Auction Fever!

Given my recent experiences with auctions you wouldn't think I'd touch another one with a ten foot library ladder, but yesterday found us in the second row at one notorious for its ridiculous prices. I was waiting for it to begin and thinking about the futility of it all when my friend Darwin appeared beside me and said, “So. Is this going to be in your blog tomorrow?” I assured him it most likely would, whereupon he laughed and said, “and you'll bitch about the prices too, right?” I assured him  it was highly likely. But guess what? I’m not going to! This post comes from one very happy auction-goer.

The reason I wanted to attend this particular sale was to acquire two specific antiquarian books – The History of Medina County and The History of the Upper Ohio Valley in two volumes. Past experience has shown that local history books, even in ratty condition, will often exceed retail value at this sale. But the more I  watched both what people looked at hardest and the realized prices of the first dozen or so items, the perkier I got. By the time the books came up on the block I knew I’d score them – and I did. The Ohio Valley set is especially fine – bright shiny gilt page edges, no cracking to the hinges, and pristine pages. Why I picked these off so easily, I don’t know, but I have a hunch that the book gods took pity on me for past pain and suffering.

Encouraged by this outcome, I then dared to think that maybe I might even land one of the three gorgeous celluloid photograph albums they had. These I totally love – love the velvet ones too – and have sold them for years, but if they’re nice they tend to go bonkers. And these were quite nice. I didn’t get first choice and the guy who won the first round took the one I fancied, but in the end I think I wound up with the most interesting of the lot anyway. Not only does it have a pleasing picture on the front, but it sits atop a music box.

Paper items abounded at this sale and, as always, you could have mistaken them for big-screen TVs tuned to the Super Bowl the way they attracted men. The connection between men and paper seems primal, a phenomenon that baffles me as much now as it did ten years ago when I first started buying it. Women look at it in a desultory fashion, but it’s usually me and the guys doing battle to attain it. This time I opted to stay out of the action for postcards, photographs, and magazines and keep my eye on the prize – a skimpy box of odds and ends with just enough junk to camouflage three great catalogs, one of which (a tome on blast furnaces) was hardbound (the best), and a directory and program for the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in Boston in  1904, replete with a large, fold-out map that’s not even torn. It did get a little dicey – there was one guy who snapped up everything – but in the end he let me have the flat for $35. I couldn’t have been happier than if Kool and the Gang had showed up to sing a chorus of Celebrate Good Times.

By this point I was fairly drunk with joy which led me to buy two more things– a pretty little French inspired occasional table for the antiques mall and a Victorian office chair upholstered  in purple. No, I’m not going  into the antiques business – I just think the little table will be nice in the booth and my miniature set of Ruskin will look quite fetching on top of  it. As for the chair – that one’s for my soon-to-be-redone office. I hesitated to take a picture of it sitting in the middle of the kitchen, but I can’t drag it upstairs by myself and it would look terrible there anyway with the current décor, so you will just have to look at it out of context. I think most of you will hate it anyway (which is why I got it for $35) , so it doesn’t matter. But I LOVE it. I got up this morning at five, sat down on it right there by the refrigerator and swiveled around like Donald Trump buying a new hotel.

Once all gazillion pounds of it are upstairs and the walls are painted a lovely pearl grey – look out. These dispatches will be coming from the Queen of Everything!