AmeriCollector.com

If Great-Granddad was a ship captain – or just an armchair adventurer with a real nice library – and you have old nautical books, logs or charts that you want to sell, Greg Gibson of Ten Pound Island Book Company (www.tenpound.com) of Gloucester, Mass., may be the man to contact: He’s looking to purchase good, [...]

Old photos: part I Ever seen a ghost? The next time you look at a 19th-century portrait photo, look real hard: You may feel closer to the vale than you ever thought you would. Maybe it’s the moody monochromatic tones, the frozen stares – seldom a smile in those days (at least, not for the [...]

Mount Rainier … Mount Saint Helens … the Space Needle … Microsoft … Costco … Amazon.com … Washington State is famous for lots of stuff, but the world never seems to get enough of D. B. Cooper. In case you haven’t yet recharged your memory with a morning Doubleshot at that other Washington icon (the [...]

One such person is Marc Blau. Born and raised in Tacoma’s North End, Marc is a graduate of Stadium High School and the University of Washington (where he earned a B.A. in recreational planning and administration) who worked for Pierce County Parks & Recreation for 31 years (retiring in 2004), managed Sprinker Recreation Center and the Lakewood Community Center and is now a sales associate for Winning Seasons, a screen print and embroidery business in Lakewood.

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.

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 [...]

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 [...]

Interview with Washington State History Museum curator Gwen Perkins. Sasquatch exhibit comes to WSHM in Tacoma WA

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 [...]