Stumpage Reports



Thursday, July 31, 2003 :::
 
Did You Know Department

The railroad company has loaned me some kind of a Dell Inspiron laptop to work on.

Did you know if you pick up the computer the wrong way, the A drive flies out of it, hits the floor and shoots across the room?

Did you also know, those A drives are damn sturdy.



::: posted by tom at 2:11 PM





Wednesday, July 30, 2003 :::
 
Time Tripping

Last night as I was unpacking yet another box, I found all of my old wall calendars. Almost all of them feature art by N.C. Wyeth, Edward Hopper, and Maxfield Parrish.

The calendars also feature cryptic notations in my own hand about appointments and other thing that seemed important at the time. A few oddball samples and observations I gleaned from them:

I cat sat for Ann quite a few times in 2000.

In March 1999 I had fifteen migraine headaches. April of the same year featured only ten.

On January 9, 1998, something happened with Polly and I that involved $22.54.

February 21, 2000 found me in Appomatox Courthouse, Virginia.

From February 1996 through June of that same year, I went to a movie almost every Friday night.

A couple times in early 1999, I met Ann for breakfast at 7 AM. What in the hell were we doing up at that ungodly hour?



::: posted by tom at 9:36 PM





Tuesday, July 29, 2003 :::
 
The First Job I Ever Had

Where I grew up, the only jobs you could get before you were sixteen years old was either a paper route or a job on the driving range picking up golf balls. Since there weren't many paper routes, you had to wait for someone to die or go to college to get one. I opted for picking up golf balls.

It was kind of a low-rent place. I think it was called the "Northwoods Driving Range." I was in the seventh or eighth grade when I got the job, about 13 or 14 years old. There was a big tractor that drove around the middle of the range to pick up the golf balls. Our job was to patrol the edges and adjacent lots, scooping the balls into little wire baskets, putting them into huge wire baskets, and then lugging them back to the office to run through the golf-ball-washing machine.

Of course the people on the driving range aimed at us. Our bosses provided yellow construction helmets that always reminded me of the ones you got with the higher-end Tonka trucks. Once I got hit by a direct shot into the helmet. The golf ball flew in one direction and my helmet in another. The only other hit I recieved was in the stomach. Even though the ball had bounced once before it hit me, I writhed on the ground in mortal agony.

For this we were paid the princely sum of $1.50 an hour. That's tall cotton when you're in the eighth grade and no else in your class has a real job.

I spent most of the money I earned at a local model store called The Squadron Shop.* Later jobs would see me spending money here, here, and here.

* A footnote on The Squadron Shop: This place now only does mail order. But back in the days, they had an actual store in Detroit and my brother and I were there at least once a week. My brother still attends military modeling conventions around the eastern U.S. and when he tells people he used to go to The Squadron Shop, they gaze at him with reverential awe that people of my ilk and generation usually reserve for someone that had seen Jimi Hendrix in concert.

::: posted by tom at 4:05 PM





Monday, July 28, 2003 :::
 
Its Better Than A Nasty, Dark Little Trench

Today I got to participate in one of the less-glamorous aspects of the archives business and found out why all archives' job descriptions have the line "applicant must be able to lift loads of 50 pounds." (If there are glamorous apects of it, I haven't experienced those yet). A bunch of other guys and I got to move 150 wonder boxes full of a retired professor's papers. We had to take them from his office, put them in a van, and schlep them over to a satellite shelving facility. If the Lost Ark is somewhere on campus, that is where you will find it.

We met the old guy. He was a nice chap but looked kind of forlorn sitting in his office surrounded by his life's work, all boxed up.

The biggest thrill at the satellite shelving place is the compact shelving. Unlike that picture, our shelves are brobdingnagian, at least twenty feet high. Picture a typical row of library shelves, but without the aisles. These things are motorized, and if you press the right button of the one on the end, it will move and create an aisle. If you want to access further down the row, you have to move all the shelves one by one.

Of course, I immediately envisioned all kinds of mayhem. The obvious one, someone getting crushed between the shelves as they closed. They assured me there are sensors that prevent that from happening. But a little experimentation revealed the sensors are waist high, so you could stick your foot in and get that smashed.

I thought if things turned out really well, you could get crushed in between the shelves and get electrocuted at the same time, you could emerge as some kind of archives or library superhero. What exactly that would be, I don't know.

R.I.P.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone knows Bob Hope is dead. When someone really famous like that dies, the other poor slobs that shuffle off this mortal coil on the same day don't get the attention they deserve.

Also recently joining the choir invisible was Eric Braunn the guitarist from the group Iron Butterfly, that was responsible for the song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

And don't forget Jane Barbe, the lady who provided the voice when your phone said "We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed."




::: posted by tom at 9:41 PM





Sunday, July 27, 2003 :::
 
The New Austerity: Week Five

This weekend I rolled up all of my change that has accumulated over the last two or three years. Usually I do that a little more often and was pleasantly surprised about how much money had piled up.

If times were quite so lean, I could easily justify buying this, instead, I think I'll be spending the loot on some of these.



::: posted by tom at 9:28 PM





Friday, July 25, 2003 :::
 
Summertime in the Cap' City

I've been working downtown for the railroad company the last couple days and today I walked down to the Fayetteville Street Mall during lunch. Its an area of blocked off streets in the middle of downtown that is supposed to be parklike and pedestrian-friendly. It looks better than it did a few years ago but still doesn't seem to be clicking with the denizens of Raleigh. The legislature went home a few days ago so that added to the air of desolation downtown.

On the way over I passed the state capitol and of course had to stop and admire the confederate monument. Standing a few yards away were a disheveled and dispirited group of ten or so people holding Liberian flags. I thought, "If you guys are protesting you don't seem very fired up."

Later on, while I was on the mall eating a hot-dog, I saw the Liberian flag crowd had moved over there, their ranks had swelled to about fifty, and they were singing. After a few minutes a big guy stepped to the front of the crowd, and with the most arresting voice I have ever heard, started chanting some African word over and over while the crowd began stamping their feet.

For a few seconds there I felt like a member of the 24th Regiment of Foot at Rorke's Drift must have felt. Pretty exciting for usually sleepy downtown Raleigh.

Current Favorite Talking Heads Song: The Road to Nowhere.





::: posted by tom at 7:49 PM





Thursday, July 24, 2003 :::
 
Brief Reviews: or, My girl looks damn smooth in dis lil thing!

I guess most people know Amazon.com lets people post book reviews on their web site. I didn't know they also let people post reviews of everything else they sell, like toys, electronics, and underwear.

Yeah, underwear. I was cleaning my "My Documents" folder out on my PC and found this little nugget. They are some reviews of Hanes underwear that I had saved for future blogging fodder. Here they are, real, uncensored online underwear reviews. I don't know how I survived before the internet was around.

Underwear Reviews:

These underwear. ahhh..where do I begin? My love affair with
hanes started in Istanbul. It was hot. I ran to the bazaar to
look for comfortable clean underwear that I could wear
without fear of disease. Hanes caught my eye immediately.
So attractively packaged - and that was even before I put
the on!

These things are great! I can go jogging, practice karate,
and do yoga all without having to adjust myself. These
boxer briefs keep things where they belong. Get these
and you won't have to go through any more
embarassing public adjustments.

originally bought these briefs for me but one day I came home
and my dog was wearing them. He really loves the comfortable
fit and i cant get them off of him. His is a pitbull so im really
not going to push the issue. I want to thank Hanes for
making my dogs life a little more comfortable.

The waist band is exceptional and the cotton is very durable
and these are very nice. BTW, you shouldn't be wearing briefs
if you are single, they remind women of their little brothers.
Boxer until marriage, I say! After that you can wear whatever
is comfortable.

Haha! My girl looks damn smooth in dis lil thing!

Last Listened To:

The Yardbirds, Live on the BBC.



::: posted by tom at 10:32 PM





Wednesday, July 23, 2003 :::
 
Inevitable, Shmevitable: or, What? Another Book About Gettysburg?!

Okay, that Shakespeare post sucked. I'll make up for it by rambling about the Civil War.

Several of my history professors repeatedly reminded us that while the past is past and done, events were not pre-ordained or inevitable before they happened. This gives you a chance to understand decisions people made at the time, based on the information they had at that moment. My Civil War teacher frequently reminded us that people in the 1850's did not know they lived in "antebellum" times. He also told us the majority of the people were not worried about the Kansas-Nebraska Act or the spread of slavery. They went to work and worried about their families, like most people.

I mentioned earlier I am reading Gettysburg: a Testing of Courage by Noah Trudeau. One thing I liked right off the bat was he said he made no apologies about writing another book about Gettysburg. It is actually the first worthwhile one-volume overview of the whole battle that has been published since 1968.

The author spends the first 100 pages or so on the events and movements in the two months leading up to the battle. He never foreshadows with hokey things about the upcoming "date with destiny at a small Pennyslvania crossroads town." Instead, he talks about the information people had and the decisions they made based on that. The last couple weeks of June 1863, everybody, especially the Confederates, were marching around Maryland and Pennsylvania, trying to figure out where the other guys were and consolidate their armies. I gave up trying to keep track of all these little towns and where everybody was. But as it gets to June 29 and 30, the town of Gettysburg keeps popping up more and more, and the reader gets a great sense of everything drawing to the clash of July 1. The author even wrote at one point something like: "By June 29, almost all of Lee's army was converging on Gettysburg but no one knew it."

I'm enjoying the heck out of it, I know what happens, but his writing style makes it seem fresh and the events unfold as they did for the participants.

Some serious historians don't care for Trudeau because he sells a lot of books and doesn't use the right kind of footnotes. I got kind of frustrated with one of his books when I tried to use it for a school project and had trouble indentifying some his sources. But if you really don't care if his quotes are from original manuscript sources or later published versions, you can't go wrong with one of his books.


::: posted by tom at 9:47 PM




 
Bill Shakespeare Stuff

I've been kind of dry for blog material the last couple days. I wanted to do another quiz: "Rumsfeld or Retard?" and compare quotes from Donald Rumsfeld and the Faulknerian Idiot Man Child narrator of The Sound and the Fury, but I couldn't make it work.

Thinking about this brought me to my favorite Shakespeare soliloquy from the end of Macbeth and how many book titles have come from this one speech. Having this as your favorite Shakespeare soliloquy is kind of like saying Hey Jude is your favorite Beatles song.

But that doesn't matter, here's my favorite Shakespeare soliloquy complete with (non-Amazon whenever possible) links to all the book titles people have stolen from it.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

---- Macbeth, Act V, scene V.

Current Favorite Beatles Song:

Everybody's Got Someting to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey.



::: posted by tom at 12:51 PM





Tuesday, July 22, 2003 :::
 
Hey, hey, nothing to say, so here's a....

Quote of the Day:

"You know I have no patience with nonsense," said the Northeast's leading wholesaler of chattering windup mandibles.

--- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon.

Last Listened To:

G.P., by Gram Parsons.



::: posted by tom at 8:10 PM





Monday, July 21, 2003 :::
 
Vacation Fun

I was a lucky little kid in a lot of ways. Every summer, starting when I was around 8 or 9, the parents would load my brother and I into the car and we'd go off on a vacation for a week or two every summer. We lived in Michigan at the time and drove to places like Virginia, North Dakota, North Carolina, Canada, the Upper Peninsula, and Boston.

One of the parts of the trip I looked forward to the most, were Classics Illustrated Comic Books. They didn't sell them at newsstands where we lived, but every year before vacation we would get to mail order $4 or $5 worth of them. At 20 or 25 cents each that was a lot of comics. Our mother would then stash them and we would get to read them in the car on the trip.

We always ordered ones with either monsters or killing in them, titles like Treasure Island, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. None of this David Copperfield crap for us.

My brother and I loved the hell out of these things, and would usually have most of them read before we crossed the state line. Because of those comics, I know the basic plots and characters of a lot of classic books that I've never actually read. This has come in handy playing trivial pursuit, answering reference questions at the library, and just generally trying to appear smarter than I actually am.

My brother ended up with the collection, and he still has them. I'm glad to know they're in a safe place.

Reading:

Just finished: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon. I read this one on the recommendation of James and several other people. I haven't enjoyed a book that much in a long time. Well crafted and intelligently written without being pretentious. Some nice real comic book history woven in there, and some incredible fake comic book history in there also.

Just started: Gettysburg: a Testing of Courage by Noah Trudeau.

Still plugging away: Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner.

Recently listened to: Truth, by Jeff Beck.



::: posted by tom at 10:08 PM





Sunday, July 20, 2003 :::
 
The Funniest Thing Ever (At That Time)

I moved from Michigan to North Carolina in 1983. In the summer of 1984, I went back to Michigan to visit. I hung out most of the time with my good friend Scott. He worked in a comic book store and I hung out in the store a lot while I was visiting and the owner gave me great discounts for helping out.

The owner was a fun, profane, kinda biker-lookin dude who always made me think of Big Daddy Roth.

One day a whole horde of little kids with ice-cream stormed into the store and immediately started mauling and messing up the new comics. The owner looked at us, winked, then reared up to his full height, and said in a deep bass voice:

"This isn't the pet-me zoo, now get the fuck out of my store!"

The kids turned as one, eyes as big as saucers, and the whole knot of them scampered out of the store like a multi-headed centipide.

We fell on the floor laughing and enjoyed that all week. Scott and I laughed our asses the other night during a phone conversation last week when we recalled it for the first time in many a year.

Quotes of the Day:

I've been slack on the quotes of the day lately because I haven't been blogging at home with my big old book collection. Here's a few to make up for it ---

I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that anymore.

--- Dorothy Parker, Here Lies, 1939.

Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth-decay in His divine system of creation?

--- Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1961

I don't want loyalty. I want loyalty. I want him to kiss my ass in Macy's window at high noon and tell me it smells like roses. I want his pecker in my pocket.

--- Lyndon Baines Johnson, quote in David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, 1972.




::: posted by tom at 5:04 PM





Thursday, July 17, 2003 :::
 
I've Been Working on the Railroad, continued.

Today was my first day on the railroad company job. I had to go to a temp agency and fill out tons of paperwork, and then I went to the railroad company and they fixed me up with a laptop. The lady I'm working for and I then schlepped down the Old Records Center (that's where they keep stuff not interesting enough to be in the State Archives) to take a look at the collection I have to deal with.

It is about fifteen large cardboard cartons filled with paper. Usually, with an archival collection, you have to arrange and describe it. I'm only going to describe this one. It belongs to the State Archives and they don't want me rearranging stuff and the company I'm working for wants to know whats in it, hence the description part.

This is going to be a good gig though. The lady and I were discussing ways we could get more work out of this thing so I'll get more hours. She said usually when they hire someone like me on a temp basis for one project they usually end up finding something else for them to do.

I also got a free book and a keychain with the company's logo on it. They didn't promise me riches like that when I applied at graduate school.



::: posted by tom at 10:30 PM





Wednesday, July 16, 2003 :::
 
Quiz Time: The Apeman's Cohorts or Allah's Fanatics?

Are the items in the following list surnames of 9/11 hijackers,

or,

Characters from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan novels?

Answers below.

1. ben-Houdin

2. Toyat

3. Alhazmi

4. Gabula

5. Hanjour

6. Banihammad

7. Jad-bal-ja

8. Cadj

9. Alghamdi

10. Jarrah



Answers:

1. Burroughs character, marauder chief, Amor's nephew, executed by Jacot, appeared in The Son of Tarzan.

2. Burroughs character, Ape of Tarzan's old tribe, appeared in Tarzan the Invincible.

3. Hijacker, possible Saudi national, possible resident of Fort Lee, New Jersey; Wayne, New Jersey.

4. Burroughs character, Erich von Harben's Bagego body servant from Tarzan and the Lost Empire.

5. Hijacker, possible resident of Phoenix, Arizona, and San Diego, California.

6. Hijacker, possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida

7. Burroughs character, Tarzan's pet lion, appeared in Tarzan and the Golden Lion and many other books.

8. Burroughs character, High Priest of the Flaming God of Opar, from Tarzan and the Golden Lion.

9. Hijacker, Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida.

10. Hijacker, believed to be the pilot of United Airlines flight 93.



Some fun links I found while working on this post:

The Edgar Rice Burroughs Ape - English Dictionary

The Series Gallery, a page devoted to old timey series books, like the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, etc, with lots of cool cover artwork.

Official Edgar Rice Burroughs website.

Gallery of J. Allen St. John Burroughs artwork. My favorite Burrough's artist.



::: posted by tom at 11:39 AM





Tuesday, July 15, 2003 :::
 
Quote of the Day:

"Digital documents last forever -- or five years, whichever comes first."

--- Jeff Rothenberg, computer scientist, quoted in Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era , in the June 2003 issue of The American Historical Review.

Another quote from
the same article, I can't resist it...

"Ten to twenty percent of vital data tapes from the Viking Mars mission," notes Deanna Marcum, the president of the Council on Library Information Resources, "have significant errors because magnetic tape is too susceptible to degradation to serve as an archival storage medium." Often, records lack sufficient information about their organization and coding to make them usable. According to Kenneth Thibodeau, director of the National Archive and Record Administration's Electronic Records Archives program, NARA lacked adequate documentation to make sense of several hundred reels of computer tapes from the Department of Health and Human Resources and data files from the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. Some records could be recovered by future digital archaeologists but sometimes only through an unaffordable "major engineering challenge." The greatest concern is not over what has already been lost but what historians in fifty years may find that they can't read.




::: posted by tom at 1:02 PM




 
I've Been Working on the Railroad

I had my interview yesterday and got the temp job working for the railroad company. The archivist there said she knew I had the job as soon as she saw my resume, how come none of the other 12 place I've applied for jobs didn't think that? She has a pretty nice setup over there, I think she needs a full-time assistant.

Art Appreciation 101

I discovered a new genre of paintings while on my trip to upstate New York. The best way I can describe it is "Cheesy Paintings of Bears Trashing Campsites." I wish I could find an example on the web to link to, you'll just have to use your imagination. Most of the paintings are prints from calendars from the 1930's or 40's, and usually feature a bear, sometimes a mother with a couple cubs, tearing up a hunter's campsite and getting at the food. Sometimes, you will see the hunter's approaching in the distance. In the really good ones, one of the bear cubs will be into some hi-jinks, usually with his little paw caught in the tackle box.

I was talking to one of the antique dealers up there, and he said people like to decorate a room in the "adirondack style" (i.e. Adirondack chairs, other stuff made of wood and birch bark) and one of the requirements for an Adirondack room is a tacky old painting of a moose or a bear. Your higher-end Adirondack rooms will have a Cheesy Painting of Bears Trashing A Campsite.

The best one I saw was a huge, old calendar print, with above mentioned bear cub up to no good in the tackle box. But it cost $75 so I didn't get it, and that was actually one of the cheaper ones.



::: posted by tom at 9:15 AM





Monday, July 14, 2003 :::
 
Moving Tips: or, Common Sense I Seem to Lack

I moved my alarm clock to a different outlet in my new place. Alas, I didn't think that it was an outlet that was turned on and off with the light switch. This equaled me being 20 minutes late my second week of work, which equaled my boss laughing and saying "Unless you're on the desk, as long as you get here by 9 or so thats fine."

I wish he hadn't told me that, but I'm still acting like I have to be here at 8 AM on the days I said I would be.

Unpacking Update, Part 402

Unpacking all my books has been a real revelation since a lot of them have been in storage for two years, and I was getting a whole bunch of new stuff just before I moved away from Charlotte. This equals finding a bunch of books I forgot / never knew I had.

Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. I've been reading good reviews of this thing in different journals for the past year, and have been thinking about buying a copy. Last week I found out I already had it.

Swamp Thing: the Curse. This was a pleasant surprise, I read the whole thing yesterday. I used to have the comics, and have absolutely no recollection of buying this book.

Another good one I knew I owned but had forgotten about, is The Upturned Stone by Scott Hampton. I've read it before, but I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it some night this week.





::: posted by tom at 10:32 AM





Saturday, July 12, 2003 :::
 
Woo Hoo, I'm a Rare Books Guy

Today I actually started doing some Assistant to the Rare Books Curator stuff rather than scanning forestry papers like I've been doing for the last eight months.

I'm checking in a cart of books we got back from the preservation department and then I have to shelve them. The first couple shelves were mainly literary works from the 19th and 18th centuries, cool but nothing to get really excited about.

Then I got to the bottom shelf and found a copy of Canadensivm plantarvm : aliarumque nondum editarum historia. I have no idea what that is, but it was published in 1635 and is bound in some kind of animal skin. I was impressed enough to pull it out of its clamshell box and leaf through it.

I'm sure the thrill will leave eventually, but for now its better than handling John Grisham books by the gross, as I used to do.



::: posted by tom at 1:18 PM





Friday, July 11, 2003 :::
 
Some Funny and Strange Things Seen and Overheard on my Recent Vacation

Seen:

A bumper sticker that said "1 Cross + 3 Nails = 4given"

An old geezer wearing a baseball hat that said "Fish Fear Me, Women Want Me"

Overheard or Said:

"Send out the nice pregnant lady, they can't get mad at her"

"If you can't say anything nice about anybody, come sit with me"

"I'll put my ice cream in my fingerbowl for you anytime"

Something I Wish I'd Seen:

The Magic Forest Family Fun Park, complete with Rex the Diving Horse and the world's tallest Uncle Sam.

I was also impressed with motion-activated paper towel dispensers (alas, no appropriate link) on the
New York Thruway. With the motion activated faucets and auto flush toilets, there's really only one thing a guy needs to touch when he goes to the restroom. I'm sure some entrepenuer is working on that.



::: posted by tom at 12:54 PM





Thursday, July 10, 2003 :::
 
I'm a Materialistic Bastard Part 33: or, Antique Finds in the Adirondacks Part 2

I swear this won't be as long as yesterday's post.

The other find I made on my trip I'm really happy about were two bound volumes of the periodical Harper's Young People. Each volume is very ornately bound, includes a complete year of the magazine, and are about 4 inches thick. One volume is for the year 1884 and the other is 1886.

The main reason I bought them is they are both packed full of illustrations by one of my favorite artists, Howard Pyle. Just taking a quick glance through them last night, I was some pictures by another favorite of mine, Franklin Booth.

I don't know how much these go for, but I got them for $22.50 each and I'll definitely get my money's worth. It'll take hours to leaf through and enjoy all the illustrations in these things. I'm amazed some philistine has not already razored out all the cool pictures and sold them seperately.

Job Stuff

I got a good lead on a contract job doing some archival research for a local railroad company. I talked to the lady yesterday and it went real well, I'm emailing her my resume and should hear back next week. This will be a nice supplement to my current part-time job and help pay that credit card bill I ran up on the trip.

Quote of the Day:

Do you know an American magazine called Harper's Monthly? There are things in it which strike me dumb with admiration, including sketches of a Quaker town in the olden days by Howard Pyle.

--- Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to his brother, Theo.




::: posted by tom at 2:29 PM





Wednesday, July 09, 2003 :::
 
I'm a Materialistic Bastard Part 32: or, Antique Finds in the Adirondacks Part 1

This will probably be a long post, I'll do a part 2 either this afternoon or tomorrow.

I love crawling around antique stores and antique malls. People who know me know I like to collect plastic toy soldiers and playsets from the 1950s and 1960s. Particularly soldiers and playsets from the Marx Toy Company. For examples of what I'm talking about, take a look here and here.

I like collecting these things because they were some of my favorite toys as a kid and even now, certain sets can be quite a bargain considering how much stuff you can get. They are really well-made and show a dedication to quality and value. In dealer's catalogs, individual figures can be had from $1 each up to $1000 for certain select figures. The ones I get usually run in the $2 to $8 range. Complete and semi-complete boxed sets run from about $85 to up to $10,000. I've spent anywhere from $50 to a maximum I think of $395 for one set.

These things were ubiquitous enough, and with most of the parts being made of plastic, some people think they aren't worth much and it is still possible to find bargains at flea markets and even antique stores. With that long-winded introduction and explanation, here's my story:

We were hitting the antique stores in Tupper Lake, NY, and were on our second or third shop of the afternoon. I was already getting this kind of glazed eyeball thing going where your eyes hurt from so much input after looking at shelf after shelf of knick-knacks and books.

I was scanning a shelf of books and turned to say something to Eighteenth Century Lady who had taken a seat. On the shelf behind her, I saw a box lid filled with the familiar colors of Marx plastic. I let out an understated "woo hoo" and moved to take a look. Knowing me, Eighteenth Century Lady said "I'm going to find an ATM machine, take your time." (She needed cash for herself, she's not funding my habits, although I try).

The first figure I grabbed was a Marx Civil War soldier with a broken gun...worthless...I then saw several more intact Marx Civil War guys and got a lot more interested. I checked out the price: 50 cents each or the whole box for $55. I pulled up a chair and dug in. I then remembered the 1st Commandment when finding a box of plastic toy soldiers: look for the cream colored character figures. Marx did a lot of sets based on TV shows and history and often the character figures were the only things that made a certain set unique so they often are worth a lot more.

I spied that familiar cream color and pulled the figure out. It was a cowboy holding a gun and the bottom of his base said "Jim Hardie." I knew it was from a Marx western set, but didn't know which one. I knew he had nothing to do with Rin Tin Tin, The Rifleman, or Roy Rogers, since I have those sets. I figured he was from the Wagon Train set and that meant big bucks. Unfortunately, some kid had tortured the figure by sticking a couple holes in it with a hot pin, but what the hell. Quickly rooting through the box and seeing lots more intact Civil War figures, I hauled the whole thing to the counter.

I asked the lady if she could do any better than $50 for the box and she knocked it down to $45. Of course, I asked if she had any more figures like this. Alas, the answer was no.

When I got home the next week, I did a little research and found out the Jim Hardie figure was from a playset based on the TV show Tales of Wells Fargo and four or five years ago, mint figures were selling for $150. There is one for sale on Ebay right now and I'm keeping an eye on it. I figure I could probably get at least $20 for mine and there is easily $100 to $300 worth of Civil War guys in there plus lots of Marx Knights, Cowboys, Horses, and Alamo Mexicans. Usually when you find a stash like this, it is about 80% trash and 20% good stuff. This haul has the opposite proportions and fills up half a paper grocery bag.

I know I'm sitting here rattling about how much these things are worth. I buy because I love them and actually, once in a great while, play with them. But if I can get a good deal and sell something to finance my habit, I'm all over it. I'll probably try and sell the Jim Hardie to make back a little of what I spent. Maybe I'll try and unload some of the Civil War guys too. I already have a Civil War set, and the main question is: am I happy with the 100 Civil War guys I have, or do I need another 100?
Well, if you wanna do Pickett's Charge right....

One of the funnest parts of something like this is digging through the figures and sorting them out. I haven't allowed myself that luxury yet, I have to get my new duplex in a little better order before do that.

This is the longest post I've ever done, if you read it all you must really be my friend.

Part 2 will tell about some cool book finds and probably not require as much explanation.



::: posted by tom at 12:03 PM





Tuesday, July 08, 2003 :::
 
I Guess Its Wrong to Ask a College Student to Read a Book

I see that UNC is under fire again for their summer reading choice. Last year people complained and filed a lawsuit because the university had the gall to ask incoming freshman to read a book titled Understanding the Q'uran. I guess some people didn't like the fact little Jeremy or Britney could actually learn something beyond their white-bread protestant worldview.

This time its Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. Reasons for the complaints include the book has a liberal bias and presents a radical perspective of the U.S. economy. and She [the author] really bashes Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart does so many good things for communities.

After the national controversy last year, I think anything UNC chooses will be controversial. They should require the kids to read one of the 5,000 unsold copies of the Matt Doherty book they probably have sitting in the back room of their bookstore.

Or something safe, a classic, like Huckleberry Finn.



::: posted by tom at 10:41 AM





Monday, July 07, 2003 :::
 
2500 Miles or 43 Interstate Highway Rest Stops

The Eighteenth-Century Lady* and I returned from our trip last night. Here is a rambling, fragmentary, link-laden summary:

Day one was a 600-mile drive to Hamlin, PA.

Some particular highlights were a concert by the U.S. Army Jazz Band on the banks of the Hudson River at The U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Having dinner the night of the fourth at Pete's Steakhouse, Lobster Ravioli and view of the fireworks over Lake Placid.

We spent a couple nights at the Hotel Saranac, a grand 75 year old luxury hotel that had been restored. While it was real nice, I just can't stay in a hotel that old without thinking about The Shining.

As always, lots of historical sites: Hyde Park, Vanderbilt Mansion, and Fort Ticonderoga.

The neon and arcade-saturated hell of Lake George made the upper reaches of the Adirondack Park all the sweeter.

More details later on oddball people and place sightings and spectacular antique finds.

* Blog Nickname update for those who keep track of these things: due to some previously-mentioned confusion, my good friend and traveling companion from Charlotte, "The Lady I Can't Think of A Nickname For," is now know as Eighteenth-Century Lady, due to her love of that era. My good friend and ex-coworker here in Raleigh, whom I have dinner with once a week, "She Who Shall Not Be Named," will now be known as Hippie Chick, due to her having done all the requisite stuff back in the 60's and 70's.





::: posted by tom at 3:05 PM









I'd taken the cure and had just gotten through...

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