Having made some funny money at the racetrack, I couldn't resist looking at ebay for old postcards. I used to be quite a collector, and still have several hundred in various closets. I almost never succumb to the collecting urge anymore. For a year or two (or three), I sold postcards on ebay, but it seemed too much like selling pencils from a cup and I stopped doing that. Not a confidence builder.
I'm not bidding on this amazing card, ($49.95 opening bid!), but I loved the story, which is told and retold in many places on the web, about a scam or true adventure in which the masked man set out to walk the world with his head in that nutzo helmet. The baby carriage is filled with postcards which the two intend to sell on their odyssey. The second man is along to keep the first man straight.
12 comments:
There's an auction here every Friday night that we attend when we're in town and they handle a lot of vintage postcards. Sometimes they are unused, but I like to read the old ones that are written on.
The iron-masked-guy-pushing-the-stroller-around -the-world story is a howl, even if it didn't exactly happen. It's a precursor to today's viral internet videos. The kind people forward to friends asking "is this for real?"
Postcards are neat. Like old snapshots, they're mini-time machines, offering peeks into the past that didn't make it to the history books.
mean jean, that auction would be my undoing. It's reverse interesting how boring most postcard messages are, but sometimes you find some choice ones, particularly the ones mailed from insane asylums.
The other day I went for a check-up. I really liked my last doctor, but she seems to have vanished and they won't say why. Since the medical group is associated with Cedars Sinai, I figured the new doctor would probably have a tablet computer, and we could talk about them during awkward moments.
Instead they rolled in a laptop on a podium, and the doctor stood there typing away, occasionally looking at me. I couldn't help wonder if she was maybe checking things on ebay.
Sally, it's so frustrating losing a good doctor. But the story about your doc is funny--that you wonder if she might be checking things on eBay!!
I'm glad I don't have to lie down on a couch when I visit my therapist. I've always had the vision that if I did, he'd be sitting over there out of view yawning & munching on a bagel.
This is so good; I'm glad you posted it. No one has bid (5 hours to go). A perfect card for the Morgan Library archives. The unsmiling face, the face hidden by armor, cards in a baby buggy, the marriage requirement. I wonder if JP Morgan, who hated having his face photographed because of his disfigured nose, dreamed up hiding the face, concealing identity.
It really is a great story. A good screenwriter could turn this into an amusing movie.
I have thought it would make an interesting blog to scan fronts and backs of postcards (and nothing else).
Sal, that would make a great blog. Even the dullness of most of the messages would work in that context.
I've heard of other doctors pulling the laptop routine. Nobody likes it. The doctors must think it helps keep things organized, but to the patients, it seems cold and unprofessional.
maybe she wasn't doing ebay-- maybe it was facebook. or xtube.
The card sold for $202---not bad for a pencil in a cup.
wow, I'd had some regrets about not bidding. a great card.
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