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WHERE YOU FIND THEM; Early on the morning of June 12th we were at Manchester Airport in NH eager to begin our trip to Kansas City, Mo. We booked in and headed up for the security check. “Please take off your shoes.” Birkenstock sandals have metal in the soles. They looked inside the shoes as if they were expecting to find my feet still in them. We are used to going through rigorous checks at airports but Manchester was ridiculous. The blond woman kept on prodding my bra. “It has underwire in it,” I informed her. She kept on prodding poking and pulling with her little baton. I began to lose my temper. “Look you might not need one but many women wear bras with metal in them. If it has it on the right side it will have the metal on the left side. Give me a break, this is getting beyond ridiculous.” She kept on poking. “Look, if you want, I will take the damn thing off and give it to you but quit the poking — this is getting very embarrassing.” What I didn’t know was she had actually broken the wire as I began to feel a sharp pain on my right side. I just assumed it was a bit of stress. Well she finally decided I wasn’t some strange species of green-haired extraterrestrial, nor was I smuggling aliens or terrorists and let me go, as she must have known I was about to make a scene. We got to the plane, where I had a quick trip to the lady’s room where I corrected the broken wire by wrapping the bottom with hundred dollar bills! Ben Franklin who was a real womanizer, would have been delighted to hear his portrait was soothingly tucked into a bra! We changed planes in Cleveland and arrived in Kansas City. We were picked up promptly by Hertz, chose our car, after a few long moments of panic when I thought I might have lost my driver’s license in the airport security check kafuffle. We had shopped prices on the Internet for the car just as we had the airline tickets. Anything to save a few pennies and be able to use them for buying antiques. We thought we might find something interesting to purchase but I think we were in the wrong area and so our lack of luck. The third member of our party was from Keene, and her plane came in around 4ish so when had to be back at the airport before we headed south for West Plains, Mo. We found a motel which would only let one of us use the coupon we had removed from one of the state guides, but I was tired and didn’t feel like driving any further, so we stayed the night. In the morning we stopped at the Barnes & Nobel where I ordered my copy of Harry Potter, which would be coming out on the 21st. They promised to hold me some of the freebees from the Potter launch party, but they never did. That was a great disappointment. Next we began stopping at antique shops and malls. Well, they said they were antique shops, but they were more like repros and new. Items you could go into any catalogue and buy. A few older piece here and there, but on the whole they were items that were country-looking but very contemporary. We spent the entire day shopping group shops and spent less than one of Ben Franklin’s portraits. The next day we didn’t find much more, but continued to give out our card and a copy of “the Gavel” and ask people how business was and what was happening in antiques in their area. Now the most interesting thing we saw on the road was some real Americana, billboards of protest. We got out and read the boards and then took pictures of them. Here is this poor 80-year-old farmer who has for pennies on the dollar had his property taken by eminent domain. Not the edges to attach onto the already existing highway but a new one cutting right through the middle of some of the most fertile farm land I’ve seen in awhile. We just couldn’t understand why they were doing it the way they were, as common sense would have said take the edge and add it to the two-lane highway and make it a four way. Not build another two-way road 4-500 yards away. No wonder he was hopping mad. The antique group shop up the street wasn’t allowed to put up a large sign and as the area in front of their shop was closed off, we had to drive around and around as if in a maze until we finally figured how we could get to them. Guess the Mo. Politicos are worse there than they are in NH. The owners of the mall said the construction (or destruction) was affecting their business quite a bit. We finally arrived in West Plains were we were to participate in the National Audio Theater Festival (NATF). A week of classes and working on the broadcasts that were aired live was quite fun. Three plays and some intermingled continuum including all types of animal and aviary sounds one would find in the Irish Wilderness, the forest and National Park area of Mo. Most of these noises were from Ralph Duren, a park ranger who is famous for making animal and bird noises. He really was cool to listen to, as was the train, which kept on chugging past the auditorium where we were working. One of the best part of this year’s NATF was listening to Richard Fish expound on old-time radio programs and the people who wrote the scripts and performed in them. I was able to introduce them to old time radio collectibles as I had brought along an album of photos and postcards from the shop showing people like Ma Perkins, Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, etc. Next year I plan on bringing a whole lot more as now there are some newborn collectors who need to be nurtured and encouraged into forging further afield for specimens of old broadcasts. I’m not a star-struck person, I either like people or I don’t, and famous people can be quite pompous, but Simon was charm itself. Simon Jones, from Douglas Adams’s “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” was a participant this year and The Englishman was delighted to find another of his countrymen. We took every advantage of asking questions about the making of the BBC production and the radio shows. Of course we got Simon to sign some photos. He helped us all to reach deeper into scripts, whether we were writing or acting them. I really was impressed when Jim Metzner of “Pulse of the Planet” on NPR found out I was Armenian and not only knew about the composer Gomidas but sang the song “Garoong” for me on parting. To raise funds there is the bookshop, where I had placed my photos from the old Blue Network. It was full of all types of audio plays and documentaries for sale. This is a great way for participants to get audios they might never find elsewhere, the organization to raise a few dollars, independent producers to trot their stuff. It was fun, educational and hopefully productive for everyone. I checked out the local antique shops and didn’t find anything I wanted but Simon said he found a Shaffer and Vater piece for his collection and Ginger found a book on flowers of the area so it wasn’t a total loss. We stayed for another day and listened to the Fiddle festival, which began as we ended. Everyone thought I was Cherokee and I’m told next time I come down to drop into the old hunting ground and get adopted. Sounds good to me. They had an old car show in the square one day and we ooed and ahed over some of them. Another day they had a craft show up at the square and I found an interesting face jug and some Indian baskets. We couldn’t stay for the auction, which was a disappointment. The next day we headed into Arkansas looking for antiques. We bought a cardinal in the Hummel monk series, a nice advertising tip tray with Ben Franklin on it, a few Christmas pins, one postcard, and some bits and pieces of other small items we could get into our cases to take home. All right, the knick-knack shelf wasn’t small but it wasn’t that big and it was such a great example of 50s schlock I couldn’t resist. We met Wayne, a music shaman, who makes flutes out of every conceivable material one can possible imagine. I bought his spirit flute from him. So far I have not attained any form of acumen on the flute and hope I am not driving the ancestral spirits away. In one of the shops we bought a lamp and a concussed celluloid Santa. When I arrived home I received an email from the woman who had one of the books I had written on the counter behind her when we spoke. It wasn’t until we had left Memory Lane Mall that she looked at my card and “the Gavel” I had left with her and made the connection. Joy said she went running down the street after us to introduce herself, but we had disappeared into one of the many shops. So, if you ever get to Harding, Arkansas, this is quite a decent place to go antiquing (one main street, wall to wall shops) and you can meet some interesting people. Ginger’s flight was much earlier than ours, so we dropped her off and then went to check in and drop off our luggage. They offered us an earlier flight with no penalties and we grabbed it. Same type bra but no poking and prodding at this airport! It seemed like we had no sooner arrived home in NH than we were headed toward Cedar Falls, Iowa for Jackson’s auction of the Abe Samuels Collection of approximately 300,000 postcards and advertising trade cards. The storms that hit the area were devastating and had I decided not to stay in Cedar Rapids and go the whole way, we would have been in the thick and thin of it. My Guardian Angel was really working hard this trip. We had known Abe Samuels for many years as a very dear, eccentric and passionate collector. We are only now learning the depth of his creativity and the art legacy of postcards, cut work, books, etc, that he left behind him. It only took me two days to drive to Iowa. We went to a 90th Birthday party for NH resident Kate Phillips author of “The Blob” and left from there, figuring we could find a motel near Buffalo. We looked for one for over two hundred miles to no avail and so except for two one-hour naps, I drove through the night and then stopped early the next evening to catch up on some well-needed sleep. Jackson’s had allowed a week for preview. We only had 2 days, from 8AM to 8 PM viewing, and we only viewed approx. half of the lots. It was sufficient to put us into debt for a good long time. In 35 years of looking at literally millions of postcards per year I was awed to see so much that I had not ever seen and so much that I had not seen in many a year. Yes, there were the bread-and-butter everyday nice but not rare and wonderful cards — but mixed in were gems that sparkled like emeralds and had the lustre of pearls. Suffrage cards? Only 1,000 of them. Black Americana? Only 12,000 of them. Halloween? Only 4,000 of them. A mere 50,000 artist signed cards and a paltry 2,000 baseball related cards. The list goes on ad infinitum. I had promised myself not to bid on the approximately 8,000 Santas but I did, especially on the non-postcard ones. It was hard to resist the temptation not to sample all the categories. Some of the real photos cards were enough to take your breath away. Prices? Well some went up the wall, some went right where they should have been, and a few actually went below a dull roar. It was an exhausting auction but very rewarding for many of the dealers. The way the auction was set-up was not collector friendly as the lots were too large and too unsorted-mixed. However, many of the collectors hooked up to some of the dealers and were able to purchase the items they wanted from the lots, and that made many a person happy. What did amaze me was the amount of phone bidders who bid without seeing or knowing what was in the lots. Then again, the largest purchaser at the auction didn’t even view most of the lots he bid on, which was almost everything. There were two Guy Fawkes cards mixed into two lots and I lost both of them, but found other cards for my own collection in those I did purchase. Dealers and collectors had flown in or driven in from all parts of the country, and as far away as France. Many of us knew each other, or got to know each other there. Almost everyone got along very nicely. The auction hall was full both days of the auction, and the left bids and phone bits were heavy. I think this auction was very healthy, as it will put back into circulation, cards that have been out of circulation for many a moon. It will be exciting to see it incorporated into dealers’ stock for a time and then back into collections. The Judaica section was sold at the NY Metro show, where I was able to purchase about 5,000 cards of the 45,000 that Abe had collected. Abe Samuels collected many other items, but what excited me the most was seeing the cutwork he created in intricate designs from silhouette to Avante Guard, from in the style of Jackson Pollack to that of Andy Warhole and Edward Gorey. The very last lot of the auction was much of Abe’s original artwork that I would love to see made into a book. The artwork deserves it — and one of the most eccentric collectors of our time deserves it. After the auction we headed to Minnesota to do a postcard show. This was a first for us in that state and the Armory was easy to find and crammed with dealers. Even with the promoter bringing in her fans and leaving the large auditorium door open, the heat was intolerable. 90 some odd degrees 97% humidity and not a breath of air. I was surprised so many people had so much stamina, as I went to the end of my booth near the fan and the door and wilted. I thought I was dead for a period of time with a sinus headache that was blinding, but then a woman came in with the best accumulation (her deceased hubbies) of TV personality stills, which was a dream come true and drew me back from the pearly gates into alertness. “Can’t die now, this stuff is too good!” I told myself. For a first show, this one was very good and as the venue will be changed next year to somewhere with air conditioning, it might be one Hades of a show. We made it back to NH in 2 days — just in time to go to an auction and call in bids to another one. There is never time to be bored and it is like life is one Antique Safari after another. Instead of shooting live critters that should not be shot, we bag Americana — and anything else that can be accumulated and carted across country from one place to another. We antique dealers are all alike; we just can’t help but enjoy the hunt and the capture. About the Author: Pamela Apkarian-Russell is an antiques dealer specializing in postcards, ephemera and holiday items, and is always interested in purchasing items for her museum collection at Castle Halloween. The author of 10 books, and publisher of the Trick or Treat Trader, she writes for magazines/newspapers internationally |