Featured Finds Thread

Think of the history lost.

 

Speaking from personal experience, you some times have to sacrifice history for personal reasons. I know that I had to read and re-read every letter and document and make choices before we donated them to a historical society. There are some things that are just not anyone's business but your own...................

 

Stuff like that could be censored to block personal things....couldn't it ....before going to a museum..?

 

The only effective way to censor that sort of thing is to remove the actual paper (clip out the words) thus leaving a holey paper that leads to unholy speculations on the part of the reader...........besides, museums don't usually care for censored documents as it is not a true record.

 

OMG!!!! No!!

 

Ack! I'd have begged her to donate them somewhere.

 

I'm watching Sherlock now......don't get me started !!

besides...there must be hundreds of thousands of military and war recolections ...that no one will ever know of....
still....to bad to destroy records of history...

 

Actually found a few things at this mornings flea mkt. - which usually is filled with socks and duct tape interspersed with junk ...

Flint glass cup plate - Bunker Hill variant
Little aquamarine blown glass pitcher/creamer with folded rim
Russian 875 silver tea glass holder - not old 1968 or 78 (figuring that out)
nothing over a buck! ... I now wish I had gone earlier in the morning to see what I missed

 

There are some things that are just not anyone's business but your own........

The big error is here is thinking anyone would care one way or the other about the peculiar quirks of a stranger. What might be a 'personal' thing of importance to the immediate relatives would in the context of the lives of millions of people, be no more than the shape of one grain of sand on the beach.

It may be of concern to the descendants that grandpa was repeatedly convicted of bestiality, but to the world in general,that is just part of the story. Publish and be damned, I say. The person refusing to sell the letters was a self important prig.

 

Speaking from personal experience, I have to respectfully disagree.

We still live in a society that delights in visiting the sins of the fathers unto the sons. This can make life difficult in many aspects. As a minor example let's use Anderson Cooper (whether I like or respect the man is irrelevant). He had to strive mightily to overcome the stigmas and notoriety of his family background to achieve his current position. And that struggle started the moment he was born, not when he decided on a career path.

I had similar, minor issues as a youth, but it was when I decided on a career in "academia" that I had larger, life altering issues. They involved ancestors both living and dead, and the reasons for their notoriety were hashed and rehashed in courtrooms and newspapers for over a decade. I was immediately branded with those sins. I was denied entry into some universities on the basis of my "membership" in THAT family. I have seen my friends embarrassed when we were denied entry to venues because of my connections. I have had hotels deny me accommodations. I have had public scorn and absolutely ridiculous accusations thrown at me. Other relatives were denied the same as well as the purchase of co-ops and houses on that basis.

The documents I refer to have been made public in some respects, many quoted in part by the media and in court. But if they were to be made "public" again, it would only lead to further speculation and sensationalism. Do we really need to visit the perceived sins of the past on a new generation? In this day and age responding to the the question "Are you related to ??????" with a (reluctant) negative is no longer an option. Records are widely available due to our "connectivity".

I am not ashamed of my family, I truly loved those who "created" this environment. (As a side note, I do not believe that the accusations and penalties imposed on them were accurate or justified, but that is irrelevant to the reality.) I do not renounce them, but in order to achieve some of my goals I have had to use a pseudonym to overcome that which has been unjustly imposed on me by others. Had I not had life goals that could be affected by prejudice caused by actions of others, I would proudly bear my "real" name.

I come from a very long line of illustrious ancestors. Of course that and $2.50 gets you on the underground. But being related to (and personally knowing) some of the people who impacted the history of entire countries is an inspiring thing. But when the public opinion turns the term Famous into Notorious, one has to find the mechanisms to cope with that. Self censorship and a "low profile" are only two of those mechanisms.

Oh, and just as another "parallel", I deal with the same public perception as Anderson Cooper - that we are both rich as Croesus and can do as we damn well please.

If only.................

 

When I took over my Fathers Father's position & went to Europe on my 1st buying trip , the first thing I heard from everyone I met was the accolades bestowed upon him . It opened many friendly doors for me.

But all that praise was for the same man who only a year earlier tried to bash me in the head with a metal staple gun !

He doted over his oldest son's first born son.....but I was his 2nd son's adopted son.........so I was treated harshly & unkindly with the respect given to a mangy cur sniffing around to take scrapes of food from his trash bin !

So when you hear folks tell you that family is the most important thing above all else ..........that's not always true.

 

Hi,
Yesterday I went to an antique store sale - they are closing out and everything was 50% off. They had a silver aluminum Christmas tree that was set up to display the ornaments, so I asked if it was for sale. The owner said it was but she didn't want to take it down yet so she said 'Lets look in the back room, I think there are a couple in there'. When she opened the door I couldn't believe my eyes, there was a box of silver Pom Poms waving at me. She said 'just a minute, there is another one in here somewhere' and pulled out one still in the original box. She said if I wanted one I could have it for $40, I said I would take both please, got the pair for $70. Both are 6 feet, and the one loose in the box is only missing 2 branches. The tree that was on display was just a regular aluminum tree. I collect Christmas items so they will be staying with me. I also got 2 Norah Wellings dolls, an RCA money clip in sterling, and this lorgnette,missing one lens.

 

nice money clip !!!

 

Seconded! I have a thing for old souvenir pieces from formerly high tech companies. I'd have jumped on that too, and right spritely. This turned up in a lot I bought for other pieces. Ordinarily I don't do much with masonic jewelry, but this little guy is old...and hallmarked 14k. Price for the entire lot? Ten bucks.

 

Two small contributions here...

The first is this small Christmas pudding card I found at a local estate sale (in NJ). I think I will make the scan of it into a Christmas card, then will likely offer it to the general public on the POD site where I have a store. In the event I do that, I would like to get the story straight about the charms. I assume they were baked into a Christmas pudding, whatever that is, then served (on Christmas Day?) and if you got one of these charms in your serving, you were assured of the fate that they heralded--including the trip to the dentist. Is that correct? Did you get to keep the charm AND the broken tooth? Because of the font, I am guessing they are from the 1920's...or 1930's. Do you agree?

Re the unfortunate trashed war letters, I found a shoebox full of WWII letters and photos, too, at an estate sale, but I was allowed to buy them. The sale was at the home of the woman the letter writer married when he returned from Alaska, but the marriage was short-lived. He was older when they married and was apparently a very nice man, so his letters were pretty sanitary. They were also censored and anything that might lift a reader's eyebrows was written in shorthand. Because of his having been stationed in the Aleutians, I thought there was enough historic significance to warrant posting on a related site a lightly edited transcription of the letters. I kept the bulk of the content of the transcription pretty much focused on the non-personal stuff. I was happy to learn that children from his second marriage found the transcription and were (apparently) delighted to see the many photos and read the letters of their father's war years, of which they knew virtually nothing. I then donated the letters to an AK collection.

 

a Christmas pudding, whatever that is

Something as obscure as a po'boy or a hush puppy in the wrong location.

In England a traditional Christmas dinner dessert, sometimes flamed with brandy, and traditionally containing a silver 3 penny bit, or a sixpence, which was good luck for the finder and encouraged not wolfing down the food.

Few would have been so rich as to use Harrods charms, and those people could probably afford someone to eat their food for them.

 

...those people could probably afford someone to eat their food for them.

I need a charm to grant me your marvelous sense of humor. Thank you for the help.

 

I got lost in Harrods once ....took me 4 hours to find the exit....& only then because the staff was wandering around shooing everyone out !!!
Bought a nice silver money clip......still have the clip......not the money though !!

 

I recently bought a bunch of buttons in a Harrod's bag; I think the bag attracted me as much as the buttons. The latter for the most part ended up traded to another dealer for a pair of artisan brass and sterling earrings and some other bits.

 

I went to Harrods a few years ago when I visited our daughter, who lives in England. I was loudly reprimanded when I tried to take a photo of Harrods' absolutely beautiful, stuff-of-dreams candy counter...and that is the last time I ever set foot in there.