Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[caz]

Apparently the world's leading expert on the watch thinks that the only issue for a jeweller in deciding to get a watch repaired is whether they can find someone to repair it. Some people might have thought that cost was a more important factor. Sometimes it can cost more to repair an item than its sale value. Sometimes a small jeweller might have cash flow issues and might not want to spend money on repairing an item even if it is worth more than the repair cost because they might not think they will be able to sell it. Something can be worth £1m but if you can't sell it then it really has no value at all. Statement of the Bleedin' Obvious Part 94.

I understand all this, David, but Murphy said he put the watch in the window 'with a resale price of £295 or £275' and Albert was able to buy it for £225 in the July, which suggests Murphy still made a reasonable profit after having paid Dundas to repair the movement. He wouldn't have known it would sell in 1992, but he got the repair done anyway and it did sell - for a price he was happy with. So it hardly seems likely that the repair cost would have broken the bank at any time previously or been high enough to put him off.

Love,

Caz
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[Sam Flynn]

Never read VIZ magazine, then?

Yes I have read Viz. A few speech bubbles (with visuals) in a cartoon strip is one thing, but a stretch of written dialogue is quite another.... as per Dickens, as I pointed out. If only he'd lived long enough to read Viz, perhaps Oliver Twist could have been issued in booklet form.

The secret is to not go over the top.

I don't believe I did, but I'm sorry that you thought so.

[caz]

Back to the watch...

The same question should have occurred to anyone planning to use Albert's watch for a bandwagon Maybrick hoax in 1993:

"Who else knows about it?"

What about previous ownership, whereabouts and history? Who else knows about its existence or its pre-hoax condition, and how many? Who had it immediately before Albert, and what do they know? Could it have a verifiable provenance back to the 1880s showing that Maybrick could never have got his paws anywhere near it?

But a hoaxer could not ask those questions before going ahead and doing the work, engineering the discovery and interesting the diary's publisher. We know Albert only expressed an interest in where the watch came from after the discovery of the faint scratch marks in the early summer of 1993. Nobody would have known about any JtR diary in July 1992. Albert saw the watch in the window; he liked it; he bought it.

And then news of a diary emerges and the watch supposedly becomes an item which is considered more than suitable for forgery purposes, by someone who cannot have a blessed clue where it might have been, who might have owned it, or who might have worked on it, at any time between the 1840s and July 14th 1992. All they know is what the inner surface looks like when they settle down to change it forever.

And yet... and yet... it all works out more perfectly than any self-respecting hoaxer had a right to expect, because not only does it turn out that the known history is short and sweet, beginning with a complete stranger coming into a shop one day to flog the watch, no questions asked or answered, but it ends with the very helpful Murphys, who confirm that the post-hoax watch looks no different from the pre-hoax one, because the scratch marks they are now looking at are perfect forgeries of the ones they remember trying to buff out in 1992.

Love,

Caz
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[Graham]

"Tits oot for the lads!"

Love,

Caz
X

Whai aye, pet!

Graham the Sexist

[caz]

Hi Sam,

Never read VIZ magazine, then? The secret is to not go over the top.

Graham

"Tits oot for the lads!"

Love,

Caz
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