Featured When money comes second

Discussion in 'Antique Discussion' started by rhiwfield, Oct 22, 2015.

  1. rhiwfield

    rhiwfield Well-Known Member

    A recent thread got a bit tetchy when varying opinions were expressed on whether or not it was right to sell historic graphic photos. SBSVC made an interesting post about how similar material had been used as part of an authoritative book.

    Made me wonder how many of you are quietly proud of the philanthropic or educational use of antiques and historic material that you have previously owned. My favourite is from a few years ago when we found a previously unknown print of the mass burial of the bodies from the Royal Charter shipwreck off Anglesey in 1859. It featured Reverend Stephen Roose Hughes and was by a local artist. Researching the print, realising its significance and ensuring that it ended up at the Island's museum (after being collected from our house by the curator) gave us more satisfaction than a fistful of profitable sales.

    So, if you don't mind sharing, let's hear a few of the interesting places that your antiques have ended up!
     
  2. springfld.arsenal

    springfld.arsenal Store: http://www.springfieldarsenal.net/

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  3. springfld.arsenal

    springfld.arsenal Store: http://www.springfieldarsenal.net/

  4. rhiwfield

    rhiwfield Well-Known Member

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  5. all_fakes

    all_fakes Well-Known Member

    There are descendants of Native American and First Nations carvers who do not own any of their ancestors' work.
    I sent some little Eli Tait totem poles back to his family.
     
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  6. Marie Forjan

    Marie Forjan Well-Known Member

    At the local flea I set up next to a man who sells Native American jewelry. This Summer he sold a few pieces at a very reduced rate to a man that is the son of the artisan who made the jewelry in the 1950s. He wanted the family to have it back.

    As for me, I am a small time collector and seller, but every few years I go through my stock and pull out costume jewelry pieces that haven't sold. I like to send them to a charity in Boston called Dress for Success. It helps women get jobs, they focus on how a woman presents herself for an interview. They help a woman choose clothing and accessories appropriate for the job. I pick through and send them anything that I think would work well for an office job.
     
  7. GaleriaGila

    GaleriaGila Hola, y'all!

    Wow! I am amazed by those stories. I have a little contribution...
    While still living in New Mexico, my ol' man brought home a gigantic taxidermied GOLDEN EAGLE, wings extending out both rear windows of his SUV. The owner of one of the rural, ma 'n 'pa stores (near Las Cruces) he visited was in the process of burning it in a desire to get rid of it (it had been in his family for maybe 100 years) and escape any legal consequences should the "Federales" discover he owned it. He had been hiding it in a back room of his shop for ages, and was tired of it altogether. My ol' man paid him some small amount and brought it home. After a bit of research, we discovered it was killed and stuffed prior to any laws against such, and that since it was a "pre-act" bird, we could sell it, with proper paperwork, for a bit of cash, especially if we got the history of it from the old owner (who was an established member of a local tribe).
    I wish I had the words to describe this bird... wingspan of 6 feet, sharp beak wide open, eyes huge and fierce, feet and talons bigger than my own hands, a lot bigger. It was perched on a stump, crouched as if ready to zoom. We placed it on the dining room table. After watching my ol' man bring that bird inside, my cat hid in the basement until... well, here's the happy ending...
    My ol' man and I both wanted the best for the bird, so after some research, we donated it to the Koshare Kiva Indian Museum in Las Cruces. The people there made it a focal point for their great room, and eventually researched it, discovering that it had some significant links to local history.
    It was a good feeling. And my cat eventually came upstairs, but never again really trusted my ol' man!
     
  8. Pat P

    Pat P Well-Known Member

    I haven't donated anything but have thought I probably will at some point.

    I have had some sales where I was really happy when the buyer let me know where the item was going. One piece of ephemera originally from a small U.S. town went to their local museum. A reproduction carved pre-Columbian style mask went to a man opening a small museum in South America to use in their display. A couple of postcards were bought by a man in Brooklyn who thought the addressees were his grandparents or great grandparents, forget which. A print went to the wife of the artist's grandson.

    I love these types of sales!
     
  9. Ownedbybear

    Ownedbybear Well-Known Member

    I've freecycled stuff nicely. A bunch of nice dressy suits went to someone job hunting. About 20 plastic storage canisters to the local food bank. Very pleasing.
     
  10. Pat P

    Pat P Well-Known Member

    Hmm... kitchen stuff to a food bank. That's a great idea!
     
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  11. Ownedbybear

    Ownedbybear Well-Known Member

    They were in need of pest proof storage and I had some huge lidded air tight boxes, so it was a good deal all round.
     
  12. komokwa

    komokwa The Truth is out there...!

    The granddaughter of a late 1st nations artist, looking for her granddads work, found out I had several nice gold and silver works of his that I'd kept for over 25 years.
    I put them all together, but even at a dealers price , her mother could not come up with the money to buy them. I held them all for her for many months & then unfortunately we had a falling out......:sour:

    For X-mas .....I will get in touch with the granddaughter ......& if possible....gift her one of the 10K cast gold works.
    She deserves that much......if I can slide it past her mom.;)
     
  13. morgen94

    morgen94 Well-Known Member

    What a great thread...and very near and dear to my museum heart. I am always sending (primarily small) items to related local museums and am always gratified by the enthusiasm for the donations. The nicest one, though, was a shoebox of letters and photos from a WWII vet who was stationed in a very remote, very cold place, near the end of the war. He sent the letters to the woman he married when he returned home, although the marriage was very brief. The photos were quite fascinating and I knew they would be of interest to others, so I found a website about the place where he was stationed, judiciously and tediously transcribed something like four years of almost-daily letters and scanned all the photos. The website owner was delighted to post everything and as a result I get regular inquiries about the material. The best inquiry, though, was from one of the sons of that soldier (by his second wife). The son's wife was surfing the internet and found the letters and photos. Only very shortly before their father died the sons learn about the first wife, so I sent him the scan of their father's first-wedding photo. The sons also knew virtually nothing of the father's military service and certainly knew nothing of the existence of the photos and letters, as I bought them from the first wife's estate. The son immediately notified his brothers and children and apparently they search through and read everything regularly. I am so grateful they found it. Oh, and after I transcribed and scanned everything I donated it all to a university library collection near where he was stationed. Just this week a researcher contacted me about the material and will go to the university to search the items.
     
  14. moreotherstuff

    moreotherstuff Izorizent

    Not philanthropic, but a box for The Seven Sutherland Sisters Hair Fertilizer that I sold on eBay later appeared in an 2006 award winning art installation.

    http://www.friezeprojects.org/index.php?/cartier/category/year_2006/

    The photo of the box in that article is a combination of my photos used in the eBay sale.

    Maybe it was only the photos that were used.
     
  15. komokwa

    komokwa The Truth is out there...!

    On a lesser note.....
    One day a guy waltzes into my Gallery with a juvenile Narwhal tusk , all of 30 inches that was shipped from the north and went unclaimed at a small nearby airport.
    I bought it on the spot for $300.
    It sat for many years behind my desk & I used it for show & tell with clients and school classes.
    I couldn't keep my hands off it and one day it cracked badly at the point were the tusk protrudes from the creatures head.

    Long story short , I gifted the whole thing to a Mi'kmah artist friend of mine, knowing he would give item the respect it deserved by using it in his one of a kind dream catchers , for which he had become famous .

    Months passed and he called me to come to the Mohawk reserve across the river where he had his home & atelier.

    Once there he showed me a wonderful artwork that included the major part of the tusk......& I couldn't have been happier !

    Then he sat me down, opened a wrapped up deer hide & to my delight thanked me and presented me with this.......

    A hand hammered copper blade, with a Labradorite pommel !!!

    & the remains of the tusk....as the handle ! nicky9.JPG nicky5.JPG nicky6.JPG nicky7.JPG nicky8.JPG
     
  16. evelyb30

    evelyb30 Well-Known Member

    ((glorp)) Now that's what I call a nice present! I donate extras to local charity thrifts regularly. My favorite though went to a local teacher. I'd been out tag saling on a Saturday as usual, and at the end of the run stopped at a sale that didn't look too promising. Kid stuff would be an understatement. I picked up a pile, because Operation Christmas Child could use it (shoeboxes of goodies and toiletries sent to kids in refugee camps, third world countries, etc) and told the guy what I was up to. He promptly donated the stuff I'd picked up. We got to talking about where it all came from, and it turned out he was the art teacher for several local elementary schools. For some reason Japanese wood block came into the conversation too and he mentioned he loved them but had never owned one. A few hours later, a light bulb went off. I'd bought a modern one of an apprentice geisha, and hadn't been able to get it to sell on Ebay. I'd opened the frame but never resealed it - just as well, because this way you could see the back too and see more of how it was done. The Maiko in her frame went into a bag, and the next time I went past the house I dropped it with a note explaining what it was and where it came from. From the thank-you note I got back, the guy probably just about passed out when he opened the bag.

    One scarf I had out for sale ended up, I'm told, as the cover art for a book on scarves, but the geisha was better.
     
  17. rhiwfield

    rhiwfield Well-Known Member

    Once bought a WWI Goss plate "To Cook a German".

    Here's an example.

    Sold it to a man who used it as a centrepiece for an exhibition to commemorate the centenary of the start of the war last year, and to raise funds for the British Legion.
     
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  18. say_it_slowly

    say_it_slowly The worst prison is a closed heart

    I guess the closest I've come to museum donations I haven't actually donated yet. I have four whole 18th C plates that match some archaeological sherds uncovered at a famous site in VA. I've verbally promised them when I get ready to disperse my collections.

    Other than that I donate eggs to the local food bank when my hens are laying as well as lots of the usual misc stuff.

    Doesn't really measure up to some of your great stories, hats off to you!
     
  19. gregsglass

    gregsglass Well-Known Member

    Hi,
    The only museum piece I have is the paper weight from the opening of the World Trader Center. If you all remember I was holding it in my hand putting in on eBay when the attack occurred. I have had three places asking me to give it to them, one even offered to pay the postage. No others have ever turned up, I guess they were lost when the towers fell. I had an offer of a lot of money the first year I was thinking of offering for sale. I really needed the money then but I turned it down. It just did not seem right. I guess I might donate to the Museum of the WTC but with them charging a ridiculous price to ride to the top of the building and even more to visit the museum. It just doesn't seem right. It has turned into a real problem for me, I am hoping one of my family will make the choice for me.
    greg
     
  20. Pat P

    Pat P Well-Known Member

    This is a "where things end up" rather than a donation thing...

    When I was in my 20s, I sold jewelry that I had made to several women's clothing stores in the Boston area. One of my antique-looking bib-type choker necklaces was bought by the arts and entertainment reporter for a Boston TV station, Pat Mitchell and, to my delight, I happened to see her wearing it on TV. She later became a talk show host, and still later the CEO of PBS. I've always wondered if she ever wore the necklace again.

    Sort of related and one of those odd coincidences that can happen... 20 or so years ago, I sold some items on consignment in a little Christmas gift shop in a nearby small town, including wool berets that I had decorated with embroidery. Lo and behold, my husband's coworker (who lived in Boston, an hour from us) received a Christmas gift from a friend of hers purchased in that little store... one of my berets!
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2015
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