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With perhaps the exception of those who lived through the war, I think I can safely say that 2020 has been the worst year of our lives.
Lockdown following lockdown, restrictions on restrictions, amenities shut for most of the year, and travel / holidays curtailed due to this blasted Coronavirus.
On the film collecting front there has been virtually nothing happening. Not our fault, though. At the beginning of the year I promised myself to try to attend as many film collector functions as I could possibly squeeze in. Then, one by one, everything got cancelled. Trust me to pick THIS year ! It was my intention at Blackpool 2020 to have discussed with Shorty a potential visit to Cinesea in 2021. That will have to wait awhile now.
However, not everything was curtailed. The last (?) Farnworth day took place shortly before the lockdown with a good attendance and plenty of film to rummage through. The first of the two planned Rickmansworth days took place. This was my first visit to the scout hut. Once again, quite a bit to wade through, but the overall opinion was that the numbers were heavily down due, we think, to the beginnings of Covid 19 as the lockdowns/restrictions started very shortly after.
In the summer, when restrictions eased slightly, there was a corking weekend at Phil Sheards CHC in Cleethorpes/Grimsby. I only attended the Saturday morning sale. There were stacks of superb titles for sale, including the only full length copy I have ever seen in the UK of the Winslett / Di Caprio version of Titanic ! There were also several optical features for sale. I had been told that the day before (the sale started Friday) there had been about 15 - 20 of them. At least I managed to bag one of them. A feature called "Teachers" starring Jo Beth Williams of "Poltergeist" fame.
So there we are. I think they were the only three that took place. So if I am right about that, by default, I actually ended up attending 100% of them !
Ebay has also been pretty lousy this year. The price of films just seems to be going crazy most of the time. Do people really think that they have found the Holy Grail if they stumble across a movie film in their attic??
I did say "most" of the time. That is because I also bought what must be THEE best bargains to be sold on Ebay for many a year and certainly the highlight for me of this awful period. I am not going to tell you which films they were, just in case I decide somewhere down the line to move them on, but suffice to say, from the same seller, I acquired a full length cinemascope musical (mono sound) AND a full length cinemascope / stereo sound of a Derann Disney print. Including postage, I still had change out of....... wait for it....... £50 ! I kid ye not ! Obviously someone who didn't know what he was doing and was even sold as "Buy It Now." I was just casually browsing when they suddenly got listed. My initial thought of "If it is too good to be true....it probably IS" went out the door as it was worth the gamble with such a good price. Let me tell you.... when they arrived..... they might as well have been made yesterday. Both immaculate ! A case of being in the right place at the right time!
A happy moment in an otherwise lousy year. On a personal level, the final nail in the coffin of 2020 took place earlier this month when my own mother succumbed to the Coronavirus in the early hours of her 89th birthday. As you can imagine, Christmas was fun..... not. Now the funeral arrangements....
Tomorrow night, New Years Eve, I won't be toasting the New Year. I will be saying good riddance to the old year by standing up, raising my arms in the air, and with the help of both my index fingers and middle fingers, salute its passing.
Lockdown following lockdown, restrictions on restrictions, amenities shut for most of the year, and travel / holidays curtailed due to this blasted Coronavirus.
On the film collecting front there has been virtually nothing happening. Not our fault, though. At the beginning of the year I promised myself to try to attend as many film collector functions as I could possibly squeeze in. Then, one by one, everything got cancelled. Trust me to pick THIS year ! It was my intention at Blackpool 2020 to have discussed with Shorty a potential visit to Cinesea in 2021. That will have to wait awhile now.
However, not everything was curtailed. The last (?) Farnworth day took place shortly before the lockdown with a good attendance and plenty of film to rummage through. The first of the two planned Rickmansworth days took place. This was my first visit to the scout hut. Once again, quite a bit to wade through, but the overall opinion was that the numbers were heavily down due, we think, to the beginnings of Covid 19 as the lockdowns/restrictions started very shortly after.
In the summer, when restrictions eased slightly, there was a corking weekend at Phil Sheards CHC in Cleethorpes/Grimsby. I only attended the Saturday morning sale. There were stacks of superb titles for sale, including the only full length copy I have ever seen in the UK of the Winslett / Di Caprio version of Titanic ! There were also several optical features for sale. I had been told that the day before (the sale started Friday) there had been about 15 - 20 of them. At least I managed to bag one of them. A feature called "Teachers" starring Jo Beth Williams of "Poltergeist" fame.
So there we are. I think they were the only three that took place. So if I am right about that, by default, I actually ended up attending 100% of them !
Ebay has also been pretty lousy this year. The price of films just seems to be going crazy most of the time. Do people really think that they have found the Holy Grail if they stumble across a movie film in their attic??
I did say "most" of the time. That is because I also bought what must be THEE best bargains to be sold on Ebay for many a year and certainly the highlight for me of this awful period. I am not going to tell you which films they were, just in case I decide somewhere down the line to move them on, but suffice to say, from the same seller, I acquired a full length cinemascope musical (mono sound) AND a full length cinemascope / stereo sound of a Derann Disney print. Including postage, I still had change out of....... wait for it....... £50 ! I kid ye not ! Obviously someone who didn't know what he was doing and was even sold as "Buy It Now." I was just casually browsing when they suddenly got listed. My initial thought of "If it is too good to be true....it probably IS" went out the door as it was worth the gamble with such a good price. Let me tell you.... when they arrived..... they might as well have been made yesterday. Both immaculate ! A case of being in the right place at the right time!
A happy moment in an otherwise lousy year. On a personal level, the final nail in the coffin of 2020 took place earlier this month when my own mother succumbed to the Coronavirus in the early hours of her 89th birthday. As you can imagine, Christmas was fun..... not. Now the funeral arrangements....
Tomorrow night, New Years Eve, I won't be toasting the New Year. I will be saying good riddance to the old year by standing up, raising my arms in the air, and with the help of both my index fingers and middle fingers, salute its passing.
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