Another big Alameda find….only this one better…

[CarltonHendricks]

A week ago last Sunday I went to the Alameda Point Antiques Fair. There was a heat wave and I couldn’t get to sleep the night before till about 3:00AM…Usually I get up at 4:00AM for the show…So the whole day was messed up…I got there around 10:00AM…No need to get in a rush at that point so I just took my time combing the show…Didn’t find much…a statue of a fighter pilot, a manikin to display that Schwinn shop coat on, a hash brown grater for my friend’s wife…and a large antique burl frame…total for the day about $75.00…and I was fine with it…



The owner of the Alameda Point show has an auction house called Michaan’s. They have two locations, one for the higher end art and antiques…and another they call the Annex for the lower end stuff…both right near the show…The lower end Annex one is in a huge cavernous former jet hanger that you drive by on your way out….(all of Alameda Point is an abandoned Naval air base)…… normally I don’t stop since I’m rushing to church…but the whole day was shot because of getting there so late…So since I was skipping church I figured I’d run thru it real quick…So I go in and its all the usual stuff…furniture galore, tons of framed pictures, etc…and then they have about four separate rooms full of smalls…lots of glass and all kind of nick knacks…the walls of the rooms are lined with make shift locked cabinets secured with chicken wire…If you want to see anything in the cabinets an attendant will unlock them for you…Even when I have time I rarely stop at the lower end auction…as I never find anything there and it’s sort of a waste of time…Except that day…



So I’m walking thru one of the smalls rooms and I notice groups of axes….scattered throughout the room…My best friends kid is all into axes…collects um big time…so occasionally I’ll shoot him some text photos when I see them…so I get to the end of this one room and there in the lower corner is another bound up group of axes…so as I’m looking at them…out of the corner of my eye…to my left on the shelf above the axe…I notice a large photo of a football team with a large Ziploc bag on top full of ephemera…my first thought was….what’s this some Kansas high school team photo…So I’m peering thru the chicken wire to try to see what it is…and I call over the attendant and ask him to open the case…





Turns out to be 19” by 13” imperial sized photo of the 1894 Stanford football team…But when I opened the bag of ephemera and saw all the unused tickets and other stuff my eyes really got wide…Immediately my mind was racing to try to access damage control…that is…how many people may have seen the lot…so I asked the attendant who was rightfully keeping a close eye on me as I went thru the ephemera…how many people have looked at this?...quite a few he said…I said what like a dozen?...he thinks for a few seconds and says…no…probably about six…









Now mind you the treatment of the lot was that of a garage sale…The glass of the framed photo was gritty with dirt build up…and the whole lot was placed between a blanket on the right and Hummel figurines on the left…I couldn’t have asked for more…blended right in with the rest of the garage sale…It was just a question of who had…and would…see it before the day of the auction which was the following Wednesday…three days away…



I took my shots…tried to remain calm in front of the attendant…and left…seeing it was possibly the greatest find of Stanford football memorabilia to ever surface….First off….see the tall player top dead center back row wearing the S sweater…well…to the viewers right of him is a young looking kid in street clothes…that’s a young Herbert Hoover….you’ve heard of the Hoover Institute at Stanford?…later to become president of the United States?…he was the team’s manager…interesting aspects of his leadership of the team can be easily found on the web…Second…see the light haired player middle row second from left…that’s Charles Fickert…It appears the whole lot came from him…Interesting guy…played guard for Stanford from 1894 to 1897….he became team captain in 1896…later he became Stanford’s head coach in 1901…in 1902 he took the team to the first Tournament of Roses…but got steam rolled by Michigan 39-0…Fielding H. Yost was Michigan’s coach…Yost had coached Stanford the year before…Fickert went on to an illustrious career as a lawyer and San Francisco District Attorney from 1909 to 1920…in 1918 he ran unsuccessfully for California State Governor…That’s what I’ve uncovered so far during a cursory looksee…I haven’t even had time yet to go thru and catalog it all…But I know there are two unused 1894 Cal Stanford tickets…one 1896 unused ticket…two 1898 tickets, both unused…







So….I had three days to wait and see what I’d have to pay…Finally Wednesday came…Got there two and a half hours early and waited it out…mean while stuff’s selling for an average of about $30-$40 it seemed…and I’m just waiting…The first thing I did when I get there was scan the crowd for familiar faces…There were three bay area people I did not want to see there…and they weren’t….great I thought…they didn’t hear about it….I saw a few general antiques dealers I recognized…I watched them to see what they were bidding on…they all seemed to be there for other stuff…I kept an eye out to see if anyone was looking closely at the lot…Never saw anyone looking at it seriously or asking the attendant to open the cage to see it…I was feeling good about it…I sort of felt I would get it for around $300.00…but it was all speculation…A few lots before my lot came up I randomly asked someone across the room to take a photo of me with my phone as I bid…they took a ton of shots….





…So finally it got down to the wire…and lot 1920 came up…$50.00 start…and then it took off….by the time it got to around $100.00 all kinds of people were waving their paddles, me included….the auctioneer told the crowd she would get to everyone….So I knew it was on….just where it would stop I didn’t know…do I hear $100….$150….$200….$300…$400….$500…$1,000.00…$1500. 00….$2000.00….$2500.00…$3000.00…and it just kept going…and going...and going…I was so nervous and intent on hearing the auctioneer and staying on it and not losing it…I never looked to see who the other bidders were…it was just too important to look away…Finally it began to slow a little and even I had to give it a little pause for a few seconds to think if I wanted to hang in there.…I had fire left and I kept on hitting it…Finally it was just me and another bidder…I hit it again and the other bidder finally folded…phew…I got it…but man…not for $300 like I hoped….The California sales tax alone made $300.00 look like chump change…and then the 23% premium….WOW…Nervous yes…nevertheless I knew instinctively I did the right thing….19th century west coast football…all sports really…seems much harder to find than east coast…and I saw what I got as being in the priceless level…especially with the future president in the picture…



People in the room were kind of in shock I think…the auctioneer included…most of the stuff in the room had been going below $50.00…about four people came up to me after I won it and wanted to know what was so important about it and what was I going to do with it…sell it or keep it..…I just acted polite and gave benign answers…I was too in shock to talk much…one lady was really curious…she said I could have bought a car for that much!!!!