They might be GIANTS
Bigfoot exhibit at Washington State History Museum is bound to leave an impression

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 the area, I asked what Washington State was like, and for some reason the conversation drifted to serial killers: The salesgirl, I think, remarked that (at that time) Washington had an estimated higher percentage of them than any of the other 49 states. When I asked why, the other customer cited factors that seemed to conducive to multiple murderers: the rain, the many heavily wooded, unpopulated areas … and the belief that it’s more “socially acceptable” to be a loner in the Northwest than elsewhere.

But I didn’t mean to cast a pall on your day: This blog is not about crime. However, I can’t help but think the above observation helps explain another scary (sort of) Northwest phenomenon: that large, hairy walking cliché we know as Bigfoot, Sasquatch (from a Salishan term for “wild man”) and Skookum (another Salishan term, translated as “mountain giant” or “mountain devil” – although in the Chinook language it can be an adjective with such nice connotations as “big,” “strong,” “dependable” and “hardworking,” like Mr. Clean or Fess Parker, star of the TV series “Davy Crockett”).

It’s easy for us world-weary twenty-first-century Internet travelers to call the Sasquatch stories a lot of bunkum (NOT a Salishan word), although the Indian legends may go back millennia, and reported sightings by white people – starting with fur traders in British Columbia in the 1880s – are certainly reliable if it could ever be proven that the eyewitnesses weren’t drunk and/or lonesome and in need of companionship, if you know what I mean.

Or maybe that’s the key: I note that two of the more prominent Sasquatch Web sites – the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, or BFRO (www.bfro.net), and the Seattle-based Sasquatch Information Society (www.bigfootinfo.org) – both report a preponderance of the nation’s “sightings” having been made in Washington State (most of which involve just footprints, says the Sasquatch Information Society, with the notation “Record has not been validated or is being studied”), and a plurality of those occurring (in descending order) in Skamania, Pierce, King, Snohomish and Lewis counties. In fact, only last August, according to the BFRO, a King County man reported seeing a “large, hair-covered figure while riding on train near the Cascade Tunnel.”

August, of course, was the month that the Washington State Liquor Control Board hiked the price of booze 6.5 percent, so clearly someone got a few shots in before last call. Expect a hell of a lot more sightings once the state legalizes pot.

And yet, goofiness aside, look what happened with Roswell and so many other cockamamie UFO sightings: Those people all insisted they KNEW what they had witnessed, with the conspiracy theorists among them asserting that the government was covering up close encounters of the third kind (not just Jack Kennedy’s and Bill Clinton’s). Meanwhile, the more cynical among us – including myself, standing uncomfortably alongside conspiracy theorists on the other end of the spectrum – were convinced that there was nothing extraterrestrial about flying saucers. We WERE still fighting the Cold War, weren’t we? No doubt, the Pentagon was up to something – and covering it up, for obvious reasons…

We were ALL right, to a greater or lesser degree: Most of the documented sightings of flying saucers WERE real – they just weren’t alien craft – and the military DID have something under wraps all those years. Turns out, the Nazis had been experimenting with the aeronautical possibilities of flying discs and flying wings for some time. In the spring of 1945, as the Third Reich crashed and burned, U.S. forces captured as many eager German weapons scientists and as much of their research as possible before the Soviets could; then OUR scientists picked up the ball – or the Frisbee, in this case – and ran with it for a few decades. (Behold: the Stealth bomber.)

Getting back to Bigfoot: Did the hunters and trappers and trekkers and picnickers really stumble across the spirits of Native American lore in those dripping Northwest forests – or were they the spirits in a bottle of backwoods hooch, the bugbears of white people with overactive imaginations and too much free time? Were they sightings of true biological missing links – a human subspecies that refused to go extinct – or of some ageing hippies who missed the exit to Olympia and decided to homestead in the woods? And is the correct plural “Bigfeet”?

We may never know for sure, but anyone with a passing interest in huge unidentified bipeds will surely find the new exhibit “Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch” at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma (Jan. 23 to June 27) intriguing, entertaining and educational. Taking a broad look at “the Sasquatch phenomenon” (per the museum press release), “Giants in the Mountains” draws on all the various aspects of the subject – the legends, the sightings, the hoaxes and the legitimate scientific research – and includes visuals ranging from Native American artifacts to contemporary artistic depictions to physical evidence collected by the late anthropologist Dr. Grover Krantz and Idaho State University professor/Discovery Channel expert Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum.

I asked “Giants of the Mountains” curator Gwen Perkins, specialist for school and online programs at the Washington State History Museum, about the exhibit:

AmeriCollector: There was a Sasquatch exhibit at the State Capital Museum in Olympia a couple of years ago. Is this different?

Gwen Perkins: “Giants in the Mountains” is the same exhibit that was at the State Capital Museum. However, we have added new artifacts for the show, due to the increased space in Tacoma. Among some of the new things visitors will see will be more casts from Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, a “tree twist-off” and native masks from the collections of the Washington State Historical Society and the Burke Museum. We were also fortunate to be able to include illustrations by artist Rick Spears, illustrator for “Tales of the Cryptids.”

AC: Do you have a personal historical or anthropological interest in the Sasquatch legends and sightings? Did you volunteer to curate this exhibit?

Gwen: The exhibit itself was actually organized by the Washington State Historical Society, with myself as lead curator.

The idea of doing a Sasquatch exhibit was birthed after I had done a significant amount of research for one of our school programs here, in which a professional actor portrayed Dr. Grover Krantz and allowed students to ask him questions. Not long after that, the State Capital Museum in Olympia was trying to decide on a major exhibit for their museum. Sasquatch was suggested, due to the popularity of that presentation and staff members’ interest in the subject.

The exhibit premiered in Olympia in 2007. It did very well at that museum and so we wanted to bring it to Tacoma in order to give more people a chance to see it, examine what’s on display and draw their own conclusions. We’re all excited to see it back, particularly those of us who were involved in the original exhibit curation and programming. The Sasquatch community is a great group of people: One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about this subject is the opportunity to connect with visitors from across the nation.

The exhibit also coincides with another on display called “Icons of Washington History.” After all, what better icon of the Pacific Northwest can you think of than Sasquatch? (That’s my opinion, of course.) But one of the other points of the exhibit that I wanted visitors to understand is how far-reaching stories of Sasquatch really are, not only in terms of place but time as well. So while it’s seen as a regional story to many Washingtonians, the exhibit itself also explains that there have been stories and reported sightings of this being that go back hundreds of years.

AC: Does the exhibit lean toward belief or skepticism, or does it intend to present both sides of the subject and let the visitor decide?

Gwen: The exhibit does not take one point of view or another. We present the story of this being and leave it up to the visitor to draw their own conclusions.

AC: Have there been any recent sightings, and what individuals or agencies keep tabs on these?

Gwen: Sightings of Sasquatch are reported constantly and across the nation. One of the organizations most diligent in tracking these sightings is the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. They have a web site where they track sightings across the nation: As I type this, Washington has had 479 reported incidences since September of 2007. BFRO is just one of a number of groups that shares information. There are several websites and blogs devoted to Sasquatch: Cryptomundo (www.Cryptomundo.com), Bigfoot Times (www.BigfootTimes.net), Oregon Bigfoot (www.OregonBigfoot.com) and North American Bigfoot (www.NorthAmericanBigfoot.blogspot.com), just to name a couple. These groups aren’t all in the Northwest, either: One of the most active is located in Texas – the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservatory (www.TexasBigfoot.org).

AC: What do Native Americans of the Western Washington tribes think of the interest in Sasquatch? Are there any investigators/proponents among them?

Gwen: I think that you will find there is just as much diversity of opinion among the tribes as in any community as to whether or not Sasquatch exists but also as to which form this being takes. I have met some who are out there actively investigating Sasquatch but many more who perceive this being as part of the environment and the natural cycle of life. I have also met Native Americans who were not believers as well.

Decide for yourself. The Washington State History Museum is located at 1911 Pacific Ave., in downtown Tacoma, right off 1-5. Hours are Wed. to Fri. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (with extended hours and free admission every third Thursday from 2 to 8 p.m.); Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults; $7 for seniors (age 60 and above); and $6 for students and military with valid ID. Children (age 5 and below) and members are FREE. For more information, call (888) BE-THERE or visit www.WashingtonHistory.org.

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Drawing by Rick Spears/Darby Creek Publishing and are from “Tales of the Cryptids” by Kelly Milner Halls. (Rick Spears)

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Images courtesy of Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science

Washington State History Museum: Sasquatch Press Release

Purchase Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, by Dr. Jeffery Medlrum

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Auction alert: January R & R Auction ends this Wednesday!

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 downsized themselves at work – at least we’re not reliving the Great Depression, with soup lines and dust bowls and old ladies selling pencils on street corners (although I was hoping certain culpable Wall Street speculators would oblige us by taking swan dives out of high windows).

All of this is good news for sellers, the needy and the greedy alike. For buyers, it means that great deals are going to get harder to find: If you’re actively building your collection – and who isn’t, at least in spirit? – this is the time to be vigilant.

In the coming months here on AmeriCollector.com, you can look forward to notices of auctions worth checking out both for the uniqueness of the lots and the chance to nab a fine item at a good price.

This week, have a look at the R & R Auction (www.rrauction.com) January autograph auction, which closes Wed., Jan. 13 (the 10-minute rule starts at 10 p.m. EST). The buyer’s premium is 20 percent, and there are both high- and low-end items and, as of this writing, plenty that have no opening bids (which usually start at $100). Here’s a sampling across the price range:

• A pretty unbelievable album of autographs collected by the wife of a major general in the Civil War, containing more than 200 signatures of 19th-century notables. The collection includes three presidents, officers on both Union and Confederate sides, statesmen, authors and other. Among them: Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Johnson, James A. Garfield, John C. Fremont, William T. Sherman, Philip H. Sheridan, William S. Rosencrans, Carl Schurz, Daniel E. Sickles, Henry W. Slocum, Lew Wallace, P. G. T. Beauregard, Nathaniel P. Banks, Henry Ward Beecher, Salmon P. Chase, Schuyler Colfax, Horace Greeley, Edward Stanton, William H. Seward, “Billy” Sunday, Gideon Welles and Thaddeus Stevens. Now at $1,612; next bid $1,774.

• A copy of mobster Mickey Cohen’s autobiography “In My Own Words” with an autograph note to a collector tipped in. Cohen had been a prizefighter in an earlier life, and I think it ironic that his handwriting – like that of some other pugs, like Jack Dempsey in his younger years – has a loopy, schoolgirlish look. Who woulda thought it? Now at $100; next bid $110.

• A great Walt Disney signed typed letter, on his personal letterhead and dated Dec. 1, 1941, to Louis Desser, managing editor of the Hollywood Star-News. It talks about the newspaper’s good review of “Dumbo,” and Disney encloses payment for a three-year subscription for Spencer Tracy’s son, a private-school student. Now at $2,716; next bid $2,988.

• Various Charles Schulz signed items, from inscribed “Peanuts” books (bidding unopened at $100) to a hand-inked comic strip panel from 1971 featuring Snoopy at his typewriter (now $15,700; next bid $17,270).

• Seven pages of diagrams annotated by former Major League catcher/OSS agent Moe Berg and Swiss physicist Paul Scherrer detailing atomic chain reactions. Dated Dec. 26, 1944, this precedes the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan by eight months. An amazing piece of World War II and science history (now $888; next bid $977).

• Beautiful satin-finish 8×10 color photo Yankees sluggers Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, signed in blue felt-tip (now $862; next bid $949).

• Two signed 8×10 photos of Michael Jackson, one with him posing with a whole bunch of cops (both now at $267; next bid $294).

• A 1955 songbook titled “The Elvis Presley Album of Juke Box Favorites,” signed “Yours, Elvis Presley.” Some condition issues, but on the 75th anniversary of the King’s birth, it already has 19 bidders (now $1,952; next bid $2,148).

• A George Gershwin cancelled personal check for $25, dated Oct. 26, 1935 ($294; next bid $324).

• A black-and-white 11×14 portrait of star-crossed Seattle-born actress Frances Farmer, inscribed in fountain pen “To Fred, with all love and gratitude, Frances” (now $900; next bid $990).

A framed autograph, especially a photo, makes a great Valentine’s Day gift. Remember, you have to register to bid.

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Photos courtesy of R&R Auctions, www.rrauction.com.

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The Ripper reexamined: Historian Mei Trow reveals a new, viable suspect for London murders

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 seems that humans who contract the virus have been known not merely to bite a lot but to have supercharged, insatiable sex drives. Think what you like, it had to have been a lousy way to go, for everyone involved.

But I don’t mean to be flip. In this age of advanced communications, we are used to knowing – or being able to access – the news any time we want it and, with simulcasts, even as it happens. The same goes for crime forensics: Who knew even 25 years ago that DNA analysis would be so widely and routinely used to identify perpetrators and discount innocent suspects? Yet, 1,200 or even 120 years ago, what reasonable explanation or law-enforcement measures could be offered when, one by one, people suddenly went missing or turned up mutilated in a remote area of China or Peru or France or Russia?

Or Victorian England … That’s where the most notorious, the most enduring series of murders (in terms of the public consciousness) took place within a few short months in 1888, in an area of London called Whitechapel, by a butcher who fearful Britons would nickname and the world would come to know as Jack the Ripper. At least, in the teeming capital of the British Empire, news traveled fast, and any supernatural theories – if any were offered – fell before modern psychology. And while I would point out that Bram Stoker knew his audience when he published “Dracula” nine years later (in 1897), in the waning years of the 19th century, modern, enlightened Londoners knew Jack was no vampire but a very human and very dangerous nutcase. The fact that the murderer was never caught or his identity conclusively confirmed ensured that “Ripperology” would be a rich subject for writers and filmmakers to mine for the next century; I’m certain it will remain so for at least one more.

I won’t recount the five horrific murders of prostitutes that have been “canonically” (according to the Wikipedia entry) attributed to this particular deviant: All the gruesome details, including a number of hideous police photos, can readily be found online, along with some theories linking subsequent murders to the Ripper and others, ranging from the cockeyed to the credible, suggesting any number of contemporary and new suspects as the killer. There have also been a couple of pretty fascinating programs about the case on the Discovery Channel, one of which submits that Jack booked passage to the United States and resumed his killing spree in New York City. Another, “Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed,” which I find even more compelling, is based on the book “Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer” (Barnsley, U.K.: Wharncliffe Publishing, Nov. 2009) by British historian and former high school teacher M. J. (“Mei”) Trow, who has written a slew of mystery novels as well as historical studies of Spartacus, the 11th-century Spanish nobleman Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (“El Cid”) and Vlad III (a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler, the 15th-century Wallachian prince on whom the character Dracula was based).

In a nutshell, Trow has gone through the published records of the Ripper murders and identified an overlooked individual, Robert Mann, as a very likely possibility for Jack. A workhouse inmate employed as a mortuary attendant, Mann was called to testify at the first two inquests (in the slayings of Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman) but was disoriented and incoherent – which not discounted him as a credible witness but also failed to raise a red flag, so to speak, that Mann might have had something to do with the crimes. What’s more, using the modern investigative procedure of geographic profiling pioneered by Canadian police investigator Kim Rossmo – whose amazing mathematical system can show on a map where a serial killer likely lives and/or works, based on the locations of the crime scenes, with a success rate as high as 85 percent – Trow demonstrates that (1) both Mann’s living quarters and the mortuary where he worked fell well within the high-probability area for the Ripper’s home turf, and (2) based on where the victims were discovered, Mann would have been well aware that at least two of the bodies would be brought to the very same mortuary where he worked, giving him more opportunity to gloat over his handiwork (in his 1999 book “Geographical Profiling,” Rossmo has written that 22 percent of serial killers return to their victims’ dump sites).

Why do I blog on a Jack the Ripper investigation? Because I believe that collecting – of objects or information – should be an intellectual adventure, a quest to discover something new and interesting or even momentous. We are always hearing of “cold” cases that are not just revisited but solved, and the perpetrators brought to justice decades after committing their crimes; of recent archaeological discoveries that force us to revise conventional views of people and events in the distant past; of newly found books and letters and photographs long buried in library stacks and archives that add something surprising to subjects we thought we knew all about. I think Mei Trow’s research, based as it is on new methodology, can broaden any collector’s or armchair historian’s or even criminal investigator’s vistas.

Here’s my recent interview with the author. If you have any specific questions or original research on Jack the Ripper, you can contact Trow at isjack@live.co.uk.

AmeriCollector: Is there still a lot of interest in Jack the Ripper among Britons and Londoners in particular?

Mei Trow: The Ripper crimes form the basis of an ongoing industry, especially in London itself, where there are nightly tours of the murder sites and other related areas. Although Ripperology now has an international dimension – Jack is famous throughout the world – it is inevitable that the real focus of interest should be in the place where the crimes were carried out. Bookshops throughout Britain that contain true, crime sections invariably have books on Jack, and The Whitechapel Society with its regular periodical sends out to a wide fan base.

AC: Is this still considered an open case by the police? Are there officers assigned to the case to assist researchers, or do some do it purely out of personal interest?

Mei: There is a general belief that no unsolved case is ever closed, but that is simply not true. The Ripper case was officially closed in 1892, although documentation relating to it has survived to the present day. There is therefore no dedicated team of serving police officers working on the case, although several retired policemen have gone into print with various suspects.

AC: The online edition of the Daily Mail (Oct. 2009) indicates you have been actively focusing on Robert Mann as a suspect for the past two years. When and how did you have an “Ah ha!” moment when Mann appeared to you as a viable perpetrator of the crime? Did anyone at all suspect him at the time?

Mei: The “Ah ha!” moment probably came when I realized that Mann had been abandoned in the workhouse as a child by his mother, who would have been in her forties at the time. This corresponds not only to the ages of all his victims (except Mary Kelly) but is also consonant with behavioral psychologists’ ideas of serial killer motive. The fact that Robert Mann was dismissed as being liable to fits and therefore unreliable as a witness at the inquest into Annie Chapman means that he was never seriously considered as a suspect. Four of his seven victims were brought to his mortuary, and the idea of a disturbed mortuary attendant first surfaced in the profiling carried in 1988 by John Douglas of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico.

AC: In “Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed” on the Discovery Channel, it was pointed out that Mann was called to testify in the Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman inquests. Yet, was he not merely a workhouse inmate assisting in a mortuary and, one would assume, assisting a doctor performing autopsies? Why would he have been called as a witness? Would his responsibilities in a mortuary gone beyond moving corpses around and cleaning up? Could he have gotten actual training in opening up bodies?

Mei: I think it unlikely that Mann would have received any formal training but he would have been on hand to observe autopsies at close hand. We know from other sources that he was trusted to go out of the workhouse to collect corpses, so he is not merely “moving bodies around” in the confines of his own mortuary. Anyone connected with the deceased, from relatives and friends to any eyewitnesses, the police and auxiliary staff (e.g., Mann), would be called to an inquest as a matter of routine.

AC: At the time of the murders, Whitechapel was an impoverished area where many immigrants lived, and in fact there were some immigrants on the list of suspects. Mann was supposedly born in Mile End New Town around 1835, yet Mann is a German name, and he was called Mansel in one account. Is it possible that he was in fact an immigrant? Would that be relevant to the investigation?

Mei: I do not believe that Mann was an immigrant but the fact that his father was a weaver may imply that the family were among the religiously persecuted Huguenots who emigrated to England for safety in the 17th century. Although largely French, some of these Huguenots would have lived along the Rhineland border with Germany. The name Mansel and Marne, which is also ascribed to him, are simply careless work by British journalists.

AC: Your belief in the authenticity of the “From Hell” Ripper letter (sent to Scotland Yard with part of a victim’s kidney) was pretty compelling: The handwriting, spelling and other characteristics seemed uncontrived. Are there no confirmed writing samples belonging to Robert Mann that might be compared to the letter to prove Mann had written it? (Mann would have been about 54 at the time of the murders.)

Mei: Nothing has come to light yet. My belief is that he probably received a rudimentary education at what in England were called National Schools (for ages five to 10) and thereafter as a child in the workhouse might have received continuing educational basics after that. It is unlikely he would be required to write anything, even in the context of his job as mortuary attendant. Since he never married, we do not even have a signature on marriage records.

AC: Is there any Ripper material that, in your opinion, has not been adequately examined and that may conceivably yield more leads?

Mei: There has been so much research into this case especially over the last 50 years that I doubt whether anything has yet to surface. Having said that, to give you one example, the autopsy notes on Mary Kelly compiled by Dr. Thomas Bond had gone missing and were posted anonymously to Scotland Yard in 1987. A number of items from the original police investigation have gone missing and have not been returned. It was not the custom of any British police force to keep artifacts from cases after they were closed. The exhibits in Scotland Yard’s Black Museum are there almost by accident.

AC: Are there other avenues that you are pursuing that may help confirm or discount Robert Mann as a suspect?

Mei: It would be great to learn more about Mann’s childhood and how other people (e.g., workhouse inmates) regarded him. Unfortunately, people of this class were usually illiterate and so left nothing in the way of letters, diaries, etc.

AC: You have said that we will probably never know conclusively who Jack the Ripper really was. Have you ever brainstormed with other Ripper investigators, either privately or in a panel discussion, on your respective preferred suspects? Are Ripper investigators very competitive about their findings, or do you ever collaborate?

Mei: I would love to take part in a television debate of this kind. However, I suspect we would all end up shouting at each other and achieving no consensus!

AC: Certainly, modern forensic technology (like plotting on a map the likely area where a killer lives or works, based on the murder locations) has helped your investigation. Are there other aspects of the “Internet Age” that have been of special value to you in your research?

Mei: Many records, such as census information and workhouse details, are now available online. Although all these exist in various libraries and institutions around the country, to be able to work on them at the press of a button is obviously a huge advantage. I must mention the excellent Casebook: Jack the Ripper site (www.Casebook.org), which contains a mass of material collated by Ripperologists and forms a basis for ongoing research.

AC: Do you ever receive viable ideas or leads from amateur investigators? Are there many collectors of Ripper lore, and what do their collections comprise? Have you encountered many people with a strictly sordid fixation on the case?

Mei: There is a body of Ripper-related material – the first full book on the murders was written in 1908 – and there are people who collect anything to do with the case. I myself have 20-plus books written from a number of different angles. Undoubtedly, there are people obsessed with the murders purely because of their grisly nature. The same people probably collect details from the lives of Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, etc.

AC: There have been some very graphic crime photos of Ripper victims in books and even on TV: The Mary Kelly murder scene is a case in point. Yet, “Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed” showed only the faces of some of the dead victims. Was this intended to de-sensationalize the subject and focus more on the investigatory aspects of the story?

Mei: Yes, this decision was taken by the program’s director because we wanted to focus on the new suspect and the mechanics of finding him. Having said that, I think the dramatic reconstructions were very vivid and caught something of the horror of the original.

AC: Many people nowadays – adults as well as younger people – express no interest in history; many have negative memories of history class from their schooldays. Are you still a high school history teacher, and does your writing inspire your students to pursue historical subjects?

Mei: I gave up teaching last year to pursue writing, TV appearances, etc., and I like to think that a lot of students remember my lessons with interest and affection. It is all too common an experience that a fascinating subject is killed stone dead by a boring teacher; I hope I was never one of those. Yesterday, I received a phone call from a student of mine of over 30 years ago asking me to contribute to a forthcoming TV history program. This has nothing to do with Jack, but he told me that the first lesson he had with me, which was an introduction to the problems of historical research, was about the Ripper.

AC: What’s your next project?

Mei: At the moment I am updating my biography of Vlad the Impaler to take into account the new wave of interest in vampires.

_______________________________________

Book by Mei Trow:
JACK THE RIPPER: QUEST FOR A KILLER

Have you read “Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer”? We welcome your impressions of Mei Trow’s book. Please post here or send them, along with a line or two about yourself, to LetsCollect@AmeriCollector.com.

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Old news is good news for collectors

Newspapers are what my one of my favorite history professors termed “primary sources”: Like diaries, photographs, documents and other artifacts, they are original historical material as opposed to a second- or third-hand description of events plus any number of add-ons and asides, which is what most history books are.

A newspaper – taking into account the speed of communication at the time it was published – is about as immediate as you can get.

Add to that the fact that newspapers, like books, can touch on virtually any collecting field, and you can understand why I like to tell fellow collectors about Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers (www.rarenewspapers.com).

Imagine the possibilities …

Let’s say you collect dolls: I searched with the keyword “dolls” and got found a Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper from Jan. 3, 1891, with a full front page titled “Distribution of Dolls to the Children of Hope Chapel, a Branch of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church,” showing young girls receiving their dolls with Santa Claus in the background: spine wear and a few edge tears, priced at $38.

OK, say you collect Santa Claus: Tim has a whole bunch of examples. A rarer one is a Harper’s Weekly from Jan. 3, 1863, with a full front-page Thomas Nast illustration of “Santa Claus in Camp” – Nast’s first Santa to appear in Harper’s. (For you Civil War buffs, inside there are two half-page illustrations on the same page depicting “The Attack on the Rebel Works at Fredericksburg by the Centre Grand Division of the Army of the Potomac, on December 13, 1862.”) Price: $260. (A Harper’s Weekly from Dec. 15, 1888, with a double-page centerfold image of “Santa Claus Captured” – with Saint Nick on a rooftop surrounded by kids – and a “very handsome” full front page image showing people going to church on Christmas Eve is only $38.)

Whether you’re into militaria or maritime memorabilia, famous people or infamous crimes, baseball or boxing, African-American history or Judaica – or just old newspapers from a geographical area – you’re bound to find something that will not only interest you but enhance your collection.

What’s more, I’ve known Tim for several years and purchased from him and his people on a number occasions, and I’ve always been impressed by their goods, their excellent customer service and their great shipping.

Tim’s Web site has lots of information on collecting vintage newspapers, but I asked him some basic questions for AmeriCollector.com readers:

AmeriCollector: What newspapers do you yourself collect: ones from a specific region or era or pertaining to a certain subject? Or are newspapers in general your collecting “area” and you just like the rarest, most historic items?

Tim Hughes: If I had to be pinned down to a specific era of most interest I would have to say the Revolutionary War, as I am fascinated by its events and how it shaped the future of the United States … and the incredible odds against which Washington and others persevered and ultimately defeated the most powerful military in the world at that time.
But one of the great aspects of this hobby as there are so many possibilities of what to collect – I love to hang on to anything I find unusual, incredibly displayable and particularly rare. My private collection includes a wide range of eras, events, sizes, colors, formats and items of historical significance. Virtually every event in world history over the past 350 years can be found in a newspaper. I love the variety this hobby makes available!

AC: What are the collecting areas within the hobby?

Tim: The areas of collecting within the hobby are almost endless. Whatever interest one has in history early newspapers will provide a channel for collecting. Many customers will specialize: British history; American wars; significant political events; gangsters and outlaws; significant documents in history (usually published in period newspapers); great disasters; etc., etc. But one of the great appeals is that collecting rare newspapers is often a complementary or crossover hobby to many others: Those who collect autographs will buy newspapers with significant events about those whose autographs they treasure; Civil War buffs will buy Civil War newspaper; political junkies will buy presidential elections, inaugurations and deaths; antique car collectors will buy newspapers with ads of when their pride and joy was first marketed; coin collectors will buy newspapers of when new coin designs were introduced (usually announced in period newspapers); and on and on. Rare newspapers can complement every hobby known to man.

AC: What are some of the interesting collecting areas of some of your customers?

Tim: See above for some themes of several of our collectors. Others are a bit more focused: only major battles of the Revolutionary War; major battles of the Civil War; any huge, displayable headline; significant events from the city where they happened; one issue for every year from as far back as possible; issues with engravings of eagles in the masthead … One customer only buys newspapers which show “shaking hands” in the masthead: Now, that’s focused!

AC: How extensive is the hobby of collecting rare newspapers? Are there any other dealers at all who specialize in this?

Tim: Collecting early and rare newspapers is a relatively small and somewhat unknown hobby. We’ve been in this business for 32 years and I’d guess there are no more than two or three thousand serious collectors worldwide. People are absolutely intrigued when they discover we exist and discover that newspapers over 300 years old can be had for less than $50, let alone are available at all. There are three or four others who also sell early newspapers on a smaller scale. We have six full-time and several part-time employees, with an inventory exceeding two million newspapers. I am not aware of any full-time dealers in rare newspapers outside of the United States.

AC: Do institutions contact you?

Tim: We do have institutions contact us both in terms of buying and selling. Institutions will be in touch when they decide to de-accession issues once microfilmed or digitized, or perhaps when a particular collection is deemed out of scope for their holdings. We also have institutions as customers buying issues which fit their specialty.

AC: What are the “Holy Grails” of newspaper collecting?

Tim: The “Holy Grails” would be – for most American collectors – period printings of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and ideally in Philadelphia newspapers. They are exceedingly rare and would command six-figure prices should they become available. (A Philadelphia printing of the Declaration of Independence has already brought in excess of $300,000 in a New York auction.)

AC: Are newspapers ever forged? For example, aren’t there a lot of professionally done reprints in England?

Tim: There are a large number of reprint newspapers on the market today, but I truly believe none were created to deceive. Most are volume one, number one issues which were likely reprinted by their publishers on the 50th or 100th anniversaries, and others are of significant historic events reprinted as promotional giveaways, etc. There are also issues of significant 20th-century events with dramatic headlines which have been reproduced for sale in airports, gift shops and the like. The problem with all these issues is, once tucked away in the attic and discovered years later by others, they are presumed to be genuine and are often offered on eBay as such. It’s a problem, but like any collectible one needs to be aware of the field before investing serious money, and should always deal with reputable dealers who guarantee all they sell.

AC: What have newspapers been made of over the years, and how perishable are they? Are the high-acid papers necessarily hard to preserve?

Tim: Almost all newspapers of the pre-1880 era had a high cotton/rag content, so even today they remain in surprisingly pliable, well-preserved condition and need little care. To the delight of collectors, such newspapers can be handled and pages turned without concern for causing damage. Most newspapers of the post-1880 period have a much higher chemical and wood pulp content, which allowed newsprint to be made at dramatically lower costs (giving rise to the newspaper boom of the late 19th century and the abundance of “penny newspapers”) but also resulted in such issues becoming brown and fragile within years. These issues are still very collectible but I recommend keeping them in archival quality protective folders for safekeeping. There is supposedly a product which can be sprayed on such newspapers to neutralize the acid and prevent further deterioration, although I’ve never used it. But nothing can “turn back the clock” and make pulpish newspapers new again.

AC: When was the transition from rag content to high-acid paper in the U.S. and abroad?

Tim: The transition was generally around 1880. Some papers transitioned in the early 1870s, such as the New York Times, and others in the late 1880s, and yet others converted to coated-stock newsprint, which also held photographs and color ink much better than regular newsprint. Harper’s Weekly did the latter.

AC: I’ve tried to get specific papers for years: They’re really difficult to locate. Where do you get the wide array of newspapers that you sell? You can’t be getting your stock from garage sales and flea markets!

Tim: We actually get our inventory from surprisingly diverse sources. Much of what we currently have is inventory purchased over 30 years ago and which we’ll likely never see again. Some comes from institutions, much comes from private estates and others come as referrals through auctions, sales, etc. Given our Web presence, much material comes as a result of inquiries by those who see our Web site.

AC: What’s the best way to store newspapers?

Tim: My private collection has issues in individual protective folders, which we created when such a product was not available on the open market; again, the hobby was not big enough to warrant demand. Our protective folders allow newspapers to be very easily placed in and removed from the folders while allowing maximum protection for long-term storage. Easy removal is important, as collectors need that tactile experience of holding the newspaper so as to better “feel a part of its history.” Because of demand by other collectors, we decided to offer them on our Web site, now offering folders in eight sizes for newspapers. I also put these protected newspapers in the sturdy newspaper storage boxes available from University Products, one box per era, which allows a collection to be inventoried and accessed in an easy fashion.

AC: Now that the Internet is killing printed papers, do you think the latter will become increasingly collectible?

Tim: I believe the long-term demise of hard-copy newspapers will only spur the increased collectibility of early newspapers. This has been the case with almost every collectible on the market: People tend to collect that which no longer exists. I think it is human nature to be intrigued by what is no longer a part of their dally lives, yet which played such an important role in the history of world culture. It’s why we go to museums.

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Images courtesy of Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers (www.rarenewspapers.com).

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Paper trails

Bob Kerstein is a “history detective” – specifically business history, a collecting area that most people probably hadn’t thought much about until the economy tanked over the past year. Not only are we all tied (albeit unwillingly) to Wall Street and the global economy, some people collect “business paper,” or documents and ephemera relating to specific companies, government projects and other enterprises. Or maybe they just collect a brand, like Coca-Cola. Well, Kerstein – a former executive at McCaw Cellular in Seattle and now based in Washington, D.C. – is the CEO of Scripophily.com , a company that sells vintage stock certificates and bonds, each of which has a story.

First National Bank of Seattle ( Became Seafirst Bank, now Bank of America) - Territory of Washington, 1884

Kerstein became interested in antique stock and other certificates after seeing Confederate bonds at a Civil War show some years ago. He remarked on how he likes to envision Gilded Age entrepreneurs traveling the country by rail or stagecoach, hawking beautiful, ornately engraved stock certificates in order to raise funds for their corporate ventures.

“It’s almost like they went to extremes to make the documents professional looking, engraved with nice vignettes” and sometimes marked “payable in gold” to reflect the financial standing of their companies, Kerstein explained. “It gave people a false sense of security (so to speak), because they didn’t have the gold set aside; they’d only convert them to dollars.”

Wells Fargo Mining Company - Virginia District, Story County, Nevada 1879

So, who are Kerstein’s customers? “We sell to everybody,” he says: people in the financial community, of course – for themselves or for friends, colleagues and family members – but also families with a connection to a particular company. “We sold something to a family whose grandfather was a secretary of the company, Pontiac Spring and Wagon Works, and signed it, and the company became a part of General Motors. It made the first Pontiac car; the certificate was dated 1907.”

Stock certificates make excellent conversation pieces for brand-loyal adults, and there are dozens to choose from. Got a Bill Gates wannabe on your gift list? How about a rare specimen share (an unused sample certificate) of Microsoft from 1990, with the engraved signature of then-president Michael R. Hallman, for $169.95? Does Uncle Bud like his Bud? He’ll appreciate a certificate for 10,000 shares in Anheuser-Busch (dated 1980) for $99.95. Want to broaden a youth’s capitalist horizons? A specimen certificate for Reebok ($195) or Nintendo ($149.95), or a single share of Sony ($59.95), will smell like teen spirit. For the woman in your life, how about a share in House of Taylor Jewelry (Elizabeth Taylor’s company, from $79.95), Frederick’s of Hollywood (from $24.95) or Hershey (from $69.95) to go with that diamond ring, lingerie or chocolate bar you were planning to give her? Was Dad a perfect Angel this year? A certificate for shares in Harley-Davidson (from $124.95) would look great in his den or garage? Americana aficionados can find everything from Krispy Kreme, Pepsi and Lionel to Boeing, Ford and Union Pacific. And for those with a bullish sense of humor, there are even certificates for the bad boys of business: companies like AIG, Enron, WorldCom and Lehman Brothers …

A number of factors influence price of a certificate – the pictures, the signatures, the company history – but a search of the Scripophily.com Web site shows many well under $100 and ranging to the thousands. Here in the Pacific Northwest, local trainspotters will like a 1910 Seattle-Tacoma Short Line certificate ($69.95), and baseball fans are bound to covet a 1939 Seattle Rainiers certificate signed by president Emil Sick ($695). And speaking of presidents, how about a 1927 certificate for The Buckeye Steel Castings Company of Columbus, Ohio, hand signed by president Samuel Prescott Bush – George W. Bush’s great-grandfather? “When Bush became president, that thing was hot, but now we can’t give them away,” Kerstein laughs. (Actually, it’s priced at $69.95.)

For those who find an old stock certificate in their attic or among family papers, Kerstein also offers a very popular stock research service to delve into the company’s history and determine if the stock is still active.

Want to give the gift of history? Visit www.scripophily.com.

Westinghouse Air Brake Company Check signed twice by George Westinghouse (Revenue Stamps on Back) - 1872

Images courtesy of Scripophily.com

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