Grandpa's Attic

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Posted By: RobertS 

That last posting on the Nodgrass thread made me wonder...

Has anyone on this board ever found anything interesting in an attic?

In the 1980s I once bought an unlisted PM1 1915 Ornate Frame pin of Magee from an elderly gentleman in Maine who said he had a bunch more in his attic. He even said he had charm bracelets and other (unlisted) 1915 baseball jewelry!

However, when I said I was interested in buying those other items from his attic, he got up and began walking towards the stairs but said he was too tired to go up there.

That was the closest I came to a genuine attic find!

How about others?

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Posted By: B C Daniels

1) an unopened box of 75 topps minis I parked and forgot about for 15 years! I just sent 40 cards in to PSA as that market is hot!Also (2) vending boxes of 79 topps!

2) a GI Joe footlocker complete with fatiques and boots

3) a Miss.Sure Shot~ Annie Oakley poster from Wild Bill's road show!

4) a dead bat!

5) a 1-800-GO PAT GO billboard!

6) a MAD magazine dated April 1970

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Posted By: Dan Mathewson

Hmmm...

We found:

1. Several of his campaign business cards (he was Sweetwater County, Wyo. Executive for 4-terms).

2. An old rifle.

3. An old (worthless) RR Stock certificate (which looks damm cool, framed)

4. One old photo of him in an old oval frame.

5. Ten thousand cobwebs.

6. A dead scorpion.

7. Not one danged baseball card.

I'll have to ask my uncle Bob if they even knew what baseball was in Wyoming in those days. All they had time for was rodeos and whiskey, and drillin for oil in Easton.

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Posted By: Tom

anything in any attic of any value, I would like to buy your Magee PM1 if you still have it and would want to sell it................

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Posted By: RobertS

However, I have never considered selling it because it's the only example from this set that I have. Although I might entertain an offer too good to refuse...or a trade for something else I covet!

I'll drop you an email...

By the way, is there a complete set listing for the ornate pins anywhere? The SCD big book obviously is missing a bunch.

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Posted By: David

When my grandmother was in her eighties, she claimed that the family had owned a Stadaverius (sp). However, after a having a stroke, she developed a lot of 'theories', many of them far from politically correct

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

) A drawing of two buxom, pretty naked girls, with "Paper doll" clothes next to them on the page. They were made in Chicago by a fairly famous art group called the "Hairy Who." The reason I'm sorry I lost track of them is: they hung in my mother's bathroom, and my daughter, visiting her in La Jolla at the age of 3 or 4, got her first look at naked women from them. "So THAT'S what I'm going to look like," she thought. She mentioned them after my mother's death, but nobody has seen them.

A Zeta Beta Tau fraternity pin from the University of Chicago, with which I was intimately familiar till I was about 8. It's a nationwide Jewish fraternity, and my father belonged in the '20s. My mother had it. It's a finely detailed skull (about 3/4 inch high), in white gold or platinum, with ruby eyes, and a slender chain attaching the skull to the letters "ZBT" also in white gold or platinum, studded with tiny diamonds. My parents were divorced when I was 9, and I had neither seen nor thought of it, till a couple of days ago.

Never found nothin' in no attic. Someone once sent me a large box of '68 and '69 Topps, but that's a sad story...

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Posted By: Keith O'Leary

Julie, I think I'm falling in love with you, keep making me.

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Posted By: runscott

I found about 25 empty Sweet Caporal boxes with 1909 tax stamps - turns out my g-g-grandfather worked at the American Tobacco Company and packed cards in cigarette packs back in the early 1900's, but there were none in these boxes. We also found his diary which had the following entries:

"...July 9,1909...boss told me today to stop packing Wagners in Sweet Cap packs. Asked him what to do with the 400 cards Bill had given me to pack and he said 'throw em away' unless I personally could come up with $8,000 to pay Hans. Couldn't see wasting all those cards so I hid them in Sweet Caporal boxes and snuck em out. Just like I did with those Joe Jackson cards."

"...December 24,1909...It was cold as hell tonight and I cuoldn't get the damned fire going - no tinder and it's raining outside. Couldn't see freezin to death on Christmas eve, then I got an idea. Sure glad I saved those Honus Wagner cards - they fire up really well. Everyone will sure think I'm smart...some of 'em didn't burn all the way so I gave them to my idiot cousin from Kentucky"

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Posted By: runscott

...but with the elections last night and all the politicking, I didn't see anything wrong with a little more "revisionist history".

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Posted By: Tom

Watch the KY comment.......we ain't all dum down here............

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Posted By: David

As with most people here, I'm sure, the 'finds' I'm involved with, involve other people finding and offering them to me at market prices. It's the middleman that's killing me.

On a more practical level, none of my close elderly relatives have attics. At least attics with anything more valuable than punch bowls, folding chairs and christmas tree lights. And, as all of my elderly relatives live in Minnesota, one needs polar fleece underwear and a St. Bernard to send time in the attacks and backyard cellars this season. As the closest thing I have to a St. Bernard is Henry, I won't be making any attic excursions until at least May or until someone moves to Florida.

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Posted By: Brian C Daniels

I prefer a Besenji (sp)

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

You're wasting your time doing whatever you're doing; you should write for a living.