because it might be worth a few hundred dollars.
But NOT that it was worth $3 million. And I bet my jewelry dealer friends, while they would know more than me, wouldn’t know that either.
Dealing in jade is not for amateurs. Bring me your 1930s rhinestones, your aunt’s topaz ring, for that matter, your 1950s Captain Video ring… I know how to figure out what it’s worth, and if I were still doing it, sell it for you.
Your grandmother’s diamonds, her gold watch, I’d get help appraising.
Your jade, unless you truly know its provenance (like you bought it yourself in China, where they’d know better than to sell you something precious for less than it’s worth)… I wouldn’t dare. I wouldn’t even rely on antique store dealers, or probably local jewelers.
“Worth” is a funny word… while you or I might define it with reference to its deserved value, in real estate I was taught that they use the definition “worth is what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller.”
“Wiling” meaning, without anything like trickery, coercion or desperation involved in the transaction.
More or less the same applies to antiques and jewelry transactions.
Someone being forced to sell sometimes drives the price down, but unless there was deception involved, there’s not much that will drive the price up. (Idiocy doesn’t count, unless the idiot doesn’t have free will).
Obviously, somebody was willing to pay 3 million, which means it was worth that much because it was able to be exchanged for it….
Whether it deserved that amount, according to experts or anybody else, just became immaterial, unless that buyer ever tries to sell it, and finds that it’s “worth” less, at that time.
They managed to get “Shell Gasoline”… Maybe that works if you actually put it in the instructions, spelled out correctly, instead of “show an old gas station”, or whatever the $#@! you say to an AI program.
But the sign on the building down the street, along with whatever it’s supposed to say on the gas pump, are incoherent scribbles.
The whole top of the building makes no sense either…. is there another floor up there or not? If you look at the supposedly shabby paint, it looks like there are tiny windows, and maybe trees.. Plus a line of red neon reflected by… what?
Speaking of which, unless they’re in dire need of adjustment, the car headlights wouldn’t shine directly towards, or reflect in, a puddle a block away on the wrong side of the street.
It seems like people only make AI art of stuff that’s supposed to look either impossibly shabby and old, or fake 1950s super shiny metallic. It makes me immediately suspicious if I see peeling paint, water stains, or bright light refections.
.
I was just thinking about this guy last night. I’m glad his caretaker gets him out in nature sometimes. He gets some exercise and fresh air, he gets to explore and enjoy all the outdoor smells, and he gets to maintain all those basset senses other than sight.
Yeah, I love that people take such good care of their pets that have limitations. I had a guy that spent his last 7 or 8 years deaf – I think that was easier to deal with than a loss of sight though.
I’ve had blind, deaf and cats missing legs. They are all so wonderful. Handi-cats are the best.
,
..
It’s been rediscovered.
,,
I’ve spent a lot of my life selling collectibles, including quite a bit of costume jewelry, and a little “real” jewelry… never enough to call myself a “jewelry dealer”, because that implies a level of expertise I just don’t have.
But I’ve had friends who were dealers in gold and gems…. Mostly on the antique store level, not the sort who appraise fine jewelry for Sotheby’s.
I’m sure that I’d recognize that this necklace was decent jade… probably could tell it was jadeite (generally the better of the two stones called jade), not nephrite. The translucence, the color, a certain feel to it… One big clue that some people overlook is that if the clasp is real gold, it’s probably fairly nice.
If I saw it at a thrift shop for $25, I’d know I should buy it (I hope!), because it might be worth a few hundred dollars.
But NOT that it was worth $3 million. And I bet my jewelry dealer friends, while they would know more than me, wouldn’t know that either.
Dealing in jade is not for amateurs. Bring me your 1930s rhinestones, your aunt’s topaz ring, for that matter, your 1950s Captain Video ring… I know how to figure out what it’s worth, and if I were still doing it, sell it for you.
Your grandmother’s diamonds, her gold watch, I’d get help appraising.
Your jade, unless you truly know its provenance (like you bought it yourself in China, where they’d know better than to sell you something precious for less than it’s worth)… I wouldn’t dare. I wouldn’t even rely on antique store dealers, or probably local jewelers.
Save it for Sotheby’s or the Antiques Roadshow.
They only said it sold for that — not that it was worth that…
“Worth” is a funny word… while you or I might define it with reference to its deserved value, in real estate I was taught that they use the definition “worth is what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller.”
“Wiling” meaning, without anything like trickery, coercion or desperation involved in the transaction.
More or less the same applies to antiques and jewelry transactions.
Someone being forced to sell sometimes drives the price down, but unless there was deception involved, there’s not much that will drive the price up. (Idiocy doesn’t count, unless the idiot doesn’t have free will).
Obviously, somebody was willing to pay 3 million, which means it was worth that much because it was able to be exchanged for it….
Whether it deserved that amount, according to experts or anybody else, just became immaterial, unless that buyer ever tries to sell it, and finds that it’s “worth” less, at that time.
,.
Shenanigans! Even if you can read the sign.
The red line on the side of the wall is marking the stress fracture that’s about to happen!
They managed to get “Shell Gasoline”… Maybe that works if you actually put it in the instructions, spelled out correctly, instead of “show an old gas station”, or whatever the $#@! you say to an AI program.
But the sign on the building down the street, along with whatever it’s supposed to say on the gas pump, are incoherent scribbles.
The whole top of the building makes no sense either…. is there another floor up there or not? If you look at the supposedly shabby paint, it looks like there are tiny windows, and maybe trees.. Plus a line of red neon reflected by… what?
Speaking of which, unless they’re in dire need of adjustment, the car headlights wouldn’t shine directly towards, or reflect in, a puddle a block away on the wrong side of the street.
It seems like people only make AI art of stuff that’s supposed to look either impossibly shabby and old, or fake 1950s super shiny metallic. It makes me immediately suspicious if I see peeling paint, water stains, or bright light refections.
.,
“How did you know I was looking for you?”
“A little bird told me.”
,,.
,.,
“I think we’ve figured out where the water in your basement is coming from.”
Dorothy? Is that you?
“We’re not in Kansas anymore.”
As seen along coastal North Carolina, as multiple houses have been taken by the ocean in the last two months.
,
,
Dang mosquitos!
A real pain when you don’t have arms or hands to slap ’em.
,,..
.
Got it.
Done.
Yeah right… Throw a precious heirloom into a tangled mess of fighting, squawking birds… just look! They cracked it!
It’s on Rob Petrie’s back!
,.,.,
C’mon try it! It’s fun!
..,,..
Darwin Award nominee.
The excitement never stops for this man.
Oh, I have a feeling it’s about to stop.
R.I.P…..
looks probably painful, but doesn’t look like a fatal fall
With a running chainsaw coming down on top of you?
When you let go of the switch, the blade stops turning, but it will still hurt from the sharpness of the cutting edges and the heat from the muffler.
What could go wrong?
Deep in the Autumn Wood – 1893 – Grigoriy Myasoyedov.
Baby Regent parrot.