Our Life
in the Wonderful World of Antiques
Booth under a tent in Wellesley , MA
Saturday, June 9th
and Sunday, June 10th at Elm Bank in Wellesley
It crept up on me. Marty always admired antiques, and each place
we lived, she learned a little more.
She started learning about antiques as
a child, when her mother took her to auctions and shops in New England .
When I was in Submarine School in New London , and later served in a submarine operating out
of New London ,
or with crew based there, she scoured barns and attics in Connecticut and the rest of New England for interesting old pine tables and
chairs and remnants from earlier centuries.
Then we moved to Virginia
and she visited outdoor flea markets in West Virginia , Virginia , and Maryland
When we moved to Tehran , Iran Iran
Kuwaiti Chest
On my first trip down to visit Iranian
warships in the Persian
Gulf , an old Arab showed me a Kuwaiti chest. These are beautifully decorated wooden
chests which had been used aboard the Arab dhows that sailed up and down the
Gulf. I bought it and brought
it back to Tehran
Then there were the rugs. The Persian carpets
of Iran South
Tehran , and the two of them would disappear into the bowels of
that exotic market for hours. Ann
introduced Marty to “her” rug man, and both would climb up to his loft, where
his mards (young helpers) would flip rug after rug like pages in a book. The girls learned about Hamadans and
Tabrizes and Kermans and Qashqais, Bukharas and all the rest. They learned how to check the
structure of the rug for possible bleaching that would make the threads weak,
and for the dreaded fake Persian carpets from China and
Pakistan
We were just 100 or so miles south of
the USSR ,
and many interesting old Russian samovars found their way into antique shops in Iran
Our next overseas assignment was Italy ,
and Marty quickly found her way down to the elegant and not-so-elegant antique
shops in downtown Naples Naples ,
all of Campagna, and Rome
Next we lived in Newport , RI ,
and by now, my wife was getting much more conversant with all sorts of
decorative arts, as she ranged around the shops of Rhode
Island
At various times I accompanied Marty
on her antiques trips, and I usually headed for the old books. At first, it was just something to do
during the hours she spent looking at things that didn’t interest me, but I
began to really enjoy finding a 200-year-old book with calfskin binding,
perhaps a school book, a history, often old religious books, and
occasionally a handwritten diary, which opened up a whole new world for me.
One day I found a tiny 1861 diary kept
by a young Union soldier, the clerk of his company, as he recorded his life
from mustering in a field at Ipswich, MA, then onto a train heading south to
war; trouble with Rebel sympathizers in Baltimore, then boarding a troop ship
in Newport News, VA and sailing around Florida to the Mississippi River, and
then fighting Rebel troops at Port Hudson. What a thrill to be reading this
first person account— not something from a printed history book, but raw,
absolutely original history of this man’s part in the Civil War!
I found a set of 1840 letters from a young
girl working in the textile mills of Lowell, MA, writing to her family at home
in northern New Hampshire. These were such a treasure that they are now
in the collection of Mill Girls' letters at Lowell National
Historical Park
When we went to Russia ,
we found “Kommissiones” all over Moscow USSR
For me, it was exciting to shop in an
old book shop in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) that had sold books in the same place for two
centuries, and had many books that carried the royal approval (and censorship)
of Catherine the Great and later Tsars. I
still have one fine little book that pokes fun at this upstart named Bonaparte,
published before he had made his ill-fated march across Russia
We went right from Russia to Japan for
my next assignment on the island of Kyushu , and it turned out that my base in Sasebo was just a short drive from the heart
of Japan Kumamoto
When we lived in Japan U.S.
My ability to read Japanese never got
past being barely able to read a tabloid newspaper, so I didn’t do much
collection of antique Japanese books.
Another part of our antiques education
was all the museums, palaces, embassies and distinguished old homes we visited
in all the places we lived.
We returned to the United
States in
1986 and lived in Washington , DC
And I transitioned from naval officer
to become the head porter, learning how to load all manner of vans and trucks
with antiques to take to antiques shows, then unload them, help set up a booth,
after which Marty would spend much time decorating the booth just so, and then
one or two days selling her wares.
19th Century Washstand with floral
decoration by Martha Bannon of Beverly
We started doing antique shows in Maryland , District of
Columbia and Virginia
Marty rented a shop in downtown
Rockport in 1994, called it Philomena’s (named after her Mother — it was her
middle name) and we tried our hand at running an antiques business. We learned a lot in a short
time. First, although
thousands of visitors come to Rockport and walk through its shops, and they
enjoyed visiting Philomena’s, more than likely they were in town to just savor
the atmosphere and maybe buy ice cream. At least, they weren't buying many of
our antiques! Second, in order to do it right, you have to be open
every day, and when you are taking in only a few dollars most days, you really
cannot justify hiring help, so Marty and I spent a lot of hours in that
shop.
Next door was a laundromat, and often
people would come in our shop and announce that they weren’t there to buy—they
were just waiting for their clothes to dry.
I remember one visitor to the
shop. I wouldn’t call Mary
a customer, because she never bought anything, but she was a nice, elderly lady
who had two problems— her hearing was very poor, and she had a habit of passing
gas, and she didn’t know that it was not just her little secret. She would spend hours looking at
things in the shop, and making comments. You hated to answer her comments,
because she would then ask you to repeat until she could understand, and that
might take a while.
She used our shop mainly as a
launching pad, watching for the shop across the street to open. It was run by three men who were all
very good friends of hers, and when it finally would open, she’d leave us in a
flash.
Japanese Hibachi, late 19th century
Now, about these books and papers……
USS Nevada showing damage
from December 7, 1941
Jane's Fighting Ships, 1942 [Issued June 1943] Founded in 1897 by
Fred T. Jane, 46th Year of Issue 1943 McMurtrie, Francis E., A.I.N.A.,
Editor. New York , NY Battle Exeter Battle of the Java Sea Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7th, 1941), even noting changes
to them as result of repairs after the attack. Also with 62 pages of
advertising for everything you need to outfit a warship. 582 pp. + 62 pp. adv.
31 x 20 cm. Light blue cloth on board with gilt lettering. Edges worn, tiny
white paint spots on cover, good. (6985) $140.00. Naval/World War II
Presbyterian:
Report of the Board of Directors of the Presbyterian Education Society at the
Annual Meeting, May 11, 1820 with Appendix 1820 Newark, NJ: Presbyterian Education
Society. Annual meeting held at New York, included executive commiuttees of
Philadelphia, New-York, Counties of Morris and Essex, (NJ); Catskill, NY,
Cayuga of Onandaigua; Genesee, Geneva, Ontario, Bath, Long Island and West
Tennessee. Work of Rev. Doctor M. La Rue Perrine in western counties ofNew York Baltimore Israel West Tennessee , “truly a desolate region,” with only 200,000 population, they
can number only 15 ministers of the Presbyterian Church, but few of any other
description. Includes Constitution of Society; list of officers and directors:
Hon. Elias Boudinot, L.L.D. is President; and executive committees. List of
subscribers and donations. 32 pp. 15 x 23 cm. Paper booklet, fastened with
stitching. Pages uneven and two pages uncut, poor. (6755) $39.00. Religious
Execution
Tools & Techniques from Loompanics Unlimited by Rommel, Bart 1990 Port Townsend, WA:
Loompanics Unlimited. One of many books published by oddball publisher
Loompanics from 1975 to 2006. "Execution" cover features 1908 photo
of a man "waiting" in electric chair. More than you
probably want to know about execution, including which states execute by
hanging, firing squad, gas, electrocution and lethal injection. Execution
customs like last meal and last cigarette. Problems with hanging. Beheading. The Guillotine. Awkward
executions. TheRosenbergs.
Index. 119 pp. 13.5 x 21.5 cm. Paper booklet, notation about"Dostosiky"(sic)
in ink on p. 31. Otherwise clean and very good. (7977) $20.00. Printed
matter
Gentle Art
of Making Enemies, as pleasingly exemplified in many instances, wherein the
serious ones of this earth, carefully exasperated, have been prettily spurred
on to unseemliness and indiscretion, while overcome by an undue sense of right; Collection by Whistler, J. McNeill.
1927 New York , NY
Literary
Digest, The; March 20, 1937 New
York, NY: The Literary Digest, 354-360 Fourth Ave. Cover shows black and white
painting of a woman holding a baby, with others lying nearby amidst rubble of
bombing, titled"Spanish Street Scene" Inside, "Bombs Slaughter Spanish
Civilians"story about Civil War, and bombing by German bombers backing
Franco's Fascist Forces. Attack on Spanish Loyalists by Italian forces. Seizure of Loyalist ship from U.S. U.S. Texas , Georgia , Mississippi and Louisiana Chesterfield ad
on back cover features West Point cadet
and U.S. Navy Commander. 40 pp. 21.7 x 30.3 cm. Magazine, minor wear, very
good. (7857) $20.00. Printed Matter/Ephemera
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