I don’t usually go for much new stuff at auctions, but I kept passing by these cute little pastel birdhouses lined up neatly on one of the tables this week. They were the colors of…
Auction Finds Posts
Buying auction items I can actually use
Posted in Home
At auction this week, I didn’t see much in the way of vintage on the tables, so I bought for my house. Functional and utilitarian items that could make my life easier. I was standing…
Norman Rockwell’s make-believe world
Posted in Art
I spent an afternoon this week in Norman Rockwell’s America. I wasn’t at an auction, but inside an exhibit of his Saturday Evening Post magazine covers and some 3-D life-size sculptures of scenes from them.…
I always wonder if the items I bring home from auctions hold the spirits of the people who once owned them. I wonder if bits of their spirits remain in the clothes they wore, the…
I was reading an article in my local newspaper yesterday about a trial in Munich, Germany, of a man accused of helping to murder 27,900 Jews at a Nazi camp in 1943. It reminded me…
We’ve all collected recipes. We’ve clipped them from magazines and newspapers, jotted them down from the memory of a family member or printed them from the web. At auction some months ago, I bought a…
True blue Delft pottery
Posted in pottery
I was new to auctions when I saw my first piece of Delft pottery. It was in a glass cabinet with other “medium-high-end” items at what would become one of my favorite auction houses. It was…
Pyramid Club’s black arts legacy
Posted in Art, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
I was checking out the upcoming auction at one of my favorite places when I spotted it: A program for the Philadelphia Pyramid Club’s art exhibition from the 1940s. Was it possible? I had wanted…
Listening to the sounds of noisemakers
Posted in Toys
My auction buddy Janet seems to like noisemakers. She’s always picking up a few here and there at auctions. Usually, she chooses the tin toys with black images on them. Clackers, clippers and clappers, that’s what they’re sometimes…