A Very Fine Day and A Chair

Yesterday was one of those summer days you wish you could stick in the freezer and defrost in January. I got up before the fog had lifted, not only from the lake, but the street too, had some coffee and a bagel, and coaxed Eric out of the house by 6:30 for an estate sale. “They” always blame women for being late, but I’m here to tell you that women do not corner that particular market. If it were up to me I’d have been gone a half hour earlier. As it was we were numbers six and seven in line which was fine. The usual crowd milled about the front of the house which sat on a lovely winding country lane in the city replete with two lakes and enough mosquitoes to treat everyone to dengue fever. One guy had a box of Bounce fabric softener sheets which he swore would keep the critters at bay, so he passed them out and all the sale-goers ended up smelling like laundry!

My friend Darwin was there and I met a nice lady from Richfield who was a friend of his, so the time passed pleasantly until we got in to the see the “1000 books.” Whether or not there really were that many is up for grabs, but there were certainly a lot. The vast majority resided in the garage which, as it turned out, was where they belonged. We did find one nice modern reprint of an Ohio county history and atlas out there, so that was a nice score, but otherwise ….

Inside, prices soared like eagles for stuff you had to see to believe. I bought one nice two volume art set in a slipcase which was overpriced at $25 but should nonetheless fetch a decent price on my secret site, three books for the antiques mall, and a three volume religious set and a New York history and genealogy for online. We gathered up our meager items and began wending our way through the crowd to the check-out when Eric spotted a CHAIR – solid maple, Windsor-style made by Nichols and Stone. It’s smaller than the one we just sold and not nearly so pleasing in its configuration, but not bad and a better size for the booth. SOLD! (Hear that, Cheryl?)

The highlight of the sale though was a chance to see something rare and wonderful. In this modest, cramped ranch house filed with wall-to-wall kitsch resided the Doves English Bible published sequentially by subscription from 1903-1905 and considered a masterpiece for its fine typography. It’s a five volume set originally issued in limp vellum, but residing in Akron in hard cover, volume I of which was published a year after the vellum. Price -- $2200. The estate sale woman sized me up as the bookiest person in the place and gave me the hard sell, including a print-out from ABE by a seller who’d priced his set at $20,000. Of course she felt that piece of paper was the final word on the subject , but I questioned it to myself then and I question it now. I did some research, which proved to be fun, and found auction comparables for the vellum. One vellum set sold at Christies for slightly over $3000 American and another vellum set was estimated at $4-6,000 by Swann in pre-recession 2005 and came with each volume nestled in its own felt-lined box stamped in gold. Sadly, the realized price didn’t even reach the lowest estimate. Still, what a memorable treat to see and handle these fine volumes.

You’d think anything that followed that would be like a baloney sandwich after crème brulee, but the day just kept on getting better. Eric took the whole thing off, so we got to play with the regular people who’ve enjoyed enough Saturday leisure to take it for granted. We bought pleated shades for my office windows and a doorknob for the office door, had lunch at Panera (spicy Thai salad with chicken and endame) –and then headed to downtown Akron for an exhibit of altered books at the Akron Art Space. Though I was disappointed at how small the exhibit was, it got me so cranked up all I can think of is playing with my papers again. The best works were a fold-out book protesting the war in Iraq, and a truly stunning indictment of incest all tarted up in black lace. Another one I liked was this huge expanse of shredded book pages and polyurethane that spilled down from the wall to the floor like a monochromatic shag carpet. I know – there’s something big here we’re not talking about, but we will another day. Right now I just want to let those images tumble around in my head like Chinese gymnasts.

On the way home we stopped at the antiques mall and installed the chair. My favorite clerk at the check-out desk showed me one of my tickets indicating that I’d sold a set of deluxe auction catalogs for $68.

“I love the way you always do this when I come in,” I tell her.

“It’s because you’re so nice and I want you to do well,” she says.

Truly, truly a day for preservation -- maybe in amber.