Inherited Values

According to this post at Reddit, which appears to be a quote from Perfumes: The Guide (page 148, to be precise), there’s a reason the “old book smell” is so lovely: Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habits, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to [...]

A number of original Joseph Jasgur photographs are up for auction from Grapefruit Moon Gallery right now. Astonishingly, along with winning the vintage photographs now being auctioned off via Grapefruit Moon, the winner owns the copyright for the images, meaning that the buyer will be legally allowed to reproduce and sell copies of the photographs [...]

This is my Mother’s teddy bear. I’m not sure how old it really is. But, she wasn’t the first owner of this bear. My brother used to keep it in his bedroom when he was a boy. Currently, it’s in his house, in the spare bedroom. I saw the bear there when I visited over [...]

Pick & Grin, The Collecting Couple, Ready For The New Year Grin: With the holiday season ending, I look forward to peace and quiet for the next few months. Pick: Good luck with that thought. We have two antique shows booked and we need to start setting aside the goods we want to sell. One [...]

Speaking of model trains, here’s a lovely set of five vintage photographs which show off a vintage model railroad collection. Each photograph measures 3 by 4 inches; dated August 1967 on the back. Images from Lynnstudios.

A reader of Inherited Values is in the beginning stages of planing an antiquing trip abroad and has asked me about travel insurance. Since I’ve, unfortunately, not yet left the country for this sort of thing, and never even considered what happens if you get ill overseas (I shudder to think of it now!), I [...]

Last night, History debuted it’s latest collectibles reality television series, Cajun Pawn Stars, in the now familiar two back-to-back half-hour episode format. (I don’t know why these guys haven’t yet just committed to the full hour episode yet.) The commercials for the show made it seem like a blend of Pawn Stars and Oddities, seasoned [...]

Back in November, I heard WDAY making the promo for that night’s broadcast — an alarming headline about model trains. I don’t recall word for word, but it was so alarming that I indeed remained glued to the station and watched the news especially for that report. While the headline sounded far more drastic (implying [...]

18th Century US coins are quite difficult to find. The Mint wasn’t even established until the 1790s, and until that time coins were minted from precious metals by foreign countries or private mints, and valued based on weight. Ephraim Brasher was one of those early minters, and in 1787 he created what we call today [...]

But, sometimes, those drummers are a matching pair. *wink* A fabulous vintage kitschy pair of planters, a drummer boy and a Majorette girl, illustrate my point! Image credits: Pigtunia’s Plunder.

I’m sure by now that you heard that the Elizabeth Taylor auction set new auction records, but there’s other things to read in the world of collecting and vintage fashion… Did you know the swimsuit worn by Farrah Fawcett in that ultimate 70s poster was made by Norma Kamali? It was! And now it’s in [...]

OK, so you waited around, hoping just the right thing was going to pop up at eBay or some other site, and now, as the shipping delivery window narrows, you’re starting to worry that all you can do is go with the obvious eBay gift card or get something lame. Gift certificates, from eBay, your [...]

When I stumbled into this auction for original Katzenjammer Kids art, I was excited to read the story behind the piece: Grapefruitmoon Gallery just acquired an important collection of pen & ink original illustration art comic drawings from many of the leading Golden Age of Illustration comic strip illustrators that were received by a persistent [...]

I don’t collect records by series or any other system, to be honest. Like everything else I collect, I mainly rely on the serendipity of stumbling into something and falling under it’s charm… Then, whether I buy it or not, the obsessive researching begins. So I didn’t know that the old Capitol Records series of [...]