I was curious about what hardcore gamblers were loaning to pick up a few more dollars to play the slot machines and tables at the casinos. I expected to find a roomful of different and interesting items, and was especially looking for something vintage and old. Like the stuff I see on the History Channel show Pawn Stars.

The Blickensderfer No. 6 typewriter, first sold in 1906

It seemed only fitting to go looking for pawnshops the old-fashioned way: the yellow pages in the phone book in my hotel room. There I found two of them, both on Atlantic Avenue not far from the casinos.

Pawnshop 1

As soon as I stepped into the first pawnshop, I was disappointed. All I saw were glass cases with oversized diamond rings selling for hundreds of dollars. There were also necklaces with gemstones, leather watch bands and bracelets. Against a wall were a few guitars and two silver-plated serving dishes for $20. A tile cutter – which wasn’t likely left by a casino gambler in town for the weekend – seemed to have settled for a long stay near the door. It was priced at $75.

A friend who was with me spotted a beautiful gold rosary with tiny beads. She asked the cost: $500. We both admired it and then she slid it back to the man behind the bullet-proof glass wall.

“I expected to find more stuff here,” I said to the man, an older guy with a head of white hair. He told me that most people came back to retrieve their stuff, and that’s the way the shop liked it. I could understand why. The place was galley-shaped with just enough room to stretch your arms in a yawn.

“We’re like the bank,” a younger man distracted with some small chore said, a little annoyance in his voice. “The bank doesn’t want your house. The bank doesn’t want your car.” In other words, they want you to pay them and get your stuff out of there.

As we stood there, a young woman who looked to be in her 30s came into the shop, joked with the older man like they were old acquaintances and then went out again. Then she came back in. She had a pair of Versace sunglasses worth $300, she said, and asked for a $10 loan to buy gas for her car. She was all chuckles and giggles, pleading politely for the men to loan her the money.

She pulled out a pawn slip to show them that she was a regular, but it was the slip for another pawnshop. Then she pulled out another that looked just like the first, saying that it was theirs.

The younger man refused. He pointed to a row of sunglasses sitting on a ledge above the diamond rings. They were new, he said, so he didn’t need sunglasses, and besides, he can’t sell them.

She was desperate and relentless, even joking that she’d have to sleep in her car outside their shop. That didn’t move the younger man – he’s probably heard the story before – and he basically ignored her.

“That’s what happens when you gamble all night,” she said as an aside to us.

She kept pushing the sunglasses toward them, insisting that they were worth $300, almost begging for $10 for gas. Finally, she gave up and left.

I assume their motto was in the sign someone had stuck on the wall behind the counter:

“In God We Trust, Everyone Else Pays Cash”

Guitars were as ubiquitous as diamond rings at the two pawn shops.

Pawnshop 2

A sign over the door blared “Money to Loan.” It was an old shop, family-owned since 1927, long before Atlantic City became a casino town in 1978. The manager – who’d been there for 40 years, starting at age 13 sweeping the floor – mentioned that its customers were third- and fourth-generation.

This shop was not as tight as the first one, wider, with a warmer atmosphere. It had guitars – the most expensive a Fender for around $750 – and picks, along with the standard diamond rings that I glanced at when I walked in.

As soon as I looked up from them, I saw an item that was more my style: An antique typewriter in a wooden case. I instantly started oohing over it and had to take a closer look. The typewriter had a name I was unfamiliar with – Blickensderfer – and was starkly built, nothing fancy. The shop had a $395 price tag on it, much too much for me to pay for it.

The name of the typewriter and its maker are prominently displayed.

Inside was a sheet printed from an website dating the typewriter to 1906, made by a company out of Stamford, Conn., and selling for $70 at the time.

The manager said the typewriter had been there for a while – he didn’t remember how long – and he didn’t remember who had left it. He said the shop keeps an item for four months, then sends the owner a reminder. After then, the stuff is put up for sale. Some people come in, pay the interest on their items and leave them, he said, adding that 80 percent of people retrieve their property.

The way it works: You bring in an item, get a loan, pay the interest on the loan plus the loan amount, and then get your item back. 

Too bad no one came back for the Blickensderfer. I found one that had just sold on eBay for $300.

The pawn shop's price for the typewriter. One sold on eBay for $300.

The first of this brand was made in 1893 by George Blickensderfer as competition for the bulkier Remington desk typewriter. The one at the pawnshop was a No. 6, an aluminum version of the No. 5. It was lighter, portable and cheaper, according to Wikipedia, and had a type wheel that was removable and changeable.

The Blickensderfer typewriters also had a different keyboard layout from the Remington (which used what has become the universal layout – QWERTY, the letters on the second line of most typewriter keys ). On the Blickensderfer, the bottom row has keys that the company felt were most commonly used: DHIATENSOR.

The bottom row of keys on the Blickensderfer. The designer considered these the most common keys.

The No. 6 was also called the Featherweight Blick.

The typewriter wasn’t the only relic in the shop. A heavy brass cash register made by the National Cash Register Co. was on the counter (I’d come across those at auction before). High up on a wall were several old rifles. Not for sale, the manager noted.

No one was in the shop looking to buy or seeking a loan while I was there, but several people were looking at the rings in the window before I came in. The manager said that businesss had not picked up because of the economy. It’s about even, he explained.

That was a far cry from the news stories I found on the web. A CNN story in August noted that some small business owners were turning to pawnshops for loans to pay their employees. A Nov. 27 story by the Associated Press stated that more people were turning to pawnshops, and that TV shows like Pawn Stars were making the industry more mainstream. The National Pawnbrokers Association said high unemployment, and the increase in gold and metal prices had led to an upswing in pawn-shop business, according to the news story. 

That’s all well and good, but if you stop by this shop, you should not bring laptops (no interest in them) but you should heed this sign on the wall:

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I assumed that it once held a piece of beautiful gold jewelry for the hair, and felt cheated that the piece was long gone. Later, when I mentioned the box to another auction-goer, she said that it had literally held jewelry made out of human hair. That thought had never occurred to me, and I found it rather strange. But I was obviously intrigued.

This small box apparently once contained hair jewelry from the shop of Madame K. Schmitt.

I found that hair jewelry was very popular during the Victorian era and that Schmitt was one of its principal makers. Some of the jewelry was actually made of human hair, like a bracelet, and others held snips of hair in a clear case such as a brooch or had a compartment in back to hold a few strands. Click on the photo above for a fuller view of the box.

Crafting jewelry from hair was pretty common during the 19th century, according to the 2007 book “Love Entwined: The Curious History of Hairwork in America” by Helen Sheumaker. Artisans made rings, bracelets, pocket watches, lockets and brooches from hair, all by hand, along with wall decorations and keepsakes.

One of the most bizarre that I came across in my research was a tea set made entirely out of hair by the Linherr brothers of New York around 1853. I’d love to see a photo of that, but I couldn’t find one on the web. It was mentioned in a publication called Gleason’s Pictorial in 1853, which noted that it was on display at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition, along with a hair bracelet and other jewelry by the same company. This exhibition was said to be the country’s first world’s fair.

A coiled snake bracelet made of human hair, circa 1880. It's for sale on the website of Morning Glory Antiques & Jewelry.

People made the jewelry at home as well as bought it from  shops. Godey’s Lady’s Book from the 1850s laid out instructions on how to prepare the hair at home, and offered patterns for such things as bracelets, earrings and chains.

The upper crust, I’m sure, went to people like Madame K. (or Katharine) Schmitt. She opened a shop in Philadelphia in 1854 with a partner, designing both hair-work pieces and regular jewelry, according ”Love Entwined,” but they parted ways in the early 1870s. A lyre-shaped fob that they made is in the Smithsonian, the book said.

Schmitt appeared to have been a businesswoman who was savvy about marketing. She entered and won competitions, and used the awards on advertisements for her business.

On the web, I came across one of her calling cards noting that she had received an award for excellence in hair jewelry from Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute in 1874. It also mentioned that she had been presented with a silver medal for superiority in hair jewelry at a Franklin exposition in 1854. The institute held competitions to recognize the skills of these artisans.

Inside the box is Madame K. Schmitt's label. Her shop was located on Eighth Street in Philadelphia.

Schmitt also won medals at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876, she noted in an advertisement.  According to the book, her design styles were common. The style apparently was not important; the hair was the thing. In fact, the book said, customers could choose from several of her designs. She was also able to hire several female workers in her shop, which remained open until 1900, according to the book.

Here are some examples of Victorian hair jewelry. And here’s an organization for those interested in the craft, the Victorian Hair Work Society.

The side and bottom of Madame K. Schmitt's hair jewelry box.

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My bounty included some sewing items in a small tin and rusty button hooks on a dinner plate. I normally move stuff around in boxes or containers to see what’s hidden underneath in my walk-throughs before the auction starts, but I didn’t recall seeing any jewelry.

A necklace, a piece of costume jewelry, found hidden in a box of sewing items bought at auction.

No, I didn’t, I said to her. She is a dealer who buys a lot of costume jewelry so it wasn’t unusual for her to have spotted some among all the stuff on the tables and forgotten exactly where she saw it. That happens to me all the time, so I try to write down precisely where I had seen an item.

At home, when I started removing stuff from the containers, I did find some jewelry. It was a necklace that looked to be brass with gold leafing. It had three small but sturdy glass flowers with a faux pearl in the center and leaves. One of the flowers had fallen off its base, and there was some corrosion on the brass. It needed a good cleaning. (Click on photo above for a fuller view.)

Otherwise, it was a nice piece of costume jewelry. I wondered if that was the piece she had seen.

I don’t buy much costume jewelry because it just doesn’t interest me. I’ve acquired a few pieces as part of box lots, but I didn’t hang on to them very long. I did keep a pair of vintage earrings with amber or butterscotch stones that I just loved. They were marked sterling but had the patina of brass. I also buy stick pins and hat pins – which I suppose would be considered jewelry.

A pair of sterling silver earrings I bought at auction.

My necklace had no markings so I’m not sure who made it or how old it was. There’s nothing special about it, but that’s not true of all such jewelry. Some baring the markings of named designers can be both expensive and collectible. I’ve seen many Antiques Roadshows where someone brought in costume jewelry that was appraised for prices that rivaled the real stuff.

I came across a website that offered information on designers, companies and markings. If I actually wanted to date the piece, another site suggested that I consider the following: color and cut of stones, type of clasp and hinge and the type of material the setting is made of.

Several sites noted that costume jewelry reflected the era and tastes of the times (hat pins were popular during the Victorian era for those huge hats that women wore), and apparently, it still does.

At flea markets, that’s one of the first questions I get from women buyers: “Do you have any jewelry?” Most times, I say no, but maybe this time – after cleaning the necklace and re-affixing the flower – I’ll have at least one piece to offer.

I just hope it’s what she’s looking for, especially since our tastes in jewelry are all so different.

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But usually there’s plenty of it: costume jewelry, sterling silver jewelry, vintage men’s pocket watches, pearl necklaces and earrings, and loads of rings.  

I did bid on a mother lode of jewelry a couple months ago while visiting an auction house in South Jersey for the first time. I gave up $20 for the contents of a vintage orange Tuppeware pitcher filled with earrings and brooches. The pitcher contained about 100 items, and I gave them away as parting gifts at the We Are Black Women Tech Camp last October. As you can imagine, they were a hit.  

 
At auction recently, a single piece of jewelry forced me to stop and take notice. It was a lovely gold pin of a lady. What really struck me was the beautiful large red-ruby-like stone she was showing off, offering it up like a model trying to make a sale.  

She was wearing what looked like a tutu encased in small clear rhinestones, which were also on her shoes and in her hair. Unfortunately, a few of the stones were missing. Didn’t matter, though, because the pin was stunning.  

In another auction case, I came across two Victorian-style pins that were just as nice. One looked like brass hat pins stuck in a twisted curlicue base. The other was a stone and gold bracelet.  

Later, I realized that the gold lady reminded me of the famous dancer, singer and actress Josephine Baker and her banana skirt. Baker was the toast of Paris in the 1920s when she strutted across stages in flimsy outfits, performing sensual dance routines and offering comic overtures. She was most famous for what became known as her banana costume, which consisted of a string of bananas hung on a skirt. Scandalous, but Parisians apparently loved her. She thought nothing of going topless on stage, either.  

Josephine Baker in her flimsy banana skirt (at left) and elegantly dressed (at right).

She was exotic, daring and without inhibitions. Even she admitted that her performances were extreme: “Since I personified the savage on the stage, I tried to be as civilized as possible in daily life,” she said.  

Here’s what she had to say about performing:  

“… I improvised, crazed by the music. … Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.”  

Baker had gone to Paris for a new show, but like many blacks during that time, she stayed there to escape the racism in this country. She was heralded there, loved there, proposed to there and appreciated there. When she came back to the States to appear in the Ziegfeld’s Follies in 1936, she was treated badly by white audiences. Later, she became very involved with the civil rights movement in this country.  

The lady on the brooch exuded an air of defiance and elegance much like the real Baker. My auction buddy Janet was interested in the brooch but only at the lowest price.  

When it came up for sale, the auctioneer described it as a “retro female pin with a red stone.” He noted that some small stones were missing.  

 
The brooch didn’t produce heated bids, and only two bidders went after it. The lady sold for $18. The two Victorian pins sold as a lot for $11.  

Lovely buy, La Baker.

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But that’s not what had attracted this group of women anchored at the booth. They were fingering items lying there on the counter in front of them. As I inched closer, I saw more blue and white shards, misshapen and smaller in size, encased in vintage metal enclosures.

A creative and artistic “someone” had taken artifacts from the earth and made them into pendants. And the pieces were just beautiful. This was not an auction find, but the historical element inherent in each piece is what I find fascinating about auctions.

I’m sure many of the lookers at the booth were Christmas shopping for a unique item. Some – not seeing exactly what they wanted – asked the female vendor if she had others to show. One woman noted that she had bought a piece of jewelry last year and had searched this year for the booth. She and her friend took their time, looking over pendants on the counter and on a board where several hung, finding it difficult to choose between a lilac & cream or a blue & white.

Lying in a group there on the counter were also pendants made from the shards of vintage soda bottles like the ones I come across at auction. These bottles are usually snapped up eagerly by bidders – their thick glass cloudy, their dings and dents a mark of age. The best of them are found bottles, unearthed in somebody’s field, the contents long drank. Each with a story to tell.

Here, the vendor had attached a tag designating exactly where the shards and relics were recovered:

Soup Bowl. 1820s. Canal Street. Bowery. Manhattan.

Dinner Plate. 1820s. Bowery. Manhattan.

Soup Bowl. 1845. Brooklyn.

Dinner Plate. 1890s. Brooklyn.

The woman behind the counter told customers that they dug up these  items from the ground, and were headed out soon to two other sites. It was good to hear that they got their hands dirty searching for their products and didn’t rely on some middleman to supply them. This made the pieces even more special because their history was appreciated.

The company’s business card gave its name as “New York Artifact Art,” which specialized in the “recovery of antique bottles and pottery restoration.” The owner’s name was listed as Scott Jordan. I didn’t get a chance to meet Jordan (He was a man with a gray beard wearing a top hat. as I recall. He appeared intermittently for a few short moments at the booth but seemed busy on other tasks).

According to his website, Jordan has been digging up New York relics since 1969, his first site being Governors Island where he came across pieces from Fort Jay dating from the War of 1812 to the Civil War.

His first artwork were collages made from dolls heads, watches, coins, bottles and pottery shards. He has recovered pieces from privies, cisterns, construction sites, landfills and home renovations from New York’s five boroughs, going as far down as 10 feet into the earth.

The jewelry – or wearable art, as he calls it on his website – is not all that this native New Yorker does. He also paints scenes on discarded bottles, a few of which were for sale at the booth. He recreates the drawings from period artwork in his collection or others he has come across, according to his website. He also has a collection of bottles.

Jordan became a full-time street artist in 1987, according to the website, and sells out of the Green Flea Market on Columbus Avenue and 76^th Street in New York.

At the Christmas market, the pendants were selling for $35 up to $120. Buyers got the choice of a necklace made of antique metal, leather or sterling silver. The woman who had purchased a pendant the year bought another one. Her friend noted that they could also be used as a key chain or a chain pull on a purse.

I hadn’t thought of that. It’s amazing how one artistic endeavor can spark another. That’s the power of the imagination, and you don’t have to be a kid to have it. Just as Scott Jordan.

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Until I turned a corner and ran smack into – not literally – a tin rooster. It appeared to be almost as tall as me and standing there, looked as if it had absentmindedly wandered into the wrong room. This 3 feet of tin and bright paint – handcrafted as it was – was stuck over in a corner, almost hidden by the good stuff. That seemed an appropriate place for it.

Intrigued by this strange creature among these pricey items, I started to look around the room for others like it – out of place, out of time, strangers in the wrong flock. The unusual and the different.

Here’s what I found and what I learned about them:

Norman Annis bronze lion sculpture

The auction sheet described it as “surreal,” and that it surely was. The lion’s back left hip rose slight above the rest of its body, as if it were some arthritic appendage. Its head was abnormally large and it had no feet. It was about 1 1/2 feet tall and 2 feet wide. The sculpture was signed by Annis, an art professor at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania from 1960 to 1978, and from 1989 to 1999. He was known for a 1970 sculpture erected on campus of President Eisenhower leaning against a stone fence on the battlefield at Gettysburg. Eisenhower settled in the town after leaving the White House. Annis also designed the college’s presidential medallion and chain. The sculpture sold last year at another auction house for $322.

 Leonard Nelson soldered copper & steel wire sculpture

This piece was huge, stretching more than 5 feet wide and 4 feet long across a wall. Inside the wire cage were colored and clear stones of various sizes and shapes. To be appreciated, it would need its own room in your home.

Nelson was among the first generation of the New York Abstract Expressionists of the likes of  Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, according to one noted art historian and critic, but he was also the “least appreciated.” Disenchanted with the New York art scene, he moved to Philadelphia in 1950, where he taught at the Moore College of Art, and produced his bold and experimental paintings and sculptures. He incorporated “found objects” into his welded sculptures, and also became noted for his printmaking.   

Mano Gonzalez brass sculpture of a human fish with stone eyes

This piece was probably the most unusual. I had breezed right past it during my first walk-through, but this time it stopped me. It was a small piece compared to the other ‘unusuals’ I had spotted: it was only a foot wide and tall. I could find nothing about the artist, though. This signed piece would definitely spark a conversation sitting there on your tabletop.

Welded brass and copper rising sun fire screen

The auction house described this piece – which was 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide – as having “Kepenyes-style imagery and technique.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but the piece looked like Medusa with her snake-hair to me. I found a Pal Kepenyes, a sculptor and jewelry artist. He was born in Hungary, imprisoned for his activism in the Hungarian revolution in the 1950s, and left the country for Acapulco, Mexico, in the 1960s. He produced both small and large sculptures along with his jewelry. As I looked at the auction piece closely, it did mimic his style.

Fernando Botero-style bronze nude

Another piece in the style of a famous sculptor. This unmarked sculpture depicted a very heavy-set woman and it, too, was large: 4 ½ feet tall and 2 feet of solid bronze. Botero is a Latin American sculptor, painter and draftsman known for the very large, very rotund people in his works. And this piece fit perfectly in his style. He produced a series of paintings and drawings in 2005 about abuses in the Iraq war.

Bronze and brass sculpture of a gazelle head

This horns of this unmarked piece were expansive as a bird in flight. They stretched to 2 feet, and the piece itself was just as tall and impressive – if you’re into gazelles.

Curtis Jere brass sculpture of a bird in flight

I actually liked this 1971 signed sculpture, which looked like an eagle in flight. It was simply but dramatically done with very clean lines, standing at 2 ½ feet tall and wide. Curtis Jere  pieces are the creation of a company called Artisan House, founded in 1964 by Jerry Fels and Kurt Freiler. The company is known for its hand-made metal wall sculptures, but it also produced other pieces in various media.

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I was at an auction this week where the auctioneer deemed practically every piece of dusty, rusty and aged item as being straight from the 1890s. Maybe some of it was antique and ancient, but everything? Come on. Do we look that gullible?

It doesn’t just happen at this auction house, which I hadn’t visited in a year. Auctioneers at other places seem to engage in the same histrionics, and they can seem so convincing to the novice. Sure, they’ve been doing this for 25 years or more and they can instantly recognize a piece and determine its origin and value. But they can’t be that knowledgeable about everything.

At one of my favorite auction houses, one of the auctioneers is a bit more honest, using such phrases as “it looks like …” or “it could be …” or “I’m not sure, but … .” At least, you know that you may not be getting an actual rare piece.

At this recent auction, though, there was none of that. This auctioneer was emphatic: No uncertainty, no doubt. He also nagged and badgered the 25 or more people in the tight crowded room, trying to make us feel guilty for letting such rare antique pieces just slip through our fingers.

After a while, the badgering got old and I was ready to choke him to shut him up. But like the others, I sat there and ignored him. After a while his antics turned comical, and he became a caricature. We could almost mimic his words before they came out of his mouth.

At one point he was selling old rust-hardened farm tools, which I admit would work well in the right home. And practically each of them came with a story.

That 100-year-old tool chest? “Made by hand.” It went for $15.

A forged iron grappler with three curved hooks? The farmer used it to pull buckets out of his well when the rope broke.

Any forged iron item he held up? From the 1890s.

That container of jewelry? Included was a charm bracelet of Disney characters in its original packaging. “It’s a $25 bill waiting to happen.” The box sold with another container of jewelry for $27.50.

A box of jewelry with a half-dozen or more cameos and a “hand-painted necklace,” each of which he pulled out and showed us individually? “Got to have $100 worth of stuff in there. All from the same house.”

A Lusterware teapot, sugar bowl and creamer? “It’s a $50 set.” It sold for $10.

“C’mon, guys.”

The dusty electric floor sander from the 1930s? “How cool is that? It’s guaranteed to work or you don’t have to buy it.” One of the great things about this auction house – that you may not find at others – is that you can return any item that does not work.

Those eight augers? “Check these babies out. Some are signed by the blacksmiths who made them. They date back 200 years.” Seconds later, when no bidder was biting: “They’re 100 years old. They make great decorations on the wall. They should be $15 and up.” They sold for $3 each.

Two local high school pennants? They went for less than $10. “It’s an outrage,” another auctioneer said jokingly.

Willow dinner plates? “All 100 years old.”  He could have possibly been correct on these.

“Folks, you’re missing the boat.”

A small Drexel bedside table with one drawer? “Rare.”

An assistant pushed a silver-gray baby carriage to the front of the room. “That’s been here before,” my auction buddy Janet whispered to me. It was one of those carriages with the hood pulled halfway over the top, and it was big. A mother would have to be in pretty good shape to push it and she’d need to cushion it thickly to protect her baby’s soft skin. It would be called classic now. I found on the web a “new” classic type selling for $650 and an antique original selling for $375.

“It cost $500 when it was first bought,” the auctioneer said. I don’t recall him saying when it was first bought, but it looked to be in pretty good shape. Parents these days push their babies and toddlers in lightweight strollers that are easy on them and their children.

The auctioneer put on a free show that was as entertaining (if not a little tiresome) as one we’d pay for. He had the personality and the grit; he was cajoler, badgerer, comic, pest. And most important, he had a love for this stuff  – at one point, he was about to sell some old bottles when he saw that one looked to be from his own collection. He blamed his wife for trying to get rid of it.

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I assumed she was Native American by the look of her clothes with the little red trimmed-in-white designs that gave the impression of tiny beads. The needlepoint seemed different – for me at least, since I do not know needlepoint – because it looked like it was raised above the background, not flat against it. As I looked closer, I realized that I was mistaken.

The colorations on her face were variations of light and dark brown, seeming to reflect light against her skin. She looked so real. I went back to the needlepoint several times to examine it closely. And each time, I was convinced more and more that I’d love to have it hanging on my wall at home. I turned to the back and saw that the paper protecting it – which looked to be vintage – had torn. Inside, the framer had used cardboard against the piece, which is a no-no. You should never use cardboard in framing, so I”ll have it reframed.

The piece was not large. It only measured 8 ½” x 9″ in the frame, which was in good shape. The image itself was 3 ½” x 2″.

This needlepoint got me to thinking about whether Native American designs were common. In Googling, I found that several companies produce them, mostly of chiefs, men, women, buffaloes, wolves, dream catchers, along with ones with messages.

One of the things I found that was most intriguing was needlepoint and petit point jewelry made by the Zunis, a Pueblo tribe that lives in western New Mexico. According to one website, the Zunis are considered the premier jewelry makers of all the  tribes. Their needlepoint stones have pointed ends that are set in straight or curved lines, according to the website, and the petit point stones are shaped like tear drops. Another website said petit points were round, and needlepoint were needle-shaped. (The pieces above are petit points from the Zuni Connection website.)

In some cases, the two terms were used interchangeably. Whatever, they are just gorgeous (click here to see pieces by contemporary Zuni jewelry makers). Just like my little girl, which I got for $5. Fortunately, there were no other bidders. (The necklace below is a needlepoint from the Zuni Connection website.)

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It was in remarkably good condition, its brown leather cover a little darkened by age and handling, a slight fraying at the left edge. Inside, he had neatly written in ink his name and address, and the names of his wife and son. The Bible was the New Testament, Roman Catholic Version and offered prescribed daily readings for this new soldier and other privates.

I was a bit surprised to see the man’s military papers, photos and even his voter registration card among this ephemera. I don’t often find such documents from black families. But I was especially surprised to see the Bible – so intimate an item – among the “stuff” in this box lot I had bought at auction.  

I’m not a very religious person – I’m count myself more as spiritual – but I always think of Bibles and other personal religious items as sacred. The type of memento that a family member – a son or a daughter – would want to keep as a reminder of their loved one. Not something tossed into a box lot.

Why do family members give away something so personal?

We are a people consumed by religion, but aren’t sure yet how to live and die with it. We fill churches on Sunday and prayer meetings during the week. We buy Bibles by the millions – it’s one of the best-selling books each year – and build new churches the size of convention centers. We argue about religion and we fight over it. We use it to enslave a whole race of people and brand another based on the fanatical actions of a few.

Yet, we treat a loved one’s Bible as a discard. The serviceman’s Bible was not the first I’ve seen. At one auction a few weeks ago, a thick family Bible with names, birthdays and marriages of descendants from way back sat on a table against a back wall. It must have weighed a ton and had enough recorded history to make any genealogist very  happy.  Some buyer knew its worth: Even before the auctioneer got around to it, someone had already left a bid. It’s the type of memorabilia that auction-buyers readily snap up.

A couple months ago, I found a Bible in another box lot. This one had gilded edges, and an inscription on an inside page: “Presented to Edw T. Byles by Officers & Teachers of Logan Baptist Church School. May 19, 1935.” It had been signed by the Sunday School superintendent, teacher and pastor. It’s a nice Bible, the pages are still intact (with color plates of pictures), but the edges of the cover are frayed and peeling.

Crucifixes are just as common, likely because they can be easily dropped into a box for auction or charity. I have several small ones, two made in France, ready to be worn on a chain. Crucifixes are dear to many of us. In Italy, they are beyond sacred. I was in the country some years ago and brought back a crucifix blessed by holy water for a friend. And I was reading recently of a controversy in the country over the removal of crucifixes from Italian classrooms. A no-no in a country where the Pope lives.

Instead of tossing these items, we could just bury them with the dead. The soldier apparently loved his Bible or he wouldn’t have written the names in them for posterity. Why not bury the Bible with him? If you’ve ever been to a King Tut exhibit, you know that his burial tomb contained the finest that his world had to offer – “grave goods,” as they are apparently called.

I attended a storytelling class last week where a group of women were learning how to tell stories. Not big fables, just bits and pieces of their experiences. One woman told of a ritual that her family started when her mother died. Each family member tied a white ribbon around his or her wrist from the time Mom died until the day of the funeral. At the service, each adult child placed the ribbon in the casket, followed by their own children. “A piece of you is in the ribbon,” the storyteller said.

I thought it was a powerful farewell message to the departed. A much better way for the family to honor them than tossing their precious momento in a box lot for a stranger to take home.  

Be sure to read Soul Rhythms, where writer Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb blogs about faith and spirituality.

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When she showed me the jewelry and I held it up against the daylight and the white snow outside my porch, the stones on the jewelry began to flicker.

Just lovely, I thought, as I fingered the two- and three-strand necklaces, earrings and two bracelets.

Her new discovery was a type of costume jewelry called aurora borealis or AB. Since I’m not a jewelry person, it was a new name to me. They were faceted beads that resembled rhinestones – which I knew about and loved for their shape and beautiful colors.

Naturally, I researched the jewelry. I found that the beads have an iridescent AB coating that reflected light and color. The coating caused them to shimmer, their brilliance radiating like the colors of the rainbow. They are said to not only reflect the external light but any (colorful) outfit you are wearing.

In Googling, I also found that aurora borealis jewelry – the name just rolls rhythmically off the tongue, doesn’t it? – was very popular in the 1950s (the most collectible is from this period), but fell out of favor in the 1960s. Now, however, interest in it as vintage collectible and wearable jewelry has apparently re-emerged.

Swarovski first experimented with aurora borealis coating on crystals in the 1950s, with a nudge from Christian Dior in the design of some of its jewelry. The jewelry was first purchased primarily by the wealthy, according to the website Vintage Jewelry Lane. It became cheaper and more affordable for everybody else when plastic beads were used and other manufacturers began making it.  

The stones – both rhinestones and glass – were fashioned into necklaces, brooches, bracelets, earrings, rings and pins. The pieces I found on the web ranged in prices from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars, but  most were affordable. Take a look at these pieces on the Vintage Jewelry site.

The name of one maker kept turning up in my research: Juliana jewelry, which made AB and other costume jewelry for a number of companies. Many of its pieces were not marked, but some were sent with hang tags with the name “Juliana.” This jewelry came from the design house of DeLizza & Elster, which was in business from the 1940s to the 1980s.

DeLizza & Elster has a website that offered a history of the company, and most importantly, a committe that will verify and identify your Juliana jewelry. It’s also a good place to see some of their pieces. Another AB jewelry-maker I came across was B. David. Here are some samples from the blog Rhinestones Past.

The AB stones were meant to capture the colors of a Northern Lights display much like this photo of one I found in Wikipedia over Bear Lake at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.

Related posts:

1. A costume-jewelry necklace hidden away
2. The jewelry of Art Smith
3. David Webb jewelry at auction