My mother became an antique dealer in 1946. Afer the war, jobs were hard to find and for a woman, almost impossible. Our 80 acre farm on the Nealy Road near Lodi, could not generate enough income for our Family to live on. So buying and selling antiques seemed like the only thing for my mother to do.
During and after the war, people were selling everything they could to maintain the good life like just before the world conflict. This included attics full of old junk nobody wanted. However, my mother did and she bought truck loads of this unwanted discards. Over the years she developed a nice large clientele, including dealers from other states to sell these unwanted items to.
During my years in school 1947-1960 I hated antiques and even the attic dust that was on them. I guess because I had to clean and shine most of them. Our stairs to the bedrooms were packed with early lamps and lanterns, leaving just enough room to pass. Our cherry dining room was always filled with colorful glassware from the Victorial era. Even under the table was filled with tin toleware. One side of our dining room held the doll collection. All of them little beady eyes following you where ever you walked. I swore some were alive and were out to get me. Damn junk anyway..
Anyway you get the idea...our house was full of junk. At least I thought that way at the time.
I didn't dare having classmates come over to visit. I didn't want them to see how we lived in the many piles of stuff. To make matters worse, when one of my friends did come to the house, they would spend all of their time looking at the antique junk and not paying attention to me. Nowadays, our house would have been a hoarder's dream and would be on a TV show.
In 1958 my mother started setting up at antique shows for extra income and my job was to help. I carried the tables, boxes and displays into the show and then back out at the end of the show. I also had to watch the tables while she was on a break. I did sell a few things, but I got no kick out of it. I decided right there and then..I'm never going to be an antique dealer...never...never...never...period!
In the fall of 1958, my mother got a call to go see some items for sale at the Bassett estate on the Lodi Interlaken road. It was a large farm house with about ten rooms. The lady had died a few years before and the house had not been touched since her death. Her son gave us a key and told us to make an offer on anything we wanted. He was a farmer and had to go back to work in the fields and would see us at lunch time.
The house was full and so was the attic. We started carrring items out to the lawn and after an hour of this, my mother stopped.
"I think we should buy the entire contents of the house," she stated.
"Are you kidding me," I yelled.
Once she made up her mind, there was no changing it. I wondered where the heck we were going to put all of this stuff in our "full" house.
She made a deal with Mr Basset and we had 2 weeks to clean out the house.
"How and where are you putting this junk," I asked.
I'm not putting it anywhere, I'm selling it right here," She laughed.
So, for 3 days we sorted items, cleaned item and displayed them here and there.
Then she call about 30 antique dealers and set up appointments for each one, so there would never be more than one there buying at a time.
For my work, I got to keep all of the old toys and sporting goods.
Within eight days, the house was cleaned out of antiques and I didn't have to carry one single item.
Plus she sold all of the non antiques to a second hand dealer.
I had taken the toys home and sorted them. There was a box of about 160 old painted War Of 1812 British
soldiers in almost new condition. Plus trucks, cars, games, marbles and more that I can't remember. But, I remember the soldiers well.
In December of that year, my mother booked a 2 day Christmas Antique Show in Pulaski, NY. Off we went with a van full of goodies and set up at the show. It started snowing just after we arrived and we had rented our motel for two days, so the weather didn't mater. Except we may not have customers...oh well, we will think of it as a vacation.
For some reason, I had brought my nice box of little soldiers. On the second day, things were pretty quiet, so I put two of my soldiers on the table without price tags. A few minutes later a man came along and asked how much the soldier were. Not knowing, I told him to make an offer.
"How about 5 dollars each," He said in a very low voice."
I said louder, "What did you say?"
He said, "OK OK..I'll give you 7 dollars each and if you ever get anymore, I want first crack at them."
I know I was shaking like a wet dog as he counted out a stack 50 dollar bills and 1 twenty into my hand.
And he walked away with my Junk soldiers...Yep, Just plain old junk and I was holding 1120 green dollars in my shaking hand.....OH MY...did we ever have a nice Christmas in 1958.
That year, my dad's income was $4000, working 5 days a week at Cornell Univ.
So, my friends...you can see how toy soldiers shaped my life as an antique dealer...It's not junk...did I ever say it's Junk? Don't think so....
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