Apologize in advance for the length~
We finished up our busy week today by attending a couple auctions in the final caravan of the week. Crowd was too large and since we had already purchased two units this week, just bowed out and cleaned out our 10th locker.
This was a 10X20 that Don purchased yesterday, as mentioned in the Auction Scene thread.
Well.....almost all the furniture was either particle board and/or broken, (cigarette) burned or chewed on. So chances of making anything there is pretty nil. There were two chests in this unit and inside the cedar one (which we have to repair) we found........
Lots of stuff! And not all dirty clothes either. The first thing my daughter sees is an iced tea jar full of pennies. Maybe $5 there. There was an adorable jewelry box (with some jewelry), a cool tiger head planter (from Italy), an alpaca toy (that is obviously imported and neat) and an urn. Yep.....my first time with remains. We did open it to make sure. She was in there.
We also found a large propane patio heater and an electric air-conditioning unit, plus lots of gardening items, some crystal pieces that will be easy to sell and a nice flatware set in the wood box. We'll recoup the cost of the locker on these items alone.
Other items found and if anybody has any idea on values.....I'd be quite appreciative:
~9 neat menus from 1962 on the SS Hanseatic Hamburg-Atlantic Cruise Line. A Sun-way cruise to the West Indies. They have some of the neatest artwork featuring native people in pen and water-color. Too neat. Probably not worth much, but I LOVE them!
~Numerous silver-plate items including a couple wm rogers and a 'Newport fish knife' that has an antique mall tag of $45 and dated 1880..
~We went through all the jewelry and found quite a bit of silver to go with that from my mineral unit. Not much gold and very little of any value. When I was digging through the file cabinet I found several appraisals for jewelry and lo and behold~there was a piece that we had in the 'I'm not sure' pile. Turns out it has approx. 1.255 mm seed pearls, 7 diamond cluster set and is 14K. It appraised for $595 back in 94. As soon as we 'identified' it, I told Don "Quick!!! Find me the watch from the appraisal!!"
~We also found two stock certificates from 3-1962 and 6-1962 for American Telephone and Telegraph Company! Odds are they've been cashed in and even if they haven't I know nothing about obtaining 'ownership' or if that is even possible. They were issued to Joan (who was a sassy lass born with a silver spoon in her mouth, traveled the world and hung with the boys. I think she was somebody I would have loved to have talked with). Her daughter Lana died of lung cancer.
~There were some interesting art pieces. A couple wood carving/paintings from the West Indies, including the coolest mermaid. A neat print (or perhaps litho?) of Joan of Arc (Sainte Jeanne d'Arc). It was (very professionally) framed in Cedar Rapids Iowa and the label on the back looks old. And a litho of Eldorado by Toulouse Lautrec. It says on the back of the frame that it is a colored litho, plate, initialed. There were also a couple other paintings, originals, but I doubt they have value. I haven't really investigated the art much, as after my Pablita Velarde deal....I hate art! Oh there was also a Navajo sandpainting....that one should be easy here.
I know we'll (easily) recoup the $250 spent, but like my mineral locker......I'm left with lots of questions and not a ton of items that I can turn and burn. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the items of interest, but dang.....this is almost novel length as is.
This is the largest amount of items we have to return to the facility, as there were tons of photographs (we enjoyed viewing those from Joan's wild and wooly days), legal docs and of course the urn.
As I told Don......this unit is anything but boring~
If you have any info on (any of) the aforementioned items, we'd truly appreciate the input.