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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The Bygrave
From: Douglas Denny
Date: 2009 Jun 29, 11:21 -0700
From: Douglas Denny
Date: 2009 Jun 29, 11:21 -0700
Dear Brad: you said: "I actually DO have an MHR-1 (German Version of the Bygrave). Get ready to hear the collectors moaning, I USE it, without gloves." without gloves ....ahhhhrrrgh! Hope you wash your hands. All that acid... (Sorry to be a nanny, but they are very rare I believe). Museum archivists would have a blue fit at what you said. I have fondly thought for over thirty years or more that I might be lucky and find one in a 'car boot sale', or antique shop or something like that! Nothing doing of course. E-Bay does at least make things like this available now when they crop-up, but it is still amazing to think that hundreds were made but now all gone ... where? one wonders? I suspect that like so many things they just get thrown away as the person throwing away never considers for a moment that anyone could possibly want the object as it is rubbish; and before EBay there was no market place for unusual objects. EBay probably is going to be a great influence in preserving a good many objects around today that would definitely not be around in another ten years because of the "rubbish" throwaway syndrome. I have been scouring second-hand bookshops since my teens and the same can be said of scientific books. It is very rare to find say, a nineteenth century scientific book by one of the great scientists of the time. I am lucky to have found one or two: 'Sound' by Tyndall; 'Mechanical Subjects' by Joseph Whitworth; and Skerryvore Lighthous and Illumination Optics' by Stephenson for example. Today there are very few second-hand bookshops at all, and those that survive simply do not have any science books (or very few of 'modern' ones) - partly because they are not available anyway for the reason above (they have been thrown away) or, as I was told by more than one bookshop owner when I queried why no science books? - "they don't sell as no one is interested in them ! Douglas Denny. Chichester. England. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---