AmeriCollector.com

On Dec. 30 I posted a blog about British historian M. J. “Mei” Trow and his candidate for the Whitechapel murderer who terrorized London in 1888: the maniac better known as Jack the Ripper. Trow’s findings are largely founded on the relatively new criminal investigative concept of “geographic profiling” – by which the area where [...]

I just got word that the 1,421 lots that the Alexander Autographs auction of Jan. 20 and 21, blogged on AmeriCollector.com on Jan. 19, realized more than a million bucks.
“Once again we saw very spirited bidding for fresh, high-quality material,” says Bill Panagopulos, president of Alexander Autographs, located in Stamford, Conn. “Collectors and investors never [...]

When I was in high school in the early 1970s, I recall my English teacher talking about how she was reading William Peter Blatty’s novel “The Exorcist” on a long car trip home: While her husband drove, she sat in the front passenger’s seat with a flashlight, so completely caught up in the book that [...]

Charismatic, inquisitive, intelligent, enthusiastic – did I neglect to say telegenic? – Elyse Luray, like her three fellow investigators on the PBS series “History Detectives", brings to the field of history all the energy, relevance and wonder that somehow got bled out of it in too many junior high and high school classrooms.
You can tell [...]

At 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 3, 1885, a mob of several hundred men marched through Tacoma’s Chinese community, rousting its last 200 residents and herding them nine miles south to the Lake View train station, in what is now Lakewood, as policemen and sheriff’s deputies looked on. After spending a cold, rainy night, many in [...]

Thanks to you, AmeriCollector.com now has a loyal readership, and it's growing daily: We had over 18,000 visitors last week, which is hugely gratifying.
At a juncture like this, I can’t help but think it’s the ideal time to reaffirm our mission: to provide a fun, interesting, informative venue of interest to collectors in a wide [...]

What is it that makes the Pacific Northwest a little wild, a little woolly – and sometimes downright creepy?
The first time I ever visited Seattle, in 1992, I went into a T-shirt shop to buy souvenirs and struck up a conversation with the salesgirl and another customer, both Puget Sound natives. Being from out of [...]

If eBay is any indicator, the collectibles market is heating up again: I’ve noted a lot of interesting stuff and some vigorous bidding of late, a sure sign that the economy is improving. And while a lot of folks aren’t out of the woods yet, financially – many are downsizing their collections because they were [...]

If you’re not already on the “Antiques Roadshow” e-mail list – or have never checked out Antiques Roadshow Online on the PBS Web site (www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow) – you’re missing out on lots of great information: profiles of the appraisers and their past appraisals; recommended reading by subject; even a teacher’s guide with featured objects to get [...]

Serial murderers, including serial murderers with sexual motivation, have terrorized humanity since time immemorial; we just don’t know to what extent. The vampire and werewolf legends of lore no doubt account for many of these, and I think it’s interesting that a recent medical theory attributes some historical cases of vampirism to rabies infection: It [...]