Bama Planter

The next two blog entries are about a little cdv photograph of a building in Halifax called the Admiralty House. I bought it for less than a dollar and kept it over 30 years. I finally donated the photo to the Admiralty House Museum. It is the oldest known photograph of their building/museum. It was like finding a picture of the White House twenty years older than any other known picture. They were all excited about the whole thing. The earlier blog gives the background, and the blog below gives the results, so if you want to read them in order, skip to the next entry and come back to this one. The whole ordeal turned out to be lots of fun over such a little thing. The email arrived from the Director of the Admiralty House and his historical savey is all over the place. Here is what he had to say: Good afternoon Your donation arrived this morning. I must say I was gob-smacked. As you mentioned in your accompanying letter, it is the earliest known photograph of Admiralty House. It s...

That particular Saturday was the right Saturday of the month in June of 1978 and I was at the Fairfield, Alabama, flea market, once the glorious location of the Alabama State Fair. Fairfield is not hard to find; just follow US 11 through Bessemer and there you are. If you go too far you'll end up on 1st Avenue North in Birmingham. This monthly flea market was not one of those pretty outdoor affairs like you see on the treasure hunt shows on BBC and HGTV; it was held in a large dirty building where dealers or anyone else who wanted pay the fee would bring their smalls to display on old tables covered mostly in sheets. When I say that the dealers brought smalls , I say so with no exaggeration. The 1970's and 1980's were a time when people who liked antiques ( including myself) were doing what I call collecting collections . Some dealers sold nothing but depression glass; others were selling figurines; others sold old paper ephemerae. Today's young antique...