Leaning Tower of Lynn

The £1.3 million restoration of Lynn's historic leaning Greyfriars Tower is starting to take shape, and scaffolding is due to come down in the next couple of weeks. After almost a year of hard work, the 13th century building is now just months away from completion, with project leaders expecting it to re-open to the public by the end of August.

Roman cemetery found in Gloucestershire

Archaeologists have unearthed a large Roman cemetery in a Gloucestershire gravel quarry.

More than 100 people are believed to have been buried at the site, near Fairford, which dates back 1,600 years.

Stone Age violence

A survey of British skulls from the early part of the New Stone Age, or Neolithic, shows societies then were more violent than was supposed.

Early Neolithic Britons had a one in 20 chance of suffering a skull fracture at the hands of someone else and a one in 50 chance of dying from their injuries. . .

Blunt instruments such as clubs were responsible for most of the trauma.

But the true scale of the violence still remains unclear due to the nature of the evidence, say the authors. In other simple, small-scale societies, the incidence of death as a result of violence ranges from 8-33%.

Sell It Now?

Most of the stuff I sell to collectors I sell directly, or through my website catalog, but I also list some items on eBay. It's a good way to balance out the cash flow, and it improves one's visibility, especially among newer collectors. And for the serious eBay buyer, it's a good way to learn what the competition is up to.

For some time now aggressive buyers have been contacting eBay sellers who don't know how valuable their items are, asking them to cancel their auctions and sell their items outright. Most buyers find such tactics distasteful -- the offers appear generous, but are typically a fraction of market value -- and frustrating -- as desirable items being bid on suddenly disappear without notice. Some bidders have taken to sending preemptive notes to sellers, alerting them to the auction-stoppers' game and sometimes explaining exactly how much their item is likely to fetch.

Yet the sharks work quickly. In one case a few years back a pen got pulled after reaching a few hundred dollars; I heard about it and got in touch with the seller, who denied having sold it, spinning an elaborate tale of having had it on commission, and the owners deciding to take it back. After some back and forth, I told her to tell the "owners" that I was offering $28,000 -- after which I heard no more. I later learned there were no consignors, and that she had sold it for $16,000 cash to a man who picked it up the same day. It must have seemed like a good deal at the time.

And earlier this year another equally valuable pen appeared, then disappeared, rumors later circulating that it had been sold backchannel for $11,000. The seller couldn't have been too pleased by the subsequent avalanche of messages explaining that there were buyers waiting in line in the $20-25,000 range -- but whoever struck, struck quickly, as none of the message-writers ever heard a word back.

How many people are playing this game? It's really not my style, so I've tended to underestimate how often it occurs. But even though I'm an established specialist seller who clearly knows the value of his wares, I'm still getting such offers on my eBay items -- so it must be widespread indeed. On a cell phone which typically sells in the $250-300 range, someone tried to get me to sell it for $100, shipping included (it ultimately sold for $340). On an older Montblanc model that has for some time fetched $1200 and up, and now often reaches the $3000 range, I got an offer of $600 -- plus the guy wanted me to send the pen to him before paying!

Why do sellers get sucked in? Some might need money in a hurry, but for most it as much ignorance as greed: ignorance not only of the value of their item, but also of the way eBay works. For when it comes to collectors, the more serious and experienced they are, the more likely it is that they will not bid until the very end. A piece being contested primarily by advanced collectors will typically creep along for a week, receiving tentative pokes from newbies and bottom-fishers, only to jump up by a factor of anywhere from two to ten in the last few seconds. Someone with little eBay experience (or experience restricted to lower value items that are not hotly contested) might well conclude that their item couldn't be so valuable, given its apparently tepid reception.

Of course, to every rule there is an exception. Mine was a rare but rather esoteric piece; not wanting it to disappear, I contacted the seller, telling her that I would be bidding strongly at the end, so not to stop the auction to sell it outright -- unless she wanted to sell it to me. She responded that she had received offers, and was disinclined to let the auction run to its end, so after a bit of conversation I made her an offer of $850. She told me this was much more than she had been offered by my competitors, but after that the days passed, the auction continued, and I received no more responses. At the end, the selling price stood at $222. To her credit, the seller fulfilled her side of the bargain, and after I got the pen in hand, I sent her a few hundred extra. Nonetheless, my advice for any eBay seller remains to let the auction run. Although my offer in this case was strong, the ultimate selling price might well have ended up yet stronger. The seller played it right; her bad luck was that one of my likely rivals didn't notice it, and the other was temporarily indisposed and offline. There's always an element of chance in an auction, but if you don't play, you don't win.

Buy now, fill up later

When is this coming to my town?

First Fuel Banks bills itself as the only retailer in the country where customers can buy gasoline for the future and hedge against rising prices. It advertises no service charge and no storage charge, just a $1 lifetime membership fee.

Altrichter said one of his neighbors got in at First Fuel Banks several years ago and is now is withdrawing from a reserve that cost him 99 cents a gallon. "How about that!" he said.

Both people and businesses buy gas from the company, which has six stations in and around this central Minnesota city. The city of St. Cloud fills its fleet of cars at the company's stations.