"Interesting Album Mick, and your points are well worth noting."

"Mental arithmetic, dear boy! Calculators not needed for those calculations.

As to the size of my piece: woe, woe and thrice woe (although some may be glad) - it is 1.29in diameter: I think it was originally taken back in the day when I used my Dad's trusty old wooden ruler (made when Britain was Great, we ruled the earth, and were clearly self-deprecating)."

"I have now tried to edit the caption 4 times and it will not allow me to save the new text for some reason. For the record the message shown above (no.4) from Corptaxman Mtaxcons is an accurate financial analysis of the proceeds of the sale. Also omitted from my original post were the Insurance charges (or Loss & Damage) and Illustration charges levied on Sellers. This adds to the cost of selling but does not necessarily increase Auction house margins."

"Thank you for your mathematical intervention. I really must buy a proper calculator. By the way is your Chinese disc set really 1.3cm diameter? (photo 23 - Disc Sets) I think even very small Oriental carvers with extremely nimble fingers might have struggled. You may be confusing Metric with Imperial. I do have a trusty old wooden ruler if it would help?"

"It's probably not quite as 'bad' as that numerically. If we assume that 'value' is the hammer price plus buyers premium etc (ie total paid by buyer), this gives 6,500 (5k + 25%+VAT @20% thereon); the amount taken in by the house is 2,400 ( say 5kx40%+ VAT thereon). So the % is actually 37% (ignoring cc charges - and that's 'optional' in a sense). Of course, VAT is not retained by the house, so their take is really only 31% of the 'value' (2k / 6.5k). Still a significant chunk, 'though."