Category Archives: Things that are Real

50% Off Everything You can Wear – This Week Only

Posted on September 24, 2026 by TheMorningTomatoReport

The seasons are turning, and I’m making room. So everything in the shop you can wear is going out at half price.

It’s a small room, about the size of a walk-in closet, but it’s packed — and I’ll be filling in the spaces all week long, adding new things as they come. So it’s worth more than one visit; what isn’t there Saturday may well be there Wednesday.

The details:
50% off all clothing, accessories, shoes, hats, coats, jackets and furs — every tag
(Sorry, jewelry is not included in this sale – but we always think carefully about offers!)

Saturday, September 19 through Saturday, September 26, 2026
Open 10:30 am to 5:30 pm
In-store only, at the shop

Starting tomorrow, 50% off every Clothing Tag — all the clothing, the coats and jackets, the leathers, the dresses, the denim, the shoes, the hats, the accessories, and the furs. Yes, the furs too — including a 1970s Hudson’s Bay mink that’s been waiting for the right person.

Can’t make those hours? Give me a call and we’ll arrange a private time — before or after opening — just for you. A quiet browse with the room to yourself.

Come dig. Half the fun is finding the thing you didn’t know you were looking for.

Leslie
778-708-0454

The Pound & the Provenance
7791 Steveston Highway
(northwest corner of No. 3 Road and Steveston Highway)
Richmond, BC, Canada

~~~

Please Note: I am not an appraiser, a silversmith or a gemologist. I am an antiques dealer. A generalist with a love for things with a bit of age. I had a stroke, four years ago, and AI is helping me to write better than I would have. Nothing here is false, everything here is true. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a message.

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Posted in Tomatoes, Things that are Real, Colour Theory, Antiques & Collectables. Bookmark the permalink.

A Little Tag, A Lot of Silver Plate

Posted on September 20, 2026 by TheMorningTomatoReport

This little tag came in among a lot of silverplate — tarnished black, easy to walk past, with what looked like a fancy letter on the front. A proper look under the loupe, and a little light polishing, told a very different story.

It’s a sterling silver wine label — the kind that once hung by a fine chain around the neck of a decanter, so a host could tell the Claret from the Port without pulling every stopper. This one is the letter “C,” for Claret — but in black-letter, the old Gothic script, which is why it looks so unlike the plain C we write today. The hallmarks date it to the year: London, 1848 — early Victorian, Queen Victoria on the throne eleven years — made by Charles Rawlings & William Summers, a London firm known for exactly this kind of small, fine silver.

Now, the colour — because this is the part worth slowing down for.

It isn’t paint, and it isn’t a coloured stone. It’s enamel, which is powdered glass fused to metal in a kiln. But it’s a particular, harder kind called basse-taille (French for “low-cut”), and here’s the trick of it: before any glass goes on, the silversmith hand-engraves the silver underneath in a fine, wave-like pattern. Then translucent red and blue enamel is laid over that engraving and fired. Because the glass is see-through, light passes down through the colour, catches the engraved silver beneath, and bounces back up — so the piece doesn’t just sit there flat, it glows and shifts as it moves. Every wave you can see under the red is a cut made by hand, one at a time, on a piece less than half the size of a business card.

It’s slow, exacting work with no margin for a slip — the enamel either comes out of the kiln clean or it cracks and you start over. Which makes the condition of this one quietly remarkable: 178 years, and not a single chip.

A small thing, a lovely thing — and older than the province it now sits in. (British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871. This label already had a 23-year head start.)

And that’s rather the point. This nearly went out with the plate. So before the next houseful of “old junk” heads for the curb — before you hand the boxes to the fellow with the truck — give the small, dark, unglamorous things a slow look. The tag nobody can read. The dented little spoon. The thing that “can’t be worth anything.” That’s exactly where the good stuff hides, and once it’s gone in a bulk lot, it’s gone for good. If a piece has you puzzled, bring it in and we’ll look at it together. No charge to wonder.

Leslie
778-708-0454

The Pound & the Provenance
7791 Steveston Highway
(northwest corner of No. 3 Road and Steveston Highway)
Richmond, BC, Canada

~~~

Please Note: I am not an appraiser, a seamstress, a silversmith, or a gemologist. I am an antiques dealer. A generalist with a love for things with a bit of age. I had a stroke, four years ago, and AI is helping me to do better than I would have. Nothing here is false, everything here is true. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a message.

Ref. no. 1075

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Posted in Antiques & Collectables, Colour Theory, It's All Connected..., Things that are Real, Tomatoes and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

50% Off Everything You can Wear – This Week Only

Posted on September 18, 2026 by TheMorningTomatoReport

The seasons are turning, and I’m making room. So everything in the shop you can wear is going out at half price.

It’s a small room, about the size of a walk-in closet, but it’s packed — and I’ll be filling in the spaces all week long, adding new things as they come. So it’s worth more than one visit; what isn’t there Saturday may well be there Wednesday.

The details:
50% off all clothing, accessories, shoes, hats, coats, jackets and furs — every tag
(Sorry, jewelry is not included in this sale – but we always think carefully about offers!)

Saturday, September 19 through Saturday, September 26, 2026
Open 10:30 am to 5:30 pm
In-store only, at the shop

Starting tomorrow, 50% off every Clothing Tag — all the clothing, the coats and jackets, the leathers, the dresses, the denim, the shoes, the hats, the accessories, and the furs. Yes, the furs too — including a 1970s Hudson’s Bay mink that’s been waiting for the right person.

Can’t make those hours? Give me a call and we’ll arrange a private time — before or after opening — just for you. A quiet browse with the room to yourself.

Come dig. Half the fun is finding the thing you didn’t know you were looking for.

Leslie
778-708-0454

The Pound & the Provenance
7791 Steveston Highway
(northwest corner of No. 3 Road and Steveston Highway)
Richmond, BC, Canada

~~~

Please Note: I am not an appraiser, a silversmith or a gemologist. I am an antiques dealer. A generalist with a love for things with a bit of age. I had a stroke, four years ago, and AI is helping me to write better than I would have. Nothing here is false, everything here is true. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a message.

Leave a comment

Posted in Antiques & Collectables, Colour Theory, Things that are Real, Tomatoes. Bookmark the permalink.

El Niño or La Niña

Posted on September 18, 2020 by TheMorningTomatoReport

El Niño, the warm phase of ENSO (El Niño – Southern Oscillation weather pattern).

La Niña, the opposite of El Niño. The cold phase.

Oscillation, a repetitive back and forth at a regular interval.

We emerged from a very long run of El Niño which was followed closely by an ENSO-neutral (neither El Niño nor La Niña) period. Here in South Western Canada this means that last winter did not get that cold and it seemed to be a fairly short winter (in my memory anyway). The weather forecasters are now telling us that there is a very good chance that La Niña could bring a very cold winter.

El Niño and La Niña are normal weather patterns that fluctuate back and forth over the years and decades. They are much more predictable than the political adversaries they are blamed on and basically, what we need to do, is pay attention and dress for the occasion!

~~~

A little light reading on the subject (perfect for a chilly, smoky September afternoon):

Collins, M. El Niño- or La Niña-like climate change?. Clim Dyn 24, 89–104 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-004-0478-x

  • This article is not available for free but has some excellent links to the references that Professor Matthew Collins cites.

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William S. (Billy) Brown. History of Los Padres National Forest, 1898-1945

Posted on September 13, 2020 by TheMorningTomatoReport

William S. (Billy) Brown worked with the US Forest Service for 35 years, retiring in 1945. There is more of his writing out there and I will be keeping an eye open for it!

~~~~~

Brown, William S. (Billy). 1945. History of Los Padres National Forest: 1898-1945. Manuscript, Los Padres National Forest, Goleta, CA.

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Posted in Biology, Concilience, ecology, Environment, Geography, History, It's All Connected..., Nature, Science, Sociology, Things that are Real and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Blakley, Elwood Robert (Jim) and Karen Barnette. Historical Overview of Los Padres National Forest, 1985.

Posted on September 12, 2020 by TheMorningTomatoReport

Elwood Robert (Jim) Blakley was a Grounds Superintendent at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. He collected plants, mainly herbs. He was a naturalist and an historian. Karen Barnette was a Cultural Resources Special with the Los Padres National Forest Service. Jim Blakley and Karen Barnette co-authored the paper, “Historical Overview of Los Padres National Forest, 1898-1945.”

This book is out of print but is available online. It follows the “History of Los Padres National Forest” written by William S. Brown in 1948.

~~~~~

Blakley, J.E., and K. Barnette. 1985. Historical overview of Los Padres National Forest. Los Padres Interpretive Association, Santa Barbara, California, USA.

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Adams, Kramer: The Redwoods, 1969

Posted on September 12, 2020 by TheMorningTomatoReport

The book, The Redwoods (published in 1969 by Popular Library), by Kramer Adams, is cited by Gregory Jones in his Masters Theses, Coast redwood fire history and land use in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California (2014, San Jose State University).

It looks like a fairly rare book with only a handful of copies showing up in my online searches.

~~~

Adams, Kramer. 1969. The Redwoods. Popular Library, New York, New York, USA.

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Jones, Gregory. Coast redwood fire history and land use in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California. San Jose State University. 2014

Posted on September 12, 2020 by TheMorningTomatoReport

I have read a bit and will go through Gregory Jones’s Master’s Theses, Coast redwood fire history and land use in the Santa Cruz Mountains, tonight.

If you are unfamiliar with reading a theses, start with the introduction and then, what I do, is to move through the pages between the Introduction and the Discussion fairly quickly. I find that discussion sections can be quite interesting and, if you need more information on something that is being ‘discussed’ – you can go back and the information is probably in those pages that you turned through quickly.

If I find more by Gregory Jones, I will add it here. If you have any comments or would like to discuss this paper, I would like to hear from you!

Here are the links you need to find this work:

~~~~~

Jones, Gregory.  San Jose State University.  Publications Link.

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LeTourneau Land Train

Posted on May 29, 2020 by TheMorningTomatoReport

54 Wheel Drive Electric Vehicle

TournaTrain.m4V

1950’s technology.  Developed by R.G. LeTourneau

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Micro-Management Rarely Works

Posted on April 30, 2020 by TheMorningTomatoReport
I remember working out at Woodfibre (Squamish) and driving back and forth between the ferry parking lot (there was a walk-on ferry to take us across the water to Woodfibre and back) and my house in Delta, everyday.  An hour and a half at least, each way.  Those were 10 hour shifts, 7 days a week, until the job was done.  The jobs usually lasted about 2 to 3 weeks.
One job I am thinking about right now.  Well, not so much the job it was my home and family that I remember.  Every night, walking through the front door, the house was a worse mess.  And then, they were looking at me to make dinner.  I walked in one night towards the end of the job, and said, “if this place looks like this tomorrow I am just going to set up caution tape.”  I was too tired to feel anything but disappointment.  I took my shower and went to bed.
They figured it out.  The next day I opened the front door into a clean, sparkly living room!  And, if I remember right, dinner was ready.

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