Novocastrian

We threw out an awful lot of junk in the initial clearance of our "new" (230 year old) house in Normandy 5 years ago, but we've had some time to look more closely at some of the things we thought interesting during this stay.

I've mentioned elsewhere a manuscript. But in the last week or two we demolished a hideous mantlepiece, revealing a cast iron backplate dating from 1775-1790 with the inscription "Mar. Anton. Austr, France et Navarr Regina" and a pretty pic of herself. It seems that's worth about 400 euro.

There was also a trunk load of old books that we "inherited" in one of the dependences. I eventually got round to looking and sorting them in the last couple of days and, astonishingly (using a website @ http://www.livre-rare-book.com/?l=en) the books are worth (have a replacement value) of something like 2500 euro.

I've no idea how, or where, I could sell them though.

Any ideas?

White Trash

Some people have all the luck. The only things left in any French house I buy tend to be dead rodents.

EuroTrash

Not a treasure exactly, but a relic of a bygone custom (or at least, a custom I had never heard of). The beams and wooden partitions in my attic were entirely papered with pages of old newspaper. This seemed most odd to me and I put it down to the previous owner being very eccentric. Later on an artisan explained to me that people used to treat the wood by soaking newspaper in a treatment solution, plastering the newspaper over the surface of the wood and leaving it there for the solution to soak in. In the living areas they took the paper off when it had dried but in parts of the house that weren't lived in, very often they simply left it there.

Novocastrian

I did say we threw out an awful lot of junk...

grannybunz

Re your books Novocastrian

There are lots of book fairs around the place in summer or you could look up dealers in the pages jaunes, best to have a few offers before you sell anything and don't take them to a dealer and leave them!!

We found a truly ancient mill stone and a stone hammer head, a beautiful set of apothecary scales, like you, a very old fire back, several dead bats and swifts and two very much alive rats resident in the cellar. Quess what we kept??

Novocastrian

I did that already: there's a rare/old book shop in Bayeux, not far at all from here: it's called (appropriately enough) Babel. I want to catalogue the books properly before contacting a dealer though and I have no interest whatsoever in flogging them one by one at a book fair.

I'll probably just keep them after I've done the cataloguing until I retire and perhaps then start a new hobby in book trading on eBay.

Chatter Static

Lot's of 50's light fitting's that will be quite nice once re-chrome'd

Novocastrian

I forgot the light fittings! We have 6 crystal chandeliers and a couple of "rustic" wood fittings. They've all now been rewired and they cleaned up nicely.

This one is arguably the nicest....

victorian67

If these books are worth as much as 2 500 Euros, I would suggest an Antiquarian specialised in rare books and their very specific trade.

You may find one of these in the following two links to the Portail des Antiquaires Français de Haute et Basse Normandie :

http://www.antiquaires.com/Annuaire/HauteNormandie

http://www.antiquaires.com/Annuaire/BasseNormandie

Good luck and don't forget to celebrate with a glass of vintage Calvados, Château du Breuil, for example

Karim

Novocastrian

Thanks for the link Karim. As I said there is a trunkful of them, ~90 books in total ranging from ca 1895 to 1960 with the bulk from post WW1 to WW2. (Ironically the outlier from 1960 appears to be one of the two most valuable single volumes). The average replacement value is under 30 Euro per book with a couple appearing to be worth low 3 figures.

Incidentally, I've just finished restoring the cast iron fire backplate I mentioned: here's a picture of Marie Antoinette.

victorian67

My God ! This is not a house, it is a treasure cove

Novocastrian

We like to think so.

We also have two magnificent Armoires Normandes, 18C from Bayeux but we bought them from the estate of the previous owner.

Other "found ins" included a large quantity of high quality linen, monogrammed and with old darning in places, likely 18C as well, a rather pleasant oil of Warsaw depicted prewar and signed by the artist J. Heuss in 1973. I've not got around to researching that yet.

There's more too.

Edit:19C in both cases. I get that wrong all the time.

Tweedpipe

Novo,
That reminds me, a fairly old French cast iron fire backplate came under the hammer a few weeks back on the M6 tv program Un Tresor Dans Votre Maison, (each Sat at 18:40) - well worth watching. From memory it went for 200€ or thereabouts.

Wouldn't your cast iron fire backplate have been far more appropriate with Joan of Arc rather than Marie Antoinette........


Which reminds me of that schoolboy howler.
History teacher: "What was the name of Noah's wife?"
Schoolboy: "Joan of Ark!"

Novocastrian

Don't quit your day job.

Tweedpipe

Too late!