AmeriCollector.com

A boxing scholar and dealer in vintage books on boxing, Moyle is the right guy to rescue Langford from the oblivion that the fighter sank into during his own lifetime. Between 1902 and 1926, Langford fought some 304 bouts, winning 202 (130 by knockouts), losing 47 (nine by KOs) and drawing in 45. Both Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey were loath to get in the ring with him, but Langford’s inability to get a title shot condemned him to the obscurity of those who “coulda been a contender”: In 1944, he was discovered living, blind and penniless, in a fleabag hotel in Harlem. Asked how he could remain upbeat, Langford said he had his guitar … and his memories.

We’ve have been getting interesting feedback to the first two blogs in the “Dealing with dealers” series on AmeriCollector.com – very positive feedback from people who want to sell their items … and a wall of silence from dealers. One fellow who I much respected back in the 1980s as a fair, reputable seller and [...]

To me, a tattoo is the ultimate collectible. This is not just because a tattoo is an expression of the wearer’s identity but also because it becomes part of a person’s life story: a visible milestone marking who that person was when he or she got “inked.”

After you learn as much as you possibly can about an item you want to sell or consign, the next step is finding a prospective buyer or an auction house that will not just put your treasure on the block but get you a good price for it. In order to advance to that stage, [...]

More and more often, we at AmeriCollector.com are receiving e-mails from readers with specific items they are interested in selling or at least valuing. For example, recently a gentleman e-mailed me to say he has a Union Pacific Railroad poster dated 1869 and asking how to determine its value, and a woman asked me about [...]

Chuck Messinger did something I really admire: He ditched a 15-year career in business manager to follow his heart, opening Comic Evolution in Puyallup in 2007. A comic book collector since 1983, Chuck stocks a plethora of new and vintage comic books, graphic novels, computer games, limited-edition and original artwork, books – even family-friendly board games, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]