Joey,
Appreciated the lengthy story to get to the punch line.
Do you recall the year the bottle was purchased? Charll
Charll, Reread the lengthy story
It was in October 1978, but I screwed up the day & date.
For some reason [possibly since for at least 20 years or so,
the convention starts on a Tuesday], I mixed up the days & dates.
Simchat Torah, the last day of the High Holy Day period, fell on Monday,
23.October.
The convention 'started' with registration on Saturday, 28.October, and
a banquet hosted by YF Yang OBM and CK Liang OBM, on Saturday night.
Because I was then strictly Orthodox, and could NOT register on my
Shabbat, Dorothy Shindle the longtime secretary of the ICSBS, registered us
on Friday, albeit slightly less than welcomingly.
But the convention was really from Sunday morning, 29.October to Thursday,
2.November.
We [my ex-wife Jenny Waverman 'Silver' and I] arrived on Thursday 26.October,
early afternoon, after an 'interesting' 8 hour layover in Teheran Int. Airport.
We'd corresponded with the Dunkerleys, and they were expecting to collect us at the
Mandarin Hotel. But our travel agent was not used to scheduling accommodations in
the Far East [she screwed up with the timezone difference], and we had a booking at
the Mandarin in Hong Kong Central only from Friday, 27.October!
We discovered the SNAFU at the airport and went to an Accommodations Booking Desk
there, where we were able to book a 2 bedroom suite for US$200 at the Hong Kong
Furama Hilton, in 26 / out 27 October.
We called the Dunkerleys, and they came to meet us at the Furama Hilton.
It turned out that the restaurant they wanted to take us to was 5 minutes walk
from our hotel.
Friday morning, 27.October, 1978, David organised a company car to collect us
after we checked out from the Hilton, and drive us to the Mandarin,
and he'd called ahead and spoken to a friend to get us early checkin.
We arrived by 10:00am and were ensconced in our very luxurious room by 10:30am.
Then David escorted the two of us to the Star Ferry, a few minutes walk away.
And ushered us onto First Class. This cost HK$0.50 at the time, with
US$1.00 = HK$7.80. So less than 6 cents USD for First Class...
Instead of HK$0.30 [less than 4 US cents] for Standard Class...
David explained that there were pickpockets in Standard Class, since it was
much more crowded.
I've LOVED the Star Ferry ever since that first ride.
It's only about 6 minutes across Hong Kong Harbour from Central on Victoria
Island to Tsim Sha Tsui Station on the Kowloon [peninsula] side.
From the Star Ferry's Kowloon station, we walked about 10 minutes, and were
at YF Yang & Sons by 11:00am. But that was with David leading the way.
When I went away by myself and returned, it took me over 20 minutes to find the
shop! And I'd been in the Ocean Terminal the whole time!
And next door was the photography shop that both YF and David recommended.
It turned out that the young couple who worked there were related to YF,
So Jenny bought all her photography stuff there.
She had put aside US$3,000 for her gear, vs. US$7,500 for me to buy snuff bottles.
She felt this was fair since my side had given us 80% of the gifts, but I'd offered a
50/50 split. Jenny said that all she wanted was the photographic equipment.
In the end, Jenny only needed US$1,800 to get even more than she'd intended,
thanks to YF. And she bought me one of the 15 I'd put back, for which YF
charged her only US$500 [It was marked US$635], out of her spare cash.
So, Charll, your bottle was purchased by David Dunkerley from YF Yang & Sons,
Ocean Terminal, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon on Friday, 27.October 1978.
Though I don't know when he paid for it. I saw no funds change hands on that
day.
Best,
Joey
