The Bottle Digger Storyteller

OLD HOMESTEADS - AND THE GHOSTS WERE MANY

By Ted Currie

You have seen these homesteads before. The bleak, dilapidated wood and brick structures, on overgrown countryside acreage, slowly eroding back into the earth from which it was inspired. And you wonder to yourself, what it must have looked like in its heyday. What it looked like with wind-blown laundry hanging off the strung line, from the back kitchen to a high post in the mowed yard. The kids. The sounds from that homestead, of resident and neighbor children playing hide and seek. Baseball in the level part of the pasture. Horse drawn wagons up and down the dusty lanes, and then the automobiles that banged slowly along the pot-holed road out front. Even when you pass by quickly in a car, and cast only a casual glance, it still impressed upon you, that it is a scene of loneliness and history. Do you also sense something else? Do you have even the fleeting thought, about the spirits that might still dwell there, loyal to the old ways and memorable times. The Easter dinners with family? Good news received at that front door, and the bad. The celebrations, the joy and then the grieving, all within its walls. Birth to death, the stories that relic of history could tell, if it had the chance. I have been invited into many of these tired and failing homesteads, by no one in particular.

The confluence of creative enterprise can be either complimentary or destructive. One strong, unabated current might over-take and snuff-out the other. Or they might just thwack into each other, like to locomotives on the same track. Which after the big bang, imposes the kind of stalemate that arises here frequently, at Birch Hollow, when I simply can't make my mind up. Should I create an art piece, a sketch, a sculpture, or start on a writing jag? Projects at this keyboard that can last for days. The ones that usually end up with me suffering from a headache, stiff neck, and frustration. But there's a source of inspiration I've always trusted, telling me that with the pain, will generate some type of positive gain.

Awkwardly, I've always been able to strike at least a half-balance. In fact, seeing the environs with an artful eye, and as a writer, has had its advantages over the decades. Feeling the presence of ghosts? Spirits? Assorted other hobgoblins and bandy-legged wee beasties? I'm always seeking inspiration, and when you open the mind's door, you just never know what might cross the threshold. Here's a little story for you, to understand my creative process, my passion for art, and my senses about what may be going on with the interrupted paranormal, of a house, a barn, graveyard or spring pasture.

Just prior to entering university, in the summer of 1974, I had begun bottle-digging. I was looking for old medicine and soda bottles, buried on the grown-over acres of long-abandoned Muskoka region homesteads. I have been a lover of old stuff most of my life but it has nothing at all to do with my family's influence. Merle and Ed were minimalists and modernists at the same time. They liked history but not the clutter associated antiques and collectibles. They couldn't have cared less for vintage furniture or valuable ornaments, and weren't particularly nostalgic, except for the old standbys of family photographs, and personal keepsakes, jewelry etc., and a few prints and paintings that had belonged to their respective parents and grandparents. We lived in a relatively modern apartment, at the time of the late 1950's, and there was nothing they had, or were interested in, that sent me in the antique direction in later years. They did take me to historic sites in Southern Ontario, and in the United States, but I was pretty young at the time to formulate much of an opinion, as to whether these were great places to visit, or just curious stops along our travels.

As I pointed out in a recent blog, on my Gravenhurst site, about my early exploration of an old estate in Burlington, that was in the final stages of demolition, and the sense of occupation and history in those sad old rooms of a once elegant house, it probably is accurate to say, it was pretty much a case of self-motivation by immersion. I found the old house alluring, and "haunted," even before I knew the implications of the word. Before I had the burden of knowledge and insight, here was a kid with eyes wide open, in a huge Victorian house, in its final days as an architectural entity, and I felt the presence of many former residents. I didn't see them. I knew they were there, and I told my parents about it later. All they could think about was that there son was a trespasser, and a thief, as I had hauled home some keepsakes that had been broken and strewn over the floors. I could have shown them teeth punctures in my neck, from a vampire, and they'd still have been more concerned about the fact I'd defied their order to stay away. Old, abandoned and falling-in buildings have always beckoned me to enter. It is a failing of mine. But I just want to look around. I've never been in one yet, that I didn't feel it was occupied, in some way, by very poignant memories…..if not the spirit-kind itself.

When I'd wander back to an old homestead, somewhere in the Muskoka lakeland, tromping around the old farm fields to find the lumped, tinny ground, of the family dumpsite, I was always influenced by the aura I encountered. I might not have got much from fields, in general, except if I caught evidence, in the grass, that a bear was nearby, but as soon as I found the old dilapidated cabin or farmhouse, mind over matter created a lot of images from the past. It wasn't a frightening experience, and I enjoyed sitting for awhile, on some old fallen log, or piece of farm machinery still stuck in the field; and quietly celebrating the lives of those who had once tilled these fields…….stoked the fire in the hearth, lit the candles on the harvest table, and served up meals to those who called this place home. In fact, I'd be working away, digging in the homestead dumpsite (long since grown over with thick sod), and swear to hearing the voices of hikers coming up behind me, and then discovering there was no one near. Many times I'd stop, believing someone was standing right beside me, and look around quickly, to find a wavering wildflower, or windswept bunch of ferns brushing together.

I had so many of these experiences, sometimes even seeing a person in the field below, or on the hillside above, when in reality I was quite isolated and alone, that I penned a series of fictional stories, for a local summer publication, that I entitled "Homestead Chronicles." It wasn't a lengthy series, and may have only run in ten or so issues of the paper, but it was full of ghostly encounters, all from those field explorations…..all of them on old homesteads, some that had their own unmarked gravesides that I was also careful to avoid with my shovel. I remember one old-timer, taking me aside, when we met in a local shop, and telling me how much he and his wife were enjoying the series, as it reminded both of them about their respective childhoods, growing up on a similar farmsteads in north Muskoka. "Ghosts? There are lots of ghosts out there; sad very sad," he told me. "There was a lot of hardship, and a lot of folks suffered a lot, trying to survive. Then there was the illnesses. You know, it wasn't uncommon to have whole families wiped out in one night of sickness. It was terrible," he told me, and I believed him. As a regional historian, by this point, I did know a great deal about those difficult homesteading years, in a very unforgiving region. I thanked him, and wrote a few more columns that year, before I was buried by new editorial responsibilities. For years after, I'd meet up with the same gentleman and his wife, and they'd always ask me if I planned to continue the series in the future. Both these folks are gone now, themselves, and I've thought many times about taking another turn at the series. It haunts me you see. And that's very real.

In essence, it was about the life of a young girl, living on an isolated homestead with her parents and siblings. But it is the reminiscences of a ghost. The writer / voyeur finds an unmarked gravesite, where a number of folks were undoubtedly buried (shape of the depression in the earth usually gives it away), and the guardian of the plot, this young lady, becomes the story-teller. This was a long way back in my writing career, and it seems very profound to me now, that I companioned with a fictional ghost to build the story-line. Truth is, I know that what was in that column series, had more foundation than the word "fiction" suggests. I'd often sit, on breaks from digging, on a similar rise of land, overlooking the original homestead pasture, and let my imagination go…….dropping all pre-conceived notions. I've never been at one of these homestead digs, that this didn't happen, my thoughts infilling quickly about the lives invested in this land, and the heart and soul still remaining, despite the clear vacancy of house and land. These were very haunted places but I never felt repelled. A wee bit nervous about coming between a bear cub and mother, but never about malevolent spirits, not wanting my intrusive digging-about. I always felt comfortable in the environs but my mind overflowed with impressions about what it had been like, in its heyday. I even had times, sitting out on grassy knolls, studying the remaining homesteads, when I would swear I was sitting beside someone……looking out onto the same scene……maybe sharing the same regret that the good old days were gone. I remember on one fleeting occasion, that I actually felt a small hand grabbing mine, as I walked over the matted grass of a spring pasture. It was the spark I needed, to create that series, I wrote about earlier……Homestead Chronicles, that very much involved the earth-bound spirit of a little girl, who refused to leave the place she had been born.

Even now, after a long, long relationship, writing about the paranormal, and reading every book I can on the subject, I can't seriously relate these impressions, to any sort of spiritual imposition. Maybe there was, and I just never recognized that detached voices, and the sensation of hands on my shoulder, footsteps in the tall grass, could be my hosts that particular day. It just never crossed my mind. I do think about it more today, and wonder if I was simply too detached myself, as I was pursuing the bottle dig, for one, and planning future writing projects, at the same time. Could it have been the result of an over-active imagination? Of course it could have been the case. Here's the thing. There are few people, who know me, or who have known me for some time, who aren't familiar with my intensity. When I work at something, I am absorbed. You pretty much have to hit me hard, to knock me off a writing project. So while bottle digging, I was always consumed to the last molecule of concentration, with getting on with the job. Finding the next great soda bottle or torpedo bottle which meant "a really good profit when sold." So for me to be aware of someone touching my shoulder, or standing beside me, during a dig, is something to more seriously consider. I can remember so many times, stopping the dig, looking up, and wondering who had just called my name, or touched my shoulder. Sometimes it could be rather startling, as I was worried about bears in the spring, smelling my bag-lunch, and potentially eating me instead. But I did very much have the feeling I was being watched by someone. I got used to it. They certainly didn't frighten me off. Not once.

When I go back and look at some of the circumstances and situations I've been in, over the past thirty-five odd years, I can look a little more objectively and sensibly at what may have been paranormal contact, that I had dismissed as an over-active imagination….or the jitters of being in the wilds with a lot of critters. Crossed paths with bears many times.

As I continue this series of columns, exclusively for the Great North Arrow, I will go back, from time to time, to places where it may have all begun…..this long relationship with the alleged spirit-kind…….that I find so remarkable and interesting……but not frightening in the least. In the past 35 years of writing, I have been consumed…..and I mean consumed, by writing what I call landscape pieces……as an artist would sketch on paint-board, a scene that seems inspirational. I've never known what exactly compels me to merge art and writing, with these landscape depictions in print, but I think it may have something to do with that early immersion, young and impressionable, and those Homestead Chronicles I started…..but never really finished. It might well be, this is, in essence, the "haunting" of Mr. Currie. Thus, I have no shortage of things to write about, when it comes to the paranormal situations I find myself in!

RICHARD KARON. On April 16th, I will commence a lengthy blog on this Gravenhurst site (search Ted Currie, Gravenhurst), on the life of regional Canadian artist, Richard Karon, who actively painted the scenes of Muskoka, Algoma, to Sudbury, and once had an art studio in the Village of Callandar, Ontario. He had many art showings in North Bay, before his permanent studio, he built, near the community of Baysville, in the Township of Lake of Bays. If you have knowledge of Mr. Karon's work in the region, or knew him personally, please feel free to contact me via, birch_hollow@sympatico.ca

See you soon.

Karon Biography, April 16th, Gravenhurst Issues, Kreighoff

MUSKOKA ART BIOGRAPHY AND YOUTUBE VIDEO WILL NOW BE PUBLISHED BEGINNING ON APRIL 16TH

RICHARD KARON VIDEO TRIBUTE WILL BE PART OF THE BLOG BIOGRAPHY

AFTER SOME PRELIMINARY DISCUSSIONS WITH FAMILY, AND AFTER MONTHS OF RESEARCH, ON THE LIFE AND ART CAREER OF MUSKOKA PAINTER, RICHARD KARON, WE HAVE FOUND THAT WE NOT ONLY HAVE A SUBSTANTIAL BIOGRAPHY, BUT ENOUGH OF HIS ACCUMULATED ART AND VISUALS, OF PLACES HE ONCE PAINTED, (IN AND AROUND THE TOWNSHIP OF LAKE OF BAYS), TO BE ABLE TO PRESENT A COMPANION YOUTUBE VIDEO. SUBJECT TO APPROVAL OF FAMILY OF COURSE, THE VIDEO WILL PROFILE QUITE A NUMBER OF RICHARD'S WELL KNOWN REGIONAL LANDSCAPES, AND A CROSS SECTION OF HIS EARLY AND EXPERIMENTAL ART PANELS. SON ROBERT, AND UP AND COMING SINGER, DANI O'CONNOR, WILL HELP CREATE THE BACKGROUND MUSIC FOR THE SHORT VIDEO. ROBERT, THE VIDEOGRAPHER, IS HEADING OUT TO VISIT SOME OF THE PLACES THE BAYSVILLE AREA PAINTER USED TO VISIT, WHILE ON LOCAL SKETCHING VENTURES.

YESTERDAY, RICHARD KARON JR., (THE ARTIST'S SON), ROBERT AND I, VISITED A LOCAL RESIDENT, WHO OWNS TWO SIGNIFICANT KARON PAINTINGS, BOTH FROM THE LAKE OF BAYS AREA OF THE DISTRICT. THE LARGEST OF THE TWO PAINTINGS, WAS POSITIONED PROMINENTLY IN THE HOME, BETWEEN TWO LARGE PICTURE WINDOWS, LOOKING OUT ONTO A BEAUTIFULLY LANDSCAPED YARD, WITH NATURAL SCULPTURES PLACED UP THE TREED HILLSIDE. THE YOUNG MR. KARON WAS QUITE IMPRESSED, THAT HIS FATHER'S DEPICTION OF A MISTY, LAKESHORE, AND A VENERABLE BIRCH, COMPANIONED THIS NATURAL GALLERY OF MUSKOKA WOOD AND ROCK……AND, OF COURSE, AS KARON WAS FAMOUS FOR, A HEAVENLY SKY. WE ENJOYED A WONDERFUL VISIT WITH A TRUE PATRON OF THE ARTS; ORIGINAL KARON PAINTINGS IN THE MIDST OF A PLETHORA OF OTHER CHERISHED ART WORK AND NATURAL SCULPTURES.

RECENTLY, ON BEHALF OF THE KARON FAMILY, WE HAVE BEGUN A MEDIA CAMPAIGN, IN AN ATTEMPT TO FIND OTHERS IN OUR REGION, AND BEYOND, WHO HAVE KARON ORIGINALS, OR HAVE STORIES TO SHARE ABOUT THE ARTIST, AND HIS DAYS PAINTING ACTIVELY IN OUR REGION OF ONTARIO. THE PRELIMINARY RESPONSE HAS BEEN GOOD, AND WILL ENABLE US TO PRESENT A MORE THOROUGH LOOK AT THIS ART WORK, AND OFFER A MORE INCLUSIVE BIOGRAPHY. SO DUE TO THE RESPONSE, AND THE NEW CONCEPT TO COMPANION THE BIOGRAPHY WITH A VIDEO, WE HAVE BUMPED THE STARTING DATE FROM THE END OF MARCH, TO THE MIDDLE OF APRIL. PLEASE JOIN ME FOR AN INTERESTING GLIMPSE OF THE WORK OF A WELL RESPECTED, BUT UNDER-KNOWN MUSKOKA ARTIST…..RICHARD KARON, 1928-1987.

TOUGH DAYS AHEAD FOR GRAVENHURST, FOR ONTARIO……CANADA?

If I've learned anything at all, from the news gathering profession, it's that there is no absolute conclusion to any story we write. Our readers might think it's over, and critics might assume there's nothing left to rake over the coals, but we know by experience, history isn't as dormant and irrelevant to the present……as some folks assume.

Admittedly, we are a little consumed these days about the restoration of the main street pride and prosperity we had in the past. That's a good thing. Having the Town of Gravenhurst actively involving itself in this business revitalization is exactly what needed to happen. I go back quite a few years, harping about this point. This is a positive move forward, that should give mainstreet businesses and property owners, a bit more confidence that the town is paying attention to the prevailing economic conditions, unlike what was going on in many previous administrations. Letting something bleed-out before getting involved, usually inspires death. Admittedly, the core of a charming little town was being clobbered by commercial node development. It's been the same in downtowns, in communities all over North America, from the mall building frenzy of the late 1960's. Considering the main street had its start in the 1860's, a century of accomplishment, should have enabled us to prepare for the inevitability, one day, it was going to need to be refurbished, and re-enforced, to meet the challenges of new economic realities. At least you'd think.

A lot of past councils knew there was something wrong. When I first joined The Banner, as an editor in 1989, I was reporting on BIA unrest and dissatisfaction, with the way the town was bypassing the growing disharmony. It continued really, until two years ago, when the new decade council-term began; fires raged, and tempers reached a pinnacle of anger. Then, as if a light switched on, the crisis of mainstream revitalization was recognized for what danger it presented. Our community showcase, the historic mainstreet, was in peril of becoming totally, irreparably a mirror then, of a ghost town. I think we are all glad these days, to hear and read about pro-active initiatives, at all levels, to bring focus back onto this prominent stretch of traditional, iconic "Gateway to Muskoka" commerce. I hear a lot less bitching these days, and see more action out and about, and I can only hope this is not an illusion. As a vote of confidence in the main street, our boys, Andrew and Robert have expanded their vintage music business, in the old Muskoka Theatre Building, across from the Opera House, creating a new recording studio which is being utilized every day. We are proud to say that business is up, and has been this way for the past two years.

The point of this blogatorial, is to offer some advice to town administrators, and significant others, about the perils to economic recovery and expansion. There are success stories, for many local businesses. There are just as many stories of misfortune, and lesser profit, from others. An article that appeared in the local press recently, that every councillor, and business owner here, should have read, once or three times, documented (in only a few sentences), how declining enrollment may, one year soon, cause the Trillium Lakelands Board of Education, to consider Gravenhurst High School under-utilized. I warned about this in the fall of 2011. I shall continue warning our town about it, because there needs to be a plan of action, prepared well in advance of this becoming a Board agenda item. Suzanne and I served on the Save Our School Committee the first time, prior to the building of the new and more substantial high school in Bracebridge. We came within a whisker of losing our school then, and it's going to happen again. The article itself, as "to-the-point" as it was, should be imprinted on every councillor's mental agenda, because this time around, the school board won't be asking about whether we would like to send our students to a new school…..they will be conducting public meetings to inform the citizenry of the imminent closure of our school. The school is close-enough to the downtown commercial zone, to be a really big concern to the BIA, the Chamber of Commerce, and anyone else who has or wishes to invest in this town. It's easier to keep a school than to open a new one. The Board of Education, due to fiscal realities, is only following protocol. We can't blame them for declining enrollment.

To this point, I haven't seen much interest raised in this community. Certainly not in the press. I have read more about amphitheaters and staff hirings, than about one of the single most important potential disasters to face this town. A major town without its school? All the work that is being done today, to help revitalize the main street……, and with economic development, I dare say will be a wasted effort down the road; the day the school board sends out that notice of intent, to declare the high school redundant, our students being sent instead to Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School. The wrong attitude? To think it won't happen during the present council term. And to mistakenly believe that present councillors won't be at the epicenter of the controversy. So if I was the local press, I'd be conducting personal interviews with every councillor at the table, and demanding an answer to one major question.

"Do you believe we should maintain Gravenhurst High School, or send our students to a larger, newer, better appointed school, twelve miles north, where there are more course options?"

As a preamble to this question, how many councillors are committed to fighting to maintain our high school? One hundred percent? Seventy percent? Lower? If it's a case, Council can not come up with a strong majority of support to keep the school open, and show a unified willingness to fight what may already be inevitable, there is little the citizens can do without the cavalry. Apathy and procrastination on this issue, by any high ranking official in this town, service club or fraternal organization, or anyone else who loves this town, will cost us dearly in the defense we can mount. We must all recognize, solutions need to be formulated now……and that sitting on the fence watching the events proceed, is the guarantee, the school has no future. Young families will have little reason to move here in the future, knowing that when their children reach high school age, they will be bus-bound for at least four years. The boon here……Bracebridge wins again. Frankly, it's time Gravenhurst got fighting mad about this stuff, because Bracebridge isn't going to object to accommodating more students……bringing more of everything to our neighbor, while we watch the sand slide from the hour-glass.

Due to declining enrollment in many parts of the province, with the exception of certain urban neighborhoods, this is not a Bracebridge-Gravenhurst anomaly. The fact that high school age students are presently going to the two high schools in Bracebridge, has beaten the enrollment locally down consistently, over the past few years. With news that the new provincial budget, may herald a fee being applied to what is popularly called, "The Victory Lap,", the post graduate preparation year, well that's a further stone to attach to a drowning institution. Those returning students, who would have continued on the five year program, as it was before it was scrapped by government, is helping keep the enrollment numbers up. I would imagine a substantial percentage of these students would decline coming back, because they couldn't afford the expense. In this year, students also work to raise additional money, to finance post secondary continuation.

It's damn hard for administrators of our school, with many less advantages than the larger BMLSS, to encourage local families to keep their kids in our secondary school.

I believe, and I may be wrong, but the new school in Bracebridge, was constructed in such a way, as to more easily facilitate future expansion if required. Handling another three to four hundred students might be a tight fit…..I don't know. Chances are however, the bean counters at the Board, will find cost savings with amalgamation.

Is it hard to close a school? Well, all I know, is that the Trillium Lakelands School Board closed the original BMLSS, that did require some documentation. They know how and when to do it. And they tried a few years back, and it was perfectly described as a "close call." This one, the way it's going, is going to be a bullseye, and our ability to argue successfully, to maintain it, a near impossibility, without lots of organization and advance mobilization.

With the impositions we may be faced with, when two major budgets arrive on our doorsteps, by the end of this month, and the cuts expected in education generally, it's a pretty good time to put our school's future on the front-burner…..and pay attention. If our councillors are genuinely concerned about economic development, and main street revitalization, well folks, the proof will be in this pudding. The result of inaction now, will guarantee a crisis a few years down the road……unless, all of a sudden, we inherit a lot of high school age students, who like the ambience of a small school versus a behemoth.

Is it council's business? You bet it is! My advice? Create a committee now, of community representatives, with the sole mission, of acting as a liaison between the Trillium Lakelands Board of Education, and the Town of Gravenhurst, to keep councillors up to speed on all new developments and board initiatives, in order to develop strategies to deal, on solid footing, with any future directive, to close Gravenhurst High School. Don't leave it to a new council down the road. It could be too late.

If I was to say, out of the clear blue, that "the sky is falling," you would be within a comfort zone, to suggest Mr. Currie is just a run-of-the-mill alarmist. The sky isn't falling. But something else is! Enrollment!

FOR MY ANTIQUE HUNTING MATES

Just a short story to share today about the real value of letting experts do what experts do……in antiques and art particularly.

I was at an auction, some years back, and was astonished to find a circa 1830's winter landscape, depicting skaters and horse-drawn sleighs, and a beautiful farm house in a most picturesque valley. It had a visible tear in the canvas but I figured it was worth purchasing and having professionally repaired. As repairs are substantial, with fine art, if the value of the painting is of minor consideration, it wouldn't be prudent to put much money on top of what you paid. Unless of course it has some sentimental or heirloom value to your family.

The painting had been placed on a high shelf in the hall, being used for the charity auction, and it was in company of many framed prints and black velvet art, none in the same league as the original painting I've described. The auctioneer slowly progressed through the low quality prints and paint by number panels, and when they came to the huge framed landscape, the bidding was half what I had expected. I got the painting for seventy dollars. It has been appraised at $5,000. I don't hold a lot of stock in appraisals like that, and the only amount I concern myself with, is either an official insurance appraisal, or the cheque I get when it is finally sold.

What amazed me, was the number of people who came up to me, after I had purchased the painting, to see it up close. As it had been with some landscape prints, of equal size, most in the crowd I talked with, believed it was also a print. I actually had to ask people to stop fondling the canvass, as it already had two small tears. It's pretty easy to detect real canvas and real oil paint with brush marks, from what is a modern day print mounted on cardboard. From the elevation, however, it was much more difficult for most non-art folks to discern.

The painting was done in the 1830's and has a Cornelius Krieghoff look to it, and although the art supplies and stretched canvas, came from the same supplier he had also used in New York, it's not one of his……or I would be laying today, blogging from some luxurious south seas cabana, being pampered by many attendants. We do think it is a Quebec scene but it has been hard to verify. Point is, I got a good deal on a fine painting. So what did you do after preliminary research Ted? Well, being a cheap bugger, to begin with, I decided to restore the painting myself. You won't believe the near-disaster I had. It began like this. My wife has some sewing alchemy at her disposal, so we were able to secure the tears with what is called "interfacing," which has a fabric-safe adhesive, that you can iron in place. It worked brilliantly, to at least secure the tears from getting any worse. I still intend to have it professionally restored.

I have watched professional framers use glass cleaner to wipe-down original oils. I've actually asked questions while the technician was working away on a filthy, soot-covered oil painting, from the turn of the 1900's. While they do many tests to see if the colors run, or any thinning or chipping of the paint occurs, they seemed to get a pretty good result, and I never heard a single complaint from a customer. We used to have our antique shop below a framing business, so it's why I know this information. So I was slow and methodical, when it came to cleaning the years of fireplace soot off this painting, that had obviously hung over someone's mantle for a long time. To clean the frame, I used a more powerful cleaning spray. I was careful not to expose the painting to this more caustic cleaner.

I worked outside on a big table, because of the fumes from two cleaners, and I sort of alternated between the glass cleaner and the spray I was using for the massive wood framing. I was talking to Suzanne at the same time, and half-watching the neighborhood kids riding the bikes up and down the street. It happened like this. I got reckless. Cocky even. I was so bloody sure of myself, well, Suzanne said, "It was bound to happen you know." Well sir, I gave the painting one more overall spray of window cleaner. I thorough soaking, and I knew it would clean-up beautifully. When I tried to wipe it off, the paper towel I was using to dab the cleaner, was much more colorful than it should have been. My God, I had sprayed on the wrong cleaner. I almost called the fire department I was so upset. The cleaner was burning through the canvass. It took gallons of water to dilute the power of that cleaner. That was about a decade ago. The sky still shows the residue of stupidity. You know, if I was asked by any one of you, how to treat a painting like this….or any painting, I would always suggest that spending a little more money, is good insurance…… that it will have its integrity maintained. The subject painting had survived from the 1830's to the new century with a few small tears. Then the crazy, half-ass art restorer, took some heavy duty cleaner to it…….and that now is art history. A history I wish I could re-write. My advice? Don't be so damn cheap!

Thanks for visiting today's blog. Please join me again soon!

Gravenhurst Taxes, Les Rutledge, A Muskoka Auctioneer

FOR MY ANTIQUE BLOG WATCHERS - SEE POSTING AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS TAXING EDITORIAL

IS THERE ANYONE HAPPY ABOUT PROPERTY TAX HIKES?

WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE FUTURE! WHERE WILL WE BE LIVING, AND IN WHAT?

A LOCAL YOCAL'S PERSPECTIVE.

I'M A CHEAPSKATE ACCORDING TO MY WIFE AND MY FORMER GOLF BUDDIES. I WILL ENJOY A ROUND AT THE CLUBHOUSE, BUT I WON'T BUY ONE. AS FOR TAXES, WHEN I OPEN MY TWICE YEARLY MUNICIPAL BILL, WELL, ON A FEW OCCASIONS, MY NEIGHBORS HAVE LOOKED OUT THEIR DOORS TO SEE WHO RAN OVER THE CAT. SO BELIEVE ME, WHILE I DON'T LIKE BIG TAX INCREASES, AND WASTEFUL SPENDING, I CAN HANDLE THE INCREASES AT PRESENT…..PRIMARILY BECAUSE THE MAYOR, DURING THE LAST BUDGET, WARNED TIGHT-FISTED BUGGERS LIKE ME, THAT THE MUNICIPALITY WAS GOING TO BE DEALING WITH SUBSTANTIAL TAX INCREASES FOR A FEW MORE YEARS. MY CONTENTMENT RESTS WITH THE PRESENT REALITY, MOST RECREATION CENTRE USERS, ARE MORE THAN SATISFIED WE HAVE MADE A GOOD INVESTMENT. IT'S WHAT WE NEEDED IN THIS COMMUNITY. IT WAS TIME TO BUILD A POOL. I DON'T LIKE EXPENSE ANY DAY OF THE WEEK, BUT EVERYTHING WORKS ON THIS CASH-FOR-STUFF BASIS. IF I HEARD A HUGE NUMBER OF COMPLAINTS AND NEGATIVITY GENERALLY, ABOUT THE REVAMPED CENTRE, I MIGHT WANT A REFUND. ALL I KNOW IS THAT THE MAYOR OF THIS TOWN DID NOT LIE TO ME, ABOUT THE PAIN AND SUFFERING TO BE EXPECTED. SO ANYTHING UNDER A TEN PERCENT HIKE IS LIKE NNIRVANA…..GETTING THE CAKE AND EATING IT TOO.

THERE ARE READERS OF THIS BLOG, FROM ALL OVER THE CONTINENT, WHO HAVE AN OPINION ABOUT REGIONAL AND MUNICIPAL TAXES, AND THE YEARLY ESCALATIONS WE'RE FORCED TO "DEAL WITH"! IN MY HOME TOWN AND HOME REGION, GRAVENHURST, IN THE DISTRICT OF MUSKOKA, HERE IN THE ONTARIO HINTERLAND, WE ARE FACING A HEFTY TAX INCREASE THIS YEAR…..TO COVER A RISING DEBT-LOAD, AND INTEREST, PLUS THE RE-PAYMENT OF MONEY SPENT ON A NEWLY REDEVELOPED RECREATION CENTRE.

THE PROBLEM IS NOT SO MUCH WITH THE DECISIONS OF THE PRESENT GRAVENHURST COUNCIL, BUT THE FACT IT TOOK THEM SO LONG TO BLAME PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS FOR CRAPPY INVESTMENT PROWESS. A PREVIOUS COUNCIL PURCHASED A NEW TOWN HALL LOCATION, AND LITERALLY GAVE THE OLD ONE AWAY. WHETHER IT WENT TO THE THE LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENT OR NOT, THE BOTTOM LINE IS WHAT THAT LOSS OF REVENUE MEANS TO THE EXPENSE OF THE NEW TOWN CENTRE, WHICH JUST RECENTLY REQUIRED A NEW AND EXPENSIVE ROOF. ADD ON THE COST OF THE NEW "ATTACHED" MEDICAL CENTRE, AND AN OPERA HOUSE THAT HAS FEWER AND FEWER REASONS EVERY YEAR TO BE OPEN, AND IT'S EASY TO APPRECIATE WHY SOME TAXPAYERS HAVE ANGER ISSUES WITH LOCAL COUNCILLORS. MUCH OF IT HOWEVER, IS CARRY-OVER FROM A PREVIOUS COUNCIL.

FOR POLITICAL REASONS, WE MIGHT SUPPOSE, COUNCILLORS HAVE REFRAINED FROM POINTING THE FINGER…..BUT THEY DON'T HAVE TO. MOST OF US WHO PAY ATTENTION TO THE COMINGS AND GOINGS IN OUR REGION, KNOW WHERE TO PLACE THE BLAME. IF WE CAN BLAME LOCAL COUNCIL FOR ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, IT'S IN THIS LACK OF OPENNESS, TELLING OUR CITIZENS EXACTLY WHY WE'RE IN THE NOSE-BLEED CATEGORY OF GOVERNMENT TAX INCREASES…….AND WILL BE FOR SOME TIME YET TO COME.

ALTHOUGH I HAVE NOT BEEN TO THE NEW RECREATION CENTRE, AS OF YET, THE WORD ON THE STREET IS THAT WE HAVE A DAMN-FINE FACILITY AND THAT THE YMCA ARE TOP-NOTCH ADMINISTRATORS. THE REVIEWS ARE POSITIVE AND ENCOURAGING, AND ONE MIGHT SUGGEST FROM THE EARLY GOING, THAT THE CITIZENRY IS PLEASED WITH THE END RESULT. AS A REFRESHER, IT WAS A YEAR AGO THAT THE PROVERBIAL POOP HIT THE FAN HERE, WITH INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING, BY THE DAILY PRESS, UNCOVERING ALLEGED IRREGULARITIES IN THE RE-CONSTRUCTION PROJECT. TO SOME WHO WANTED ANSWERS ABOUT OTHER THINGS ASSOCIATED WITH THE NEW POOL, IT WAS IMMEDIATELY ASSUMED COST OVER-RUNS WERE PART OF A LARGER SCAM. FOR A HALF YEAR, IN THE MIDST OF CONSTRUCTION, CITIZENS WERE EXPECTING MORE AND DIRE HEADLINES, ABOUT THE FORENSIC AUDIT, AND ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE INVESTIGATION, EXAMINING IF THERE WERE GROUNDS FOR CRIMINAL CHARGES TO BE LAID. THEN, SIX MONTHS LATER, CAME NEWS IN THE LOCAL MEDIA, THAT NO CRIMINAL WRONG-DOING WAS FOUND, AND NOTHING WAS SERIOUSLY AMISS, CONTRARY TO THE ORIGINAL ALLEGATIONS. AS WE HEAVED A COLLECTIVE SIGH OF RELIEF, BECAUSE VERY FEW OF US WANTED TO BELIEVE BAD THINGS COULD HAPPEN TO NICE PEOPLE, WE WERE THEN HIT BY DELAY AFTER DELAY AFTER DELAY, IN POOL COMPLETION, LEADING SOME TO OFFER-UP THE OPINION ONCE AGAIN, "GRAVENHURST IS CURSED."

TO HEAR THESE RAVE REVIEWS NOW IS A WONDERFUL RESPITE FROM THE CONTROVERSY. I'M STILL A LITTLE PENSIVE, AS A FORMER NEWSPAPER MAN, THAT WE HAVEN'T READ THE LAST OF THE DAILY NEWS STORIES, ON OUR CENTRE; TO MY KNOWLEDGE, THERE HASN'T BEEN A FOLLOW-UP, OR RE-VISITATION OF THE MATTER SINCE LAST SPRING. I HAVE A SUSPICION THERE IS MORE TO COME, BECAUSE WITHOUT CRIMINAL CHARGES HAVING BEEN LAID, OR FORENSIC ANOMALIES FLAGGED, THE CITIZENS OF THIS TOWN SHOULD, AT THE VERY LEAST, HAVE BEEN AFFORDED AN EXPLANATION FROM THE NEWSPAPER, WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT……AND HOW WHAT BEGAN AS A HEART-STOPPING FRONT-PAGER, (FOR US AT LEAST), HAS BEEN SHELVED. I THINK WHAT THE PUBLISHER AND EDITOR AGREE WARRANTS FRONT PAGE INK, OVER A NUMBER OF DAYS, CERTAINLY DESERVES ADDITIONAL COVERAGE, TO CLARIFY THE SITUATION, SO WE CAN HAVE OUR OWN CLOSURE……BECAUSE THERE ARE STILL QUITE A NUMBER OF CITIZENS HERE WHO REMEMBER THE ALLEGATIONS ON THE FRONT PAGE. AND THE VERY MODEST CLARIFICATIONS THAT WERE THEN PUBLISHED IN THE LOCAL MEDIA, IN THE FALL OF 2011, FOLLOWING THE RELEASE OF THE OPP REPORT, AND FORENSIC AUDIT. BUT IF THERE WAS AN APOLOGY, MOST OF US MISSED THAT HEADLINE.

I THINK THAT THE TOWN OF GRAVENHURST SHOULD, ON OUR BEHALF, ASK FOR CLARIFICATION FROM THE PRESS……AND AN EXPLANATION WHETHER THE MATTER IS SETTLED……OR NOT. WE GOT POUNDED AS A COMMUNITY, WHETHER THE MEDIA BELIEVES THIS, OR CARES. OUR MUNICIPALITY HAD TO ENDURE EXPENSE AND DELAYS IN A LOT OF AREAS, DURING THE INVESTIGATION, NOT TO MENTION HAVING THEIR GOVERNMENT FUNDING SUSPENDED. AND I WOULD FEEL SOMEWHAT MORE COMFORTABLE WITH OUR MUNICIPAL LEADERSHIP, IF THIS MATTER WAS PURSUED, FROM THEIR POSITION OF AUTHORITY, SO WE COULD HAVE CLOSURE. WHAT'S THE STATUS? WHY HAS IT TAKEN THIS LONG, NOW COMING UP TO THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE ALLEGED IRREGULARITIES, TO GET EITHER AN APOLOGY, A RE-TRACTION, HOW ABOUT A SIMPLE EXPLANATION WHERE THE MATTER STANDS. THE LOCAL PRESS? IT SHOULD MOST DEFINITELY BE THEIR CONCERN, BECAUSE THEY CARRIED MUCH OF THE SAME INFORMATION…..THE SAME ALLEGATIONS.

MAYBE IT IS PREMATURE TO SUGGEST EVERYTHING IS FINE AT THE NEWLY REFURBISHED GRAVENHURST RECREATION CENTRE. MAYBE INSIDERS KNOW THERE'S A STORM CLOUD HEADING THIS WAY. POSSIBLY THEY ARE SWORN TO SECRECY. THEY MIGHT THINK WE CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! THIS IS WHERE THEY ARE DEAD WRONG. THERE ARE INQUIRING MINDS HERE IN THE HINTERLAND OF ONTARIO, AND WE'RE NOT SATISFIED AT ALL WITH STATUS QUO ON THIS ONE, AND COUNCIL SHOULD BE KICKING UP A FUSS…….BUT NARY A WHIMPER CAN BE HEARD. OUR COMMUNITY WAS TAGGED WITH THE SAME BRUSH, AND THAT HAPPENS…….BUT SOMEONE MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE, FOR CLEANING UP THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE WE RECEIVED, BENEATH THOSE HONKING BIG HEADLINES.

AS FOR ONE CRITIC'S SUGGESTION, OF LOCAL COUNCILLORS PATTING THEMSELVES ON THE BACK, AFTER PASSING THIS YEAR'S BUDGET, I DON'T BELIEVE THIS FOR A MOMENT. IF ANYTHING, THEY WERE PREPARING EACH OTHER, FOR THE FRIGHTENING ENTRY INTO THE TWILIGHT'S ZONE OF RATEPAYER DISGUST. POSSIBLY THINKING ABOUT THE THE VERY REAL HORROR, OF HAVING TO SELL THE TAX INCREASE AT COTTAGE ASSOCIATION MEETINGS THIS SUMMER SEASON. AS A FORMER REPORTER, WHO COVERED MANY OF THESE LARGE RATEPAYER, AND COTTAGE ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETINGS, HAVING TO FACE THEIR WRATH IS DAUNTING…..BLOOD CURDLING UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCE OF SUCH TAX INCREASES. SEEING AS MOST OF THE COTTAGERS IN THIS REGION WILL NOT BE USING THE RECREATION CENTRE, HAVING TO PAY FOR IT, AND A NEW TOWN HALL ROOF, IS A MATTER OF DELICATE SALESMANSHIP…….AND FOR THE MAYOR, HOPING AGAINST HOPE, A RAIL DOESN'T COME SHOOTING THROUGH THE MEETING ROOM DOORS. I'VE KNOWN A FEW MAYORS IN MY DAY, WHO PRETTY MUCH "RODE THE RAIL," WHEN SEASONAL RESIDENTS DECIDED TO PLAY A MORE ACTIVE ROLL IN THE VERY NEXT MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. SO TO THINK THAT ANY LOCAL COUNCILLOR IS FEELING GIDDY ABOUT THE PARED DOWN BUDGET, THAT IS STILL WAY ASSESSED BY MOST CRITICS AS BEING TOO HIGH, IS NOTHING SHORT OF ABSURD. HOW MANY COUNCILLORS ARE TAKING ANT-ACIDS LIKE TIC-TACS THESE DAYS? HOW MANY HAVEN'T SPENT QUALITY TIME WITH THEIR FAMILIES IN MONTHS? HOW MANY OF THEM CAN'T SHOP IN OUR LOCAL BUSINESSES, WITHOUT RUNNING INTO A TAX HATER, WHO TAKES THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHASTISE ONE, FOR THE ALLEGED SINS OF THE MAJORITY.

WHILE A LOT OF FOLKS WILL COMPLAIN WHENEVER THERE IS A BID BY A LOCAL COUNCIL, TO GIVE THEMSELVES A PAY RAISE. I'M GOING TO TELL YOU THIS AS BLUNTLY AS I CAN………FOR WHAT COUNCILLORS ARE EXPECTED TO DO, AND THE RESPONSIBILITY THEY CARRY FOR A HUGE CORPORATION, THEY ARE PAID PEANUTS……AND IF YOU CAN APPRECIATE WHAT THE BEST TALENT IN THEIR DEPARTMENTS ARE PAID, AS COMPARED TO WHAT THEY EARN PER YEAR, EVEN WITH PERKS, THE WHOLE THING IS CONTRADICTORY. YOU WILL NOT ATTRACT THOSE WITH MOST EXPERIENCE IN THE FIELD OF MUNICIPAL BUSINESS, WHEN COUNCIL SALARIES ARE AS MEAGRE AS PRESENT. COUNCILLOR REMUNERATION ISN'T THE BURDEN OF TAX INCREASE, DESPITE WHAT SOME CRITICS MIGHT CLAIM. WHAT THE PALTRY AMOUNT IS, IN FACT, A LITERAL GUARANTEE THAT BETTER QUALIFIED CANDIDATES ARE NEVER GOING TO TAKE ON THE BURDEN OF OFFICE FOR THE PRESENT PAY. SO WHEN THE TALKING HEADS OUT THERE, START QUESTIONING THE LEADERSHIP OF COUNCIL, WELL…….IT'S NOT GOING TO CHANGE MUCH IN THE FUTURE, BECAUSE INCREASING COUNCIL SALARIES IS THE "BULLSEYE"……THE CENTRAL SYMBOL OF TAXPAYER REVOLT. JUST WATCH THE PRESS. EVEN A MERE MENTION, OF A PROPOSED INCREASE, WILL CREATE A FRENZY OF LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, HUGE FISCAL INEFFICIENCIES ARE HAPPENING ALL OVER THE PLACE, GOING RELATIVELY UNNOTICED. I TALKED TO A CORPORATE EXECUTIVE, A NUMBER OF YEARS AGO, WHO WAS SOMEWHAT INTERESTED IN THE AFFAIRS OF LOCAL COUNCIL. WHETHER HE PLANNED TO RETIRE HERE, AND POSSIBLY RUN FOR COUNCIL, I DON'T KNOW, BUT HE WOULD HAVE MADE A DANDY REPRESENTATIVE. WHEN I GAVE HIM SOME BALLPARK FIGURES ABOUT WHAT MUSKOKA AREA COUNCILLORS RECEIVE AS PAYMENT…..WELL, HE JUST LAUGHED. HIS QUESTION WAS A BASIC ONE. HOW DO YOU GET QUALIFIED PEOPLE FOR THAT AMOUNT OF MONEY? WITH NO DISRESPECT TO PRESENT COUNCILLORS, THE MATTER OF QUALIFICATION IS A HUGE ISSUE. WE'VE GOT SOME ACCOMPLISHED AND HIGHLY QUALIFIED PEOPLE IN THIS TOWN, WHO WILL NOT RUN FOR COUNCIL BECAUSE THE MONEY SIMPLY ISN'T WORTH THE ONGOING, FOUR YEAR HASSLE. THE FOUR YEAR TERM HAS ALSO LIMITED PARTICIPATION.

I WON'T BE SUGGESTING ANY "TARRING" OR SUBSEQUENT "FEATHERING" THIS YEAR FOR LOCAL COUNCILLORS, WHO I'VE COME TO RESPECT LATELY, FOR SOME OF THEIR SKILLFUL NAVIGATION THROUGH SHARK INFESTED WATERS. I'M STILL A CRITIC TO THEM, AND IT'S NOT EASY TO FORGIVE AND FORGET, BUT I DO APPRECIATE THAT THE DECISIONS THEY'VE BEEN FORCED TO MAKE, AND THE ONES YET TO COME, ARE MADE WITH A PERSONAL COST AS WELL. AS MAD AS I CAN GET ABOUT SOME ISSUES, AND PERCEIVED SPENDING EXCESSES, THESE COUNCILLORS ARE OUR CITIZENS TOO, AND THEY'RE TRYING THE BEST THEY CAN, TO CORRECT WHAT A FORMER COUNCIL INFLICTED ON THE PRESENT. NO, NONE OF THE COUNCILLORS FELT THEY WERE CHAMPIONS FOR PARING THE BUDGET DOWN……THEY FELT LIKE CRAP. THERE WAS NO JOY. JUST WORRY ABOUT WHAT IS YET TO COME.

NO THEY DON'T MAKE ENOUGH MONEY FOR WHAT THEY ARE EXPECTED TO SHOULDER. WHY DO THEY STAY? IT'S NOT BECAUSE OF THE MONEY. JUST POSSIBLY, THEY BELIEVE IN FOLLOWING THROUGH ON A COMMITMENT THEY MADE TO US. I WOULDN'T BLAME ANY OF THEM FOR RESIGNING, BUT FRANKLY, I'M GLAD THEY'RE STICKING AROUND, AND WILLING TO WEATHER THE STORM.

LES RUTLEDGE WAS A CHARACTER AND NOT A BAD AUCTIONEER

I was editor of The Herald-Gazette, when I heard the news that my old auction friend, Les Rutledge had passed away. If I'm not mistaken, he had a heart attack while removing snow from his driveway, here in Gravenhurst. For those who knew Les, it can only ever be an understatement, to claim he was a character….of epic proportion. Amongst those folkish characters I knew in my young life to that point, he stood tall in my comprehension of what memorable citizens were all about. When I'd meet the big man, when he'd come into the Dominion Street office, in Bracebridge, to place his auction advertisements, I always took the time to find out what was going on in his world, and he always had questions…..and a few editorial notes for me. I was editor and he was influential…..in his own old-school way. He was a tough guy, and a few of the front-desk clerks were petrified of big Les, because he had a caustic side, but his bark, and stern look on his face, was always more bluster than a marker of how mad or disappointed he was. He didn't like the price of his auction ads, but after debating the issue with staff, which he seemed to enjoy, he'd pay his bill and place the very next notice for the coming issue.

I first got to know Les as one of his auction regulars. After a career on the trains, I believe, Les decided to provide a needed service in our area. By his dress and his cowboy hat, he looked the part of the country auctioneer. He was respected as an accomplished auctioneer, even after only a short time in the profession. I can still see him, as clear as clear, standing so proudly on the little wooden platform he used to cart around. Les Rutledge exuded confidence, and he was incredibly colorful when conducting a sale. First of all, he was a substantial human being. He was almost imposing, when he stood shoulder to shoulder with his bidders, and he seemed even bigger than that, when he came down off the block of wood, to have a face-to-face with a bidder who was pissing-him-off. Let me tell you folks, we all inhaled at the same time, and when Les finally twinkled with a smile that the matter had been resolved, we jointly exhaled. He was a tad impatient. He liked things to go smoothly.

I can remember, when Les would get annoyed by a smart-ass bidder amongst us. It wasn't the case the person would be nasty about the comments, or directing anything personal at the auctioneer. But there would, from time to time, be the kind of "budinski" patron who would correct Les about something, or distract him or the audience with unwelcome advisories. Geez, dollars to donuts, I'd get that loudmouth right beside me. Many times I wanted to say to them, "Please, please don't poke the bear." Suzanne would give me the "don't get involved" look, as she still does in similar circumstances that inspire me to get lippy, and I'd just let the person feel the wrath of the about-to-get-even auctioneer. Les always reminded me of my former band conductor, John Rutherford, back in my high school days, in Bracebridge, who would stop a concert right in the middle, if he thought the audience was being disrespectful to the musicians. I always knew with John, as a baritone player, that when his white conductor's baton snapped in his hands (broken into two small pieces), we should just put our instruments down, and batten down the hatches for the lecture that was on its way. Les was somewhat the same, but his baton was a much larger cane. I never saw him break it……or hit anyone with it, but something told me, I should step back from the person causing the disruption, just in case. He would use it as a pointer, identifying the person causing the problem, and maybe wave it about a bit, but I never heard it swing through the air, or do anything more than tap at the platform, like a rattlesnake preparing to strike. It usually stopped there.

He wore a large Stetson-style hat, which was white if memory serves, and a rope tie, to go with the auctioneer's fashion tradition. He always looked stern through the business part of the sale, but on breaks, he was quite a kidder. The old farts in the crowd thought Les was their John Wayne, because he embodied the attributes of a wise grandfather, a tough parent, a reliable neighbor, and one who could spin yarns that would take your breath away. He wasn't flashy, or trying to be someone other than the former railwayman most knew him as, and respected, while at the same time adjusting to his career as an auctioneer. He didn't really fit the profile of the country auctioneer, such that he would have been its poster boy, but no one was foolish enough to say this to his face.

I had the chance to talk to Wayne Rutledge, who took over from his father's auction legacy, a short while before his own sudden demise. I told him frankly, that his father had helped me progress in the antique profession, and he had also…..contrary to the way he should have operated, gave Suzanne and I, as newlyweds, at his auctions, little breaks here and there……that was his way of keeping us coming back to his sales. Person to person advertising. We didn't have a lot of money to furnish our first apartment together, and when Les would watch us losing bid after bid, because of the escalation of price, he would suddenly, on something else we were interested, stop the bid when he felt it was fair for all parties….except the other bidders also interested in the subject piece. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see your bid," he'd answer, with a wink of the eye to me. I wasn't going to suggest to him, his kindness wasn't appreciated. It may not have been ethical, to the letter of the auctioneer's credo, but by golly, he had a kind streak that went on and on, but few knew it was there. I saw it, felt it, and when I shook his hand…..mine disappearing in his huge mitts, let me tell you it was sincere. And if the man had faults, well, he also had some attributes I truly admired. I never missed his auctions. I never once missed his trips into The Herald-Gazette, where he loved to get the front desk clerks in a panic. It was just fun stuff……he liked the ladies, and he had no intention of ever hurting anyone's feelings with his directness…..except if you happened to annoy him during the auction roll. In that respect, he was like any other auctioneer, trying to get the job done.

Thanks for joining today's blog. Please join me again soon!

Gambling on the Lot, An Antique Hunters Folly

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.

The Painting Behind The Painting, It Pays to Look

A VICTORIAN FAMILY PHOTOGRAPH BY A GRAVENHURST STUDIO, FOUND IN ORILLIA. DO YOU KNOW THIS FAMILY?

ARE THERE ANY ANTIQUE TREASURES LEFT TO FIND? IT'S THE REASON I WILL DIE AS AN ANTIQUE HUNTER

1,001 REASONS WE WON'T ABANDON OUR MISSION TO FIND ELUSIVE TREASURE

ACTUALLY, THE ABOVE-STATED "1,001 REASONS" I REMAIN AS AN ANTIQUE DEALER / COLLECTOR, UNTIL DEATH, CREATES THAT EXPECTED PARTING OF THE WAYS, COMES DOWN TO ONLY ONE SIGNIFICANT REASON…..THE OTHER 1,000 ALL RELATE TO THE SAME THING. THE TREASURE. THE BIG FIND. THE SO-CALLED HOLY GRAIL WE'VE ALL BEEN SEARCHING FOR…..IN OUR RESPECTIVE AREAS OF COLLECTING EXPERTISE. ARE WE GREEDY? FUNNY THING, THAT! IF YOU WERE ASKED THIS, IMMEDIATELY AFTER READING THE INTRODUCTION ABOVE, YOU'D PROBABLY ANSWER AFFIRMATIVELY……."ANTIQUE DEALERS ARE A GREEDY LOT!" IF HOWEVER, I HADN'T OPENED WITH THIS BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA, YOU MIGHT HAVE SAID THAT ANTIQUE DEALERS AREN'T ANY MORE GREEDY THAN MOST IN THE GENERAL POPULATION. IF I WAS TO SEND OUT A QUESTIONNAIRE TO ALL THE ANTIQUE DEALERS IN THE WORLD, I CAN'T IMAGINE HONEST ANSWERS COMING BACK THAT SUGGEST, "OF COURSE WE ARE GREEDY; WE WANT MORE AND MORE WEALTH." MAKING BIG FINDS IS A BIG DEAL, BUT SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH, IT'S OFTEN TIMES SPAWNS A SERIOUS AND DEPRESSING LET-DOWN FOLLOWING SUCH MOMENTOUS OCCASIONS…..AND GETTING A BIG CHEQUE AS A RESULT, LIKELY ISN'T GOING TO SATISFY THE URGE TO CARRY-ON. THIS ISN'T UNIQUE TO THE ANTIQUE TRADE BY ANY MEANS. BUT WE'RE THE ONES WHO APPEAR SO HELL-BENT ON MAKING BIG MONEY AS A DAY TO DAY ENTERPRISE. IT WOULD, OF COURSE, BE HIGHLY HYPOCRITICAL TO SUGGEST WE DON'T LIKE TO PROFIT FROM OUR WORK, BUT IT IS WORTH NOTING, THAT EVEN MULTI-MILLIONAIRE DEALERS AND COLLECTORS, STILL SEEK OUT THE ADVENTURE OF "THE HUNT." LOOK AT THOSE WHO SEEK OUT SUNKEN TREASURE SHIPS AND UNDERWATER BOOTY……PIRATE LOOY, BURIED TREASURE, AND YUP, EVEN THE HOLY GRAIL OF THE TEMPLAR KNIGHTS……THEIR MYSTERY-LADEN, YET TO BE UNCOVERED, HIDDEN STASH.

I have never yet, with all the scrounging and thousands of miles invested in over thirty years, found an original A.Y. Jackson sketch. Not even a hanky he may have stuffed in his pocket, on sketching trips. I've never found his cap, an old sweater he used to wear while painting, or a glass he used to drink from while at home. But by golly, I've found three of his autographs on books, all signed opposite to what he wrote in capital letters, on his art panels. On books, and for autographs he gave admirers, he penned his name as, "a.y. jackson." No kidding. It would be an unbelievable moment, to one day, find an original Jackson tucked behind another piece of art in a frame, or in a job-lot of auction items, purchased for a tiny bid. But it has happened similarly to antique / art dealers and collectors, and every time news of this spreads throughout our profession, it regenerates our interest generally, and profoundly, to carry on the "Quest." As I have said before, beware of the dealer or expert in a particular collecting field, who advises that there are no good finds left out there. These folks are just trying to clear the field, and keep you out of their way. There are no shortage of good finds.

Those who make a good living in the antique field, are most likely, particularly savvy at networking with other dealers. While I've written about generalist dealers, such as myself……having no pre-set rule about what I will buy and sell (there are a few exceptions), many specialist dealers as well, have a list of ready buyers for what they may come across, by happenstance, out on the hustings. They may collect Canadian or American landscape art, but if they were to find an abstract, by someone like Canadian artist, Harold Town, or a nice example of American legend, Jackson Pollock's, paint-dripped art boards, it would be natural and obvious to either acquire on spec., or make a couple of phone calls to those in the art community, who would most want those works. A lady in the United States did buy a suspected Pollock at a yard sale for under fifty bucks. It's problem stemmed from the fact it wasn't signed, but gave every appearance of an original. We are never too specialized, to walk past, and ignore a quality antique that possibly can turn a profit at some point. I might not care for Henry Moore's sculptures, like the City of Toronto's "Archer," but I'd climb over a tall building, while naked, to own one. I can learn to like stuff. I'd love to have his autograph. So depending on the circumstance we are faced with, we can change, and network our good finds to someone else……who will potentially, be so happy with the discovery, we will be handsomely rewarded…….possibly spawning a trade for something we do want. I had a Coca Cola collector who did this frequently. He would trade me all kinds of neat stuff, from boxing gloves to cricket bats, for any old Coke memorabilia I would find on our hunts. The same can happen at the high end as well, just as it does on our level of hunting and gathering, what may be seen as nothing more than average knick-knacks, from week to week. Well sometimes, us low echelon dealers can come up with surprises as well……and we'll be only too glad to contact a stratosphere dealer who sells Chippendale, or fine art, or an auction house, if it means we can make enough profit to buy a new muffler for the company van.

Quite a few years ago now, I was in an antique shop operated by a European chap, who was running his business in an industrial park. There were two distinct sections, that required crossing from one block of the building, over a green space, into the annex about fifty yards opposite. He had some neat pieces and had only been opened a few months when we visited. When I antique-hunt, I will gladly talk to folks, and the vendor obviously, but when this happens, I stop shopping entirely. There are trade secrets I will never reveal, and I certainly won't allow myself to be studied by an associate dealer. If I continue to shop and talk, I can't focus properly, and I am much more prone to making a bad purchase. There are things I study, and angles I examine, on a subject piece, that could tip-off a vendor, that he has somehow under-researched and under-valued the specific object of my immediate affections. This gentleman would not take his eyes off me. I don't fault him for this, because he didn't know us, and truthfully, watching your clientele is a measure of preventative maintenance. This guy wasn't giving me any room, to examine anything without offering his companion commentary…..giving many reasons why I should buy what was in my hand. Suzanne was sliding under the radar, looking at fabric antiques. He was obviously a chauvinist, because he determined early on, I was the guy with the fat wallet. How wrong it was to pre-judge in this fashion, as I am usually always without more than a few coins for the parking meter. Suzanne is my manager, and I never make a major purchase without full discussion with her. I trust her judgement.

I also don't get along with "close-talkers," and this chap wanted to climb into my ear. Every now and again I'd turn suddenly, in order to change direction, and I'd almost hit his cheek with my large beak. Finally the guy found Suzanne, with a large pile of vintage fabrics…..possibly a quilt if memory serves, and left me for a few moments to browse unimpeded. So I found an interesting landscape that I suspected was the handiwork of George Thomson, brother of legendary Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson. It wasn't signed but it was in Thomson's style…..which was very much different than his brother's art panels. I had quite a few greeting cards that had George Thomson prints on the front, and I had already owned three of his originals, purchased in Gravenhurst, so I knew there was a ninety percent chance the one I was holding was the result of a Thomson brush. In Muskoka, by the way, Thomson used to paint with his artist friend Bob Everett (the pharmacist-artist), and if you were to look at the work of both men, side by side, you might agree they shared styles as well as picnic lunches, while out sketching.

The dealer spotted me looking at the small framed landscape, and almost leapt over a dining-room table and chair, to get to me before I put it back on the shelf. He nattered on and on, and was splashing my cheek with water droplets from his rather noxious breath. So trying to step back to get a little "me" space, he obviously felt he needed to emphasize how important it was to make a sale on an obviously slow Saturday. "You like that painting don't you?" he asked, grabbing my shoulder like my grandfather used to do, when he wanted me to stop picking at his rose bushes. Before I could answer anything at all, he blurted, "If your wife buys those quilts, I'll give you that landscape for twenty bucks." I could have kissed that guy on the lips and stroked his forehead. I knew that Suzanne had that tell-tale inner glow that was subtly, but noticeably radiating out her pores, as a "yes" aura…..so it didn't take me long to shake the man's hand, and state with gentlemanly affirmation, "Sir, I will accept your generous offer," while inaudibly asking that he never, ever, glom onto me again. So the bottom line of the hunt and gather episode, was that we got two "as is" but easy to repair quilts (Suzanne does this), and quite a nice Thomsonesque landscape, presumably of either Algonquin or North Muskoka. I sold it to a collector an hour after it was offered at a sale we were attending in the Village of Windermere, on Muskoka's Lake Rosseau.

So what's so interesting about this? The Thomson panel wasn't signed, so the value was about half what it would have been, with the usual provenance? The exception? The out-of-the-ordinary situation? Well, that would be the early 1800's folk art painting of a sailboat that was wedged behind the Thomson landscape, that someone had used as a backing….for whatever reason. I won't suggest to you that this happens all the time, but it does occur more frequently than you might suspect. The Thomson was sold for $150, and the folk art sailboat, went for just over $200. Not bad for a twenty dollar investment. In fairness, I did not know there was a second painting tacked into that very modern looking frame. But this is what was being sold, and this is the luck of the Irish antique dealer. In the past decade, I have found at least a dozen doubles, when detaching the original frames, and probably another dozen vintage photographs that were also used as backing material. It's not uncommon to find that an artist, when framing his or her own work, will often use another of their paintings, they disapprove of, as padding for the art work they want to showcase. I will sell them together, in this case. I've had two this year, that were painted on both sides, one of these, the artist, in my opinion, had put the best watercolor in the back….as compared to what had been selected as the best art work.

On another occasion, I went to a garage sale just before it wrapped up, and a gentleman I knew, basically refused to sell me individual books I had pulled out of a collection of ten jammed boxes. He wanted me to take all the books off his hands. The price was right, but most of the books were damaged and would have to be recycled. The books I wanted were "money" titles, and signed first editions, so I had to avoid getting angry, as I really wanted to hang onto my finds. I tried to reason with him, but he just kept turning his back on me. I asked Suzanne to deal with him, and he did the same thing……"Take them all, or take none, it's the same to me." Oh I hate that line of reasoning. So his pig-headed compromise was to give us a fantastic deal on the lot. Ten dollars takes them all. I would have given him twenty for the five in my hands. But he wanted them gone in entirety. So we paid him the ten dollars, and the boys loaded them into the van. When I got home, with Suzanne still frowning like a Victorian matron, I stood at the back of the van, with Andrew and Robert, looking through some of the books to see how many we could salvage. Andrew opened one book, and he started yelling, "Dad, dad you won't believe it," and there in his outstretched hand were five tall-boy hockey cards (large format paper stock) from the 1960's original six teams, of the National Hockey League, in very good condition. Those cards not only made up for the ten bucks we paid for the lot of books, but bought us a nice Sunday dinner out, and thirty dollars on top of that profit. And yes, we find many interesting and salable materials stored inside books, including money and real four leaf clovers.

Finds like this, through a career as long as ours, keeps us intrigued, and motivated to carry-on the antique hunt. If you're a collector / dealer yourself, you have many similar stories undoubtedly, which makes the enterprise a little more entertaining…..than most people realize, when discussing us, and our profession in our absence.

Thank you so much for joining today's blog. Please come again.

Alex Colville, The English Patient, and Good Antique Advice

A GREAT DAY FOR HITTING THE OPEN ROAD - A SPRING IN WINTER'S STEP

AUTOGRAPHS AND ART HISTORIES ARE ALWAYS A GOOD FIND -

ANOTHER WONDERFUL DAY WEATHERWISE, TO GET OUT ON THE OPEN ROAD, AND ENJOY A REALLY EARLY SPRING. WE DID TAKE A RUN THIS MORNING TO ORILLIA, WITH THE WEE LADS IN TOW. FOR THE COLLECTING FAMILY, ORILLIA DOES OFFER US FROM BETWEEN FIVE TO SEVEN BUSINESS RELATED STOPS. ANDREW AND ROBERT COLLECT VINTAGE VINYL, AND 78'S, IN BLUES, JAZZ; VERY EARLY COUNTRY AND BLUEGRASS. TODAY IN VINYL THEY GOT SOME GEMS OF ROCK 'N ROL, PUNK (PLUS TWO VINTAGE POSTERS) AND THE LIST GOES ON. THEY OF COURSE, LOOK FOR VINTAGE INSTRUMENTS, GUITARS, UKES, BANJOS, MANDOLINS, ELECTRICS, AMPS, SPEAKERS, AND OLD RECORD PLAYERS. THEY HAVE A TALKING MACHINE FOR PLAYING CYLINDERS AND ANOTHER VICTROLA FOR THEIR 78'S, BUT THEY ALSO BUY AND REPAIR STEREO SETS AND PHONOGRAPHS. A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO THEY WERE ABLE TO BUY A HUGE COLLECTION OF 1960'S AND 70'S RECORD NEEDLES, AND BELTS, WHICH HAS HELPED THEM RESTORE MORE THAN A HUNDRED TURNTABLES THAT WERE MISSING PARTS. THEY REFURBISH THEM AND RE-SELL THEM, AT THE MAIN STREET SHOP IN GRAVENHURST, (OPPOSITE THE OPERA HOUSE), AND THERE HAS BEEN A WAITING LIST FOR CERTAIN MODELS. WE'RE FAR MORE BORING AND MAINSTREAM, WITH WHAT WE COLLECT OUT THERE, UNLESS I GET A GOOD PRICE ON A VICTORIAN COFFIN, A MEDICAL SKELETON, A SHRUNKEN HEAD, OR A HORSE-DRAWN HEARSE. SO TODAY WE FELL A LITTLE SHORT, BUT I DID GET AN AUTHOGRAPHED COPY OF CANADIAN WRITER, MICHAEL ONDAATJE'S "THE ENGLISH PATIENT," A 1997 REPRINT OF THE ORIGINAL 1992 FIRST EDITION. I WOULD OF COURSE LIKE THE FIRST EDITION BUT JUST GETTING A SIGNED COPY BY ONDAATJE IS PRETTY RARE, AT LEAST FOR ME. I HAVE AUTOGRAPHED COPIES FROM MOST OF THE LEADING CANADIAN AUTHORS, BUT GETTING HIS AUTOGRAPH HAS BEEN MUCH MORE DIFFICULT. IT IS A FINE CONDITION COPY, WHICH MAKES UP FOR THE FACT IT ISN'T A FIRST EDITION. THE SECOND BOOK I GOT, FOR MY CANADIAN REFERENCE LIBRARY, IS NICELY CONSERVED, LARGE FORMAT SOFTCOVER EDITION OF THE BIOGRAPHY, "COLVILLE," BY DAVID BURNETT, A 1983, ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO RELEASE, WELL RESPECTED ARTIST ALEX COLVILLE (SEE GRAPHIC OF BOOK). THIS IS ONE I DON'T HAVE, AND ALTHOUGH I'D LIKE TO HAVE THE HARDCOVER RELEASE, THIS WILL DO NICELY UNTIL THEN. I DO HAVE AN EXTENSIVE LIBRARY OF CANADIAN ART BOOKS, AND AUCTION GUIDES, PLUS A FEW SIGNIFICANT AUTOGRAPHS OF CANADIAN PAINTERS. I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO AFFORD THE ART PANELS THEMSELVES, BUT I'LL GLADLY PURSUE THE MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE BIOGRAPHIES AND EXHIBIT FOLIOS.

I ALSO PICKED UP AN ANTIQUE REFERENCE GUIDE BOOK, ENTITLED, "DAVID DICKINSON - THE ANTIQUES BUYER," IN HARDCOVER, 1999 EDITION. I DO POSSESS MANY BIOGRAPHIES FROM THOSE FOLKS WHO HAVE SPENT THEIR LIVES IN THE ANTIQUE TRADE, (BOOKS, ART AND FURNITURE) AND THIS IS A GOOD ONE. EVEN FOR US, WITH OVER THIRTY YEARS IN THE BUSINESS, WE STILL HAVE LOTS TO LEARN, AND DICKINSON'S BOOK GIVES US A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT.

"If there is one thing I would say to you which has stood me in good stead through the years, it would be simply, 'buy quality.' It may seem expensive on the day and you might wonder what on earth you've done the day after, but it's my experience that quality wins out in every aspect of antique buying and selling." writes Dickinson. I concur. Of course, there are a lot of points to consider before this, so that in the antique domain, whichever avenue you wish to take, you must not short-change yourself of education and enlightenment. "My early experience of going to antique shops, going to sales, going to fairs, looking, touching, getting my hands on, not being scared to ask questions, perhaps making one or two mistakes along the way, but all the time soaking it up like a sponge, and learning, learning, learning, served to 'get my eye in.' It was also great fun," he writes. "Getting your eye in, sums up how you can become an expert, how you can gain knowledge and appreciation until you reach that sublime point when you look at a piece and instinctively know that 'it stands right'." He begins the book by recalling that, "At school I was always swapping marbles and generally trading small things as a matter of course. And although we didn't have a car, I was always looking at other people's and admiring them. I can remember running alongside particularly flashy cars, not with any degree of envy, but saying 'Mister, it's magnificent! Can I have a look at it?' I wanted to taste all the experiences and learn about the very best, never from an envious point of view but because I admired it.

"I started buying for myself in a small way with jam pans and small oak chairs, selling them on to other dealers, perhaps making a few pounds; but I always had big eyes. Even if I couldn't afford the best quality then, I always thought that some day I would be up there with the big boys. My natural inclination, when I was bidding for the coal scuttle was to look longingly at the Georgian table. I'd say to myself, 'I think it's wonderful and I want to buy it, and some day I will'."

Mr. Dickinson notes that, "But, although I had a taste for beautiful things in those early days, I didn't have any knowledge of the styles of master designers. I didn't know a Chipendale from a Hepplewhite; while if someone had mentioned the work of fine English cabinet maker, Gillows of Lancaster, I'd have looked at them blankly. And I would have been astonished at the idea that one day I would actually buy such pieces, and for very large sums of money." He comments, "The joy of antiques comes not only from knowing their history but also from understanding the quality of craftsmanship involved in their making. Appreciating a room full of beautiful objects such as these, has a lifetime of learning in it." You can find this book online via the Advance Book Exchange, by entering the title and the author. I strongly recommend this book, if you are interested in furthering your investment knowledge in antiques. This is a well organized, effective, inspiring glimpse into the world of antique collecting and dealing.

"Like me, you might start off collecting jam pans or a little country chair. Whatever it is, it arouses your curiosity. What is it? What was it used for? Where did it come from? Who did it live with? Old objects have a fascination and nostalgia about them; and as you learn about them you tend to hone your tastes. And the more you know about the craftsmanship and the skill of the designers, the more you start to see what they saw. There is a lot of new terminology to absorb in buying antiques, but it's not the words that matter, so much as what they imply or mean. You hear people say, 'Well that stands very well,' but what does that mean? It means that when the man designed that bookcase, perhaps without even a piece of paper or a pencil, he instinctively knew what looked right because he had years of experience of understanding about balance, style and proportion. If you see something and you instinctively think, 'It looks a bit dumpy - I wonder why?' It's probably because it was never meant to look like that. It's been cut down, for instance, and has lost its legs. All good furniture has a certain line to it, a certain look, and you'll acquire that appreciation. The more you see, the more examples you study, the more you'll recognize it. I recognize it without even thinking. When I walk into a preview at an auction, if I see a table and my immediate thoughts are, 'it's too low,' its because it is too low. I know it's been cut down. It doesn't stand right and I know it doesn't. Years of experience have taught me this, because I've seen over 300 examples." This is a good and honest look at the antique industry, and as a handy advisor, can save you thousands of dollars, by teaching you how to be thorough in your study of period furnishings, for example……., before investing heavily in pieces you're not quite sure about. Actually, you will appreciate fully, that "being not quite sure," is the absolute reason, to reconsider making a bid, or initiating a purchase. You have more reading to do, more experience to acquire. In time, you will know for sure what, and when, to bid on an investment antique.

The investment value of an antique table, for example, that has been cut down, loses substantially as an "antique" and becomes an just interesting piece of old furniture. If you are paying the antique value of the piece, in a shop or at an auction, it has to pass the quality and authenticity test. A lot of dealers will tell you what the problems are, with "as is" items, because they want to protect and maintain their customer loyalty. I can remember, a strange situation, when Suzanne and I decided to purchase a nice, round oak dining room table, with two leaves, from a local antique dealer. I told the proprietor, who I knew quite well, that I wanted six original press back chairs go with the table. He had at least four groupings, and when he took me around to see them, every time I went for the chairs I liked, he shook his head. He did that three times, on the first three lots of press backs. On the fourth, he nodded. What that meant, by the way, was that the first three groupings were re-production press-backs that, while looking quite old, were no more than thirty years off the factory floor. I wasn't particularly happy about this, and I didn't buy the table or the chairs. I was writing an antique and collectibles column at the time, and I just didn't like the idea of being warned off pieces, just because I was a friend of the dealer, and as a columnist who might, if feeling ripped-off, might have written a story about the secrets of the industry, I'm also a member. There are dealers who would not tell you a table was cut down, or had replacement pieces. If I remember correctly, an antique piece can have up to 25 percent replacement pieces, to cover damage, without seriously losing its "antique" status. Antique, in respect to furniture, for example, would mean having an age of 100 years old. I think this is clearly defined for customs purposes, for transporting declared "antique" pieces between Canada, the United States, and Europe specifically. The key here, is to know your stuff, in advance, so you can question a dealer in this regard. If you "stump" the dealer, and they truly don't know if a piece has been altered, make sure you're the one who knows for sure. It pays to be smarter than the dealer.

I remember buying a pottery tea pot that was made by a friend of mine in Muskoka. While we have purchased pottery cups and a pitcher from the studio, I was tempted, one day, at a flea market in Bracebridge, to buy one of the gentleman's teapots being offered by a vendor. Now Suzanne and I both knew, well in advance of asking the price, that the tea pot was worth more than forty dollars new, and that if it was in good shape, ten dollars on the rebound wouldn't be too bad. Here's the thing. We knew what the pot was worth, new and used, and we also understood clearly, the person we knew running the booth, was a scamp if ever there was one. Suzanne went over the piece carefully, and inspected it for cracks and chips, before asking the woman what the price was. When the vendor spotted us examining the pottery, she threw out a price of $20.00. "It's a signed piece you know. It's a genuine Muskoka antique." Nonsense of course, as it was no more than five years old. True, it was signed. Suzanne went to put it back on the table, and the price dropped by ten bucks. Suzanne said she would gladly take it for five dollars, and the vendor shot back, "I need to get seven dollars for it." I don't haggle myself, as a principle, but Suzanne is pretty good at it. She runs all our special sales, and yard sales here at Birch Hollow, and it's often been said of her, that if the ghost of Will Rogers saddled-up to her, at one of the sales, and wanted to make a deal, she'd gnaw the spirit right out of him. (Will was one of Hollywoods best known, and true to life, horse-traders, who always claimed he got the better deal) "Okay, I'll give you seven bucks. But I want it wrapped." I think the vendor mumbled something like, "I hate that woman….she'd skin a louse for its tallow!" Can't be sure about that, but Suzanne is a blue-ribbon haggler, no doubt about it. Got it home, washed it out, put some hot water in it for a trial run, and the sucker leaked like a sieve. Right beside the handle was a tiny crack that you couldn't see even in the sunlight. So we put a plant in it, and resolved to get even with the lady when she shows up at our next yard sale. It was stupid on our part doing this, just because we saw a perceived bargain. We vowed we'd buy direct the next time, and we know the potter will give us a guarantee, should something like a leak develop on an otherwise mint condition arts and crafts piece.

I don't know how many people have told me this story, over the past 30 years, after I tell them I'm an antique dealer. "Oh so, you're an antique dealer are you," they ask. "Well then you've heard this story, haven't you?" Well, I let them have their folly, at my expense. So they set up the story like this. "We had a friend over to the house the other night. It was a beautiful moonlit night, and we decided to go for a little walk down the avenue. We could hear, from quite a distance, the rhythmic thumping, coming from a neighbor's back shed. When we got a clear view of the out-building behind the house, we could see through the window, beneath an overhanging lamp, the silhouette of a man, whipping what appeared to be a chain, from over his shoulder, and whomping it down without mercy, on something or other in that building. There was also a sort of grunting, groaning coming from the same shed, in between the wraps against an unidentified object. Over and again, the figure pounded down what appeared, in the light, to be a thick length of rusted chain. The visitor, standing with her mouth hanging open, asked "What on earth is that man doing in there? He's not hurting someone is he?" "When we first moved here, someone told us our neighbor had a violent temper, and he could get rough very quickly if things weren't working out the way he wanted them too," the neighbors chortled in unison with the visitor, still staring intently as the silhouette kept up the cadence, as if the pace keeper on a dragon boat. "Tell me he's not beating his child or his wife," she asked, with a look of concern in her eyes. "Oh nothing like that," they laughed. "Well then what's going on in that shed," she asked more firmly, as if ready to trot down the hill and confront the man in the midst of some dastardly deed. "No, no, no……Bill's an antique dealer, and he's just distressing a piece of pine."

I don't know how many versions of this story I've heard? More than a dozen. Truth is, I've known this too happen. Distressing a piece of pine, such as a replacement top for an original table base, helps match the appearance of legs and top, such that you just might be fooled into thinking the pine surface is original. Now most dealers I know, would warn a buyer, that the top was new, and distressed purposely. But there are always exceptions, and there is truth to the old carney saying, "There's a sucker born every minute." We still have the pottery teapot-planter. Well it can happen with a table just the same. If you're paying the investment price of a actual harvest table built by pioneer hands, a chain and new planking shouldn't enter into it. But it's buyer beware. So don't think for a moment, there is any short-cut to becoming a careful, shrewd, intelligent antique buyer……and most of us veterans of the industry, could write our own "we got screwed" books as well. I've had many misadventures, and they have cost me a lot of money in the past. So from my own experience, and what I see out there on the antique hunt, there are a lot of disasters yet to occur……just not to me. I might be able to save you as well.

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