Actually, what you said was that Tom must have got the information from Victor or somebody close to him which is why I queried it as it just seemed to be an assumption on your part with no basis in fact (or none that you would share or that was already common knowledge) and it would have been nice to know on what it was based which is why I asked about it. It has since become what you are now saying so it keeps changing which just muddies the waters although it doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things.
“For Tom to mention the £100,000 "plaques" in his book and the exact process how they became, he had to have got the information from someone who knew what they were talking about; either Victor or someone very close to Victor.”
The address didn’t work for me as it just took me to the Aol current page (understandable as it is a very old page) although I can only assume it may have worked for you as you also mention the destruction of chips. Maybe somebody saved the photo from the link so we can see what was actually said first hand, which would be great and it will may possibly jog somebody’s memory and turn up. It would be good to know if that is where Tom got the rest of the information from as I’d guess that they would have wanted to pad out the article so maybe it was on there but until it actually turns up, we won’t know for sure. Or maybe that was where Victor or a friend supplied the information as you have previously stated a number of times.
It does confirm what I had said about in that he must have got the information from a variety of sources (at least 2) so it just leaves the £1000 being the only one mentioned that we don’t yet know where the information came from. Again, maybe from a friend of Victors when they supplied the jeweller information if that was the case, it’s possible.
The other comment that you made in regards to the Playboy plaques that I just wanted clarification on was actually about totally different plaques so no wonder there was confusion as it was not stated at the time and was on the thread that was about Playboy plaques and nothing else so there was no reason to think otherwise.
“and I think there were exactly 10 pieces of the £100,000 made and not 11, as with other very low productions where one piece was kept in shop.”
I realise that you enjoy speculating about lots of things (as most peple do) and it can be a good thing as it can sometimes lead to finding out more than was previously known so I have no problem with that, it’s just that when it doesn’t give others anything substantial to go on or an opportunity to see if it is a workable theory that it may become an issue in the future.
Can you remember where the article came from as maybe we can try to find it by other means, either in the paper’s archives or elsewhere.
It would be great for all interested parties if the photo (and article) could be found and it was good of you to take the time to finds the thread.