WHEN THE DAY STARTS OFF WITH A GREAT YARD SALE OUTING, IT'S GOING TO BE A GOOD DAY
"NOSTALGIA" FINDS BEST FOR US IN THE ANTIQUE AND COLLECTABLE TRADE
I'M NOT SURE OF THE EXACT COUNT, BUT I'M WILLING TO BET ALL MY MODEST HOLDINGS, THAT ANDREW PICKED UP TWENTY VINTAGE RADIOS IN ONE MORNING, OF MUSKOKA YARD SALE HUNTING. WE HAVE A HUGE NOSTALGIA ROOM AT THE BACK OF OUR GRAVENHURST SHOP, AND HE SELLS A LOT OF THE OLD FRIDGE AND COUNTER-TOP PLASTIC AND BAKE-A-LITE RADIOS. IT WAS A GREAT MORNING FOR PICKING UP NOSTALGIA PIECES GENERALLY, FROM COMICS TO VINTAGE ICE BUCKETS, ELECTRIC CLOCKS, AND WIND-UP BEDSIDE AND TRAVELLING CLOCKS. IT WAS JUST ONE OF THOSE MORNINGS YOU DREAM ABOUT ALL WINTER LONG, WHEN YOU CAN SPEND A HUNDRED BUCKS AND LOAD A VAN WITH NEAT STUFF, INCLUDING THAT MUSKOKA FAVORITE, "WATER SKIS. YOU CAN GO TO A THOUSAND YARD SALES, AND SPEND A HUNDRED BUCKS. OR YOU CAN GO TO ONE DANDY, AND FILL A TRUCK FOR THE SAME AMOUNT. YOU KNOW WHEN A WOODEN COCA COLA BOTTLE BOX IS IN THE DRIVEWAY, AND THERE ARE ODD BUT INTERESTING BAR RELICS, LIKE NOVELTY ICE COOLERS, YOU EXPECT TO BE DAZZLED. FREQUENTLY WE HAVE TO LEAVE WITHOUT EVEN AN ARM-FULL, BUT FEELING ENTERTAINED AT THE VERY LEAST. TODAY IT WAS AFFORDABLE, AND THERE WERE LOTS OF NOSTALGIA ITEMS TO PURCHASE. AND WE WERE EVEN ABLE TO GET ANOTHER NICE PORTABLE SEWING MACHINE, FOR SUZANNE, WHICH I THINK WAS AN "AMBASSADOR" IF THAT MAKES ANY SENSE TO MACHINE COLLECTORS. SO WE HAVE BEEN GOING SINCE EARLY THIS MORNING, AND THE VAN HAS NOW BEN UNLOADED OF ITS YARD SALE FINDS. WE HAD CUSTOMERS LINED-UP AT THE DOOR WHEN WE ARRIVED AT THE SHOP, AND WE STILL HAVEN'T HAD THAT SECOND CUP OF COFFEE. IT'S GOING TO BE AN EXTRA BUSY DAY, AS WE ARE ALSO HOSTING A LIVE CONCERT TONIGHT, AT ST. JAMES ANGLICAN CHURCH, HERE IN GRAVENHURST, FEATURING "HER HARBOUR," AND GUESTS. SO WE FINISH OUR BUSINESS DAY, RUN OVER TO THE CHURCH, AND COMMENCE OUR CONCERT DAY ADVENTURE. ANDREW AND ROBERT LOVE THE BUSINESS, AND LIFE IN THIS TOWN, WHEN ITS ELECTRIC; MEANING THERE'S SO MUCH GOING ON, THAT YOU HAVEN'T GOT TIME TO BECOME COMPLACENT. AH, TO BE YOUNG AGAIN. THE TOWN IS BUSY. AND THAT'S THE GREATEST PART OF ALL. IT'S A CRITICAL TIME OF YEAR FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES, SO I HOPE IT WILL BE AS PROSPEROUS AS WE HAVE BEEN FINDING IT LATELY.
BRACEBRIDGE DAYS A TOAST OF NOSTALGIA, AND ALL THAT SENTIMENTAL STUFF THAT GOES ALONG WITH IT
When I write about Bracebridge, back in the days of my youth, I recognize that, unless you have had a stake in the old town yourself, these nostalgic stories are pretty run-of-the-mill, lacking in familiarity, the names meaning nothing in particular, and much of the sentiment, being lost because it wasn't your own hometown, or home region. When I write-up these recollections, although you may not appreciate this, I am keenly sensitive to the hamlets, villages, towns and city neighborhoods where you grew up. Each of you has a collection of sentimental reflections of those communities, that played a role in raising and nurturing you, and your family, through the years of residency. I always hope you will find something within my stories, that reminds you of the places you used to hang-out, and socialize, and the familiar characters, who made those neighborhoods and communities so interesting, and a little bit unique, from all the other towns in North America and beyond. It would make me feel great, as a teller of stories, and a lover of community history, for my readers, from all over the globe in fact, to feel inspired themselves, to jot down a few notes for posterity, about what it was like in the good old days; in your place(s) of residence. Capturing these memories is important, and it would take me a week of columns to explain it in full. You have to trust me on this one. There is always a need for another opinion, of say, a former or long-term resident, who saw things differently than the self-declared historians like me; who offer narrow points of view, because it's the way we structure the chronology year by year. Facing the reality of space and time on earth, we couldn't possibly make it a totally inclusive history. We'd be working from sunrise to sunset, seven days a week, for every day of our lives. Yes, there's too much history. But when you break it down, there's not as much social, family history recorded, as we should have, to create a better balance of information. We are dominated by political history and landmark events. These are what I refer to as the black and whites of history. I like the color of intimate, personal histories, that turn a chronology into a real, sink your teeth in, community history. You can't leave community history up to the discretion of a few scribes, and the reporters of the local press. I know what this reads like, and although its needed as a skeletal form, to build upon, often times, the historians give up after this, not considering personal anecdotes worthy of their attention. How wrong they are. How many times have you read or heard an account of an historic event in your community, and shook your head about the inaccuracies. The published description, and what you actually experienced, at whatever age, may be miles apart in historical fact. Opinions may have muddied the water, from what you recall from the actuality of participation. So it is important to offer a different point of view, and as far as biographical notes, they're always necessary to historians, looking to stretch the framing of the big picture. When I write these biographical, semi-historical notes, I want to inspire you to do the same; and feel free to challenge me, if you have a different point of view, on the same subject; maybe you have a conflicting opinion of old town politics, or have some neat anecdotes about going to the Norwood Theatre, on Manitoba Street, now in its 65th year of operation. Maybe it was a theatre in your own home town, that still inspires fond recollections. I consider myself, with these collected stories, a writer who stirs the pot, so to speak, generating points of discussion, and inspiring the kind of nostalgia feelings, that command further investigation. Were they the good old days, or is that an over simplification; because, well, some of us had rather unfortunate times, and may not wish to recall anything more than yesterday. I had some bad times in Bracebridge that I will never forget. I got the snot beat out of me every day for a month, at Bracebridge Public School, because I challenged the bullies who were picking on my friends. I will never forget those little bastards, but they can't spoil my overall feelings, that my childhood spent in Muskoka, was good despite the black eyes and swollen jaw.
I have lived in six communities in Ontario. I started out in Toronto, as an infant, moved to Burlington where we lived until I was eleven years old, moved to Bracebridge, eventually back to Toronto, back to Bracebridge, did a stint in Foote's Bay, Windermere, Bracebridge for a third time, and then to Gravenhurst, where we have lived for the past quarter century. Each of the places I have lived, have a special place in my nostalgia file, and when I go back to visit, I honestly feel that I could live there again, if circumstances prevailed. I lived on Harris Crescent, in Burlington, close enough to the lake to hear the fog-horns of passing freighters. Near Jane and Runnymede in Toronto, (then at York University for one term), on Lake Joseph, at Foote's Bay (Township of Muskoka Lakes), Lake Rosseau, in Windermere, and various streets in the Town of Bracebridge, plus to cottages, one being at Golden Beach Road, and the other, on Allport Bay, of Lake Muskoka, just past the Beaumont Farm. I think I could write a book about living at each of these locations. But then, writing is what I do. Are they worthy of stories? Worthy of an actual manuscript? You see, in my mind, I believe they are worthy, but for the same reason as I write these sketches today. And that is to credit the past, for the outcomes of the present and future. It all plays a role. And for me, I honestly want my readers, who have followed me all over the place for the past five years, to be able to see the parallels of how they also lived, and resided in their own home regions; each reminiscence having a value to the entire dynamic of the life chronicle, which should be documented as part of your family heritage. You might not think you've had an interesting life, but I'm here to tell you the opposite. It is a door opening exercise, once you get started, and you'll be surprised when you won't be able to shut the door ever again. Which is all right. Get a lap-top like I have, and work morning until night, to the point you feel that the essence of the chronicle has been captured. Then share it with others, because there is an interest. We can all learn something from the experiences of others.
I have had an interesting life, but so have you. I might have a little edge, in the fact I've been a career writer, and historian. But it's largely a case, of weighing the social / historical importance, of these recollections, and what would inspire someone else, reading the material at some point down the road. For example, I have written these stories for two distinct reasons. The first, being my concern that most community historians, have no use for intimate, social, family history, unless it is in a business, industrial, or political category. There is no way, for example, that there would be any reference to the "Hunt's Hill Gang," I grew up with, in Bracebridge, unless I wrote about it as such. Well, we didn't do anything that was particularly historical, yet it was part of the social fabric of those years, growing up in that particular neighborhood; and whatever we did, was being mirrored by other groups of youngsters, in other parts of the town. Even if you didn't grow up in Bracebridge, chances are you had close friends who, for all intents and purposes, were character-doubles, to those I write about. I don't want this part of history to be lost, because it is the honest, ground-level, earthy, social heritage, that defined our community. Our gang threw green apples at our enemies. Maybe the gang you associated with, tossed burrs or pine cones. Maybe even stones. We all were throwing stuff, so it just depended on what we had in biggest supply. If we swiped the wheels of Seth Hillman's lawnmowers, to make our go-carts, possibly you scoffed cooling pies off window-ledges, or garden gnomes out of flower gardens. I find these stories fascinating, and far more interesting than the study of local politics, and the chronology of councillors and mayors doing their civic duty. Now, I would far sooner read about kids playing practical jokes, and stories about character antics you remember, that reflect honestly on real people doing real things; without any protocol to follow. Humans doing that human thing, which adds the color to the black and white stills.
Shortly after I came home to Bracebridge, after university, I had a chance to manage an Experience '78 Project, for the Muskoka Board of Education, for co-ordinator, Jim Wood, and it became the single most important experience in local history, I've ever had in the years since. I had two reporting staff, one photographer, and two who had the job of transcribing the tape recordings into text. Our assignment was to interview as many long time Muskoka residents as possible, in the two months the project was operational. We managed quite a few interviews, across the district, and they were powerfully insightful to all of us, who may have thought Muskoka heritage was rather dull. We got stories ranging from the sinking of the steamship "Waome," hardships on the pioneer homesteads, the rigors of the logging camp, pioneer business development, to the Free Land and Homesteads Grant, which we were actually able to handle, still rolled and tied with a bow, while sitting in the original farm house, on the original property, owned from the 1870's by the Kirbyson family of Ufford. We got intimate stories that had only ever been heard before, in close family circles, which from the point of publication, later that summer, came to benefit students in all the schools governed by the Muskoka Board of Education. They are still in the archive collection of the Trillium Lakelands District School Board. We are richer culturally, and in social heritage, because of those tape recorded interviews. We had only just finished the project, when we began hearing news that some of our new friends had passed away, including Bracebridge's Bus Brazier, who I will have a story on in the coming week. But these taped interviews were just a tiny fraction of what we wanted to do, but couldn't budget into the time frame. There were so many more important stories to hear and record, that would have greatly infilled what historians know about our region. All I can tell you, is that we don't know as much as we think we do! There is a social heritage we're missing, that offers a clear characterization of a Muskoka identity, and a Muskoka lifestyle, in a most genuine sense; not the Muskoka lifestyle you hear and read about today, that is all about luxury and waterfront residency.
From the Archives
BUYING A BUNCH OF JUNK CAN TURN UP A "WINNER"
TAKING A CHANCE IS WHAT WE ALL DO, DAY TO DAY……ANTIQUE DEALERS LIVE WITH THIS CONSTANTLY…..MISTAKES CAN BE EPIC CAREER MISADVENTURES
AS I'VE TRIED TO MAKE CLEAR IN THIS COLLECTION OF BLOGS, ABOUT THE ANTIQUE PROFESSION SPECIFICALLY….., "COLLECTING" ON THE PERIPHERY…..,THAT WE HAVE QUITE A FEW CLOSELY GUARDED SECRETS, THAT LIKE MAGICIANS, WE SIMPLY WON'T REVEAL. WE ARE A BAND OF INDIVIDUALS, AND THE COMPETITION IS FIERCE. BUT MOST OF US HAVE DEVELOPED ATTITUDES THAT ARE COMFORTABLY APPOINTED IN BUSINESS SERIOUSNESS, AND AT THE SAME TIME, A HALF-JOVIAL ALERTNESS TO NEW SITUATIONS, SUCH THAT WE BRACE OURSELVES WELL IN ADVANCE, FOR THE EVENTUALITY OF WHAT CAN ONLY BE CALLED "GROSS MISADVENTURE." I WILL TELL YOU, THROUGH THIS SPRING SEASON, WHAT SOME OF THOSE AWKWARD MOMENTS HAVE MEANT FOR ME. SOMETIMES ITS A SERIOUS SITUATION THAT PREVAILS UPON US TO EMPLOY THE ALCHEMY WE'RE KNOWN FOR, AND THERE ARE MANY OTHER TIMES THAT IT JUST TURNS INTO A "I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST DID THAT," SCENARIO. LIKE THE TIME I WAS MOVING A BOOK OFF A COUNTER IN OUR KITCHEN, AND A TINY CORNER OF THE SPINE, CAUGHT THE HANDLE OF A BEAUTIFULLY HAND-PAINTED VICTORIAN TEA POT, AND SHAZAM……IT CAME OFF WITH EASE. THE DAY BEFORE I'D SPENT A HUNDRED BUCKS AT AN AUCTION, WINNING THAT FOR "MY GIRL." SO THE RESPONSE WAS SOMETHING LIKE THIS….."MY GOD, MY GOD, YOU STUPID MAN AND YOUR STUPID BOOKS," SHE YELLED OBVIOUSLY, FOR THE BENEFIT OF OUR NEIGHBORS. IF ONE OF THE BOYS HAD HIT THAT CHINA PIECE WITH A BASEBALL, AND SMASHED THE POT ENTIRELY, SHE'D HAVE SOUNDED SO CONCILIATORY. AS FOR ME, THEY DON'T MAKE A DOG HOUSE THAT BIG.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE WORLD'S ANTIQUE DEALERS GAMBLE AT CASINOS. I COULDN'T POSSIBLY EXPECT, EVEN IF I LOOKED CLOSELY, TO FIND STATISTICS ON ANTIQUE DEALERS WHO PLAY POKER…..OR WHO PLAY THE PONIES. I MEAN, IT'S NO STRETCH OF THE TRUTH, TO SUGGEST ANTIQUE DEALERS GAMBLE NON-STOP IN THEIR PROFESSION. THE RISK MIGHT BE LOWER BECAUSE THEY'RE SMARTER ABOUT WHAT THEY SPECULATE ON, BUT LIKE ANY RETAILER, YOU CAN'T GO TO FAR IN ANY GIVEN WORK WEEK, WITHOUT, IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER GAMBLING FOR A PROFIT. THE DIFFERENCE WITH AVERAGE RETAILERS IS THE SUPPLY CHAIN. THE ANTIQUE DEALER UNDOUBTEDLY HAS PICKERS TO PROVIDE INVENTORY, BUT MOST OFTEN, THE ITEMS ARE NOT THE SAME. A RETAILER CAN ORDER BY THE THOUSANDS OR MORE. THE ANTIQUE DEALER IS LUCKY TO "GET WHAT THEY GET". WE DON'T HAVE A CATALOGUE TO ORDER FROM. OUR INVENTORY GENERALLY, IS WHAT WE CAN FIND OUT ON THE HUSTINGS, OR WHAT IS ON THE BACK OF THE PICKER'S TRUCK PARKED OUTSIDE THE SHOP. A LOT OF FOLKS DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS, WHEN THEY COME INTO AN ANTIQUE SHOP, AND EXPECT A CERTAIN VOLUME OF MATERIALS THEY'RE MOST INTERESTED IN……PILED TO THE CEILING. UNLESS YOU'RE A SPECIALIST DEALER, SELLING WEDGWOOD, OR FENTON GLASS, PEZ DISPENSERS (ONLY), OR VINTAGE CLOTHING, IT'S HARD FOR AN ANTIQUE DEALER TO PLEASE EVERYONE. DO ANTIQUE DEALERS PLAY THE STOCK MARKET? I END THIS PARAGRAPH WITH THE SAME DOUBT AS I BEGAN WITH……I DON'T HAVE THE STATISTICS TO BACK UP AN ANSWER. AS A WILD SPECULATOR MYSELF, I WOULD SAY ANTIQUE DEALERS, AS A GROUP, WOULD PROBABLY BE MORE INCLINED TO INVEST IN THE STOCK MARKET THAN PLAY POKER, THAN SPEND A LOT OF TIME AT CASINOS. THEIR DAY TO DAY GAMBLE, IS BUYING INVESTMENT PIECES. THEY DON'T BUY TO LOSE MONEY. AND WHEN YOU'RE MOST OFTEN, ONLY ABLE TO BUY SMALL QUANTITIES OF COLLECTIBLE MERCHANDISE, YOU HAVE LITTLE CHOICE, IF YOU WANT TO SURVIVE IN BUSINESS. WE HAVE TO BUY CAREFULLY, WITH FULL ATTENTION TO DETAILS OF EACH ITEM…..INCLUDING THE PING AND RING OF GOOD QUALITY CRYSTAL. CONDITION IS THE BIGGEST OF BIG DEALS. NO CHIPS, NO CRACKS, NO DAMAGE. IF FOR WHATEVER REASON A DEALER DOES ACCEPT SOMETHING, WITH DAMAGE, CHANCES ARE GOOD, HE OR SHE HAS AN ALMOST IMMEDIATE OUTLET ON THEIR CLIENT LIST, WHO WILL PURCHASE ITEMS TO RESTORE. IF WE GOOF UP AND MAKE A BAD PURCHASE, FINDING DAMAGE AFTER THE SELLER HAS LEFT THE BUILDING, WE'RE STUCK WITH A CRAPPY INVESTMENT. WE CAN CALL THE WHOLESALER UP AND COMPLAIN, AND THERE ARE NO REFUNDS. IF YOU BOUGHT IT OFF A PICKER, YOU MIGHT GET A CHANCE TO COMPLAIN ON THE VERY NEXT VISIT. THIS IS OUR GENERAL DISADVANTAGE, AND WHY WE HAVE TO BE ASTUTE ON OVER-THE-COUNTER PURCHASES PARTICULARLY. AND OF COURSE, IS IT STOLEN? WE HAVE TO ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS.
So here's where an average antique dealer gambles most frequently, leaving many in the peanut gallery of auctions etc., wondering what kind of medication we're on. When I've written previously about auction job-lots, I'm not entirely sure other dealers know this term…….or whether it is just a regional Ontario thing. When I started going to auctions seriously, in the late 1970's, I didn't have much money to spend, but a hell of a lot of inventory to purchase, for our new Manitoba Street shop, in uptown Bracebridge, Ontario. Most of my furniture inventory was purchased "in-the-rough," because it was all I could afford. I put the sweat equity into the refinishing side of the business, and for the first three years, I sold almost a hundred percent of what I was able to refinish. Then I got a reporter's job in a community on the other side of the District of Muskoka, that actually paid me to write, and I left the business to my parents, who also found employment soon after, in the Town of Parry Sound. Point is, for that "experimental" antique shop tenure, I got pretty good scrounging antique sales, for whatever job-lots, and "picking rights," I could get. Here's how that goes, just in case you don't know, what a lot of antique-loving folks have to do to maintain their profession.
Often times, auctioneers will get frustrated if they're doing a large estate sale, for example, on their own. If they're concerned at all about timing, they realize they have to reach a certain number of sales per half-hour and per-hour, to get through the inventory, before everyone has left the property……or there is a sudden rain storm. So you will arrive at a situation as a bidder, when an auctioneer will start lumping things together, that he can't get bids on individually. Back in the seventies, I could get forty or fifty boxes of "junk" at one sale. If I stuck around to the end, I'd be invited to scavenge the leftovers. A lot of bidders, you see, will buy multiples of auction-ware, but will cull their purchases, and take only what they want, leaving the chipped china, broken chairs, rusty tools and sundry other bits and bobbs they don't want to haul home. This left a plethora of interesting finds, that with some invested effort, might be salvaged, repaired, restored and re-sold. During the sales, I studied the auctioneer very closely. I knew when Les Rutledge, from Gravenhurst, was getting mad at the audience. Actually, that was pretty easy to determine, because he'd get agitated by the crowd's reluctance to bid, he hated hecklers who would make loud comments he didn't find humorous, and distractions. Les was very focused, and he liked the cadence of his auction roll to go without interruptions. It was okay to talk before he started to sell another item, but not during. So when he got flustered, and it looked like he was going to step off the platform and smack somebody with his cane, inevitably he'd start rapid selling. Which meant for us dealers……pay attention or else. He'd almost double his speed of items sold per-hour.
What his speed increase meant, was that he wasn't going to linger on the uppermost bid, trying to get an increase. If the roll of bids finally hit a flat side, and he couldn't massage another quick bid, he'd just yell out, "Sold to Number 12." If by the way, you were a kind and considerate auction-goer, and you didn't piss Mr. Rutledge off, by golly, he could remember your number, and he'd shut down a bid if he thought you deserved a break. If you heckled him, your number was bypassed forever. Not for just a couple of retaliatory "bid misses." For eternity. So when he'd find himself getting backed-up with items to sell, box loads of kitchen collectibles, for example, he would start banking them together to make more attractive job-lots, to keep him on schedule. As a matter of some irony in the profession, Suzanne and I were big fans, and auction regulars, to events conducted by his son, Wayne Rutledge, of Huntsville, who had a more gentle approach to his audience, but still liked the idea of job-lots to speed things up. As for dealers, the job-lots we were able to get, often contained a significant number of salable items, some that were unknown to the auctioneer at the time of selling. For example, you'd be surprised what can be found in a jar of buttons. Well, seeing as many reading this column are collectors and dealers, I guess you do know. Especially from estates, we could find lots of military buttons in those jammed jars, including many hard-to-find button styles, that were valuable on the open market, plus coins, vintage game pieces, broaches, special pins, such as from the Red Cross etc. What looked like boxes of junk, were pretty much boxes of junk. The exceptions were the treasures we expected to find by experience. The gambles were measured. We always knew what we could invest, with a pretty fair knowledge how we could make our money back, on the average stuff, and profit from the half dozen or more gems found in the clusters of odds and sods.
At quite a number of auctions, I attended, from the late 1970's up to the end of the 1990's, it was common, especially at rural estate sales, to be given an opportunity to bid for "picker's rights," to buy the remaining items left in a barn or shed. The auctioneer and staff would be responsible for removing the bigger, more significant items from these out-buildings, to be included in the regular sale. But there were many occasions when there were too many small, damaged pieces left in these buildings, for the staff to worry about. The auctioneer would simply sell, to the highest bidder, the privilege of buying everything else in the buildings……except the structure itself. I've talked to people who have done this, and on each occasion that I stayed around to see what they got, during the clean-up, something major was found, to cover the cost of the opportunity to pick at will. I've never come across a case yet, when a picker, in this situation, didn't prosper with what they found. It was hard and dirty work, but well worth the effort.
A trio of half-arsed entrepreneurs in our region, decided to get into the second-hand game, as a means of making some future investment money. They all had good paying day-jobs, but they hatched this plan to make big-bucks, by purchasing entire building contents, off estates executors. So instead of using an auctioneer, to settle an estate, they'd offer a price for the whole works. It was a great idea for them, but not a new one, in the antique and second hand trade. It was a good plan in Muskoka, because no one was doing this at the time. It was either dispersal by auctioneer, by yard sale, or by dumpster pulled up to the side of the house. The only problem with these lads…..and they were all nice guys I had a lot of respect for…….just not in the antique trade, was their total lack of knowledge about the money side of the industry. They got involved with small bananas. A good place to start but they never got past the minor speculation. They'd buy cottage contents from a 1930's building, that was to be torn down, but the items inside were left by the last folks to use it…..meaning the vintage of contents was pretty shallow. They were getting 1960's and 70's items, not representative of the cottage's history…..which would have been nice and much more profitable. So we understudied with them, and made quite a few purchases of nostalgia items, and some other vintage fabrics that came with the cottages. They had rented a large barn type building, and all the left-overs we didn't want, got dumped there. The idea was to have regular "barn sales," or you could make an appointment to see what they had acquired. It should have gone okay. I think they were about twenty years too early for our region, because they had the right idea…..in so many areas, but they simply lacked the experience, trial and error provide folks like us.
So when the partnership got a little stressed out about the money they had invested, and the apparent inability to generate profits the way they wanted to, we started getting more calls from the trio, about taking some of the stuff off their hands. For example, they had a beautiful and large…..very large…..Victorian era pump organ. Sure it looked great, but the market for honking big pump organs is pretty small. They take up a lot of room, and chances are, there's going to be a mouse-damaged bellows, that needs a specialist to fix. Orb Kennedy was our master repairman around here, but he had passed away quite a few years before their organ acquisition. I do have a working pump organ in my living room presently, but mine has a perfect bellows. The first offer I was given was five hundred dollars. I laughed, picked up the "smalls" that I'd purchased at their barn sale, and jumped in the car fast, so they wouldn't carry-on the conversation. I didn't want the organ. No one else did either. All that summer and fall they labored to sell that organ. Every time I went to the sale at the barn….or saw any of the trio in the hardware store, grocery aisle, or restaurant, they came up with a revised price for the behemoth instrument. "No, No, No!" was my response, as was Suzanne's when they'd corner her, thinking she was the weaker of the duo. Not so. She turned them down an equal number of times. Then came the pause. Months went by and we hadn't heard a thing about the organ, and nary a barn sale to shop. I assumed the organ had found a home.
One day, while I was working in the garden, and covered in mud and manure, Suzanne called me to the phone. "It's them," she said. "They want to give you the organ." "Cripes, we don't have any room for the stupid thing," I mumbled, as I kicked off my shoes at the door, and wiped my brow with the manure that was once only on my hands and shoes. Well, we took the organ. They delivered it free of charge, set it in our front hallway, and had those painted-on sad faces that would have made a good model for a ceramic television lamp. I gave them fifty bucks and told them in no uncertain terms, to never again buy a pump organ, and if they did, to never tell me about it. They seemed okay with the fifty bucks which was a pretty substantial loss in fact from the $500 original asking price. I bet that on the average of what they had purchased, with this organ, they had still made a profit overall…..unless you put a price on aggravation. In that case they most certainly lost money.
It was just before Christmas one year, after we had "sold the organ for $100" at a yard sale, and moved to a new house in Bracebridge, that we got a call that the partnership was giving up the barn, and the second-hand profession. We were asked to make an offer for "picker's rights" to the barn, which we knew contained some interesting….but not valuable pieces. It was bloody cold with lots of snow, when Suzanne and I started poking through the building. It was tough slugging, and the inventory was scattered in boxes and bins all over the place. For the several hundred dollars we offered, (accepted), we were able to get enough out of it to triple our investment, which is pretty much the norm. Most dealers, who had to work this hard, in adverse conditions, would want to quadruple the profit. These lads were our friends, so we didn't feel right about knocking them down further. The gem of the whole affair, was the discovery of a magnificent pioneer-vintage crazy quilt, for a child's cradle. It was small and needed some repairs, but the blue and black velvets were stunning. These irregularly cut and sewn together quilt-blocks had once been Victorian clothing items, and this more than century-old-quilt was a nothing short of a museum piece. It had been folded up in the bottom of a box that nobody had ever looked into. It was assumed it was a box of bedroom knick-knacks, carried out of the barn for all their yard sales, over the two odd years, but nobody went past the chipped and broken articles on the top of the box, to see what was in the bottom. That's where Suzanne found the neatly folded quilt, that looked like a decorative piece of paper, when looking down into the container. It was much more than that, and the quilt was valued at $200. We sold it a year later to a quilt collector, at a sale we attended in the Village of Windermere. We did make an okay profit of the other items collected during that mission of hunting and gathering.
What really upset the lads, was that we didn't take everything in the barn. That's what they assumed it meant, when we purchased the lot. I informed them curtly, that "Boys oh boys, when did you hear me say, that I was going to take everything in the barn." And pay for disposal of their bad purchases. They had those sad faces again. I just winked and said, "that's business, nothing personal."
Les Rutledge had kind of an unspoken rule, at his auctions, that I learned by inexperience. When I started to sort through the boxes I had purchased, before setting off for home at the end of the sale, and having placed aside, a pile of items I didn't want, I looked to my right side to find two big shoes at the base of the pile. It was Les, rising from those shoes! And he said something like, "Now Mr. Currie (he knew me from working at The Herald-Gazette), seeing as I gave you a good deal on those boxes, I hope you understand that it means you own it all, and you can take it back to your house and then throw out what you don't want. I'm not going to clean up your mess." I never once argued with Les Rutledge, so I just loaded it all in the boxes, and trundled off to my car, while he twirled his trademark auction cane, satisfied he'd successfully educated a greenhorn, and run another profitable auction
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