Amazing Authentic Elvis Items Up For Auction!

The upcoming Auction At Graceland includes a special section of early Elvis merchandising memorabilia from various owners and includes rare items from the collection of Darlene Parker Tafua, daughter of Ed and Leilani Parker. (Ed Parker was a martial artist who ran the Kenpo Karate Studio in Pasadena, California; Parker trained Elvis Presley along with other stunt men and celebrities.)

rare 1970 promotional photo been signed by Elvis

Among the standout Elvis items are signed items — my favorite is the autographed cocktail napkin from the Thunderbird Hotel.

elvis auto on vintage Thunderbird Hotel Cocktail Napkin Vegas

And how about the original receipt for Elvis and Priscilla’s Wedding at the Aladdin Hotel in Vegas?

It was quite the shindig! More than $10,000 in charges for the chartered flight, the limos, the judge, the champagne, the fruit baskets, the security (of course), the musicians, the gloves and the floral arrangements. No expense was spared by Elvis for his blushing bride Priscilla and their guests, who assumed two suites and 21 rooms at the Aladdin. The bill was sent to the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills and this copy to Colonel Parker at MGM Studios. We know this because of the included (and formerly paper-clipped) note concerning possibly being double-charged for the private jet flight. It is written in pencil and reads: “Jim: – Is this in order to pay – How about the plane chg [charge]? Remember pmt [payment] to Lear Jet in amt [amount] of 1774.50 – Please call me Pattie.” Accompanied by a letter of authenticity from Graceland Authenticated. Each page measures approximately 10 by 6 1/2 inches (25.4 x 16.51 cm).

vintage receipt for elvis wedding vegas aladdin ephemera

But perhaps my absolute favorite is the jacket Elvis Presley wore in Viva Las Vegas in that dance scene with Ann-Margret. Hot!

Elvis Presley Jacket from the Viva Las Vegas Dance Scene with Ann-Margret

elvis and Ann-Margret dance in Viva Las Vegas

This Elvis auction is held by Invaluable (formerly Artfact):

Elvis touched the hearts and lives of fans across the globe, and our goal for the Elvis Week 2015 Auction at Graceland was to include artifacts from across the spectrum of collecting, including items owned by Elvis, gifted by Elvis, written by Elvis, used by Elvis and created to promote the king and his career.

This Elvis auction starts at 7:00 PM CST on August 13, 2015; online bidding is available.

Vintage Clown & Circus Memorabilia Up For Sale

These cool pieces of circus history will be available to purchase at an estate sale in West Allis (part of Milwaukee), Wisconsin. Sale starts Monday, July 27, 2015. My parents, No Egrets Antiques & Estate Sales, are running this sale. More info and photos here and here. If you like circus memorabilia, don’t be a bozo and miss it!

Featured here are a poster from The Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee, 1992; a photo signed by Bozo the clown (to “Joey”), and, the most unique, a check signed by the legendary Emmett Kelly.

1992 milwaukee great circus parade poster

signed joey bozo photo

emmett kelly check

Salvaged Antique Church Fixtures and Furnishings

This past July, a fire broke-out in the historic St. John’s Lutheran Church on the grounds of Bonanzaville in West Fargo, North Dakota. Bonanzaville, a pioneer village with 12 acres, 43 historic buildings, 400,000 artifacts, “and millions of memories” is operated by the Cass County Historical Society. The church was not only a preserved historical building, but it still served as a place for many weddings. After the fire, pieces were salvaged from the church and they, along with hundreds of other items deaccessioned from the collections, were auctioned off to raise funds for the organization — including bringing in a new-but-old church to Bonanzaville.

Hubby and I attended the auction yesterday and stood among all the others in the cold morning air. (It was so cold, objects had frost on them!) We did purchase a number of things (Stay tuned here — and here — for more details!), but we didn’t purchase anything from the church. We did, however, take lots of photos. You can view them below. (Photos of other items from this auction can be seen here, here, here, here, and here.)

A Dickens Of A Big Birthday Celebration: Charles Turns 200

The world is celebrating Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday this year, and one of the many events includes a world tour, retracing the historic steps that Charles Dickens made during his famous American tours, by Gerald Charles Dickens, great great grandson of the author himself. Two days of the historic tour will be celebrations involving Vaillancourt Folk Art, makers of fine chalkware collectibles. (I interviewed Luke M. Vaillancourt, the son of founder & artist Judi Vaillancourt, back in 2009.)

On Friday, September 21, 2012, Gerald Charles Dickens will honor his great great grandfather by doing as Charles Dickens himself did in 1868: performing A Christmas Carol at the Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA. On on Saturday, September 22, 2012, there will be two performances at Vaillancourt Folk Art in Sutton, MA; at 2:00pm, The Republic of My Imagination and Oliver Twist, and at 7:00pm, A Child’s Journey with Dickens, and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

I know this is a bit early — but it’s a pretty big deal for Dicken’s fans! Get more details and tickets here. And watch for news on more Vaillancourt Dickens’ Christmas items too.

Vintage Schiaparelli Stockings — Shocking!

Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations, the joint retrospective of fashion opens today at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum.

Which means you can understand what a miracle it seemed to me to find not one, not two, but three pairs of vintage Schiaparelli stockings at a local garage sale this weekend! And for just 25 cents each! *Faint*

Actually, one pair isn’t stocking; they’re pantyhose… But still!

For those of you who don’t know, Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973) was an incredible Italian fashion designer. Her rival was Coco Chanel; she sold to Mae West and the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson; she created the big-shouldered suit of Marlene Dietrich; she designed costumes for over 30 films (partial list); she collaborated with Man Ray and Salvador Dalí. Whew!

I adore Schiaparelli designsespecially the lingerie, so the stockings would be thrilling and welcome finds anytime, but this was quite a timely find for vintage fashion items.

Here are more details on what I scored:

Supp-hose, sheerest, seamless, nylon & Lycra (Spandex) in Calypso, 905, made in USA. One unworn pair of stockings, with Schiaparelli signature script in shocking pink, in the box, with black paper (glossy on one side), pink tissue paper, and original care/instructions insert.

Sheer Agilon pantyhose in Coffee Bean, style 199. Package is still sealed.

And last, but not least, Girdle Stockings by Schiaparelli. “To wear with self-holding leg band girdles without hooks, snaps or fasteners.” (Also in Coffee Bean, #889; 100% nylon, made in USA.) Still sealed in the original wrapped package — I just love the die-cut window.

I date them all to the early 1960s. (My camera apparently suffered some issues reading the shocking pink, but all packages are Schiaparelli hot pink; sorry about that.)

While the Schiaparelli hosiery I found aren’t as stunning as these bouquet stockings, I’m still happy with the “Shocking” delight of finding them.

See also: Judith Thurman’s piece on the fashion retrospective.

History Teaching Moments For Families

Teaching Moments, Jet Magazine

In the latest issue of Jet Magazine (February 6, 2012), Iman Jefferson gets six tips from Ronda Racha Penrice, author of African American History For Dummies, on ways to educate and entertain children with history. These tips are specific to Black History Month — that doesn’t mean you have to be an African-American to learn more about Black history. Nor should this be limited to Black History Month, or even Black history; there’s a lot of history to learn!

The first tip was to record family members about their experiences during a pivotal time in history. We’ve been making general (not historical event oriented) audio recordings of our own family members — and both my husband and I have been flabbergasted to find out how much we really didn’t know about even our own parents’ lives! (If you need help starting, check out StoryCorps.)

The second was to “play the original song versions used in samples of your kids’ favorite hits” and discuss what melodies have been borrowed from yesteryear. Our kids tease us about the music we listen to (admittedly we are eclectic listeners!) and we tease them right back with information about how that music isn’t “new.” These discussions, however intended, have given our children a wider knowledge of music, culture and history than most of their peers.

Tip number three:

Identify longstanding Black-owned restaurants, retail shops or other companies, then call them up and arrange a visit. Many will have older equipment, as well as photos, so it will encourage interactive learning.

I’m so ready for a field trip!

The next tip was to challenge kids to find items in the home or community which were invented or created by African-American icons featured on postage stamps. This is a great idea, like a historical philately-based scavenger hunt!

Tip number five was to have your child research a person prior to watching a biopic and then have them compare what they read to what they saw. I can tell you that I’ve personally done this dozens of times, including performing online searches during the commercial breaks when watching biographies and biopics on TV. (In fact, I just did this last week watching a biopic about Jessica Savitch!)

The last tip was actually quite a mind-blower…

Often we drive by local honorary street signs in predominantly African American neighborhoods but may not know the history of each honoree. Visit the local library and have your children research the real person behind the road marker.

Honest to gawd, hubby and I had just had a similar, though not person-related, discussion when he “discovered” the location of a “missing city.” He’s a prolific reader of old newspapers and read about one no longer on maps: Golden Gate City, in South Dakata. There’s a Golden Gate Street in Central City, South Daktoa, but sans town we bet there are people living there who don’t even know why the street has it’s name. How many streets do we all drive on of which we are ignorant to the street’s name’s origins?

My First Storage Auction

It’s easy today to snap photos anywhere and everywhere with virtually any cell phone, but keeping track of them is no different than those old rolls of film… My surprise today at discovering these photos taken at a storage auction we went to here in Fargo last fall was akin to getting a roll of film back and going, “Oh, yeah, I remember that!”

What I’ve yet to find, however, was the flyer from the auction which read “Storage Wars,” as if it was somehow affiliated with the TV show. The sign outside the storage unit compound said the same, but I didn’t take a photograph of that. But this auction wasn’t affiliated with the show at all. (However, Barry Weiss was here recently.)

As expected, the auction was packed. And, as the regulars told us, it was “full of people who thought they could get rich because they’d seen the shows.”

Disgruntled regular storage auction bidders aside, we had a good time. Even if we never bid, it was beautiful, if chilly, weather and it was my first time at a storage auction. After watching the shows, there were no surprises. Things are hard to see and even my TV-trained eyes were just guessing. (Who can see inside or behind cardboard boxes?) Frankly, I was rather overwhelmed. But then I felt that way at my first live auction too.

The only unit I could see inside quite clearly was a “sportsman’s unit,” full of used fishing stuff. And boxes of DVDs and videos. Adult DVDs and videos. But even that went past the price of what those can sell for. *wink* But we’ll go again. And again. You just never know…

Collectible Event News: Collectors Virtual Convention

February 20th and 21st there’s an online event which is rather like a Valentine’s Day celebration for collectors: The first annual Bookmark Collectors Virtual Convention.

This two-day event you can attend in your jammies sitting at your computer is obviously focused on the collecting of bookmarks, but the rest of us can learn something too.

As an ephemera collector struggling to organize my collection, I’m extremely eager to from Don Baldwin on Organizing a Bookmark Collection.

And, because old paper bits are one of my things, I’m looking forward to Lauren Roberts (founder of BiblioBuffet — which has a regular column on bookmarks) speaking about How To Store And Display Your Bookmark Collection.

And then there’s my presentation, Are You An Embarrassed Collector? Don’t Be!, which is for collectors everywhere, of anything — collectors of everything:

Maybe you’ve never articulated why you collect, what your collection “does” — or maybe you have & you just don’t think it’s important in The Big Picture sort of a way. Maybe others have made you feel like a capitalistic consumer pig in your collecting pursuits. Whatever the reason, do you down-play your “junk,” your hobby, and your passion?

It is my hope that in this session you will become a more confident collector, to learn to see your items beyond their materialistic cash value and appraise them for their cultural and intrinsic values, to see the very act of collecting itself and your contribution as a collector as significant. Because all collections, great and small — all collectors, great and small — are of incredible value.

It’s my belief that all collections and all collectors have value, even if the stuff isn’t “old enough” or “good enough” to seem of any value. I’d tell you more about this, but, frankly, you should come to the conference.

Registration is just$10 for all the sessions, forums, and trade show & gallery goodies.

I don’t make a dime off this event (again, my passion for collecting is worn on my sleeve), but I ‘d like a nice big group in my session. *wink*

So, to entice you — be you a collector of bookmarks or not — with the help of the founder of Doodle Week, Inherited Values very own Laura Brown, I’m offering five Bookmark Collectors Virtual Conference Commemorative Collector Bookmarks for the first five folks (from the US or Canada) who mention “Inherited Values” in their registration for the event.

Only 12 of these commemorative bookmarks will be made (five to be given away here, five at the art site that’s home of Doodle Week, one for the artist, and, ever the collector, one for myself), so it’s truly a limited edition.

And pretty cute to-boot *wink*

I hope you’ll register for this event because you’re a collecting nut who is interested; but it never hurts to add a little incentive, right?

I hope to “see” you there!

Image Credits:

Photos (2) of bookmarks and bookmark storage both courtesy of bookmark collector Alan Irwin, the founder and host of the Bookmark Collectors Virtual Convention.

I’m Going To Need More Books doodle commemorating the bookmark convention by Laura Brown.