Baskets, Books, Fleas & a Wink from Biblio

Yesterday was fun. Nancy needs a gift basket for a silent auction fundraiser at the charter school for which she is Director of Communications. It’s a great cause, as the school focuses on children with autism, especially those with Asberger’s. The money goes toward field trips, so we were pretty jazzed to see if we could outdo past efforts. Nancy is the QUEEN of shopping – she could ferret out a giveaway at Tiffany’s – while I am chief basket builder and decorator. Together we’re unstoppable. We hit on the idea of “cozy” and, as luck would have it, I happened to have three gorgeous, seemingly unread cozy mysteries by Laura Childs all set in a tea shop. So we knocked ourselves out buying a vintage china tea cup and saucer, a pretty tin of Earl Grey tea, scone mix, berry jam, cookies, and even tea candy, though neither of us has e a clue if the latter’s  a good thing or a bad one. I may run out and get a couple more items if needed, but otherwise I get to play with all the pretty stuff today. I think I’m going to make a collage card too as I did for the NOBS basket, so I’ll show you the finished products as soon as I'm done.

Before embarking on yesterday’s mad shopping trip Eric and I went to the Medina flea market around 7:30 just after the weak sun lazily stretched itself across the horizon. On the way there we discussed how strange it is that this flea market seemed to be fading away and now is back to its former once a month schedule. Even the outside vendors were set up, which earns them a gold medal for bravery in my book, as the roofs of the buildings at the fairgrounds were iced with a scrim of frost. Interestingly enough, we almost immediately heard a dealer telling some customers that people are fleeing ebay in droves and going back to the live flea markets and antiques shows instead. About an hour later we heard the same thing from another dealer. Immediately I made the connection to the recent poor attendance at the two formerly good book sales I told you about last week. Something does seem to be changing in the marketplace, but I still can’t get a handle on what it is or what it means.

The good part is I made a couple amazing buys. One guy had a western Americana collection that was jaw-dropping were it not for the fact that even outside the mustiness sent me into a sneezing fit. I would have taken every single book he had (there were about 15), but no way could I do it under the circumstances. After that I felt like maybe we’d just walked away from the only good books in the place, but not so. Not so! For eight dollars I bought three items, including a scarce 1929 booklet published by the Cuyahoga Falls (Ohio) Chamber of Commerce to entice home buyers to settle there. A local long-time store has it listed for $67, but I will want to research it a bit more,as that seems a tad pricey to me. The other two things I found were books – an 1887 Macmillan edition of John Brown at Oxford in a pretty decorative binding and a 1928 copy WITH its dustjacket of Thornton Wilder’s Pultizer prize-winning The Bridge of San Luis Rey. It's not a first – the first came out in November for the Christmas season of 1927 and was reprinted regularly from that point on. Mine is a 14th , but only dates from May, 1928. So all told, it’s a nice early one in very good condition. I love the way it feels, the way it looks, the entire “isness” of it.

Online sales remain draggy, BUT I am happy, happy, happy because I sold Tasha Tudor’s Becky’s Christmas which was pictured here last week AND my customer who inquired about the Spur magazines is taking 26 of them! Yesterday fizzled at the antiques mall, but Friday proved good and Saturday VERY good, as the normal array of $15-30 stuff was augmented by the sale of a signed first edition of a history of Elyria, Ohio for $75 and a folio-sized set of prints of WWII aircraft (paintings) for an additional $75.

AND biblio must have overheard my wallflower comment because they tossed a me a little wink last night in the form of an order for an old yearbook I forgot I even had.

Once again, life is good in Ohio.