The first thing that caught my eye as I saw the small stack of tattered books on the auction table was the bright yellow color of the book jacket. Then I spotted the red lips…
Tag: auction
Trayvon Martin & forbidden neighborhoods
Posted in Black history, and Culture
My auction buddy Janet pulled forth a recollection that even back then should have been unbelievable. We were standing on the sidewalk last weekend at an estate sale in a blue-collar neighborhood at the bottom…
The joy of being a woman
Posted in African American women, Beauty Products, Clothing, and Women
It’s a sheer pleasure being a woman. Some of the best stuff in the world is made – not made, but designed – for us, and we partake of it unabashedly. We are some of…
Inside a local ‘Storage Wars’
Posted in Architecture/Buildings, Clothing, Computer/Electronics, and Home
The man was tailor-made for a Philadelphia version of A&E’s “Storage Wars.” He was a big burly guy with a belly that protruded beneath his blue pullover rather than hung over his belt (at one…
Pigging out on porky
Posted in Animals, collectibles, and Figurines
“Someone had a thing for pigs,” I said to a woman standing next to me as she craned her neck to see inside a cardboard box full of small pig figurines. The box was at…
Cakewalk images demystified
Posted in dance, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
One of the exasperating anomalies of history is that people can get lost in it. One minute they’re recognized; the next, no one remembers their name. That seemed to be the case when my auction…
How old fashioned a notion about a woman’s worth, but once it was seen as a fact sanctioned by society and accepted by some women themselves. I see the tangible expressions of that axiom on the…
This time, the woman pirate was standing alone at the auction house. The week before she had towered over the Blues Brothers, replicas of the famous movie characters who had been immortalized in plaster. Someone…
A straw doll with a Talbot Brothers tag
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…
A sexy red Ford T-bird convertible
Posted in Vehicles
When I walked through the auction house door, all I could see to my right was red and chrome. The metallic finish of the car sparkled under the overhead lights, and I could see myself letting…