Tarnished Rose: November 2011

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

A Great Find

A few weeks ago, I attended my first estate auction of the year. Since very few real estate auctions are held where I live (mostly it’s estate sales where every thing is individually priced), I have to wait until I’m visiting my parents in order to attend any.

The day started cold, but there were a few items of real interest to me. I’d perused AuctionZip.com a few days before heading to my parents’ in order to see what was up for auction. However, the best find of the day wasn’t even on the site for the auction.

The find was two boxes of Scrapbooks. Not just any scrapbooks, but Playbill Scrapbooks. I had never heard of them, but immediately fell in love at first site.

There were two boxes of these, for a total of 31 books. Patiently I waited (well, maybe not so patiently since I went and asked the auctioneer during a break when they were going to be up) and slowly began to lose hope. Things were going for outrageous prices (especially in the middle of Nowhereville, Arkansas) and I’d already been outbid on one of my “must haves”. When bidding hits $100 for a stack of old photos, I must admit defeat.

So finally, the time arrived and the bidding started. As the price climbed, the few bidders began to drop out, leaving me and one other lady (who was obviously a “dealer”-usually I can spot them a mile away). I began to lose hope as my mother was going to foot the bill for these and I didn’t want to go too high. Well, at $25 a BOOK, the other bidder dropped out and they were mine. Now, no way was I going to be be able to grab all 31 books, not at that price. My mom came to my rescue and said I could get 10. Okay, a fair number and to be honest, I had no room for all of them. KNOWING the back-up bidder would take the rest, I slowly made my choices. I was ecstatic. I selected my 10 and with hardly a twinge of remorse, I watched the other bidder snap up the 21 that were left.

Here are a few pictures of the insides. Oh, the years? They started in the teens and ran to around 1935. I got a good selection of the years as I was more interested in ones with lots of pictures and clippings than I was in the playbills.

This particular book dated from 1922. This is the page where the title of the play was listed along with it’s date shown and newspaper clippings about it.

The Playbill

Newspaper pictures of the major players.

More clippings

The two major actors.

Another clipping.

I love these books. This is just information from one play! Now that I’m home recovering from my second carpal tunnel surgery (this time the left hand), I can flip through them at leisure.

Well, hard to type one-handed, so until next time……