Category: vintage

Shop early for Xmas

Lots of fascinating items in my shop – go on, treat yourself to something 😉

Skillman to Shen

At the recent Sheffield maxi-meeting in Wentworth Castle, Dave Venables kindly brought a small selection from the BOS library archives for us to enjoy. Part of this was written communications from the late Philip Shen. As a huge fan of his work, I found these utterly enthralling! One real gem was a letter from Jack […]

Smith on Yoshizawa

When I joined the BOS in 1984, I didn’t realise how close I’d been to seeing Yoshizawa somewhere near his peak – he’d visited a BOS convention 6 months ago. It was 13 years later when he returned, sadly a shadow of the folder he had been (but inspirational none the less!) I had a […]

Back when paper was for writing on as well as folding…

Being a collecting kinda guy, I’ve got several lever arch files of correspondence from my early origami days (84 onwards) and every few years, I have a read through some. Email may be quicker and easier, but there’s no memory like a hand-written letter from an old friend. A response from Paul Jackson, then mag […]

Cocotte postcard

I love these postcards – if anyone sees any going cheap, please buy them for me & I’ll reimburse you…

Yoshizawa’s Pig

In 1955, Yoshizawa sent several large boxes of his work to America for an exhibition. Some 50 years later, they were returned to their creator through the efforts of the BOS. I was lucky enough to see these first hand and to appreciate what an awesome touch the Master had. There are few folders even […]

Blintzed bird base modular

At a mini-meeting in Hazel Grove (near Manchester) yesterday, I re-learned a model from the distant past. I can’t remember where or when I last saw it, but it’s a 6 piece modular made from a blintzed bird base. This got me thinking about the BBB, which few of the attendees at the meeting seemed […]

FOLD (the APA)

Many years ago, I was part of an APA (Amateur Press Alliance) known as FOLD. The idea was we each sent 20 hard copies of our bi-monthly article to a co-ordinator, who then collated them and mailed them back to us. There were no limitations on what we could include, folds, photos, cuttings etc, so […]

James Sakoda

Tidying out a drawer recently, I came upon this cover sheet from a pack of “Sakoda” foil paper.  James included a pack of it in with a signed copy of his “Modern Origami” that he generously sent to me many years ago.  I never met him, but he was a fellow contributor to “FOLD” (an […]