When I came upon the handful of books on the auction table, I wasn’t sure what they were. Then I saw the title: War Ration Book 4. And then I saw Book 3 and several…
Tag: auction
The hot tub was literally the elephant in the room. You could not walk from one room in the auction house to another without practically bumping into it. As big as it was, though, I had…
Those menacing ‘Fallout Shelter’ signs
Posted in Architecture/Buildings, Culture, history, and Signs
“We got under our desks and covered our heads – like that could stop the radiation,” I overheard the woman say to the two other women with her. They were standing in front of an auction…
Old dirty and ghostly pay phones
Posted in Home
The four phones looked like they had not been washed or handled in years. They were grimy with dirt from storage, the weather and a lot of sweaty hands. Sitting there on the floor under…
When I saw the odd-looking device in the box on the auction table, I wasn’t sure what it was. It had the metal handle of a flashlight with a small roller at one end. There…
The distinct art of Sarai Sherman
Posted in Art
Sarai Sherman was about 26 years old when she exhibited a painting called “Hericane Time” in an art show at Philadelphia’s Pyramid Club back in 1948. I found her name and the piece listed in…
As I routinely do at auction, I was flipping through a stack of Life magazines when I came across a face that stared pointedly out at me. It was a man whom I recognized for…
Somewhere an elephant or rhinoceros is missing a foot, a fox is missing a mate, a piranha is not terrorizing other fish, and a boar is not out scavenging for its supper. What was once alive…
A stack of paintings by Haitian artists
Posted in Art
The auction house was cold as usual as I walked through the door despite a heater blasting full force near the front. The auctioneer had threatened a few times to take his auction elsewhere to escape this freezer…
“I coulda been a contender,” the auctioneer joked, quoting the famous Marlon Brando line from the movie “On The Waterfront.” He was reaching behind himself on the glass counter for one of two pairs of old boxing…