Evening Star Newspaper, February 22, 1931, Page 78

F 10 THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, FEBRUARY 22, 1931, The Fewer They Are —The Higher They Go! N the lexicon of the collector there is no such word as “junk.” Anything may be an item, now that the: Nation has be- com e Americana-conscious. The ac- quisitive instincts which in childhood were concentrated upon postgge stamps, birds’ eggs or chewing tobacco tags are being directed now toward such bulky objects as cigar store Indians, horsehair sofas, cast-iron hitching posts and complete files of The Old Sleuth Weekly. Indeed, collecting is so widespread and diversified that it is necessary to specialize if you expect to get anywhere. g A person can always achieve a ceriain emi- nence if he accumulates enough of any one thing, whether it be money or the heads of _enemy tribesmen. I know a man who had the largest collection of New England meat skewers in sthe world. You would never suspect it to look at him; he is as modest and unassuming _as the fellow who brings you your gin. Yet _they tell me that his name is a byword in skewer circles everywhere. The fact that an article is quite ordinary “does not make it less desirable as & hobby. ‘ Fashionable collectors are turning from the - exotic to the commonplace. They realize that there are a thousand prayer rug fanciers for every circus handbill fancier—so they achieve " distinction by tracking down all the old eircus handbills in the country and leaving them to some museum when they die. The drawback to the highly individual hobby is that it is sel- dom profitable, There is a fairly steady market for prayer rugs; in an eccnomic crisis they are as dependable as the family jewels or a paid-up insurance policy. But if a circus handbill fan- cier wants to dispose of a choice item in order to get a little ready cash he will be out of luck unless he happens to find some wealthy person who shares his enthusiasm for ancient dodgers. AN amateur who collects for the sheer love of possession can afford to be eccentric in his choice of hobbies. But the professional who collects for profit must make some allowance for th= tastes of others; he cannot fling himself wholeheartedly into the purchase of nineteenth century earmufls, for example, because there is as yet no appreciable demand for earmuffs. The big money lies in the acquisition of articles which have a generally recognized value—books, pictures, furniture, china, glassware, crockery and other things found in museums and depart- ment store basements. The average collector may be described with feminine effusiveness as “just a great big over- grown boy.” While his contemporaries are busy with such abstractions as politics, science, finance and religion he is preoccupied in ac- cumulating tangible things—things that he can takz out of a box and see and feel and then lock up again with a renewed thrill of posses= sion. And the spirit that animates him is the same spirit that led him, years ago, to trade his entire hoard of “commies” and ‘“glassies” for one flawless agate which was of no use what- ever in the marble ring. All of us are collectors by instinct. We begin by collecting lint from the carpet and trying to put it in our mouths. Then we collect spools, baking powder cans, curtain tasszls—in fact, any colorful object that can be held in the hands. Badges usually come next; there is a time in the life of every boy when he decorates him- self with printed buttons and embossed medals until he resembles a sort of human whatnot. He struts around, spangled with campaign badges, advertising tags and vaguely official in- signia, while all about him there is a faint fragrance of camphor—the perfume of those exotic celluloid rosebuds that bloom only at carnival time. He even goes so far as to join Mr. Witherspoon’s Sunday school class, sothat he may have another trophy to add to his lapel. But as soon as he acquires a sense of dis- crimination he abandons badge wearing and takes up a more serious hobby—stamps, coins, natural history, etc. There is a certain dignity about being a philatelist or a numismatist or an ornithologist, even though one isn't quite sure of the pronunciation. Furthermore, such hobbies enjoy adult sanction and encourage- ment. And so he sends off for the Big Eureka Surprise Packet (“1,000 Assorted Stamps—No Two Alike”) and laboriously pastes them into an album. Later, if he has not grown tired of the bleak profile of Queen Victoria and the belligerent mustachios of various South Ameri- can dictators, he sends for approval sheets and barters with other collectors for stamps with a “catalogue value.” ND then, midway in the teens, his hobby pulls up with a decided limp caused by one of Cupid’s darts. There are few female phila- telists in the world, and he discovers that the Not Impossible She is no exception. She stifles a pretty yawn when he shows her his album; even the triangular Cape of Good Hope speci- men fails to impress her. So he drops philately and collects cravats and Cole Phillips posters instead. When he goes to college the acquisitive im- pulse expresses itself in more fantastic forms, He collects not only pennants, pillow tops, dance programs and photographs having what is known as an “association” value—but also doormats, advertising signs, barber poles, license plates, Pullman towels, billlard chalk, hotel spoons and faucet handies. These articles have no intrinsic value except to the original owners (who can’'t find them without a search warrant), but to the collegiate collector they are priceless because of the risk at which they were obtained. After graduation the collector, if still single, may develop a taste for incunabula, Curriar & Ives prints, Rogers groups, Japanese netsukes, Russian ikons or Bavarian beer steins, and quickly acquire a modest reputation as an antiquarian. But when he marries he might as well turn his hobby out to pasture. Investiga- The Collecting Mania Gets Us All Sooner ot Later—And Lucky Is the Man or Woman Who Has Accumulated Something Having Market Value. By Weare Holbrook. “There is a time in the life of every boy when he decorates himself with buttons.” tion would show that most of the successful collectors are bachelors. No woman enjoys living in a museum. In the mind of the aver- age housewife a first folio Shakespeare and last Sunday’s newspaper are the same; they both catch dust. The collector’s art consists largely in taking the things which everybody else is throwing away, and keeping them for years and years. But a married man soon discovers that during a general housecleaning it is impossible to keep anything—even the temper, Almost every antique which survives today has been fought for by some embattled hus- band. Take the specimens of early American glassmaking which you see in the interior decorators’ shops, for instance; old liquor flasks and lopsided tumblers—cloudy, unsymmetrical and full of flaws. What prices they command —and what struggles they represent! Nearly 300 years ago a grim New England housewife, broom in hand, took an empty bottle from the cupboard and started to toss it into the ashes on the hearth. But her husband re- strained her. “Remember, Abigail,” he said sternly, “thee never can tell when we may need a bottle just like that. Waste not, want not!” "HUNDRED years later another New Eng- land housewife, in dust cap and apron, put the same bottle in a trash basket and carried it out the back door. Her husband, who was sitting on the steps, pounced upon the baslket and rescued the bottle just in time. “I reckon it ain’t worth much,” he explained apologetic= ally, “but it belonged to Uncle Nahum, and I sorta like to have it around.” And today this bottle is in the window of a Madison avenue shop, with a price tag you wouldn't believe. When you buy it you pay not cnly for the glass, but for the care with which successive generations of husbands have guarded it and kept it intact during two centuries of wifely “tidying up.” Time and tidying wait for no man, and unless the married antiquarian is unceasingly vigilant the ultimate destination of his priceless collection is likely to be the Salvation Army instead of the Metropolitan. Even autograph collecting is not as simple as it used to be. Modern celebrities do not merely write their names in albums; they autograph such unwieldy objects as foot balls, base balls, table tops, raincoats, sweaters, airplane pro- pellers, base drums and lamp shades. A col- lector of contemporary autographs could never “It ain’t worth much, but it belonged to Uncle Nahum.” get his treasures into an ordinary safe dee posit box. Perhaps it is more than a coinci- dence that American ball-hitting champions bear such monosyllabic names as Wills, Jones, Ruth, etc. If their names were Frelinghuysen or Meisenheimer or Palaversham they would have to give up sport and devote all their time to calligraphy. As pulse quickeners, autographs rank even lower than first editions, for a first edition is, after all, a book (even though it does have a curious typographical error on p. 163 which was corrected in¢all subsequent editions) and you can comment upon it as a book. Yet it is amazing what prices autographs bring, especially when attached to letters. For a great many years the signature of Button Gwinnett led the price list, because of its rarity. But J. Mortimer Smurgle, a wealthy prcduce merchant from Syracuse, recently made Button Gwinnett look like a piker. Only last week a letter s;gned by Mr. Smurgle sold for $100,000. It was just a short note on hotel stationery, beginning: “My Dearest Itsie-Bitsie Honey-Pie"—but there was no doubt about the authenticity of the Smurgle signature. And the purchaser of this precious autograph was none other than Mr. Smurgle himself! Which shows that this is indeed the age of opportunity for the collector—provided she has a good lawyer to help her collect. Building Monument Continued from Ninth Page sound produczd as resembling the simultaneous discharge of a great number of cannon, and de- clare that the ‘whole Monument trembled.” Two others were in a small wooden building, used as an office, nearby. One of them was lcoking out of the window, away' from the Monument, toward the north. He 2fiirms, in the most posie tive manner, that he saw a ball of fire, which he says was as large as his fist, coming directly towards the window out cf which he was look« ing. Both he and his coinpanion (who was not looking out of the window, and who did not see the ball of fire) seem to have felt some- thing of the usual effect of a shock. Those who were withfn the Monument say they felt no unusual sensations except those produced by the noise. “When the Monument was examined from the ground with the unaided eye, no injury could be detected. On applyiny a good telescope, however, it was seen that one of the stones just below the capstone, was split from top to bottom, the crack produced being about four feet long, and it was open to the extent of about two inches, A small corzer of the lower corresponding angle of the capstone had also been carried away, this doubtless resulting from the opening of the crack in the stone upon which it rested.” The Monument had hardly been completed before Phil Baker, catcher of the old Washing= ton base ball club, caught a ball thrown from the top of the structure, and subsequently this feat was duplicated by other professional base ball players, though by no means an easy thing to judge a ball thrown from this great height. In an article appearing in The Star on Febe ruary 23 a year ago it was said that “since the Monument was opened on October 9, 1888, nearly 9,000,000 persons have ascended to the top. Of this number approximately one-third have elected to walk up. The number of visite ors during the last fiscal year was 624,553, of whom 122,529 walked up the shaft. The official height of the Monument is given as 555 feet 5% inches, and the cost up to 1885, as $1,188,000. Guinea Meat More Used. BECAUSE of the gamey flavor of the guinea fowl, it is rapidly taking the place of the grouse, partridge, quail and pheasant on the tables of the well fed. The guinea is easily raised and because of its dependability as a source of supply. and the dwindling of the wild bird population it offers the farmer an excellent cash crop field of endeavor. At present the guineas are raised in flocks of 10 to 25, although here and there a farmer may be found who will raise as many as 200, Unlike the chicken raising, a greater percente age of male birds are required in the raising of guineas. The guineas are often mated in pairs or in small flocks of three or four hens to each male. One hen will lay from 20 to 30 eggs a year and if not permitted to set will double this figure. Hens and turkeys as well as guineas are used for hatching, but the period of incu- bation is 28 days instead of the 21 of the chicken egg. The market demand for guineas begins in the early Fall and the young birds are sold when they reach a weight of a pound and & half to 2 pounds, at three months or more. Month’s Coal on Hand. IF coal mining should cease altogether, there is a sufficient stock on hand in this country to last about a month. Figures for January 1, which will not vary much from present figures, indicatg¢ a total of 37,000,000 tons on hand, with weekly consumption slightly less than 9,000,000 tons. An additional week’s supply was on the docks at Lake Superior at the same time. Anthracite coal showed a larger supply on hand in comparison to consumption, with 43 days’ requirements ready for the market. This figure, however, has been subjected to the steady seasonal decline since that time.