John Henry - Part One

John Henry

Part One

            I traveled to Albany, New York this week.  On business.

            I scheduled two days; over and back, ‘on business’.

            I took five days total... ‘on business’.

            My business

            With the other business ‘scheduled’ within the ‘took five days’.

            A nice trip.  Left Maine traveling Route 25 to Route 4 to Hanover, NH, for lunch.  Then Woodstock, Vermont southward and wandering until day’s end near Manchester, Vermont.  The next morning a wandering into New York State via Arlington-Cambridge-Greenwich.  Then down to Albany.

            For lunch BEFORE the appointment ‘scheduled’ ‘on business’.

            I ate a roast beef club sandwich...with fries... at the Gateway Diner.  It was good mood food to buttress me for the ‘appointment scheduled on business’.

            What is my ‘appointment scheduled on business’?

            Please understand that I do not do appraisals; appraise antiques.  I do not do that.  For anyone.  I do have, by personal development, a supple variation of that industry that in traditional business ecosystems would make me called a ‘consultant’... I suppose.  It is that... in the end... to the end user... I suppose... but... it isn’t actually what I do; what I am paid to do.

            What that is; what I actually do ...is a little known... old and narrow... alley in ‘antiques’ land... that I do not encounter others traveling in or... even knowing one may travel there... and get paid to do ‘that’.

            Refusal to ‘do appraisals’ created a frustrated contact group... primarily law firms with specialization in estate services... that “NEED” “SOMEONE” “who knows” that they “can depend on” “TO TELL THEM” “WHAT” ...is an ‘in there’ ‘that’s good’.  So I created a way for them to hire me where I didn’t have to do appraisals and they received the precious cargo of information they ‘can depend on’.  I am their bird dog... flushing birds?

            Yes.

            I scamper to the estate of their direction... at THEIR (the law firm’s) direction.  I scamper through the estate at their direction.  I scamper back to their roost at their direction and ...speak concisely at their direction... to summarize ‘what I saw’... for them.  Usually a woman writes down a lot of what I say.  Then I am done and leave.  And send a bill.  Traveling through four states to scamper the to, through and back is unusual but not a ‘hasn’t happened’.  That ‘big trip’ prerogative is fabricated by the estate setting having multiple properties ‘with antiques’ that the law firm involved with the estate “find it cheaper to send YOU there and back than it would be to find and hire someone to do the same” “over there”.  I saved the receipt for my club sandwich

            “My, my.” arrival at ...two minutes before one... 1:00 PM being the appointed time of the my appointment... AT the ...Albany estate property... comes, in this case, AFTER I had already been to two other estate properties ‘in Maine’ ‘at THEIR direction’ (the ‘a law firm’).  The first property was the “Maine Home”; the ‘a mansion’ ‘on the coast’.  The second property was the “CAMP”... upon a well understood to be splendid interior Maine lake.  The camp was twice the size of my home... and “has been robbed twice”.  This ‘Albany House’...was the original family estate that was still the ‘main’ (as opposed to ‘Maine’) house of the estate... in the eyes of the heirs... although for the past forty years “our parents lived in Maine” “mostly”.  “Other members of the family lived (live?) at the Albany house”.

            My scamper to and through the Maine coastal mansion started my eye roaming.  I returned the law firm’s roost and reported that “there are a lot of antiques but no biggies”.  ‘Biggies’ are stand alone major value fine arts or decorative arts.  Or rare book collection.  Or all three. “BUT”:  “There is a lot there that WILL ADD UP for the estate is large and ...full (‘imbedded generational layers’)... with, principally, 'descended in' fine arts, decorative arts and... almost no printed matter at all except that relating to a.... very well to do WASP family who pushed all of the that family through all the right schools and ...kept every college course book read, college essay written, and... etc, forever, for everyone, in the family, forever ‘too’... with a few ‘Christmas gift’ books for (aging) Dad... on top of the ...coffee table.  The library of the home, I could summarize, was solid between the words ‘Hebron’ (academy) and ‘Harvard College’, et al and of ‘no money’ value “from what I can see”.

            I am very adept at the ‘what I can see’.  And fast.  And do not miss much.  Especially this last because at the slightest signal of there being a ‘something’... I slow way down.  In this case... the skimpy and well dusted book... case... in the stuffy with door closed “library’ ...needed only my spine ends quick scan... before I left their ‘our library’.  That did include the perpetual nuisance of having ONE of the ‘people who were there’... upon observing my observing their ‘library’ book’s... spine ends ...announce to the room that they “DO HAVE” a “HEMINGWAY FIRST EDITION” I “NEED TO LOOK AT”.  I said, as I left the library room to ‘on to’ the NEXT room, that I “only need to look over the estate books for the law firm”.  This misty verbalization on my part of ‘what I am doing’ caused no response from anyone and ...I never heard about or saw the ‘Hemingway first’.

            Shortly, I was back outside driving away with my “bailed right in there mostly 20^th Century rich people stuff with tig and tag 19^th century ‘stuff’ ‘descended in’ (as opposed to ‘inherited’) the family and house WITH a few ‘paid a lot’ 20^th century furnishing and decorative arts NEATLY arranged and dusted clean, clean, clean in lived in settings AND a few ‘by chance’ fine art things with a few oil paintings that are NOT WORTH sweating but again it is BAILED RIGHT IN THERE enough for a ‘three day on site auction’ that, again, WILL ADD UP”.

            A woman at the roost wrote all that down.

            I was told about the Albany property then.

            I went home and waited.

            I went to the “CAMP” ‘next’.

Getting In ...and Writing It Down

Getting In... and Writing It Down

            “First off:  You go up there and rascal your way in.  Somehow.  Then you’s BUY.  THEN.. you’s write it down; what you did.  Now THAT is my argue about you.”

            “Getting in, buying or writing the story?”

            “CARN-SOUND-YOU ALL OF IT.  Jesus.”

            “Because you lost out?”

            “Because you DID THAT.”

            “Well I’d been watching Tallmadge’s for YEARS”.

            “WELL SO HAVE I.”

            “So GO IN THERE.”

            “SHE WON’T LET ME IN.”

            “Never let me in before either.”

            “YES you rascal BUT WHY NOW.”

            “I told you; I wrote it down.  YOU READ IT.”

            “I CAN’T READ.”

            “I know that.  But she read it to you you said.”

            “SHE READS IT TO ME OK:  So I get up and tell her that’s that and to stop.”

            “Then you drive right over here with the hissy fit?”

            “WELL WHAT DID YOU EXPECT ME TO DO?”

            “Come over and admit defeat like a gentleman.”
            “OH Jesus YOU’S IMPOSSIBLE.”

            “That’s what you always said about Tallmadge’s.  So I thought you’d LIKE my story”

            “SHE IS IMPOSSIBLE.”

            “Not anymore she ain’t; I’m in now.”

            “So what you gotta write it DOWN FOR.  Ain’t that ENOUGH.  You’s TELL’EM HOW you DO IT.  DON’T DO THAT!”

            “They ain’t do’en anything WITH IT.  CAN’T.  Couldn’t even FIGURE a place.  See ‘em STANDING out there all ah gawk. 

            “Well never you mind TELL’EN ‘EM; I don’t NEED THAT anymore than I NEED YOU.”

            “Tallmadge’s is WIDE OPEN.  You don’t OWN that place.”

            “TRIED TO.”

            “But we’ve TALKED about it for TWENTY YEARS.”

            “So you got the barn door open and her STANDING THERE.”

            “Nope:  She was in the back.  Walked all the way through the barn.  She was at her sheep out back”.

            “Jesus she’d ah RUN ME right off if I’d DONE THAT.”

            “She ain’t NO HARM.”

            “WELL; to YOU.”

            “I waited on Mrs. Tallmadge.  Call her that.  Not Kitty.  YOU call her KITTY?”

            “JESUS:  Went to SCHOOL with her.  She ain’t MRS TALLMADGE.  She’s KITTY.”

            “Right.  That’s IT right there.  Probably.

            “NOT probably AT ALL.”

            “Well... she sees you; knows you can’t READ.  Knows you can’t SPELL.  KNOWS you and Frankie STOLE HER DONUTS”.

            “THAT’S ALL a LONG TIME AGO.”

            “All the MORE reason NOT to want-ta SEE YOU.’

            “You’s a miserable rascal is WHAT you ARE.

            “She MARRIED FRANKIE.”

            “An then he DROWN-DEAD.”

            “If you call falling of a boat DRUNK drown-dead.”

            “WHAT do YOU CALL IT?”

            “Suicide”.

            “You’s a MISERABLE RASCAL.”

            “That’s what I was saying about her while I was walk’en BACK through her BARN.”

            “NOW SHE ain’t as TUFF AS ALL THAT.

            “She was wrestling her sheep so figured she’d WRESTLE ME.”

            “You stink’en... THEN WHAT?”

            “Went RIGHT AT HER; SAID ten bucks on that TRUNK.  She had the damn sheep upside down pull’en on its LEG.”

            “So she didn’t just SHOOT YOU.”

            “No.  Never seen her GUN.  I don’t think she’s GOT ONE”.           

            “She got one Frankie’s OLD GUN Eddy SEEN IT ON HER.”

            “That was at her POND with the muskrat hunting.  SHE AIN’T a GUNNER.”

            “GUN YOU she will YOU WATCH OUT!”

            “Well I bought that damn TRUNK and she PULLED that SHEEP UP to sell it to me.”

            “THAT I don’t BELIEVE.”

            “DID TOO; showed her TEN.  Just like I wrote:  UP SHE COME.”

            “THAT just WON’T HAPPEN with HER.”

            “Took the ten”.

            “NOT HER.”

            “YOU NEVER TRIED IT:  She wants MONEY like the rest of ‘em.”

            “SHE’S HEELED.”

            “She ain’t THAT heeled.”

            “Heeled good enough.”

            “She took it and kept taking it; I kept hit ‘en her right up through the barn.”

            “HIT HER for what you got; WHAT HAPPENED to THAT STUFF.”

            “Sold it”

            “To?”

            “Flea market.”

            “All of it?”

            “Most all; some wouldn’t go.”

            “But nothing good?”

            “Nothing; firkin old red but lid cancer.  The trunk.  b-chest.  Boston rocker.”

            “B-chest?
            “Wicked beat.  HAD the till lid though.  Best was the rug.”

            “Runner you said”.

            “Nothing but from the HOUSE.”

            “Nothing?”

            “Well; paid her one ten ($110) on that.  Sold it one forty.”

            “You PAID WELL.”

            “HAD too; from the house.  COULD SEE THAT.”

            “WHY it out THERE”.

            “Dog ‘arfed on it she said.  She said it SMELLED.  So she chucked it.  Up in the front stall; hung it.  She knew it was good.  Didn’t want it though.”

            “Barf on it?”

            “Couldn’t see ANYTHING.  I didn’t SAY anything either.  ‘Cept... from a  barn you know”.

            “They sniff it?”

“The sniff test?  No sniff test.  Figured on that.”

            “THAT HOUSE... .  So; well, YOU SAID your going BACK.”

            “But not gonna move on the house yet.  Wait.  Work up through that barn again.  You know; get that in there GOOD.  She’s got plenty in there.  Only USES the back.  That’s all NEW there; that SHEEP pens.  The rest is bailed right in.  Up front.

            “Why was the door open?”

            “Yeah couldn’t figure at first but saw she got some bails of that GOOD hay.  PAID FOR THOSE so I figure THERE GOES THE CASH.

            “Wicked rascal you.”

            “Just doing my job, Sir.”

            “Wicked rascal SIR yourself.”

            “I don’t think I know ANYONE to have EVER been in that house.  ANYONE.”

            “Not since Frankie drown-dead I know; no one.  Ever.”

            “I’m getting in.  Then I’m gonna write it down.”

           

The Photographic History of Junk Dealing

The Photographic History of Junk Dealing

            Be it a box of old baseball cards, a crochet tangle, rusted Tonka trucks from 1960 or the Mattel “Derringer” belt buckle, I find my thoughts saying “I’d like this; I’d keep it.  Too”.

            A Cub Scout banner, a Snoopy poster, a chemical tube, a plastic dump truck, a postcard to someone’s parents from 1969.

            Where were you?  Where are you?  Why don’t you still live in your room, in your sand box and in your bike?

            WHY?

            Because the dirt devil of a short time kisses your lips and sticks your arm out so you shake the hand of every passing stranger telling them “It’s all right.”  Then your home alone inside your head peeking like the little mouse behind your brain down the dark spine to that hole where it somehow always seems to be “getting out”.

            Waiting, waiting, waiting; it never ends?  Ever?

            Slowly, like the logs on the bottom of the old wood pile stacked long ago by the dead man while his wife watched his every mood (move) from the kitchen window to “be sure”,

            You rot.

            Beautiful rot; dark gray-brown turning to dirt first at the feet, then toward the center, then to the core ROT.  Majestic dirt rot like the moist soil you used to kneel in to peer behind the shed to see that it “was” “a turtle”.

            Rot like the broken plastic gun you walked home with from playing war with your life.  You set it down to ponder if it can be “fixed”.

            CAN IT BE FIXED?

            The car is late for it’s inspection.  The life is unsure of the eternal rejection.  The sun shines on the young girl’s face but her shadow falls upon my knees and

            Keeps them cool.

            Like the dirt.  The dark gray-brown dirt from rot.

            I am dirt.  I am a rusted Tonka truck with a bent baseball card in the cab.

            SCREAMING with glee I ran down the dock severing the cables of the barges that clung to my life.  FLOATING astern I watch them wait behind until they slowly turn in the current.  They twist and

            Hang there

            And do nothing more

            That I can see

            From the deck of the dirt devil called short time.

            I am a photographic history of junk dealing.

            I am a bottom log on the wood pile stacked long ago.

            I am majestic brown rot.

Summer Place - Part Thirty-Six

Summer Place

Part Thirty-Six

            What SHOULD happen to ‘Sophia’s desk’?

            At the current date; August, 2013, the near forty year old New England antiquarian collector’s mantra of John T. Kirk’s “Buy it ratty and leave it alone”... a chapter title found in his 1975 book “THE INPECUNIOUS COLLECTOR’S GUIDE TO AMERICAN ANTIQUES”... is a collector’s religion standard, a market place proven and a ‘no brainer’ for both New England antiques collectors and dealers .  Daily, these days, splendid ‘untouched’ New England antique discoveries are NOT ‘fixed up’.  They are ‘not touched’.  They are very promptly protected from any and all of that ‘fixed up’ by the market.  The market continues without a waver to honor the ‘untouched’ with the most money and this keeps all others desires... scared away.

            At this moment... ‘Sophia’s Desk’ is ‘untouched’.  This means that physically the desk has come down through its time just as it ...has come down through its time.  It was bought... along the New England coast between... 1790’s to the 1815’s... ‘loaded aboard’ ship, ‘brought home’, used in the home by “Sophia”... for SIX (?) generations of ‘Sophia’s’.  It then attempted to follow a ‘last’ (?) “Sophia” to ‘assisted living’ and failed.  Its return to the ‘home’ was rejected and the desk was ‘saved’ by the home’s caretaker taking it to his workshop’s storage shed where it remained ...until he died and his heirs ‘found it’.  They are now, after modest attempts at ‘selling it’... storing the desk under an ‘old cloth’ at the head of a garage bay at a modest suburban home.  The desk is ‘untouched’, ‘as found’.

            To the lay eye AND many antiquarian eyes... the desk is... ‘it needs work’.. to make it ‘living room ready’... for... WHO?  Those people do not count anymore; the market removes them with the word ‘untouched’ followed with a ‘flood’ of ‘cash’.  The only attack force that “COULD be one” is the ‘full makeover’ ‘restoration’ group who... ‘would pay’ for such a ‘wreck’ to accomplish the ‘there’s a lot there already’ sophistication ...opportunity.  THEY will increase the price (the value) of the ‘untouched’ desk with their interest.

            “Ratty” adjusts to ‘untouched’.  This PHYSICAL state of the desk is protected by cash.  From there this physical ‘untouched’ gathers further aura; further aura of the ‘untouched’.

            The first aura halo is the stark realm that there simply are NOT many... or ‘any’, ‘untouched’ New England sea captain’s wife’s Tambour desks ‘around’.  MOST ALL have been ‘found’ and ‘fixed’... for 150 plus years.  A desk like ‘Sophia’s’ was attracting notice as ‘old’ by the 1850’s.  They were, back then... being fixed.  VERY FEW escaped this attention... over the centuries.  To have a desk ‘just sit there’ in a coastal Maine sea captain’s mansion... was (is) a rare occurrence QUICKLY noted as ‘a rare survival’.  ‘Untouched’ ‘Sophia’s Desk’ is intensely singular.  Touched ...in anyway at all including such lunacy of, for example, one of the H&W couples endeavoring to do a “FIX IT” “THAT” with a ‘glue gun’, et al...;  “YIKES” in addition a trailing off into plunging darkness “NOOoooooo”.  Under the old cloth in the garage... it has a wonderful aura halo... ‘intact’.  TRY and find ‘another one’.  TRY IT... and get back to me.  The rule?  IF Great Grandmother gives one a New England Federal period Tambour desk... LEAVE IT ALONE; leave it just the way SHE GAVE IT TO YOU. SHE (Great Grammy) didn’t fix it and one should SEND HER a thank you note for ‘doing that’.

Put the desk in your living room ...just the way you received it... and if a visitor says “AREN’T YOU GOING TO GET THE TAMBOURS FIXED?” say “No.”.  If needed, add that it was your grandmother’s, grandmother’s, grandmother’s desk and that is ‘exactly the way I inherited it’.  If conversation continues about the condition of the ratty desk in the living room, the home’s visitor should be... as politely as possible... for being one’s unenlightened visitor ...be... politely informed... that... ‘they don’t know what they’re talking about’.  It is well understood that even saying that ‘fixing them’ (the Tambours) will ‘destroy the value’ of the desk... will NOT GET THROUGH so... reconcile oneself by knowing that... THANK YOU... the visitor will most probably never have a piece of art to destroy ‘anyway’.  Past using the first one word response of ‘No’, ‘don’t even bother’ to continue the rest of the conversation UNLESS ...they... ‘get it’ about the ‘things from my grandmother’ ...THEY HAVE... that, among those things... ARE a something that IS ‘GOOD’ to the antiquarian realm.  “MOST” of most people’s “from my grandmother” ‘are not good’.  Rest assured on this point and BET ON IT.

Once one has had one’s stomach stapled on the physical ‘untouched’ aura halo found hiding in New England decorative arts AND their resulting premium cash value...  Once one has... from this stapled state... uttered defensive and balanced declarations... in the living room of one’s own home... about the ‘things’ ‘from my grandmother’... that one is found to be protecting from destruction... one gets the hang of it and the radiance of the aura of knowing ‘I’m right’ becomes a warm glow throughout one’s home.

Enhancing this aura halo is another aura halo:  “IT’S HISTORY”.  That is, the HISTORY of the antique ‘untouched’.  Here, aside from one big point, we have very clear “HISTORY” about Sophia’s desk.  This whole tale planted a garden of seeds of history about the desk and those blossomed into a variety of historic fact... tale... lore and... aura; an aura halo TOO, around the desk.

What is the big ‘aside’ point?  It is that NO ONE knows this history about the historic setting of the desk at all.  There is no ‘written down’, no tale told, no ‘publication on’, no ‘lecture tonight’, no museum tour, no... one.. but... my grandmother ...and I.  NO ONE knows about the desk or the history of the desk or ANY THING ELSE about ANY OF THIS.  NONE THE LESS, this aura halo of and about the desk; it’s ‘history’ IS WONDERFUL and greatly enhances ‘Sophia’s Desk’.  It should be merged with the physical desk ‘untouched’.

And... the physical ‘Captain Merritt Kimball’s sea captain’s mansion... now a ‘summer place’.  THIS, too, IS an aura halo TOO ‘about the desk’.  A very grand and prominent aura halo.  A mere side glance of the ‘driving by’ at the ‘estate’ ‘up there’ assures even the most lay that “IT”; the mansion, IS an aura halo... itself.  Have I yet gone to ‘see’ if the front room furniture ‘is there’; to see if there... is there too... a table upon which a ‘Sophia’s’ Roger’s Group rested white she wrote her letters at the ‘Sophia’s Desk’?

No.  I’ll get to it.  But... I fear that those rooms when entered will have... only new ‘summer people’ furniture in them with the original Kimball ‘sold with the property’ furniture LONG GONE (several ‘summer people’ owners ago).  The best I hope for is it was ‘stuffed in the barn’.  The worse is ‘taken off by their caretaker’ to ‘get rid of’ ‘then’ (twenty-five years ago) and ‘sold’.  Oh ...I’ll find out... why not?

If one takes the desk and its aura halos to the ... wider realm of New England decorative arts study... one does have a study.  A weekend seminar.  A publication.  An ‘it’s beautiful’ (desk, history, mansion).  Or just cart the whole wagon load down to the local historical society and let THEM run up the flag?

Or do nothing.

Say noting.

Why would one do that? 

We come back to the very beginning of this tale.  I will do and say nothing because...:

            “Growing up under the antiquarian tutelage of a grandmother who would “set off” from her kitchen table with a rubber banded “roll of money” at the slightest sign that a …takeover… by summer people of “an old place” or preferably “old sea captain  ****’s PLACE has “schooled me” in the very subtle trademark traditions of this whole… Maine… romance.”  (Part One, paragraph three).

            I am ‘schooled me’.  I live ‘in the very subtle trademark traditions of this whole ...Maine... romance’.  It is the romance that is the last and most fleeting of the aura halos found with the desk.  This halo is the tradition of the Maine romance.  For fifty years I have lived here within THIS aura halo surrounding all the other aura halos; the desk, the mansion, the Kimballs, the Parkers, Sophia, the wrecker’s daughter, the punch bowls, the tea service, the chest, Mr. Simon’s barn, the platter, my grandmother’s estate, Charles’ workshop, the casts of visiting players and ...my grandmother’s ghost.  This aura halo of romance is a pure New England haunt passing... that should go on... ‘untouched’.

The End

Summer Place - Part Thirty-Five C

Summer Place

Part Thirty-Five C

            “I cannot find Sophia’s desk.” (my grandmother, Part Eleven).

           

            Where is Sophia’s desk?

            What is Sophia’s desk?

            What COULD happen to Sophia’s desk?’

            What SHOULD happen to Sophia’s desk?

            Where... is it?  I do know.  I understand it is ...at the head of a garage bay in one of the H&W couple’s two car garage; in front of the ‘wife’s car’, against the back wall... under an ‘old cloth’.  I understand.  It is not ‘local’ but is not that far away and is... ‘still in Maine’.  It is still a peanut under a shell.  I understand I know this; where the shell is ...with the peanut under it.  It has been ‘sitting there’ since the January ‘bought in’ auction return.  When the desk was ‘brought back’ no one knew what to do with it or where to put it so ...the out of state H&W couple who’d done the ‘that’ of the auction endeavor ‘dropped it off’ at this H&W location where it was “stuffed” (the actual word used) at the back of the garage and has... “been there (undisturbed) ever since” meaning ‘forgotten about’, sort of... too.  “WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?” is, occasionally, brought up?

            Removing the cloth and taking a photograph of it with the cell phone has been done?

            That photograph has been ...emailed to more prominent Maine auction houses?

            The response to ‘that’ has not been rapid, active and “good”?

            I understand this is the circuit in progress.

            Does anyone realize how many idiots are emailing crummy photographs of “AN ANTIQUE” “THEY HAVE” that THEY “THINK IS GOOD” to “PEOPLE” “WHO WOULD KNOW” (read “WANT IT”).  It is a national pandemic.  Where does the email with the photograph go?  To a ...staffer... who... “looks at it” and ‘gets back’ “TO YOU”.  I consider Sophia’s desk to be safely ‘ensconced’ ‘in storage’.  It is being saved for me?

            This ‘where’ of Sophia’s desk will become more assured in a few more months... leading to a ...year... leading to a... ‘few years’... as... the H&W trio... don’t ever ‘know what to do’.  Within this tale; in Parts Sixteen, Seventeen and Eighteen, I record through another example, this probable direction of the desk.  In those parts I record my purchase of much of the ‘inherited’ ‘antiques’ from my grandmother’s heirs TWENTY YEARS after they ...fetched the stuff home and... stored it... for me (?).  This ...procedure is complimented by the Mr. Simon’s chest saga of ... that chest being stored in his barn for FIFTY YEARS ‘under a sheet’.  Merged, these two destinies of record create a ‘probable’ for the desk... unless it’s... ‘shaken loose’ by ...someone who knows about ‘it’.  Am I the only one alive who... ‘knows (FULLY) about it’?  Right now I am just ‘letting it sit there’.

            WHAT is ‘Sophia’s desk’?

            Now we can get ourselves a little dirty.  Using a very old and very classic American antiques furniture reference book; Albert Sack, FINE POINTS OF FURNITURE EARLY AMERICAN,  Crown, NY, 1950, - the ‘old school’ lay antiquarian slang titled “GOOD BETTER BEST” manual of American antique furniture... WE?

            I....:  The book, here shown in a beat up dust jacket covered 1977 “twenty-third printing”, is VERY EASY TO FIND and can usually be found being ‘dumped’ at yard sales, etc. “for nothing” ($2.00 or less) by ...those who have no notion of the book’s value, have never seen it, never read it, never looked at it and... never will use it or CARE... just like the H&W trio...  This WORK HORSE tome has been a near “ALL I NEED” for me since I was harped at about it and the need for... me... to “memorize it” FORTY PLUS YEARS ago.  My grandmother “had it”, “used it” and NEVER MENTIONED IT TO ME EVER.  I ‘was told about it’, ‘memorized it’ and HAVE NEVER STOPPED USING IT.  I use it with ...emailed cell phone photographs?  Isn’t that cute.

            I flip to, for our review, Sack’s coverage of ‘Tambour’ desks; pgs. 153-156.  This, in redundancies of being brief, show ME ‘good better best’ of ...Tambour desks.  Brutally faint and short in both the photographic illustrations and text, these pages burn the house down on “Sophia’s Desk”.  I am not going to digest the brutal, faint and short.  Sack quickly shows ...the knowing reader’s eye... WITH supportive text... where in the realm of good, better, best Sophia ‘is’.  She’s ...pretty good... but not ‘best’.  Close runner up.  The key points are form... in the three drawer (over the stated preferred two drawer) WITH the proportion of the tambour above (its size with the words “heavy” and “clumsy” used by Sack in the text) WITH Sophia’s having the... balancing-weight reducing... drawers ABOVE her tambour... and... the ‘extra taper’ to the leg bottom but NO inlay and ... one needing to file Sack’s “over done and not properly placed” commentary of inlay... for later.

            “Ha, ha, ha” if that was too fast for I did all that way back in the shed room with my “May I?” cell phone photograph.  Yeah; I have to be that good that fast or ‘I’m not a player’ (a verbal statement I must utter to I... and all... RIGHT THEN)  I recall I said “15K”.  I’m a player and we will get to that.

            I’m lucky I have my photograph... ‘to check’.  After peering at “SACK’S” I bet all ‘can see why’.

            So that is that:  A good -three drawer- plus; a little big (but not a ‘she’s a big girl’) and... ‘carrying that’.  Classic form... balanced well... clean to the eye... and just a little... fancy... a little ...NEW ENGLAND male ...ish... but sized still ‘ok for her’.  I bet if Sophia had picked it out herself it she would have picked a ‘lighter one’; a two drawer.  The ‘CAPTAIN Merritt Kimball buys a desk’... does show.  Doesn’t it?  See how good YOUR eye is getting?

            Where’d he buy it?  I like saying “Salem”.  But... this desk is not top tier Salem.  Boston?  Portsmouth?  Portland MAINE?  Newburyport?  In that order.  Anyone of them. It’s not New York.  It IS New England.  He went into the store, said “That one.”  He put it on the boat and sailed it ‘home’.  “Captain”.  “Sir”.  “For my wife”.  Girls; don’t let him buy your (antique) desk.  Study, get to know someone who ‘knows’ and... buy it yourself.

             What COULD happen to ‘Sophia’s Desk’?

            The shortest cram down is... it is shaken loose by a someone who does one of two things.  ONE:  Buy it, “restore it” (‘fix it up’; the tambours, etc., so ‘everything works’), “slick it up” (the finish) and sell it... to an appropriate retail collector for their ‘New England Sea Captain’s Mansion’.  The key would be ‘buying it cheap, doing ‘the work’ cheap (‘yourself’) and.... AND... selling it ‘to that’ (the sea captain’s mansion).

            TWO:  Buy it, “restore it”...that is... ‘sophisticate it’.  That is... give it a full makeover where EVERYTHING is ‘sophisticated’ including becoming ‘inlayed’.... AVOIDING THE ‘overdone – not properly placed’ noted by Sack... onward to even replacing the drawer front veneers with ‘something fancy’ (bird’s eye maple).  Yeah; THAT grade of ‘sophistication’... GOT IT?  It WILL BE Salem then.  I promise.  AND it... is worth doing to this desk for ‘there’s a lot there already’ to work from and... ‘she’ ‘can support it’.  Especially with the balancing drawers at the top to ‘keep everyone’s eyes busy’.  I’m not going to detail the procedure but a ...partnership... between the owner and the restorer on a restoration that ‘could take several years’ before ‘entering’ the market (as a ‘recently discovered New England furniture MASTERPIECE’).  The rule to remember?  When ever one is looking at an antique that is THAT GOOD... an ‘over the top’... with a THAT GOOD price tag too... just say ‘sophisticated?’ to one self.  I do it all the time and... it works.

            THIS desk... shaken loose... COULD HAVE THAT happen... to it.  To ... ‘Sophia’s desk’.  My grandmother would burst into tears?  Her ghost is sobbing?

            Then what SHOULD happen to ‘Sophia’s desk’?

           

Summer Place - Part Thirty-Five B

Summer Place

Part Thirty-Five B

            On schedule with my plan of conclusional verbiage, I resurrect the ‘old china’ platter that travels through the tale.  From my professional vantage, it is the simplest of ‘good taste in New England decorative arts’.

From Part Five, I repeat:

By formula, Mr. Simon quickly became a very docile ‘client’.  Arriving, seated, whiskeyed, storied and second corked… the next thing Mr. Simon knew he would be… assisting my grandmother in ‘pulling’ the sofa away from the living room wall so she could ‘get at’ …a cupboard behind it that …Mr. Simon had never even noticed before but NOW had his ‘100%’.  Exposing the cupboard door slightly… to allow it to be opened slightly… to show ever very slightly… that it was more than SLIGHTLY ‘jammed full’ and that ever so …slightly… my grandmother’s hand slipped in just …slightly… to ever so slightly… remove for Mr. Simon’s inspection… a somehow worked into the conversation ever so slightly… of a he ‘must be aware of’ “aren’t you slightly?” a:

Sixteen inch “View of Pittsfield, Mass.” dark blue American historic scene decorated English Staffordshire earthenware transferware… platter… “in perfect condition” “Two hundred and fifty dollars (remind; 1962 prices), Mr. Simon.  It’s quite a FINE ONE.”

It was the trail… and the tale… with each antique that captivated Mr. Simon and his ‘summer people’ type.  Explaining “WHAT” that platter was …was very… third tier to my grandmother.  Mr. Simon did not need to know “THAT” “well”.  Just sort of vaguely AND that it is assured as ‘good’.  It helped if the antique LOOKS good to Mr. Simon ‘too’.  Usually, through the inherent quality of the antique… it did this; ‘look good’.  To Mr. Simon. 

What really counted to Mr. Simon was the adventure of traveling the trail of finding this “I THINK I remember I have” antique in the “NEVER BEEN IN A PLACE LIKE THIS BEFORE” wandering MAZE of my grandmother’s object stuffed ‘farm’:  “OLD MAINE FARM” “SHE LIVES IN”.  While befuddled by being whiskeyed.  Once found, and before closing the cupboard door, usually Mr. Simon was allowed a single vague and distant searching gaze off toward a “there’s quite a bit MORE in there”.

            “Yes… I DO keep some BETTER THINGS back IN THERE.” my grandmother would say as SHE pushed the sofa back against the wall with… her butt.  Mr. Simon had never seen a woman push a sofa with her butt before.  That just added  a “little spice” my grandmother called it… to ‘the trail’.

As check out and payment of that day’s visit approached, my grandmother would, with courtesy, review the TALE of the platter; the old captain’s home. The wife “was from down that way I recall” , the “family’s china”.  The “mostly broken” over the years.  The “broken up” among the descendents over the years.  The “surprised I found any of it left at all” “in there”.  The “probably really shouldn’t sell”.  “But of course it IS going to a FINE HOME”.

            From the safety of this ‘selling’ we are reminded well of the platter but only lightly touch the “was very... third tier to my grandmother”.  There are two tiers within this denotation of third tier.  The foremost of the two is that the object IS historically substantive as being an ‘antique’; American NEW ENGLAND historic CLASSIC ‘old china’ ‘old paste’ and ‘the old blue’ on to even the miss-applied ‘the flowing blue’ which it ‘is not’.  So surely ‘collected’ BY THE CIVIL WAR era (1850’s) and onward, it ‘has been good’ a whole century to reach my grandmother in 1962 ‘behind the sofa’.  My grandmother herself would have ‘discovered’ the ‘antiques’ of dark blue American scene historical English transferware earthenware ‘china’ as soon as she ‘started’ to be ...New England antiques ‘interested’.  I, too, ‘learned that way’, too.

            Tier two ‘within’ is a touch more modern in influence.  Accepting ‘historic’ for the platter is easy, as is it being ‘old china’.  The next little leap... in appreciation... is art.  Actually... ‘the positive art qualities’.  Not only is this very simply found in this ...flat composition by transfer in blue... but it is very simple ‘to see’ in this particular scene ...too.  The ovals, the verticals, their lines and spaces.  The empty space of the ovals (the actual ‘common’), the spilling verticals (the tree above the steeples), the motion (of the figures) within the stillness (of the common).  Then the rings of the ...border, the border, the border... framing and framing and framing.  The halos (mountain horizon line) and the lightning (in the cloud line of the sky) of white light to pull out the murky depths of the passion of the ‘dark blue’... UPON these abstract lines and shapes, thrusts and blanks.  Too much art too quickly?  Don’t worry; there is no need to dwell on THAT unless... one needs to do the same to ALL antiques... ALL the TIME ALWAYS... ‘with my eye’... in fractions of time.  I do... ‘need’ to do that and, I delight to report, I ‘live there’. 

            It is safe here with the platter?  This is the simplest of examples.  Mere minor seconds send almost all to ‘I like it’.  Little ‘art’ is needed.  Simply follow the Mr. Simon’s example.  HE never needed to bother with ‘all that’ because ...because... my grandmother put down the crumbs of his art trail and shooed him... and his wallet... ‘along’.  She simply showed him objects with positive art qualities that, for him, ‘couldn’t fail’.  THAT is NOT a bad way to go IF one ‘isn’t sure’.

            I repeat from Part Twenty-A, when the platter reappears:

            “You have old used furniture.  I seek antiques.”

            “But that dry sink is old.” She said gesturing toward a… 1950’s cobbled together from old wood and then having its surface unified by heavy handed sanding, beating with chains and ‘varnishing’.

            “Ah.  It’s fifties.  Not old.” I said robotically.

            “Not old?  It’s ALWAYS been there.”

            I looked at the sink.  It had a copper planter with a nearly dead plant in that planter.  The planter sat down in the well of the ‘dry sink’.

            “It’s made-up of old wood.  1950’s.  Very common.  It’s not antique.” I said and walked over to the dry sink.  The near dead plant was bone dry but the planter had been recently ‘watered’…meaning that morning… just before I arrived.  I didn’t care because my eye caught a classic antique blue color beneath the planter.  My eye searched further… fast.

            Seeing… what my eye was seeing, my mind instructed my hand to reach out and lift the copper planter where upon that lifting revealed the abominable affirmation that I had before me found… an antique.

            I reached with the other hand and lifted my heart beating prize away from ‘under’ and set the planter back.  Up came a piece of ‘old china’… a sixteen inch dark blue transferware English Staffordshire American Historical scene – the common at Pittsfield, Mass.- decorated… platter.  I said “Ah.” and reversed the platter to …denote the maker/title mark on its bottom.  I continued the firm grip with that hand as I quickly and lightly rapped the platter with the other hand to ‘hear if it’s cracked’.  It was not cracked.  It was ‘dirty’ from being an under the planter with the near dead plant for… HOW MANY DECADES?

            “Here’s one.” I said.

            “Here’s one?” Jenny said.

            “An antique.” I said.  “Forty bucks”.

            “Antique?  That?” she said as I waved that platter toward her in one hand.  She paused, peered and then said  “It’s so DIRTY”.

            “Been under the plant”.

            “That’s old; an antique?”

            “Pittsfield MASS.” I said.  “Old china.  Historic view.  Forty dollars.”

            “Pittsfield?” Jenny said bending slightly forward to squint at the front of the platter as I stepped toward her. “I’ve been there”.

            “Right.  Not that tranquil there today.” I said referring to the pastoral view of the common.

            “No.  I didn’t like it.  Dirty.”

            “This I can buy.  It’s old enough.”

            “Buy?  That.  You’ll pay forty dollars?  For that?”

            “Yes.”

            When the study of decorative arts is NOT done.  When object history is not considered.  Observed.  Noticed.  Thought of.  When THAT is the ‘normal’.  And that ‘normal’ IS THE WAY IT ACTULLY IS... ‘out there’ (from my vantage)... all the time... I ‘cannot fail’ in my quests.  Thank you for being ‘of that’.

            One of the hardest to understand for I; a need to sit down and point out to myself constantly... is the phenomena of my raking eye of antiquities and art... NOT being the way everyone else ‘is’.  Jenny goes on from her dirty platter to lead me off to the barn to find more old china ‘just like’.  It is not ‘just like’ but:  I buy that china from her using HER art view of ‘it’... ‘with additions’ (the chest) THAT I ALSO include using my projection of HER ‘art view’ it ‘it’ TOO.  THIS IS VERY, VERY,  VERY common for I to do.  In most settings there is NO OTHER TRAIL (with crumbs).  It is ‘that’s the way it is’.

            So start paying twenty-five dollars a throw and admit oneself to ‘museums’ ‘to see’?  Yes.

            “IS THERE NOT A HELPFUL” ....anything?  A ‘reference book’? 

There are many, MANY reference books... that combined with ‘exposure’ and ‘study’ “WILL”.  One example?  “Yes please”.

            Philip Zea, “PURSUING REFINEMENT IN RURAL NEW ENGLAND 1740-1850’, Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, MA, 1998.  This may be considered a flawless peek at ‘good taste in New England decorative arts’.  Hardcover or paperback; buy the hardcover.  The paperback wears... out.  The hardcover costs a lot more... if a copy can be found.

            On page 60 at Figure 84 our visiting eye... has already ‘I spy’... what they ‘Figure 84 – Platter”.  In color.  Nice.  There is no positive arts mentioned in the Deerfield history focused descriptive text.  In the text they also positively mention the New England preference for the ‘dark’ blue.  The reverse of that positive is the ...legacy... negative of the English mocking Americans for this  preference for ‘dark’ blue... that stands to this day... and DOES qualify one’s art eye when ‘looking’ at transferware... but that too much for today’s lesson.  Rest assured:  Point upon point upon New England good taste point is found... in this book.

            As a spot-focus on ‘I am trying to tell a bigger tale’ from within these stories, vignettes and pontificates, this actual page in the book; page sixty... with the platter at the bottom... JUMPS at the top of the next page; sixty-one... to ‘Figure 87 – Tobacco Tongs’, with description ...that again focuses on Deerfield history.  These are ‘Pipe Tongs’ by consensual lay antiquarian title, ...and... ‘A SET’ of pipe tongs were the subject of a whole tale by I; “A DOOR KNOCK”, a nine part tale.  The tongs at Deerfield are ‘signed’ ‘American’.  The tongs in the tale were ‘unsigned’.  But:  The ‘lines’ of the story’s tongs ...were ‘better’.  The Zea set is ‘a little clunky’.

            But who cares about ‘clunky’ in art?

            THE MARKET DOES.

            I see that; the art qualities, in fractions of a second.  Using my ‘memorized books like this’?  And more... including ‘feel’ (Part Twenty-One).  I do not ‘look it up’ ‘on my cell’.

            THAT brings us back to ‘Sophia’s Desk’.