Uncovering Our History Through The Relics Left Behind
Posted in Advertising, Asian, and travel
I’d seen the dealer at this auction house many times before. I never found him very friendly, but lately he had begun to nod or offer a quiet hello to me. I knew that he…
Years ago, whenever my friend Elaine encountered a small Buddha statue, she’d rub its belly for good luck. It was a round pot-belly, smooth and exposed, likely touched too many times by too many people with…
Posted in Advertising, Asian, Carvings, collectibles, furniture, and Lighting
One week, the auction house had a larger-than-life figure of Jesus Christ that looked as if it had been taken from a church. A few weeks later, it offered a larger-than-life figure of an African…
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…
The auction house was holding another one of its “special” sales – the second, it seemed, in as many weeks. These are the sales where everything is out of my reach, the merchandise high-rent with…
I went searching for the rickshaw as soon as I got to the auction house. I had seen a photo on the website and my auction buddy Janet had also mentioned it to me. I…
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…
Posted in Asian, auction sounds, Family, Personal items, and Toys
“Wow, guns,” I heard the little boy say loudly in the uninhibited way of children. I was close by, sifting through some items in the box lots during a preview for an upcoming auction. I glanced…
The bids kept going higher and higher – past $5,000, then $6,000 and way past $10,000. I stretched my neck to take an even closer look at this item that was demanding so much money and causing…
Posted in Asian, collectibles, and Signs
Even the prices of the reproductions were way too high. That’s how us auction-regulars felt about the sale of memorabilia that once hung on the walls of the now-closed Spaghetti Warehouse in Philadelphia. Collectors and…
