Uncovering Our History Through The Relics Left Behind
Posted in Music
The auction house was holding what it called its first Quality Sale of items expected to bring bigger prices. I browsed the tables looking for something of quality that would grab me but very little did.…
Posted in Music
I wasn’t sure what was in the long black box I spied on the floor under the auction table. I assumed it was a musical instrument, because they come up for bids pretty often. I…
Posted in African American women, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, Music, and Performers
I recognized the profile on the album cover as soon as I saw the name. Who wouldn’t know the stacked buns and long black ponytail that was the trademark hairstyle of the incomparable Josephine Baker. It’s not often that…
Posted in Music
I was sorting through a box lot of small dolls I had just bought at auction when I came across a straw figure wearing what looked like an ice cream spoon around its neck. The…
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Music
I was perusing the catalog at Swann Auction Galleries recently when I came across a photo of Duke Ellington and his band, all handsome and stylishly dressed in heavy overcoats on what was apparently a cold…
Posted in Music, and Performers
The face of the soft-cover book was tattered around the edges and stained with water. I was a bit put-off by it at first – not because of its dirty appearance but because of its title.…
Posted in Broadway plays, Music, and Performers
The play “Porgy and Bess” has never been one to will me to see it. I’ve never been curious about this folk opera written, produced and performed during a time when black people were not seen as real but…
I’ve never met Anthony but I’ve listened to his music. Well, it’s not exactly his music, but the tunes emanating from one of the lovely early phonographs he fixes and collects as a hobby. It’s…
I’d had the program for months, so long that I didn’t even remember when I had bought it at auction. It was likely among some documents in a box lot and, upon finding it once I…
I had combed the auction floor desperately searching for something imaginative, hoping that I’d find an item that would force me to consider its uniqueness. I was doing a walk-through before a Decorative Arts sale at…
