Lives of Photographs, 86

[peteryoung]

This photo I call 'Glass Castle', of the Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto's Bay Street and taken one sunny day in July 2009, has sold via Getty in December for just over $500 of which I get just over $100 (they've classed it as a 'royalty free' image; 'rights managed' would have meant more). No details at all on the buyer, and the territory this time is listed as CHE – where's that? Chechnya? Chile? The information provided on their royalty statements is sometimes so scant and inconsistent they may as well not tell me anything.

The Royal Bank Plaza is a bit of a favourite with Toronto's film location scouts: last year it featured in the comedy superhero movie Kick-Ass, as seen in the opening sequence of this trailer.

Comments

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

CHE = Switzerland

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

At your prompt I just googled 'CHE country code' and came up with this explanation (http://www.passportstamp.com/why_switzerland_has_the_che_country_code) at passportstamp.com:

I'd always been confused as to why Switzerland had the country code CHE / CH, as that sounds nothing like Switzerland. Apparently it's from the Latin 'Conféderatio Helvetica', meaning 'Helvetic Confederation'. Apparently using the Latin name means that it doesn't favour one of the country's official languages. Which is nice.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I knew the Helvetica thing from a brief flirtation with stamp collecting in my youth, but I'd never put it together with the separately acquired knowledge that CHE=Switzerland. Doh!

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

Isn't it still 'Helvetia' on their stamps? Being one quarter Swiss with relatives there, I can recall getting plenty of postcards from Switzerland when I was a kid.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Helvetia/Helvetica - what's a letter between friends? I still didn't make the connection :)

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Likewise CHF means SwissFrancs.

CHE; photo

[magscanner.livejournal.com]

Rhaetia (ok, not exactly by borders; but see Rhaetian Railway). AKA Raetia. Odd way to spell it, though, with a C...

Yes, I know. CH on cars.

Wonderful photograph. Someone will use that in an ad for ... if not the bank that's there, then for some unknown bank of the nebulous future that will deserve a building like that.

Is that Superman, holding up a glowing mass of U 235 at the right upper corner?