Mystery Piano in the Woods

When Electra Havemeyer Webb moved the steamboat Ticonderoga to Shelburne Museum in 1955, everybody knew how it got there. Transporting a 900-ton steamboat over land is not something that can be done quietly. Apparently, though, a piano and bench can be moved into the woods without anybody noticing.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/23/massachusetts.piano/

Taking Care of Your Stuff

Click on this link for good, basic, general information on taking care of your stuff.

http://antiques.about.com/cs/beginners/a/aa101000.htm

Collecting for a Cause

Here's a good reason to collect: to support a good cause.

You don't have to keep what you collect. Collect something you can turn into cash for charity. The kids in this article collected soda can pop tops and donated them to a hospital, which then recycled them and used the money to help its patients.

What else can you collect that you can get rid of easily for a good cause?


http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/24/Hernando/Kids_are_collecting_s.shtml

Mystery of the Missing Lighthouse

Electra would have liked this story.

The thirty-foot tall lighthouse overlooking Cape Cod's Wellfleet Harbor was built in 1881. In 1925, it was gone. Over the years, people lost track of what had become of it. Local historians believed for decades that it had been taken down and destroyed at that time.

The lighthouse was found a few months ago, 3,000 miles away in Point Montara, California. It had been moved across the country.

Colleen MacNeney figured out what had happened to the missing lighthouse with her parents, Sandra and Bob Shanklin, known as "The Lighthouse People" because they've photographed every lighthouse in the United States. They recognized an old photo of the lighthouse at the U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office in Washington, D.C. while organizing their photos. It looked like a lighthouse they had photographed in California. They researched it and found out they were the same lighthouse. Apparently, the lighthouse service was trying to save money by replacing a dilapidated lighthouse in Point Montara with the one from Cape Cod.

Electra would have appreciated that materials from an old structure were being reused. After all, Shelburne Museum's Horseshoe Barn (which houses the vehicle collection) was built with beams and shingles salvaged from old Vermont barns and gristmills. Also, she would have liked that someone else had the idea of moving a lighthouse so many years before she moved the Colchester Reef Lighthouse from the middle of Lake Champlain to Shelburne Museum. And I'm sure Electra would feel a kinship with the Shanklins. They collect lighthouses, too, through their photographs, and through their passion to record an image of each one in the United States.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/06/case_of_the_mis.html

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/04/lighthouse.found.ap/index.html

Who's Laughing Now?

The painting, called "Rembrandt Laughing," was estimated to sell at auction for $3,100. A bidder recognized it as an original Rembrandt self-portraint and bought it for $4.5 million. A bargain, considering it is worth about ten times that amount. It was painted by the artist in 1628, when he was in his early twenties.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/102047/Rembrandt-Laughing-is-self-portrait---experts

Got e-Bay at Shelburne Museum

Shelburne Museum explored how e-Bay has changed the world of collecting in its exhibit "Got e-Bay," shown last year at its Round Barn. The Museum gave $1,000 each to eight celebrities, including Jerry Seinfeld and Bianca Jagger, and asked them to curate their own collection with it. How has collecting been altered forever now that the world is a big garage sale via e-Bay? You can watch a short video about the exhibit by clicking on the link below. If you were let loose on e-Bay with $1,000 and were asked to start a collection, what would you buy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB5lbSQtVSA

Check under Your Bed for Stuff

This is a story that is related to collecting, but isn't really about collecting.

When he was a boy in 1945, seventy-year old John Webber's grandfather gave him an unusual brass (or so he believed) cup. The grandfather was a "rag and bone man" in England, a junk dealer, who had an eye for antiques and interesting objects. As a child, Mr. Webber used the cup for target practice with his air gun.

For years, it was stored under a bed in a shoe box. When Mr. Webber was moving last year, he came across it and decided to get it appraised.

It turned out to be a golden vessel made in Persia during the third or fourth century BC and was sold at auction on June 5th for $100,000.

Have you ever found, bought, or been given a seemingly insignificant object that turned out to be a hidden treasure?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/06/05/auction.cup/index.html?iref=hpmostpop