The real one’s on the stage, the young man behind the podium in the lobby of Harlem’s Apollo Theater was saying to me. I was enchanted with the figures carved into the slick surface of…
Category: Performers
Marvin Gaye ’64 passport symbolizes a heady time in his life
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, Music, and Performers
Recently, a former employee of the Motown Museum in Detroit appeared on an episode of “Antiques Roadshow” with a 1964 passport belonging to singer Marvin Gaye. He found it inside a record album he had…
Falling hard for the Temptations’ “Silent Night”
Posted in Music, Performers, and Records
I first fell for the Temptations’ “Silent Night” like a woman in love. I couldn’t get enough of hearing Dennis Edward’s stirring lyrics and Melvin Franklin’s deep barrel of a voice. And who was that…
My turn to ask – what exactly is this?
Posted in food, Health & Medicine, Kitchen, and Performers
I get emails all the time from readers wondering about the value of their items. This week, I’m asking readers to help me identify some items I’ve seen at auction. I’m not as interested in…
Colored prints from the heyday of toy theaters
Posted in Performers, and theater
The paper booklets seemed so out of place among the stacks of over-sized prints on the auction table. They had the customary drawings that you’d expect to find in an art gallery but these were…
A theater troupe’s African American marionettes
Posted in Art, collectibles, and Performers
At first glance, I could not tell what was in the row of cardboard boxes that filled the long tabletop at the auction house. There appeared to be about a dozen of them, with strings…
Readers ask about Sugar Ray’s Café postcard and theater lights
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, Lighting, Performers, Plays, Postcards, 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…
Readers ask about African mask & shadow puppets
Posted in Art, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, Performers, 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 the items that they own. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but…
“I Feel Good” James Brown doll
Posted in Dolls, Music, Performers, and Toys
Auctions are about more than just antiques. They’re also about kitsch, and what can be more kitschy than a singing James Brown doll. Such a doll showed up at an auction I attended last weekend…
A Louis Armstrong I didn’t know
Posted in Black history, Music, Performers, and Plays
A couple years ago, I picked up a studio photo of Louis Armstrong with his first band the Hot Five from the 1920s. Armstrong was at the piano and seemed to be talking to the…