 | A Tale: "Of Lost Treasure" A Tale: "Of The Enriched Priceless Experience"Posted Aug-05-06 03:17:09 PDT I found that I loved Antiquities from the start. Now where the start began I beg to differ for I always felt excited when around them I just did not know much about them, not until, any ways, I got back from my touring journey in southeast Asia, Vietnam. I step down from the plane into several inches of red dust covering my canvas leather military issue boots. On my birthday February 13, 1970. I left Vietnam in April of 1971. Came back to a country I loved and found someone else's country. The American Spirit was not in the air that breathe, I felt betrayed abandoned and compensated with alcohol & drugs.
Moving forward several years I was now living with a woman who had a mental disorder, as myself I had one also and took medications to help with depression, paranoid, and P.T.S.D. and was getting Social Security Disability. She, Tracy.. was also on Social security. We walked a lot, talked a lot, and made a lot of love. On the way to the library on cool rainy drizzling day, she had a compulsive habit of picking things up every where we went. She found money unbelievably often, I accepted the fact and was sometimes a little jealous of the fact, but she always shared with me. On this rainy day in the parking lot of the library the rain coming a littl e to hard to just be walking casual, I sped up and she shouted: Jim wait look here an envelope come on help me. Naw... I`ll meet you in the library at the newspapers. Okay she shouted. I walked on in and shook the rain from my clothes and was sitting looking at an exotic newspaper like Rio de j..... She came rushing in sat down with a loud clump and her breath was panting, she gasped saying. You know how much I found? No I said. Guess! she taunted. I don`t know I said. Three hundred and fifty eight dollars! Your kidding I said. No Jim really. She must have seen a sign of jealousy or envy in my features cause she said: I only want twenty bucks you can have the rest. Okay? No! I said: That's yours! Yes! she almost shouted. Yes! so you can get some antiques with it. Okay I said. kind of like: well if you insist, reluctantly. With a mile wide smile! We went shopping that day leaving the library almost immediately and began ou r journey into the world antiquities, thrift shops, goodwill, antique shops and the workings of yard sales. From that moment forward we went to the shops daily and so much so, that she would let me go alone it was to much shopping, to much hunting for the elusive treasures. She got bored did not get the gold fever that i had aquired. I set up a lay away program with the Lady who own Red-House Antiques in Walla Walla, Wa. Bernice was her name an attractive older lady obsessed with acquiring entire estates, and would even find her at the yard sales first in line, always there first in line. My first defeating find came from her store, she had a passion for books and had shelves set up like a library in the middle of her store. Searching through them for exotic bindings and the ancient look, as well as a few titles and authors names I knew to be rare. I came across a cover-less book with just string binding holding the pages together, th e title was " Tamer lanes & Other Poems ". The author signed it; (by a Bostonian). She had about fifteen to twenty dollars on it for the sale price. I liked it_ it was an eighteen hundred something copyright. But I put it back and went about searching for more and spaced it out. A couple days later I was reading about some rare books and found (Tamer lane & Other Poems) was Edgar Allen Poe's first book published, it was worth a fortune! I raced back to Bernice's shop only to find I spent a couple of hours searching for it to find it was gone. Dam! I was so disgusted with myself for not being in tune to getting myself a fortune. If I just would have put it on lay away I would be rich right now and would not have to depend on Social Security. Finally I got over it cause digging in the search swamped everything else from my mind except for the hunt itself and the next object of wealth I may find. Then came one of the most horrid losses in my life. The same shop, same Lady, I was searching through pottery and found a large blue & white platter type plate with blue drawing around edges and in the center. It was very old and have seven characters stamped into the pottery on the back of the patter. The face from left to right was a hairline crack that went half way across and not through to the back just facial. Well knowing my Mother and many other Ladies of this craft a broken or damaged antique made for a worthless piece not to be taken, though I still wanted it. The price thirty-four dollars. Know I could not do it, it was broken.
So I passed and bout a week later I found some older Art & Auction Magazines, I purchased them all about twenty of them for a dollar a piece, and searching through them came upon that platter at auction! The very same one blue & white, child like drawing scribble blue lines, & seven oriental characters stamped into the back . Except the one here pictured in auction Magazine had no hairline crack. It sold for Two Million Dollars at Sothebys or Christie's, it is hard to remember details with such a shocking ordeal. Even with the hairline crack I would have been so proud so happy to have been able to say to the experience antique ladies maybe you should buy a broken one once in a while. Ha` Ha` all the way to the bank. I have no idea what it`s worth would have been but just to have had it to show and compare & tell. My god what is wrong with me? Why cant I be intuitive enough not to lose these gorgeous things, why why why..... I have two more experiences to tell but only if you want them included, one is about some pottery at goodwill in Walla Walla, Wa. about five pieces of Picasso Pottery. Yes I thought that too, he was a painter not a potter someone just signed his name across these abstract pieces and sold them as copies. But Know NO NO. He did pottery and the most valuable of these pieces was a Blue Square Faced Madonna it went I think for eighteen to twenty thousand and the others all tolled it was or would have been near fifty or more thousand dollar find. At this time I was broke up with my girl friend, and my mother was there and seen them too, but still I think she thinks they were not real. ha! After that I slipped away from the treasure hunting until I ended up in Spokane, Wa. I was hunting thrift and goodwill shops and one called: The Value Village. It was at that time my favorite but they put their most precious finds in a glass case, searching I spied a tin toy it was Minnie & Mickey mouse on a Motorcycle Tan and brown black tires that had raised white lettering that said Dunlop tires. I went into a frenzy I wanted it so bad, my Mom collected Mickey things and I liked them too, It was a find and a half. Twenty-eight dollars they had on it. I just had enough to get it but would have broke me for the rest of the month. Dam! Maybe it will be here in a week I can borrow some and get it. The weekend passed and i found another Art & Auction Magazine. The same tin toy went at auction for 48,000 I almost cried i could not take it any more it was like I had an enemy inside me tricking me to take and make the wrong decisions, defeating me at every turn, so at this time I shop much less and spend much less in that category but waste a lot on lotto tickets... Bah Hum Bug. Last year Mega Million came up with these numbers my birthday and ( 2/13/49/55/58 ) (52) I did not have a ticket that day. I do not remember the amount of the purse and really do not want to be reminded, these numbers maybe be off by one as to recall is to be asking for shameful disgust and I have not played them again.. this is and was as I have stated and being sad, sick, sorry, blue, screwed & tattooed. At the very least which is the best ever... I`m sober & clean jellybean! and life goes on and this old world just keeps on turning. I do not have any new news as of this date though will begin searching for treasure again tomorro. |
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