Numismatic for the people

Memo: to all Riddled staff.
From: the office desk broom closet of Smut Clyde, Treasurer Hon.Sec. Pro-Tem Ad-Hoc Dipso-Facto
Subject: Jiggery-pokery and shenanigans with temporal coherence.

A number of misuses of the office Time Machine appear to have occurred recently and it is my melancholy duty to remind everyone that our investment in temporal-manipulation equipment is for serious scientific purposes. It was not intended for activities such as (for instance) bidding in antique auctions in several hundred years' time, using funds of a purely provisional and insubstantive nature arising from small deposits paid into a Bonus Bonds account three decades previously -- or contrary-wise, auctions two centuries in the past -- and arranging for the resulting purchases to be shipped back here.

I mean, what is this all about? A commemorative medal celebrating some future victory of Authority over the power of Garlic? Perhaps the coin will be minted to celebrate a climactic struggle between herbal medicine and the Pharmaceutical Lobby. The point is that knowing about this sort of thing before it happens allows us to change or profit from history and upset temporal causality. We do not want material evidence turning up in the office mail-room; it only results in visits from the Time Police, humourless uniformed sticky-beaks that they are.

See also Exhibit 2. According to the packaging information, it is one of a portfolio of "Pickwick Papers: Out-takes & Bloopers". Allegedly none of the actors were aware of the presence of a glowing circle within the room when the scene was staged, the 'Orbe' coming to their attention only when the illustration came back from processing.

Whoever purchased it can send it right back to Sotheby's. Riddled is a blog of taste and discrimination and we do not stoop to publishing Victorian photogravure illustrations repurposed with hum'rous captions about "Mrs Gamp was lighting her farts again".