Clearly Possessed

nov17 - making a free slideshow

Gifted is right around the corner! I mean, yippee, it's Christmas! Gifted is the Brooklyn Flea's week long holiday market. You can find me selling my treasures at the bank from 12/15-12/23. The slide show starts with my treasured collection of Swedish glass snowball candle holders. I'm really going to sell them this year. If I can part with them, that is. They look so nice around the holidays.

What, too much holiday cheer? Perhaps too early? OK, let's talk about that embalming table instead. I have a spooky story to go along with it. It all started long ago before the Brooklyn Flea ever had a bff. On a dark and stormy day at the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market, this fella named Ryan bought a bunch of lamp parts from me. I put him on my email list and told him to read my blog. Crazy, right? It gets better. These days, I see Ryan from time to time in Brooklyn, and he's always telling me about his latest enterprise. Well, two fleas ago, Ryan told me he was going to be on the Discovery Channel's new show called Oddities about an antique store. So I made a note to watch the show. You should watch the clip. I don't recommend any other clips though. Some of them are kinda yucky. Not that an embalming table isn't yucky. But this mortician model lady wanted it to style shots for her new fashion line. That's kinda cool. Now, I was born and raised in the antique business. For real. I was a runner at an auction at the age of 4. I spend my life sifting through old stuff. I'm at shows and shops all the time. I had never ever ever seen anything like this Victorian embalming table until last Thursday night. Once this spot on the show was over I turned it off because I don't really get into cat mummies and specimens. Last Friday morning, I hit the shops to stock up for the Flea. I hit one of my favorite shops, and was having a blast in the $1 jewelry pile. I turned around and see the exact same embalming table! The guys were like, "I bet you'll never guess what that is..." Spooky, right? I was a little unsure as to what to do, because the price was pretty high. But, I saw the EXACT SAME THING on TV the night before. And even saw someone purchase this thing. So I bought the embalming table. If I still have it in 6 months, I think it will be safe to say that I must have been possessed to do such a thing. The guy gave me a deal on the embalming table and the portable prayer kneeler. It folds up into the box.

So, these are some things I've learned about embalming tables in the past week. I guess, back in the day, the embalmer went to the body, rather than the other way around. They say on the show that it's a "cooling" table; the holes allow the ice underneath to cool the body. Everyone in my booth last weekend insisted that the holes served a drainage function, and I argued with them all day. Now that I have, ahem, polished the table, I have to say, I think the customers were right, as always. And apparently there are some people who raise an eyebrow at the embalming industry as a whole. I'm not going to say any more than that for fear of alienating any potential customers for this piece. I want to stay on the good side of anyone who would consider buying this charming little treasure. You gotta admit, the head rest really completes the look.

Ok, let's talk about the crazy stuff I've scooped up for pennies on the dollar. The Carl Tasha bronze bracelet brought $150 on eBay! Yay! Back to my roots in artist signed hand made jewelry. I've been buying great stuff from people who should know better than to let things slip. I bought the sterling compact that's on ebay for $5 at an antique store in Taunton, MA. Taunton is also known as the Silver City. Taunton was a manufacture center for sterling and silver plate. It's how the Industrial Revolution manifested in Southeastern Massachusetts. What I'm saying is, if the antique store in Taunton has a big sign out front that says, "WE BUY GOLD and silver", they're in the silver city, they have magnifying glasses and test kits, I SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO BUY A SILVER COMPACT IN THAT STORE FOR $5! But I did. I win. The guy's jaw dropped when I picked it out of the case and he saw the tag, and the sterling mark and knew that it weighed at least 2 ounces. I can scrap it for about $45. I win. Mind you, if your grandma asked me to make her a fair offer on her comparable silver compact, I would offer her $45. Good silver compacts can be worth a fortune. I pay more for older and ornate silver compacts. I picked the sterling scarab bracelet out of a shop that probably wouldn't know an egyptian silver hallmark if it was stamped on their forehead. But I get paid for having knowledge. I earned that profit too. I picked another sterling and 14k bangle bracelet out of a dollar pile at another store owned by a scrapper. You know, the guy who weighs the gold and silver and gives you cash. Why was there a good bracelet in his dollar pile? No good excuse. I win. Oh, and the Arabia candlesticks that sold on ebay last week for $88 came out of a shop owned by religious ebayers. They look everything up on the internet. They run a real auction too. I can't tell you why they sold me those candlesticks for $5. They just did. The sad truth is that I really botch one up once in a while and let something go for nothing. I've even screwed up at the Brooklyn Flea. So you might find something for pennies on the dollar in my booth. Even know-it-alls can't know it all. I guess that's what makes this business interesting.

One more thing, if you are at all interested in that Victorian Hair brooch, please make me an offer. It's about to go the way of the scrap pile. It's worth more as gold than as a retail piece. You know, I've known for years that antiques associated with dead bodies are a tough sell. Don't know what possessed me...