31 March 2011

Playing with lightbox/camera

I'm spending a bit of time today sorting out how to photograph the stock. Not as easy as I thought. Luckily I have a good mate who runs a great wedding photography studio in Coff Harbour called North Coast Photography who is providing a lot of telephone/email advice. Thanks AJ!

A couple of the jewellers have also offered to help which  may take advantage of.

Although I've been concentrating on images of individual items, I got distracted and wanted to see how I could use a great Spined Pencil Urchin I purchased from Wunderkammer yesterday.




















Needs a bit more work but slowly getting there. Luckily I don't have to use camera equipment from Lord Coconut circa 1880!

28 March 2011

My first stock

It's all about to begin! I've received my first stock from David Parker. He's dropped off six sets of cufflinks and four rings. They all look great.





















Individual photos will follow next week.

18 March 2011

The Life and Times of Lord Coconut

By C.M. Jones, Biographer and Historian

Little is known of the early life of the man we have come to know as Lord Coconut. Even his exact date of birth is a source of contention among scholars. The legends that surround Lord Coconut are plentiful, but hard documentary evidence of who the man was is scarce, and that which we do have is either potentially biased or pure fiction.

It is agreed that Lord Coconut was a member of the British aristocracy. The use of the title Lord is correct; however the family to which this Lord belonged has never satisfactorily been established. There are four main ‘contenders’ for the real man behind the legend, however none of these can be established as true, as none of them quite match the events we have pieced together of his life. Based on the four contenders, when Lord Coconut first landed in Australia in 1887, he could have been anywhere between 25 and 42 years of age.

Although it is believed that his diaries have been long lost, a fragment of the Launceston Daily Telegraph newspaper discovered hidden behind a portrait he once owned (believed to be of his mother), gives us a mere glimpse of his life. It indicates that he was living in Launceston on April 1st 1887. The portrait can still be seen today in the Ladies Lounge of the Lord Admiral Hotel, Launceston.

The only other concrete detail, established from historical shipping records, is that he sailed from Launceston to Melbourne on the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company steamer “The Flinders” on 7 April 1887.

It was also only a very short time that Lord Coconut remained in Tasmania before arriving on the mainland to establish himself in Melbourne.

Once he had ensconced himself in Melbourne’s elite society (such as it was at the time- privately he held it in contempt, calling his contemporaries “colonial kings of the antipodes (i)”), Coconut opened his first private gallery. There are no stock lists available for this establishment, so again we are reliant on his own words which reveal that it held treasures from Africa, Asia and various Pacific islands. Some say that Lord Coconut opened his private gallery to back up some of his more wild boasts to his own circle, others conjecture that he was already low on funds and testing the waters for the marketability of his finds.

We do know that an advertisement for the grand opening of “Lord Coconut’s Emporium of Wonder” appeared in the Argus newspaper in 1891. Much to Lord Coconut’s relief, it was a success and he was not only able to save himself from financial ruin, but also to begin importing various goods and continue his venture of a retail gallery.

As to the question of how Lord Coconut came to be named so, the stories are many and varied. The one most favoured by this author takes place on Easter Island. In 1884 a fleet of British explorers, botanists and cartographers were touring the area. The journals of a young botanist named Frederick Forsythe describe an episode of another British ship docking off Easter Island, with a young man among those that came ashore. The young man boasted that he could communicate with the locals in their own tongue and proceeded to demonstrate, where upon he was pelted with pieces of coconut shell. The crew of the British fleet laughed openly and jeered at this young man, calling him Mr Coconut. The young man righted himself, dusted off his coat and turned to those who laughed at him and corrected them “It’s Lord Coconut. Good day to you.” And with that, he flounced back down the beach to his row boat, where his man servant waited patiently for him, and returned to his ship.(ii)

i Broome, John (ed.) “Collected Writings of Lord Coconut: Letters and Journals 1857 – 1894”, QUP 2007.
ii Hirst, Richard “Voyages in Her Majesty’s Service” Rutledge Keegan Paul, 1991.

17 March 2011

My first external link

I'd like to give a big thankyou to Karen from Melbourne Jeweller who manages the first external website to provide an link to both the Lord Coconut Website and the Lord Coconut Blog.

I hope this is the start of many more to come.

16 March 2011

Innocente - boxes boxes boxes

I had a great meeting with David and his wife today who had travelled from Adelaide looking for stockists for his hand made boxes (which of course can be used for jewellery) under his Innocente range.

David Innocente is a pretty amazing designer/maker and I hope that he recognises what a good fit his boxes would be as part of the Lord Coconut range.

I think the picture below pretty much speaks for itself.

14 March 2011

Alchemy pop-up shop with Polly van der Glass

Polly, a potential Lord Coconut jeweller, will be exhibiting her jewellery works alongside four other Melbourne accessory labels (Melbourne Metal Collective) in a pop up shop this week, from Tuesday 15th - Sunday 20th March (open 10am -5pm every day). The space is at QV in Melbourne, 25 Jane Bell Lane (opposite No Vacancy gallery).

Go and visit.

09 March 2011

Tessa Blazey

I had an outing today and visited the studio of Tessa Blazey in North Fiztroy (it's nice to get out of the city occasionally) who creates some great jewellery.

She seems to specialise in producing work featuring crystals/minerals (or casts of crystals/minerals) which will fit right in with the Lord Coconut natural history museum theme.

I'm especially looking forward to the cufflinks made from real meteorites. It'll be hard to not buy them myself.  Welcome aboard Tessa.
'mineral' cufflinks

08 March 2011

Kathleen O'Neill

I finally managed to speak to Kathleen O'Neill yesterday after a couple of tries. Kathleen is my first potential jeweller who is based in country Victoria (she lives in Gippsland about 3 hours from Melbourne). Kathleen contacted me after speaking to Milly from Craft Victoria. Thanks once again Milly.


Kathleen produces a lot of great jewellery and I am keen to get her involved in Lord Coconut. Fingers crossed.

 

Alison Alexander

I met with Alison Alexander today at the Broadsheet pop-up coffee bar and had a great, often off the topic, chat about her jewellery (and pretty much everything else in the world!).

Again I ask myself: Why are jewellers all so nice?

Anyway, Alison seems keen to become involved in Lord Coconut and I'm keen to get her jewellery with its unique take on life in store.

Chilli Cufflink