I love road trips. I want to see all that this vast country has to offer in its land and its people. So, I’ve enlisted two friends to take a trip with me down the…
Month: August 2011
As soon as I saw the painting propped against a wall at the auction house, that infamous opening line from many a bad novel immediately seized me: “It was a dark and stormy night.” This…
I didn’t know what to expect when I drove to the home for the estate sale. The auction house was selling the items of a family who had been killed by another son back in…
This weekend, a local auction house is selling off the belongings of a couple who with their twin son were murdered. They’re not selling it at the auction house. They’re selling the family’s estate in the same…
A lesson in Taiwan butterfly specimens
Posted in Asian, and collectibles
As I approached the large picture-frame case with the butterflies, I sighed when I saw the words “Made in Taiwan.” It seemed like a disappointing let-down to what I had seen on the auction-house website of…
Lying about an ugly lamp
Posted in Lighting
I spied the gaudy lamp from across the room as I stood waiting impatiently for nothing in particular to come up for auction. I was killing time, hoping that something, anything, would rise up from…
Extolling the work of early black craftspeople
Posted in Black history, Books, Civil War, and Crafts
The thin booklet was laying on the auction table haphazardly, as if someone had absentmindedly tossed it there. Because it was so small and flat, I’m sure it was considered to be of little worth. That’s…
A black toy company called Olmec
Posted in Toys
Let me show you something, a fellow auction-goer said quietly to me. I followed him to one of about three tables packed with toys, most of them new, not vintage. Rich is a toy buyer,…
A classic ’83 Mercedes 380SL
Posted in Vehicles
I was doing my walk-through at a new auction house when I came upon something that really caught my eye. A sleek, green two-door Mercedes convertible that was speaking to me. And I heard it: In…
The little red paper box was adorable because it was so dainty. It had a picture of a woman in Victorian dress on the front and a label inside that said “Hair Jewelry. Madame K.…