Monday, May 21, 2013
    (Queen Victoria's Birthday)

Bonham's  Toy Soldiers Revisited

   I wrote about Bonham's 2 days ago when I had discovered a great feature there that I missed  ever since I've been blogging. It's their magnification feature for their images. Mr. James Opie was the first Bonham's expert that I had met, and he allowed me to write a post about their fine toy soldiers . He's the expert of those magnificent lead soldiers, and even has a website about them.

  As a result of my discovery, I decided to post again about toy soldiers. Coincidently, it's Queen Victoria's Birthday today, and Canada celebrates it, having been a member of the Commonwealth a long time, and before that a colony. When I think of Britain's history, I always remember the famous motto - "The sun never sets on the British Empire".That simply meant that at one time,  Great Britain was such a big colonial empire, that no matter where you went on the globe, they had a colony, and the sun would have been shining there! 

   I'm not a history buff (someone interested in a topic),buy for those who are, toy soldiers certainly would offer that person a lot of interest. Britains coincidentally, is the name of one of the most famous companies that produced and still produces thee fine toys or collectors items. I wouldn't be surprised of in most of the period movies about British history, you would see these toys if they required such props. 

   For those of you who like reading or actually have a "real" magazine in your hand instead of a pad "device", Bonhams has many outstanding magazines about their many difference areas of items that have come to auction.

Please click on this sentence to be redirected to Bonhams fine website

I decided to present today the excellent magnificent feature that is available at Bonham's for people to use. Although they mostly present only 1 image of their toys, the magnification feature, as well as they;re descriptive "narratives" of their items, certainly is enough for the viewer to decide whether ot bid or not on an item.

I didn't readjust the font size for this image  in order to illustrate the magnification feature.

You can see the smaller type relative to the larger-sized image.

Also, don't forget that since these images are very large, I can't present them fully. 

So clicking on any image will allow you to view them as a slide show with the larger-sized magnification.

The "problem" belongs to Google Blogger. Once you set the format of a blog, it is "set in stone" forever, meaning that I can't readjust t he width of a post, without changing every one of my 421 posts to date! That is a real inconvenience to me. I've written to Blogger,but they never reply!

I purposely selected the wagon and riders above.I might even have used it in my previous post about Bonhams lead soldiers. In this case, the texture and weave of the wagon cover is what I wanted you to see. Now that's  detail!

Take a look a these 2 almost identical soldiers. Look at the red strips on their left pant legs above the foot. Notice how the stripes are different for the 2 soldiers. Not only does the magnifiction present this well, but one has to realize that all of these outstanding lead soldiers were hand painted, so thye never were 100% exact!

An example of the magnification at work - super!

I did some "minor" retouching to remove some of the chopped-off soldiers on the right side. I'm sure Bonhams won't mind.

The item above is from the Trophy company.

It's a great "moment in time" of what might have actually occurred way back then.

Above is the  magnification of the lower level of the paddle steamer.

Above is the upper level of the paddle steamer. 

There's a few specks of dust that I didn't retouch out.

Now that's what the great magnification feature at Bonhams does - it allows you to see fine detail!

If you were once a British colony or are still a member of the Commonwealth, then Happy Queen Victoria Day.

Here in Quebec, Quebec has their own holiday (it's political), so it'c called "La Fete de Patriote" -  ThePatriot's Holiday.

If you do'nt have a holiday, then have a great day anyway.

Thanks for visiting,

Stacey