The phone was obviously disconnected, its unattached cord lying just behind it. It had been placed near the edge of a table at the flea market, and no man, woman or child could resist picking up its receiver or for the kids punching its raised buttons.

This red and beige phone appeared to have been spray-painted, possibly to match a room's decor.

Unlike the man, most of the adults didn’t speak into the nothingness but just listened (one person asked if it was a direct line to the president). As they did, I wondered out loud how they’d react if someone actually spoke to them. What if I or a ventriloquist could project a voice into the phone. I thought it would be a great prank – a la Jay Leno or Jimmy Fallon – but one woman showed in her reaction that she didn’t care for the idea.

The man pulled the phone slightly away from his ear, and turned to a woman who’d walked up to the table with him. “It could be angels,” he said (I hadn’t thought of a biblical answerer). Another of his female companions had a good reply: “It says ‘Buy me, buy me,’” she said.

A Western Electric beige touch-tone phone with a phone jack. It is still usable.

He didn’t buy the phone. The three walked away just like everyone else, but all who tried it had a cheerful time playing around with it. The phone had that effect on people on a sunny but breezy day fit for a flea market. Its red color was perhaps the biggest draw, but the device itself was an anachronism compared to the cute slim cell phones that seemed to be glued to people’s ears or the landlines they had at home.

I’ve come across a number of old rotary and touch-tone phones at auction. Like those, this phone was bulky and weighty, and it wasn’t  equipped to take a jack. Many of the baby boomers remembered it – and a black rotary phone on another table – from 20 and 30 years ago. One woman told of her son standing before a rotary phone stumped at how to use it.

A Western Electric black rotary phone.

For many of us, the phone looked pretty intuitive, but it was common in households way before the boy’s time. He was no different from the folks who had to learn how to use a rotary phone when it replaced operator calls. Here’s a YouTube video of an early film demonstrating its use.

The kids who stopped at the table had no problem with the keys on the touch tone since they mimicked the Qwerty or touch keyboard on their cell phones.

This phone did not appear to be the standard Western Electric device. It was red with beige trim and gold sparkly specks. It looked like someone had painted it to match a home décor. The paint was so meticulously done that not a single spot of the red overlapped onto the beige. It was so clean that one flea-market-goer wondered if it had been bought that way. I don’t think the company made phones in that color.

An Art Deco Monophone made by the Automatic Electric Co. of Chicago. These were made between 1939 and 1950.

The marking on the bottom indicated that it was from 1970. The touch-tone system was developed by Western Electric (the manufacturing part of AT&T) and offered by its Bell System to the public. The touch tone replaced rotary dialing (which used pulses rather than tones to connect) and was first used in 1941 in switch boards only because it was so expensive.

By the early 1960s, AT&T had found a way to make it work in homes, showing off the first commercial touch-tone phones at the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle. The phones were introduced to the public in 1963 but did not gain wide use until the late 1970s and 1980s. They can still be used.

At the flea market, a young man purchased the black rotary phone, noting that he’d been looking for one for some time to use, not collect. As someone pointed out, the phones can no longer be used with the tone system, but I found that they can be converted to tone or used with a converter unit.

A Western Electric turquoise wall phone from the 1960s.

Rotary phones were introduced in 1919 and became popular around the 1950s, replacing phone boxes with cranks and other devices that connected to an operator.

Some of the phones are also bought as a collectible or for decoration. There are plenty of lovely old phones to choose from.

Folks loved the look and quaintness of the red and beige touch-tone phone. But no one was enthralled enough with it to buy it, though.

A Kellogg Company of Chicago phone nicknamed the "ashtray," circa 1930s. It has a manual dial.

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They were spread out on a table at the auction house, and since there were so many of them I wondered if they were someone’s collection. Had they hung on a wall or sat on a countertop to make the owner’s day or make her laugh when she needed to relax? They were so amusing that they had that effect on me.

These were not the lovely trivets that are collectible (like Griswold’s), and could fetch good prices on eBay and other retail sites. These were meant to be light-hearted and kitschy. Neither were they like the early three-foot trivets that were used to hold hot pots and skillets. Nor were they the iron trivets used to hold irons (called sad irons) for pressing clothes.

These were decorative wall plaques; placing anything on top of them would have scraped off the paint on the messages. They won’t likely sell for much, although I did find a lot of 12 that sold for $40 on eBay. However, there was only one bidder.

Here’s a look at some of the trivets at auction:

Messages on kissing and cooking, a messy house, smart women and home sweet home:

A message espousing over-indulgence in food and drink:

A message on hyperbole and kindness:

Messages of love on tile and the Serenity Prayer:

A message on the greatest love:

And all together:

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In a 1930 magazine ad, Generel Electric had actually described the top piece as “scarely bigger than a hatbox” in a promotional move, no doubt, to appeal to women. It was nothing like the refrigerators we’re used to seeing today. It had four curved feet and aluminum ice trays like the ones I remember in our icebox (that’s what we were still calling our electric refrigerator when I was growing up).

An inside view of the 1935 General Electric Monitor Top refrigerator.

Someone had taped the original receipt on the door. It had two dates plus information about both sale and rental, so it was a bit confusing. The receipt was from the Philadelphia Electric Co. with a delivery date of 9/30/35. The date of the receipt was 10/11/35. The terms were listed as $4.90 rental for 36 months, yet there was also an amount listed as $176.40. In fine writing at the bottom of the receipt was “Present this bill when making payments. Use reverse side to record payments.”

I assumed that the refrigerator was sold to the person whose name and address were on the receipt, but that it could also be rented.

I loved this vintage refrigerator as soon as I saw it. It was stylish in its oldness, impressive, and very clean. It did not have that stale hot smell of a refrigerator left sitting around for a long time with its door closed. On the catalog sheet, the auction house noted that it had a few areas of paint loss – which I didn’t see – but that it still worked.

The Monitor Top was an impressive-looking appliance.

The refrigerator was a Monitor Top, and it was said to be one of GE’s most successful products. It was first sold in 1925 for $525 or 1927 for $300, depending on what you read. According to the 2002 book “The 1930s” by William H. Young and Nancy K. Young, GE had sold 50,000 of the refrigerators by 1929 and continued at that clip right through the Depression. Sales had reached 1 million in 1931. By then, the company had dropped the price to $290, according to the book.

The 1930 magazine ad describing the compressor as a hatbox had the appliance selling for $205.

The Monitor Top was toppled from its perch by the Sears Coldspot Super Six designed by Raymond Loewy in 1935. The Coldspot, according to the 1930s book, is considered a design classic. Other refrigerator makers like Kelvinator and Frigidaire were also getting into the competitive fray and selling their own products. By the late 1930s, refrigerators were starting to lose their four feet and made flat to the floor, as in this Westinghouse ad.

The compressor atop the GE refrigerator was said to be fashioned after the gun turret on the Civil War ship the USS Monitor.

One website noted that utility companies sold the Monitor Top to customers in monthly installments added to their bills. A 1935 GE ad offered a dozen models, including the Monitor Top and Flat Top (with the compressor underneath), for as low as $77.50.

The new Monitor Top had its drawbacks, according to the 1930s book. The freezer and meat tray weren’t big enough, but the ice trays were more efficient that chipping ice – the way it had to be done with its predecessor, the ice box. Wooden ice boxes with hollow sides and tin or zinc linings kept their cool with blocks of ice delivered by the ice man in his wagon. Inside was a drip pan, holding tank or other device for collecting water.

At an event recently, a woman told me about a refrigerator her mother still owned. As soon as she mentioned it, I thought about the Monitor Top I had seen at auction. No, she corrected me. This one actually needed ice to cool the insides. It was an old icebox. I’d love to see one in person, but I did find several examples on the web.

I wasn’t around when the Monitor Top sold at auction, but I learned later that it went for $250 – not much more than it sold for in 1935.

These old ice trays brought back memories.

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I hadn’t, so I kept reading. “Weigh now on this Computer Scale. What you should weigh (it showed two charts opposite each other). Doctors say weigh weekly. For beauty and health watch your weight. Deduct 5 lbs for clothes & shoes.”

Deduct 5 pounds for garments? That was new to me, but I liked the way it sounded. I always felt that the heavy clothes I wore were contributing to the numbers on the scales in my bathroom and doctor’s office. I didn’t figure it was a whopping 5 pounds. Or was it? Was this machine just toying with me?

Loboy penny scale made by Rock-Ola jukebox company of Chicago, circa 1930s.

I didn’t check my weight on that scale, but it was interesting because it seemed that everywhere I turned lately, its cousin the penny scale was accosting me at auctions. Each time I saw one, I stopped in front of it, peered at its face and remembered the times I’d dropped a penny – or was it a nickel or a quarter? – in a slot.

Most of us have done that and then groused when the scale bungled our weights. It was always wrong – probably needed to be re-calibrated – because no way were we as heavy as the scale indicated.

The penny scales at auction all appeared to be from the early 20th century, tall and lean, some colored and one a natural wood. These were not the earliest machines, which were called lollipop scales with their circular heads and long slender bodies.

I found differing accounts of when penny scales were first made in this country and who made them. One site said they came in 1885 via Great Britain. Another said it was Germany. Several said that the Watling Scale Co. in Chicago made the country’s first penny scales in the late 1880s, while National Scale Company was said to have made the first coin-operated scale.

An expert and collector named Christopher K. Steele noted on his site that the penny scales, while a vending machine, was unlike other vending machines because you got a service for your penny. That seemed to change as companies tried to make the scales more enticing, spitting out photos of Hollywood stars, horoscopes, gum and candy, and designing them with pizazz.

Circa 1930s Pace Bantam penny scale.

Watling also made scales that told your fortune, as in this Gypsy scale that I found selling for about $6,000 on the web, along with some other scales from the early 20th century. Here’s a look at what one site said were cards dispensed with your fortune (for sale).

Penny scales could be found in train and bus stations, at fairs, amusement parks and arcades; in bowling alleys, drug stores, department stores, restrooms, on sidewalks and more. Some are still being used. Their heyday was the 1930s and 1940s when people were slipping 10 billion pennies a year into them, according to Steele, whose collection of 200 scales has been exhibited widely. His earliest goes back to 1890 and the latest 1992.

By the mid-20th century, penny scales were losing their appeal after people began buying their own bathroom scales.

I wasn’t around when each of the scales sold, but the wooden one with the mirror, I learned, sold for $70 at auction. It was a 1930s Watling and was not in working condition. One website noted that mirrors on scales were used by women to check their lipstick and the seams on their stockings.

Circa 1930s Watling penny scale.

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That’s what a ride on a roller coaster always felt like to me. I would search them out, stare at them warily from afar but itching, anxious to get aboard. I screamed the loudest in sheer fun and terror as the ride bumped me against corners, bounced me around, force-pushed me back against my seat and careened me full ahead (into the abyss, as I recalled, on the Disney World Space Mountain ride) for what seemed like eternity. Then it would glide me back to the flat safe spot where it all began.

Nothing beats a red top to draw bidders and induce nostalgia.

I couldn’t wait to try it again, so I’d get back in line. Nutty, but wow, that was fun!

I rarely searched for the carousel; much, much too slow for me. It was for folks who liked the quiet life, with the sculpted tame horses dipping ever so lightly in place round and round the ring. Maybe if they had galloped or hiked up on their front legs forcing me to hang on, the ride would’ve been more exciting. I did enjoy the swing carousel, though, because I could always catch a slightly cool breeze on a hot summer day when the seats swung out.

The ferris wheel was also a relaxing experience. As it pulled me up and up and up, I could see the world – or the part of it surrounding the park. It could be both relaxing and carefree, allowing me to get lost in my thoughts, and sit back and ponder life without stress. It was just too cool.

This ferris wheel was a standout at auction.

I got into this pensive mood about amusement-park rides after seeing an array of them at auction recently. Someone’s collection of toy rides, buildings, trains cars and railroad tracks were laid out in an impressive display on a long table. An auction staffer had identified the items in handwritten letters for those of us unfamiliar with such collectibles (and as a way to spur higher bids): “Coney Island Amusements.” “World’s Fair Amusements.”

I assumed they referred to the types of rides, but learned later that these were brand names. On the web, I found tons of retail websites selling items from the Mr. Christmas Gold Label World’s Fair Collection. I could find no collection called Coney Island, but came across lots about the famous Brooklyn, NY, amusement park of that name. From the late 19th century to well into the 20th century, Coney Island was the place for fun rides, amazing hot dogs (so I’m told), a long stretch of beach, people-watching, and much more that was less than family-friendly.

Replica of a bumper car ride.

The replica rides on the auction table were lovely and appeared to be in tip-top shape – a testament to the owner who apparently took very good care of them. This collector may also have been a train buff because close by were model train paraphernalia and a large Lionel train clock. One retail website noted that Lionel collectors used World’s Fair rides in their train displays.

Some of the rides were animated and some were music boxes. According to the Mr. Christmas website, they arrange their own music for their products.

The ride that set me off on my reverie was the Grand Ferris Wheel, a yellow contraption that stood out among the other rides, even topping the Coney Island wheel with the familiar and sinister-looking Steeplechase man. It towered over the other rides, some of which were low on the table.

A Coney Island Freaktoberfest ferris wheel.

When the bidding got started, it was obvious that some bidders were very familiar with these rides. But they weren’t willing to pay a lot of money for them. I found prices on the web from around $125 to $175. Here’s what the rides fetched at the auction:

Carousel, $30

Bumper cars, $35

Swing carousel, $35

Mr. Christmas ferris wheel, $55

Cyclone roller coaster, $40. Two others sold for $40 and $35.

Starship ride, $35

Parachute ride, $45

Circus tent, $45

Roundabout, $35

Super slide ride, $25

Coney Island ferris wheel, $45

Circus tent, $45

A Coney Island roller coaster at auction.

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This will be our first time participating in the showcase and our first such presentation. My collaborator is a woman named Rebecca who knows a lot more about black-history collecting than me. Her head is a storehouse of knowledge, and she reads just about everything she can find on the subject. I think she’s an expert, but she modestly declines the label. She has a very large collection of black books and other memorabilia that I’ll eventually check out.

Pullman porter paraphernalia sold at auction.

The showcase at the Philadelphia Convention Center is produced by Everett & Associates Inc. and the Proud African American Foundation, according to its website. Its offers artifacts, presentations, history-makers and exhibits celebrating the achievements of African Americans. Our presentation will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 7, and noon Sunday, April 8.

We will also set up tables to show off some of the items that she has collected and I have written about in my blog or bought at auction. Some of these are items that have both financial and/or historical value.

We all have relatives who’ve kept papers and documents, family photos and portraits, marriage licenses and birth certificates, old books and Bibles, and old dolls and artwork that we considered mildly interesting but figured who’d want the junk. You’d be surprised. There are plenty of people who do, from collectors to museums to eBayers. So we shouldn’t just throw it away.

Negro Leaguer Terris McDuffie.

This is not just about African American history, but everyone’s history. Most of what I see at auction comes from all colors of homes. Black memorabilia, though, seems to be very popular now. Bidders tangle over it, so much so that I have to bid pretty high sometimes to get it. Most dealers are buying it to sale, while I’m buying it as an historical keepsake.

Some of the items in our homes should be kept for sentimental value, but others may be ripe for selling – and not summarily tossed in the weekly garbage. In our presentation, we’ll show folks what to look for, what to keep, what to sell and where to sell it, and how to research it.

As I pondered what to put on my table at the showcase and offer in the presentation, I came up with a list of vintage – as in old – items from auction that came out of someone’s home. I hope we will spur people to be alert as they stroll through a relative’s home with antiques, or go through old trunks, drawers, boxes and basements.

A replica from the Memphis sanitation workers' strike in 1968.

“I Am A Man” poster – It recorded a very important event in civil rights history: the 1968 sanitation workers strike in Memphis involving Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It sold quite well recently at auction.

Ebony and Jet magazines – I always flip through old magazines - be they Life, Saturday Evening Post or Look (I’m especially looking for the Jan. 14, 1964, copy with Norman Rockwell’s illustration of federal marshals accompanying Ruby Bridges to a white school). I’m also looking for copies of Ebony with an advice column written by Dr. King. It ran from  September 1957 to December 1958.

Black business directories by cities. Some of these did well at a recent auction.

The Patterson-Greenfield car featured in a poster circa 1916-1920.

Patterson-Greenfield car advertising poster. This was a car made by an African American company at the turn of the 20th century. Ads for the vehicle ran in the Crisis and Alexander’s Magazine.

Old family Bibles with names, birthdates, marriages, etc. These come up often at auction and are snapped up.

Old dolls, black and white. There’s a huge community of people who collect, repair and love dolls. The early German and French dolls are very collectible. At a doll show once, I found out that a black man named Leo Moss hand-made dolls at the turn of the 20th century in my hometown of Macon, GA.

Photos and documents of black Civil War soldiers, WWI & WWII soldiers, Tuskegee Airmen, and WACs and other black women in the military

Adult and children books, especially first edition and rare ones.

A collection of antique sewing boxes made this auction very special.

Sewing items, including boxes, silver thimbles and more.

Family photos and portraits, photos of history-makers and autographed photos of entertainers (it might be a bit too early for Denzel). The photos tell the history of all of us as a people, our culture at a given time and how we lived. Among black photographers, some of the most important were James Van Der Zee, Teenie Harris and Roy DeCarava.

Pullman porter paraphernalia

Old cameras, especially the ones with bellows and made of wood.

Paintings and prints, depending on the artist.

Fancy buttons. Some collectible ones are as beautiful as jewelry.

Lionel trains and tracks. Not all of them, but a little research can tell you if yours are valuable.

Vintage telephones

German Black Forest cuckoo clocks and others

Singer sewing machines. Those big heavy ones, especially the Featheweight, which is very sought-after because people still use them.

Underwood and other manual typewriters. These heavy things weighed a ton. Some folks just want only the keys.

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“But not good ones,” the woman quipped. She was right but dismissive in the face of a collection that someone had probably spent a large bit of time and money on. And the buying for this one seemed to have gone on for a long time, because the collection was overwhelming.

Cobalt blue and macrame pigs were among the collection.

The only other pig item that had caught my eye - and not at auction – was a folk art painting at an antiques mall in my home state of Georgia two years ago. It was a painting of a black and white pig’s body with human feet, and titled “Pig Feet.”

At this auction, the pigs seemed to be the most interesting items on the tables. A cobalt blue pig and what looked like a macramé pig stood out among the wooden, ceramic and stone pigs – all looking as if they were purchased at department stores or flea markets.

This pig seemed to be ready to go fishing.

Who collects pigs? I wondered. They’re good for eating – for those people who eat pork. They root around in the mud (do they still do that these days?). They don’t necessarily make good pets - although some folks do own the pot-bellied ones.

I have a history with pigs: I grew up on a farm, and I know how dirty and messy pigs and hogs can be. I even had a cousin whom we called Pig (don’t know why since I don’t recall her being porky). It never occurred to me to collect representations of the creatures as a hobby. But some people do and they have a story to tell about how they got started, while others don’t know why they do it. They bought one pig figurine and the hobby took off, fueled by people who kept giving and giving and giving them pigs.

Singer Janet Jackson was apparently one of the latter. She was said to have gotten into collecting pig stuff some years ago, but gave it up after people kept giving her so many of them.

Two full boxes of pig figurines.

This collector described growing up with animals in the yard and a mother who labeled her children’s behavior as piggish. A British woman made it into the Guinness Book of World Records with more than 16, 700 pig figurines, stuffed toys and piggy banks. Here’s another collector with 14,000 items. And this collector actually has some lovely items that I’m sure the snooty auction-goer would find worthy.

When I went searching online for collectors, I was reminded of that common of pig items that we all likely remember: piggy banks. Stashing pennies and dimes out of sight for some item we just had to have. The bank may not have looked like a pig but its function was the same.

Online sites were selling pig figurines, cookie jars, cake toppers, political charms, figural bottles in pig shapes (most once contained whiskey), salt and pepper shakers and Steiff (as in the famous bears) stuffed pigs. Some of the animals were made by such companies as Heisey, Fenton and Cambridge. Shawnee Pottery – which early on sold its ceramic products through some five-and-dime stores – apparently made them, too.

Some pigs were very colorful and decorative.

I even came across a group of people calling themselves “Friends of Freddy.” Freddy was the talking pig from a series of books from the early to mid-20th century by Walter R. Brooks. If you’re born in the Year of the Pig in Chinese culture, you can look forward to an easy life (and an ever better one if you’re born in the Year of the Golden Pig).

At the auction, the boxes of pigs went for modest prices: from $2 to $10 per box. The original owner probably paid a lot more for just one of them.

An up-close look at pig figurines at auction.

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I always think of that Sojourner Truth plea every time I see Royal Doulton female figurines at auction. They are so lovely in their bone-china skin, beautifully painted gowns and their elegant poses. I have yet to see one of those women with a dark complexion like mine, though.

I recently came face to face with a group of the women at an auction house where I had seen a similar lot some months ago. As usual, these delicate ladies with their high price tags had been placed in glass cases to keep them out of the hands – and pockets – of brutish buyers. They were in perfect condition, without a scratch on any of them.

Royal Doulton Pretty Ladies figurines.

One appeared to be reading a book. Another lounged oh-so-carefree on a chaise. I know how to kick back like that!

I wondered if I was being too harsh on the company, that maybe these were antique figures made 80 and 90 years ago before the world realized that black was beautiful. So I turned over several of the figurines to check the markings on the bottom.

They had names like Gemma and Sara, and the lounging one was simply titled “Repose.” The earliest inscription was “Corp. 1953.” The rest were produced much later: 1971. 1972. 1980. 1993. 1994.

A grouping of Royal Doulton Pretty Ladies figurines at auction.

After I ranted silently to myself, I wondered if perhaps Royal Doulton had made some lady figurines of color, but no one was giving them up for sale at auction. So I went Googling to find those elusive women.

The company, I learned from its U.S. website, prided itself on its Pretty Ladies – “the most iconic and famous” of its figurines, each “rendered in fine bone china and lovingly hand-decorated; each one given a name and story.” They are a collectors’ wonder and “never go out of style.”

Royal Doulton has been making them since 1913, and they are among its most popular collectibles. The company itself got started in 1815 London manufacturing stoneware, bottles, jugs and industrial items. It began making bone china near the end of the 19th century, and it  first introduced figurines at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

Most of the Pretty Ladies figurines on the web looked exactly like the ones at auction. Retail sites were selling Celtic, Russian, Spanish, French, Chinese and Scottish dancers; Australian flower ladies; Barbie; a wedding cake topper; moms, dads and children; Disney characters (including Cinderella), Prince William and Catherine, and Queen Elizabeth.

"The Lindy Hop," a 1938 lithograph by Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias. A figurine that looked like her would be a great seller.

I also came across a dance series seemingly inspired by the TV show “Dancing with the Stars” and thought, certainly, at least one woman of color would be among this group because we are dancers. Then I read the names of the dances represented – fox trot, slow waltz, cha cha, quick step and tango.

One figurine was dancing the jive, which grew out of such dances as the jitterbug, boogie-woogie and lindy hop, according to this Royal Doulton website. Since the lindy hop was an African American original, it would’ve been a good choice for a figurine of color. Maybe the lindy hop has too much sassiness and movement for the demure image of a Royal Doulton lady.

At least the president got his own. In 2011, the company introduced an inaugural dance figurine featuring President Obama and Michelle, along with an Obama character jug (following a tradition of jugs starting with Winston Churchill in 1940).

Royal Doulton figurines of President Obama and his wife, Michelle; Christina and Alicia.

Finally, I came to Alicia and Christina who seemed to have a slight tint compared to the figurines at auction. They were not exactly my color (or the Obamas), but they were the closest I had come.

The next time, maybe I’ll see these tinted ladies at auction. If so, I’ll likely have to fight to get them, because buyers bid high on anything they think is black or African American (especially if the auctioneer tells them that it is). Meanwhile, I’ll just head over to Lladro, where I know I’ll find some figurines of color.

Or I can enjoy my collection of Lime dolls from the Dominican Republic that I bought at auction in October. They are definitely my color.

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The female vendor had gotten them from a woman whose father had been an attorney. “A lot of times he accepted things instead of payment,” the woman told Barbara, an auction-regular who had done some research on her own. They were called brothel tokens, and Barbara had found conflicting information about their authenticity.

Two of the brothel tokens and the pouch the three came in. Two of the tokens were the same.

The brass tokens were the size of a silver dollar, and two had the same inscription. All were blank on the opposite side, something Barbara hoped was promising - an indication that maybe hers were the real thing.

Two were inscribed around the top and bottom perimeter  with “Uncle Sam Hotel. Arizona Territory” and in the center “12 Beautiful Young Ladies to Assist You. Yuma.” There was a little ocean wave on the token.

The other token bore the words “Railhead Saloon. Tombstone-Arizona Territory,” and in the center “Good for one dollar in trade. Girls. Whiskey. Tobacco.”

I had never heard of or seen brothel tokens before, so I was naturally curious about them. So I went Googling.

On what appeared to be legitimate websites, these tokens were described as fantasy items produced for fun. The expert site on the issue seemed to be AAA Historical Americana out of Rockford, IL, headed by a man named Rich Hartzog. The site offered good information on exonumia (tokens, medals, badges and related items), along with items for sale, including slave tags, badges, medals tokens and antislavery items.

The Uncle Sam Hotel token.

I also found that even fakes were made of the fantasy tokens, and several sites warned collectors and others not to be fooled.

The key message, though, was that these tokens were never used in a brothel. They were produced for sale as novelty items at flea markets, according to Hartzog’s website, which among others listed some of the tokens.

One site selling them for about $2.50 each (or five for $10.95) was very clear about what they were: “Fun to collect, use as poker chips, or just entertain your friends. Make a great addition to an Old West collection, or a coupon for romance!” A buyer on another site – which called them “reproduction chit” – said he had cashed one in to his wife.

Tongue-in-cheek seemed to be the right way to approach these tokens.

The Railhead Saloon token.

But not everyone did. Some sites were passing them off as real and indicating that they were actually used in brothels. “Money used in the saloon for women and whatever,” said one site that was selling the tokens for $99.99.

I found other items of this type, including saloon tokens (which were actually used during the latter part of the 19th century), Nevada silver strike tokens (still sold in casinos and on the web, and have a fan club) and what was claimed to be an authentic brothel token from Rosario, Argentina.

This token was said to likely have been made in France and used as advertisement. It had the same ladies head as a fantasy (or fake, depending on who you read) token inscribed with “Miss Olga” in Denver. A Miss Olga sold at auction in November for $50.

The Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery in Great Britain showed from its collection a 19th-century brothel token made in France – similar to the Rosario token. The word shellcard was used often to describe this particular token, and I learned that it was metal over cardboard.

The back and flip sides of the Rosario, Argentina, brothel token.

A person identifying himself as a collector said on one site that tokens were actually used in brothels in such countries as France, Spain and Argentina, but never in the United States. Sets of French brass brothel tokens were sold by a Nevada auction house in 2011 for $200 to $700 (silver), along with some Mexico brothel tokens and some saloon tokens.

Recently, the Museum of London announced that a 2,000-year-old Roman brothel token had been found near the Thames River. The token showed a man and woman in what looked like an erotic embrace. Museum officials said it was not clear how the coin was used.

Barbara’s tokens appeared to be real fantasy and not reproduction fantasy. As for worth, the Railhead sold for $1 to $10 on eBay, and Uncle Sam sold for $8. An Uncle Sam sold at an auction last year for $20. Next time, maybe she’ll be lucky and come across some authentic French ones.

Related posts:

1. Man & woman anti-slavery tokens
2. An anti-slavery token with a personal history?
3. Is that trash can for real?

He was a regular, a man who with his partner bought very lovely and expensive glassware at auctions. Apparently, he wasn’t into Venetian glass clowns like the one I was holding. I wasn’t going to buy but had stopped merely to check out the maker’s label on them.

A clown as a symbol of fear and terror? No way. To me, they were just make-believe, a way to make a child or an adult laugh away any ills.

Decorative Venetian glass clowns at auction.

The most recognizable clown of them all – Emmett Kelly – engendered feelings of sadness and harmlessness, and shades of delight. And what would a Ringling Bros. circus or state fair be like without their clowns. Or the Red Skelton show without my favorite Freddie the Freeloader, who was oh-so funny.

As I thought about it more, I remembered that my auction-buddy Janet didn’t like clowns too much either. I recalled her turning up her nose and wrinkling her face at the sight of them at auction. I think she found them creepy.

Stephen King didn’t help much with his crazed clown in the 1990 TV miniseries “It.” The master monster-maker started a trend, reversing the so-called good-clown image.

The mad clown from Stephen King's "It."

I wondered if clown phobia was perhaps an adult rather than a child phenomenon. A 2008 study by England’s University of Sheffield - and mentioned on several websites – of 250 children reported that they found clowns to be scary. The study was done as the hospital was undergoing a redesign, and the children said they did not want clowns as part of the decor. I could find little else definitive on how many people were afraid of clowns or suffered from this phobia, and only speculation as to why.

I come across clowns in all forms at auction from time to time, indicating that they are pretty popular as collectibles or as decorative figurines. At one auction last year, someone’s collection of about 200 thumb-size Spoontiques clowns were sold. They were impressive because there were so many of them.

Recently, I was struck by a clown oil painting by an artist named Louis Spiegel, who was apparently known for his clown subjects. According to the bio on the back of the painting, he was born in London in 1901 but raised in Cincinnati, OH. In his early years, he created animated captions for silent movies. He began painting at age 10, and was an impressionist artist whose works ranged from abstracts to clown portraits. “His Emmett Kelly paintings are exciting examples of his style,” according to the bio, “which one critic called ‘Van Gogh without torture.’”

Artist Louis Spiegel's clown oil painting.

At the auction house, the auction-goer went a bit farther in his assessment of the clowns: He said that they were no longer used in hospitals as therapy for sick children. That was news to me, so I decided to check it out for myself. I Googled, and found that the practice was very much in use.

Here’s some of what I found about clowns, hospitals and more:

- The fear of clowns is called coulrophobia.

- Dr. Patch Adams, who founded the Gesundheit Institute in 1971, was credited with introducing the notion of laughter as a good dose of medicine for healing. A clown himself, he was the subject of the 1998 movie “Patch Adams” starring Robin Williams.

- The Big Apple Circus Clown Care in New York sends clowns to hospitals along the East Coast. It’s been around since 1986 and clowns visit one to five days a week.

- A British circus offers therapy sessions – dubbed “clown-seling” – for people who are afraid of clowns. Coulrophobia was the third most common phobia in Great Britain a year ago, the circus said, citing a newspaper poll. The fearful are invited to watch a clown apply makeup, dress up and then interact with the clown in the ring. The ultimate goal is to get the people to make themselves up as clowns.

- After a 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy, that left 272 dead and 28,000 homeless, a group of clowns arrived to rev up the spirits of survivors.

- Israel has turned ”clown therapy” into a professional health-care discipline, even offering an undergraduate degree in it. A program called Dream Doctors has integrated clown therapists into the staffs of hospitals – moving away from viewing them as afternoon drop-bys. This year, the program held a conference for medical clowns from around the world.

- Red Skelton was also a painter who created images of himself as a clown.

A clown doll on a tray at auction.

Related posts:

1. Clowns the size of my thumb