The colors on the posters were so inviting that I wanted to pick up that chocolate milkshake, stick a straw in it and suck out the chilly treat. Even as cardboard cutouts, the food…
Month: October 2010
Someone tore the mummy in half. Early on at the auction house, it had stood erect, wrapped in tattered green fabric with a hat on its head. Later, I saw it severed at the waist, its torso…
Maurice Sendak’s book ‘Wild Things’
Posted in Books
A few years ago, I heard about an exhibit of Maurice Sendak’s original artwork from one of my favorite children’s books “Where the Wild Things Are.” The works were on display at the Rosenbach Museum &…
Ugly blue lamps
Posted in Lighting
The two lamps were beyond u-g-l-y. And you couldn’t miss them there, sitting high on a chest among the furniture in a back room at one of my favorite auction houses. They looked to be about…
Stocking an imaginary kitchen
Posted in Kitchen
It was a complete set of Pfaltzgraff gray dinnerware that struck me with the idea. I was standing there at the auction, listening as the auctioneer desperately tried to sell the dishes for $5. No one…
Vintage eyeglasses or “spectacles”
Posted in collectibles, and Personal items
In my mind, I can still see the image of my aunt in the black and white Kodak photo from about the 1950s: Her hair nicely coiffed, a pair of cat eyeglasses, pointed at the end…
I was standing a short distance away from where the auctioneer was selling tables of books. I had already shuffled through them and hadn’t seen any that I just had to have. But when I…
The name on the binder is what stopped me. “Everybody’s Magazine,” it blared in gold lettering. It was obviously an old magazine, and with that, I knew it was selling itself much too bodaciously. Even before…
Coke & a sandwich for pennies
Posted in collectibles, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
The Coke posters were a hit. They were tucked between a glass case and some other tall auction items, almost obstructed from easy viewing. My auction buddy Janet had already seen them (I was too…
A Louis Slobodkin sculpture with attitude
Posted in Art
Her feet were jaunty, mimicking the I-don’t-take-no-mess jut of her right knee, the straight-up proud stance of her body and the downward jab of her index fingers. Girlfriend seemed to be making a strong point.…