bengy

A post to collect some of my writings, I will periodically update and add in new stuff!

A bit of a quiet spell at the auction house was broken by this little win... I do love my old silver coins, and this United Kingdom 1854 Groat (4 pence) was a nice little item to pick up. Pre 1900 coins

Phew, that was a whirlwind tour for our little group... three concerts in three days in regional coastal New South Wales and Victoria. Not crazily lots of driving (roughly 10-12 hours in total...), but

Grant is acquitted... and now we can move onto the preparation for our upcoming coast tour! We will be moving around with a Mozart-era Walter fortepiano, an early version of the hammered piano... and that

Unsplash It isn't my most favourite thing to do... but after a concert weekend for our ensemble, there is a whole batch of things that need to be done. Mostly financial and other administration, plus thank

Heh heh.... stinky bids are the best! And the previous week, I picked up two more auction wins with near spot bids... of course, there were about 100 others that failed to win, but on the plus side...

I'm trying to spend an hour or two in the garden each day at the moment... it is a short lull in the concert schedule... I have a few days off before going away again... and so, I'm trying to squeeze in

It has been some wet and windy weather in Australia over the last week and a bit... something about a cold "bomb" that was coming in... a really low pressure system or something. I wasn't really

Phew... a busy concert week is now over, and apart from the ongoing administrative and financial wrap up... well, the craziness is mostly over. And that means that I can return back to blogging... and

... and here are the two other ounces that I picked up from the buyback box last week... again, just only a bit above spot, and I was lucky enough to be able to take my time to rifle through the box to

One of our last trips to the separatist state of Western Australia, we had a day to do stuff with our kids that didn't

I'm an unashamed nerd... nothing wrong with that, I'll never be the cool kid... and I like the things that I like, and I'm never going to hide it! So, now that I've gotten more comfortable with dropping

Sigh... my wife and I are run off our feet at the moment (hence, the relatively spare posting recently...)... preparing various concerts and repertoire, travelling and touring, and then doing the logistical

Unsplash Running a music ensemble means that we have to interact a good deal more with other arts organisations... not all of them music ones, but a good chunk are. And even if they are music organisations,

A few little snapshots in to the behind the scenes things that happen in a musician's life.... there is a good deal of prep work that needs to happen before we hit the stage. If you are just playing for

For some reason, my mum is always really keen on river cruises... my wife and I don't really get it, you are stuck on

And for the last batch of my run of four wins at the auction house... two old silver coins! I'm really up in the air as to whether I like the new shinies with their amazing designs and sparkling silver

My thoughts on the latest Humble Choice subscription games!

So, this time I'm showing off two auction lots that I won recently... I did have a weird run of winning four lots in that round... and all four of them were really great ones! These two silver ounces are

Now that it is winter in Australia, it is sort of a good time to try and do some grass and weed clearing... Things aren't popping up within a few hours, and more importantly, the hard rocky clay soil is

Finally! I've been trying to snipe a 1927 Parliamentary House Australian Florin for as long as I've been collecting coins... sure, I don't put in decent enough bids to guarantee an auction win, but I always