I don’t usually stop to check out the costume jewelry at auction, but I had some time to waste while the auctioneer was selling paintings, none of which had enticed me. So I combed through…
Category: history
Reader’s broom and its link to 1855 integrated college
Posted in Black history, collectibles, Crafts, and history
Fridays at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources for them to determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do…
The wrongheaded sale of Jesse Owens’ Olympic medal
Posted in Black history, history, and Sports
It seems blasphemous that one of the 1936 Olympic Gold medals won by Jesse Owens was sold at auction over the weekend. It’s even more distressing that the man himself was never able to capitalize…
Reader searches for history of mother who was a singer
Posted in history, Music, and Reader questions
Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources for them to determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do…
A print of Buffalo Soldiers at Cuba’s San Juan Hill
Posted in Art, Black history, history, and Military
As I approached the display of books and documents on the table, the words 9th and 10th Calvary in a title stirred my memory. Weren’t those the African American soldiers who charged with Teddy Roosevelt, I…
A Gideons Bible in my hotel nightstand
Posted in Books, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, history, Religion, and travel
I was searching the drawers for a notepad to write something when I pulled opened the drawer to the nightstand in the room at the Charlotte, NC, hotel. There, placed neatly and squarely next to the…
In my mind, Doc Holliday was a gunslinger, one of the men who left behind a string of real and embellished legacies that were way from spotless. So when I was trolling the list of…
Jackie Robinson’s “42” & the fear of change
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, history, Movies, and Sports
Some years ago, I picked up a lobby card for the 1950 movie “The Jackie Robinson Story” at auction. The card showed a smiling Robinson, Ruby Dee as his wife Rachel, along with other actors playing Branch…
The man had pulled the brass item out of a piece of soft white paper and was watching amusedly as the young camerawoman examined it. I didn’t hear him identify the piece but saw that she…