I was sifting through the leftovers in a box lot from auction, not seeing anything of interest or value when I spotted an aluminum horseshoe-shaped keychain with a penny in the center. Then I spotted…
Author: sherry
Roswell spaceship as mysterious as ever
Posted in collectibles, and Figurines
The small model looked too modern to be a replica of the spaceship that many believed crash-landed in Roswell, NM, in 1947. It had sleek aluminum wings that folded over onto itself at the back…
Remember Rubik’s Cube, the puzzle with so many twists and turns that it seemed maddingly impossible to solve? I remember how people would wrack their brains trying to get the colors to line up – their…
When cap guns were king
Posted in collectibles, and Toys
As soon as I saw the two sets of cap guns, they brought back memories. Memories of my boy cousins and little brothers who fired paper caps at each other with toy guns. How far we…
Christmas gift ideas from 1902 Strawbridge’s catalog
Posted in Advertising, Christmas, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
At auction recently, I came across a 1902 Christmas catalog from Strawbridge & Clothier, and it spoke of a time when this store and its counterparts were the place to go for shopping in Philadelphia. The gifts…
A 1987 pencil drawing of a slave auction
Posted in Art
When I saw the pencil drawing hanging on a wall at the auction house, I wasn’t sure what was going on. As I looked closer, I saw a man tied to a ball and chain…
As I flipped through the pages, the book reminded me of a high school yearbook, but this one had original – not reprinted – photos. In fact, the only photos in the book were of…
Even the auctioneer was a bit astonished when the item came up for auction. “It’s the first one I’ve ever seen,” he said. He wasn’t alone. It was the first for me, too. Christmas decorations end…
Inspecting an immigrant “girl” for work as domestic, 1870s style
Posted in Asian, Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and history
The young woman stood hopefully, her eyes downcast, as a fashionable woman with a little girl looked her over. Behind the young woman were other women dourly etched in an illustration on the cover of…
Frederick Douglass on cover of Harper’s Weekly, 1883
Posted in Black history, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
Frederick Douglass was the main speaker at the 1883 National Colored Convention in Louisville, KY, using his great voice to rally against the injustices still encountered by former slaves in the era of Reconstruction. Black…