‘Collector’s items’
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, rare maritime material. I recently sold a few things to Greg and found him straightforward and easy to deal with. He also has a great blog and very fine items at very reasonable prices, so you might check out his site the next time you get fed up with the rat race and, like Herman Melville’s Ishmael, “account it high time to get to sea”: If your family, your job, your mortgage and your dog prevent you from signing on for a long sea voyage, Ten Pound Island is the next best thing.
Of course, with a shop full of histories of seafaring, naval battles royal, pirates, typhoons and other exciting stuff, I couldn’t help asking Greg what he collects himself. He replied: “I have a dealer’s mind-set. By definition this mentality steers away from collecting anything, or only collecting it to ultimately sell it. Thus my two major collections of works by Melville, my world-class local history collection, my collection of works by Gloucester poet Charles Olson – all sold! In my view, you can’t be a good dealer if you are also a collector, because you will always be working against yourself. I want to work WITH myself, FOR my customers, who are, and should be, the true collectors.
“Having said that, there’s one thing I collect: reference books. I’ve been collecting references of all sorts pertaining to maritime history for 35 years. By this time I’ve accumulated an excellent working library, and I take great pride in it.”
Images courtesy of Ten Pound Books Company | www.tenpound.com
Print collectors in the Denver area will be interested to know that Christopher Lane, “Antiques Roadshow” appraiser and co-owner of The Philadelphia Print Shop (www.philaprintshop.com) – located, not surprisingly, in the City of Brotherly Love – will soon be spreading the love of prints to the Denver area: “My wife got offered a great job at Denver Children’s Hospital, so off we are going to the Mile High City! My partner (Don Cresswell) and I decided this would be a great opportunity to expand our business, so I am going to open a shop in the Cherry Creek section of Denver. I am moving out in September and the shop should be open sometime in October.” Chris told me that The Philadelphia Print Shop (West) will have carry the same material as the original shop as well as share the same Web site but that the Denver shop will focus on western images. “I will also probably start to pick up some antique shows in the western part of the county and am going to be exhibiting at The San Francisco Fall Antiques Show (www.sffas.org) on Oct. 28–31. A whole new adventure!” he added.
Images courtesy of the Philadelphia Print Shop | www.philaprintshop.com
See Christopher Lane on “Antiques Roadshow” (Las Vegas) on Mon., Aug. 2, on your local PBS station! And watch for his upcoming “What the Experts Collect” profile here on AmeriCollector.com!
<p>Anyone who doesn’t believe that auction catalogs can be collector’s items themselves should check out Heritage Auctions Galleries’ (www.ha.com) 2010 August Signature Sports Auction catalog with a hologram cover image of one of the auction items: a large 1932 photo of Babe Ruth whispering something to an amused Lou Gehrig and signed by both (current bid at this writing, $25,000; expected to fetch $50,000+)! This is only one of 86 primo items from the world of sports that are being auctioned off in conjunction with the National Sports Collectors Convention (www.nsccshow.com) in Baltimore Aug. 6–8.</p>
Football fans will be drawn to 1960 Don Meredith game-worn Dallas Cowboys rookie helmet (now at $3,000; estimated to get $10,000+). “Any game worn gear from the first Cowboys season would carry tremendous collecting importance,” says Chris Ivey, director of Heritage Auction Galleries’ Sports Collectibles division. “It’s just the icing on the cake that (this helmet) happens to come from the locker of one of the greatest Cowboys of all.”
Some other choice lots that made my mouth water: a “Wahoo” Sam Crawford game-used baseball bat with a 1913 fountain-pen inscription from the Detroit Tigers outfielder to a collector (now at $15,000, estimated to get $50,000+); Ken Norton’s 1973 North American Boxing Federation heavyweight championship belt ,awarded for his victory over Muhammad Ali (now at $11,000; estimated to get $40,000+); and, speaking of The Greatest, a 1960 handwritten letter signed “Your Fighting Friend, Cassius Clay, U.S. Champ” written while the 18-year-old legend-in-the-making was training for the Rome Olympics (the return address on the mailing envelope, which is included and is also handwritten by Clay/Ali, says: “Cassius M. Clay, c/o Special Service, U.S. Olympic Boxing team, Building 5434, Fort Dix, N.J.”; now at $6,000; expected to fetch $10,000+).
The auction ends Thurs., Aug. 5.
Images courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries | www.ha.com
Check out the newly updated AmeriCollector.com Collector’s Calendar by clicking on “Calendar” (above), where you’ll find events of interest through December 2010 in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, California, Arizona and Nevada. It’s a work in progress: We’ll be adding more events to these lists as well as events in other states (we’re working our way eastward), plus a slew of online auctions. Keep watching for new listings in the weeks and months ahead!
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