Closing date for the February 2025 issue (No 454) is 28th January 2025
Latest Issue
Issue 453: January 2025
The big news this month in all respects is Henk Bembom’s sale of the unflown Unicef Cameron R-700. Just proves that some items might spend years in the List, but many do find a home in the end. Davd Usill’s G-WOTW, an Ultramagic M-77 bearing a map of the world has also found a new home whilst Roy Battersby has ended up giving away his aged V-56 envelope G-BLUJ. Two baskets have also sold in December – from Richard Parry and Haydn Board, whilst Graeme Church is now offering the bottom end of G-SPEL as a separate lot having disposed of all other items.
New for January is a lovely Cameron C-60 G-CGFN from Gary Madelin complete with a two person basket and a Mini Shadow single burner – all designed to save weight. Meanwhile Peter Mossman is now splitting his aged but ‘crispy fabric’ O-65, G-BIGL. These early 1980s envelopes might be bulky to pack away but have stood the test of time in respect of colour retention and lack of mould or smell compared with the soft PU coated fabric of the following 20 years. Also back in the List is Thunder Ax3 G-NEIL with homebuilt ‘hopper’ style bottom end. The combination is Annexe 1 and is only listed after a Middle Eastern sale has been thwarted by the terrible hostilities in the region.
It is good that there are already deals being done at this time of year. Our experience is that the next couple of months is the busiest time of year so a good time to get those ads into us. Just email us with words, picture, contacts & price. We can usually get items onto ‘Stop Press’ in a few days.
Finally we report the sad death of Northampton based pilot Peter Lawman. He owned several balloons and has been a Zebedee List user and customer for many years. Condolences from us to his family & friends.
Time for bed said Zebedee!
For several months we have been contemplating the future for our business, as has Chris Dunkley at Easy Balloons. Don’t panic! No immediate changes are planned, but being realistic the next few years will see us winding down and we thought we should spell out some timely truths and maybe encourage some youngsters into balloon maintenance & repair.
We have written a joint statement which we hope will trigger both business enterprise and some thoughts as to how you can ease the pain of your next repair …..
Scam Warning
WARNING!
We have been alerted by two of our advertisers to a scam which is currently doing the rounds. In each case the potential buyer agrees to buy an item and then sends a cheque in payment. However the cheque is for more than the asking price of the item. The ‘buyer’ then asks the seller to refund the difference. Because it sometimes takes a week or more for the bank to process a cheque, it can be some time before the seller realises the cheque has bounced.
We have heard of 4 advertisers who have received enquiries in the past week for equipment. They all involve a complicated routine involving (international) cheques and the fact that the enquirer is on honeymoon… beware !