I was on my way to look over some vintage items in the cases at one of my favorite auction houses recently when one of the auctioneers stopped me. We have a nice old African…
Black Americana shelf sitter
Posted in Crafts
Month: November 2009
On the hunt for fine china
Posted in Kitchen
My friend Fatimah is starting a catering business, so I’m helping her to find exquisite dinnerware at auction prices. That won’t be hard because lovely dinnerware come up for auction pretty often. Most of the…
Black soldiers and World War II
Posted in Photos
The group of photos were on a back table at the auction house against a wall, almost hidden among much taller items. They were black and whites of African American soldiers. Several showed 10 soldiers…
Alden House and the 1955 auction
Posted in Home
A couple months ago, I was about to leave an exhibit of Massachusetts furniture at Winterthur Museum when I came across a copy of a 1955 article from the Boston Herald. It was hanging on a wall,…
Fela, spirits and African masks
Posted in Music
I spotted it from across the room. An African mask, chalk-white, elongated face, hanging on a wall at one of my favorite auction houses on Sunday. I had seen several like it the day before,…
Frederick Douglass photo find
Posted in Photos
Last month, Swann Auction Galleries auctioned off photographs of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. The three had been photographed by a man named Cornelius M. Battey. I went to the Swann auction in…
A paper trail to the past
Posted in Books, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
I have this thing for old documents. I can’t explain it, but whenever I see paper and other ephemera on tables at my auction houses, I instinctively head over and flip through them. I find that looking…
Blacks, broom-making and Berea College
Posted in Home
The auctioneer was holding up a straw broom, describing to us auction-goers its history and other qualities. My mind was wandering until he said it was made by students at Berea College. A black college…
I love vintage cameras, and whenever I see them at auction, I bid on them. Most of the time, I’m lucky and walk away with a couple. But I can’t seem to get my hands…
Black faces on Old Maid cards
Posted in Uncategorized
At an auction recently, I came across a deck of Old Maid cards, 45 in a box. This was the second time in the last six months or so that I’d found a deck of the…