Make Up A Story About Why Anyone Would Paint

This Hubley Boston Terrier Red

And Win!

$75.00 First Prize $50.00 Second Prize $25.00 Third Prize

Here Are The Rules:

1. Make up a story, devise a theory or if you are the person who painted this poor dog red, tell us why you did it.
2. Your story could go on and on or be as short as a few sentences.
3. Extra points are given for wacky, zany, different or just bizarre.
4. Your entry must be posted here as a comment to win…
5. As an alternative to rule number one, you could tell us what we should do with the little doggy now that someone painted the poor thing red.
6. Deadline for contest entry is:  September 15, 2011.

What a Hubley Boston Terrier Should Look Like!

Antique Celebrity Judge: Karen Knapstein Of Antique Trader Magazine

Good Luck,

Martin Codina
CEO Fine Estate Sales

There is a collecting instinct in all of us. A way that we are natural gatherers. A biological imperative that directs us to gather the many materials needed to sustain our lives. It’s as if somewhere in our DNA, there is a rule that we must find and store extra stuff, and store that stuff close at hand – in case one day there should be famine or war, or some other time of grave shortage.

All of us have this…

A Hoarder has this same Collecting Impulse…

Here’s a side note: We, for whatever reason have to slow down and check out the accident on the side of the freeway…craning our necks as we pass…whispering to ourselves..there by the grace of god go I – gathering information as we pass, that we hope will enable us to avoid the catastrophe of duplicating the accident we are passing…

We have a morbid curiosity: So we watch Hoarders on T.V. We shake our heads, we eye the mounds of junk in someones living room with disgust, passing a tub of popcorn between us, and we distance ourselves from the hoarders experience…commenting…”How can anyone let things get so bad…”

We Might Think Hoarding Happens To Others

But we are wrong…hoarding happens in families…in almost everyone’s direct family, or certainly in the families of some of our closest friends…Hoarding is the collecting impulse disfigured by the emotional need to feel safe in a world – all around a hoarder, that feels so very out of control…it is a buffer…a way to distance oneself from the pain of not being connected enough to other more useful strategies of actually connecting with others…

If you are a friend of a hoarder, or one of your family members has heaps and piles of debris that they must pass through on their way to a small place of comfort on a bed, piled high on all sides with the detritus of their collecting impulse gone astray – you might remember, you can help them now…aid them in having a better more connected life, or you can do nothing, and with the high note of your disgust, you can empty their homes into debris boxes once they pass…

At Some Point All Hoarders Must Be Dwelt With…

My vote is for doing something about it now…

But first, here are some ways to better approach hoarding and hoarders…

Suspend your Judgement.

Remember, this Person is Human.

Avoid Reiterations of Past Conflicts and Disappointments.

Add Love to a healthy and robust strategy of taking things in small measurable steps.

Take Care,

Martin Codina

CEO Fine Estate Sales

Back in the early 90′s when I was a regular dealer on the Long Island baseball card show scene I’d see the same faces week to week. Sometimes I’d see the same faces multiple times per week. I had my favorites and then there were those I’d hope passed my table by.

One of my favorite faces, earning that title as a regular paying customer, of course, was a gentleman with whom my conversation typically never went beyond my naming my price and telling him thank you after he handed me the money. No, he wasn’t a favorite simply because he was regularly paying me. Despite the lack of any conversation he was quite the personality.

He was a little fellow, a bit past middle-age, unlike many who made their weekend ventures a father-son bonding session, he was always alone. I suspect he went home to an empty house as well, but that’s just my own projection. For all I know he was Mr. Personality off the card show floor, though I doubt it.

What especially interested me about this quiet shopper was the little notebook he always carried. It contained his lists. He hovered over my boxes of cards sorting through 1950′s and 60′s Topps commons for hours on end looking for those last few numbers he needed to complete his baseball card sets. When he’d find something he’d make a small mark in his book, a mark I always assumed would be emboldened upon his arriving home to mix his new found treasures into his existing collection.

More then a decade earlier when I’d collected my first baseball card set, 1979 Topps, I recall a weekend Summer afternoon spent on the back porch with my father sorting through my stacks of cards. Youth rendered condition irrelevant and so Dad carefully marked off the ’79 Topps pink checklists with a super sharp pencil tip just like he’d done decades before with his own favorite sets, the 1956 and ’59 Topps issues.

On the weekends Dad would work the card shows with me he slowly but surely put those 1950′s sets back together. This time he didn’t mark the checklists, the 56′s went for a couple hundred bucks each at the time, but he crossed the card numbers off his own list handwritten on a pad of paper.

As a full time dealer today I don’t really collect cards in the physical sense anymore. Everything that comes in is meant to be moved out. Most of my best baseball cards are long gone, though I still have my original box of ’79′s, the ones with the scuffs, creases and marked checklists. Today I specialize in early movie trading and tobacco cards as well as other ephemeral issues relating to classic film stars.

I collect them online today. I show the sets off, piece by piece. When I was a kid I sorted my baseball cards by set. If I got bored I’d sort them again by team. I’d sit in front of a ballgame on TV and spread out that day’s lineups in front of me on the carpet and play out the game on a sort of virtual, or at least ephemeral, scorecard. I’d sort the singles and doubles and my favorites from the scrubs. Then I’d put them back in numbered order.

Today, even after something has sold, I sort my movie images online by set. I add a tag and sort them by star. Another tag can group together casts of classic movies. I turn these galleries into web pages and I sort them alphabetically on pages headed by star, film, or set. The possibilities seem endless. Even seeming random disorder brings an order of sorts as I group together a seemingly unrelated group of film stars who shared only their profession and a date of birth.

There’s a mania to collecting. Any item which is truly collected comes with potential for sorting and ordering, though trading cards seem to cry out for some sort of shuffling. After all, a collection is comprised of more than one and when there’s more than one, something has to come first.

The pieces we choose to acquire for our collections make a statement about who we are, but the further sorting and ordering of those pieces add a taste of how we are.

Article by

Cliff Aliperti
Immortal Ephemera

Hello Ruby Lane Readers…

Thought you might join me in a discussion of all that’s awesome about Ruby Lane…and all that is not…

Today’s Topic?

The Backroom…of Doom!

Maybe I am alone, and the only Ruby Lane User who can’t get this part of Ruby Lane to work, but no matter how I set this up to not have my items collect dust in the back room, items still find themselves their from time to time. I have to go into the manage items section of my Ruby Lane Dashboard and pull things out (Currently, I do have my shop set up to allow for items to disappear into the back room).

So Then

I was in the manage items section pulling wayward items out of the back room, dusting them off, making them pretty again, changing text – tweaking photos and so on…then pulling the item back out of the back room; so that my glorious shopper could find, and see my wonderful items again, and then I noticed something…

An Item Pulled Out of The Backroom, No Matter How It May Have Been Re-Edited Does Not Show Up As Newly Listed…

You’re Still At The Back Of The Line…

Seems a shame to me, that these items revamped, restyled or changed don’t count as a relisted item…that instead, they fall way back in the queue of Ruby Lane Listing…

What do you think…?

All The Best,

Martin

Here’s Our Big Deal Of The Day: Mid-Century Sterling Ice Cube Tongs Was $200.00 Now, and Only For Today: $150.00

Excerpt: My first great find of the year came in February, with an email from a person living just a few hours away from me. She had a McLoughlin Brothers Typewriter from 1884. This little typing machine was the first typewriter marketed to children, even though it was solidly built and was also intended for adults. (Read More Here)

Dishonesty is Public Enemy #1 In the Estate Sales Business!

Excerpt: As a new Estate Sales Professional, you must remember that there is only one end, or goal for you to serve, and that is for you to pursue the best possible economic outcomes for your clients.

There is nothing else that matters…not your profit or whether you can buy something from them for very little, and later resell for a much higher price, or that you now have the opportunity to sell to and impress your dealer friends. (Read More Here)

Sui Dynasty Jade Shaman Deities

Excerpt: At only 3 1/2″ tall these Shaman figures still stand tall in the world of Asian Collectibles…Soft and easy features, but by that I do not mean to suggest that these figures were easy to carve, because they were not. Even today carving jade is a difficult and time consuming process, and as many as 1500 years ago when these four Shaman Figures were carved, the process was even more arduous. (Read More Here)

50,000 Years Old Cave Bear Skull

Excerpt: From the days of the Neanderthals these Cave Bears were fierce, awesomely strong and gloriously clever. They competed with early man for much the same food sources, so it is certain that clashes between our two species occurred with some regularity. (Read More Here)

$100,000.00 Rare French Doll by Albert Marque

Excerpt: Hold The Phone – Stop The Presses…Who Buys A Doll Like This? Rich Woman that’s who! And why not, if a guy with dough can buy a fancy watch for 100k, just to make his wrist look good on a golf course…I say, it’s just fine for a woman to purchase a fine specimen of a doll…(Read More Here)

Estate Sales? Auctions? Which Is Best?

Auctions are best when you have an item that has so much hidden or not so hidden value that it needs a larger marketplace of buyers in order to generate that value. Most things in most houses don’t have that kind of value.

Estate Sales are best when the professional you are dealing with correctly knows the difference between something that belongs in an Estate Sale and something that belongs in an auction – when Estate Liquidators can explain their research capacity, and can demonstrate with records their past successes combining estate sales with auction placement strategies. (Read More Here)

Here’s Our Big Deal Of The Day: Navajo Sterling Multi Stone Cluster Bracelet by Etsitty Was $475.00 Now, and Only For Today: $375.00

All The Best Out There, and May You Find a Treasure…

Martin Codina