Uncovering Our History Through The Relics Left Behind
Posted in Carvings, collectibles, and Figurines
The wooden carved statue with the brown painted face looked more boy than man. He wore a gray coat with striped pants and a servant’s half-smile. His open left hand was extended as if he…
Posted in Black history, collectibles, and Kitchen
I was wasting some time at the auction, not ready to call it a day, barely listening as the auctioneer started the bidding on more than a dozen ice cream and chocolate molds. I really had no…
Posted in Art, Black history, collectibles, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
I had noticed the Cream of Wheat ad but had not really noticed it. You know, the way you see something out of the corner of your eye but you move on rather than stopping…
Posted in Dolls
The dolls seemed to be crudely made by hand and had a folk art feel to them. One looked like a man wearing a red-checkered dress with a lace collar and a bow on his…
I’ve been to many auctions where the simplest of African American ephemera has been snapped up by dealers. But I was not prepared for the prices on such items at a recent manuscript auction. When did our…
Posted in Art
I was previewing photos of an upcoming auction earlier this week when I spotted them. They were figurines of black women, 13 of them, dressed in brightly colored bathing suits, church suits and night-out-on-the-town outfits. Whoa! I…
Earlier this week, I wrote a post about stereotypical images of black children that I come across at auctions. I complimented Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” for its positive portrayal of a black girl…
Posted in Crafts
I was on my way to look over some vintage items in the cases at one of my favorite auction houses recently when one of the auctioneers stopped me. We have a nice old African…
Posted in Uncategorized
At an auction recently, I came across a deck of Old Maid cards, 45 in a box. This was the second time in the last six months or so that I’d found a deck of the…
