As soon as I saw the painting propped against a wall at the auction house, that infamous opening line from many a bad novel immediately seized me: “It was a dark and stormy night.” This…
Tag: african american
Extolling the work of early black craftspeople
Posted in Black history, Books, Civil War, and Crafts
The thin booklet was laying on the auction table haphazardly, as if someone had absentmindedly tossed it there. Because it was so small and flat, I’m sure it was considered to be of little worth. That’s…
A black toy company called Olmec
Posted in Toys
Let me show you something, a fellow auction-goer said quietly to me. I followed him to one of about three tables packed with toys, most of them new, not vintage. Rich is a toy buyer,…
I know very little about stamps, and when they come up for auction I usually look the other way. Collecting them seems so complicated and insular. Those folks have a language, culture and knowledge base that’s…
Don’t throw away your family’s history
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Photos
Dr. Diane Turner held up a small photo album containing the documents of an African American soldier who had served in World War I. She had found and bought it on eBay, and she was astounded.…
The pages of the photo album had been soiled by water, making them both coarse and puffy. The front and back covers were missing, and some photos had been deliberately cut out. It was lying in a glass…
Classics Illustrated’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ comic book
Posted in Books, collectibles, and Comic books
I keep bumping into intriguing comic books at my favorite auction houses. Some seem to force themselves into my path, while others wait for me to stumble across them while I’m plying through papers and other…
I used to dutifully go out and find the right Christmas tree each holiday season. I’d buy it from a seller who’d set up rows of trees with full thick branches in the same parking lot…
The cover of the book was so marred by water damage that I could only make out the word “Negroes.” Instantly, I knew it was something I had to examine a little closer. It was…
I’m not much of a comics-book reader, but I’ll flip through them if the cover grabs me. I found one comic book among a lot of Supergirl, Rom and Mask recently that did. In the…