I heard the man’s voice and recognized it instantly. An auction regular, he was standing right next to me at the auction table, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the…
Month: January 2019
Is it a real Civil War relic?
Posted in Civil War, collectibles, and history
I’m not a collector of war relics, but I’m always curious about history. That’s what drove me to stop and ask an auction-house assistant to take some Civil War relics from a glass case so…
A mixed bag of items people tag to buy
Posted in Auction, Books, Children, China, and collectibles
The small round orange and lime stickers pop up like weeds. You can see them on any number of items on the auction tables. They don’t usually bother me because I’m always curious about what people…
Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” pendant necklace
Posted in Black history, history, and Kitchen
When I saw the two pendant necklaces, they brought back memories. I had one like them years ago, wearing it to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The pendant is a simple inexpensive piece of…
Awe-inspiring interior of Memorial Hall
Posted in Architecture/Buildings, Art, Black history, Children, and history
It was a near-moonless night in November when I arrived at Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park for a meeting. This was my first visit to the place, although I had passed through the area many…
‘Little Brave Sambo’ is a new look on an old stereotype
Posted in Black history, Children, history, and Records
When I first saw the title, I thought I had misread it. “Little Brave Sambo.” That didn’t sound right. All of the books I had seen about this little boy’s encounter with four tigers were…
The thick and heavy photo albums lay among the even weightier Victorian family Bibles. Many of the Bibles and albums were in dark tones of browns and blacks tempered with gold leaf, except for two.…
Someone was trying to channel the famous graffiti-artist-turned-international-star Jean-Michel Basquiat – both in style and canvas. Basquiat painted on anything he could find – buildings, trains, doors, briefcases, tires, the walls of his girlfriend’s house, her clothes,…