The shoes were like a magnet. Two big black metal behemoths that overwhelmed the auction house table. I moved in to take a closer look, not sure what to make of them. They looked like…
Auction Finds Posts
The simple art of advertising
Posted in Art, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
Flipping through a box of newspaper display art, I was thrilled as I stopped during a walk-through at one of my favorite auction houses. I’d been a newspaper reporter and editor and reporter for years, but rarely made…
Vintage photos of a well-to-do black family
Posted in Black history, and Photos
Were my eyes deceiving me, I wondered as I glanced at the group of photos lying in the bottom half of a small flat box on the auction table. A nicely dressed and coiffed black woman sitting in a…
A small knot of people had gathered in front of the tiny vendor’s booth at the Columbus Avenue Christmas Market in New York. On the wall facing me were shards of blue and white pottery,…
Slaves in George Washington’s house
Posted in history
I never made it to the excavation of the spot on Independence Mall in Philadelphia a couple years ago where the first president had a home back in the 18th century. As a newspaper online editor…
“Have you heard of this artist,” one auction-buyer asked as he walked up to another who was checking out books on an auction table. His friend had never heard the name Stuart M. Egnal before, and neither…
Acting like a dummy
Posted in Dolls, and Performers
He just sat there like a dummy, looking aimlessly off into space, his mouth half-open. He wore a putrid green cotton suit that hung off his skinny frame and a red polka-dot tie that was…
Lying discarded on table after table in the back room of the auction house were piles and piles of books from someone’s library. The auctioneer kept saying that the books and more tables of stuff…
A slot machine of your very own
Posted in collectibles, Games, and Toys
The buyer was one of the auction-house’s regulars, so I eased my way over to him, curious about why he bought this old metal monstrosity of a slot machine. “I have three at home,” he…
The two gingerbread men were adorable lying there atop their boxes. And they were not alone, for there were two short rows of these Christmas ornaments. I knew they were Lenox before even checking them.…