Auction of Rare Honus Wagner Baseball Card

Like a lot of youngsters growing up, I bought plenty of baseball and other sports cards — especially during a stretch of about three years from 1970-72 when I simply couldn’t get enough of them.  I still have all those cards too, though I pretty much lost interest in them as a teenager. But baseball card collectors of all stripes probably [...]

L.A. Judge to Decide Dispute Over Giant Bahia Emerald

As we recently posted on a valuable emerald found at the little hamlet of Hiddenite right here in North Carolina, I thought this story about an ownership controversy over a huge Brazilian emerald was apropos.  Known as the Bahia Emerald, after the Brazilian state where it was found, the specimen weighs in at an extraordinary 840 pounds.  It’s really [...]

Rare Book Found in Toilet to be Auctioned

Here’s a neat AP story about a rare 1st edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species which will be auctioned at Christie’s in London on Tuesday.  The story seems to have originated with this report from the Oxford Daily Mail.  The irony is that the book was kept on someone’s toilet bookshelf in Oxford, England, for many years – and now [...]

John F. Kennedy’s Last Autograph?

Of possible interest to all you autograph hounds out there, JFK items have been in the news lately. This CNN article tells of the recent sale of what may well have been President Kennedy’s last autograph, written on the front page of the Dallas Morning Herald on November 22nd, 1963.  He signed the paper for a maid named [...]