Good things come to those who wait
I’ve just spent an adrenaline rich five minutes with Ebay. Sniping is the only blood sport I enjoy. In this case, the object was one of particular desire, one of Ed’s ballet designs — a watercolour of two female dancers, whom I recognise as members of the corps de ballet in Don Juan, which Ed designed for the Royal Ballet in 1948. It’s a nice one, and hasn’t got names, fabric notes etc. written all over it. It came out of a house-clearance in Leamington Spa — presumably some ballet-or art-loving old pussycat has dropped off the perch. I have most of Ed’s sale catalogues and I’m therefore in a position to know that it changed hands for £2,000 in 1992. Which is not what I have just paid for it, ho, ho. The wonderful thing about sniping is the agonizing decision of when, in the final count-down, to drop in your first bid — if someone’s left a high bid on the thing it can all go badly wrong. But in this case, it didn’t.