I love an antique auction. I mean I LUUUUUUUUUUV an auction! If you want to make this chick happy, just take me to an auction and turn me loose. I love an auction. I already said that. When I enter an auction I am completely mesmerized. I feel like a kid in a candy shop and I don’t know what to look at first! On the inside I am jumping up and down squealing with delight. Now, I’m much too mature to show it, of course. But trust me. It’s like a treasure hunt, a birthday party, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and Easter Bunny all rolled into one magical room…. and sweetie pie, It’s MY Party!
I have a booth at an antique mall and I paint furniture so I’m always looking for pieces to paint. I try not to paint on fine furniture, but rather, on things that have seen better days, but are still very usable. The antique auction is a great shopping place for my little hobby. Last week I went to an auction and found several nice things to paint. I bought them and brought them home. Oh Happy Day.
My booth has furniture, but I also like to have small items to sell, so I buy box lots full of goodies. Sometimes I come across little treasures. A couple of weeks ago my husband found a rare book. No one else knew what it was. That’s the kinda treasure I like to find.
Years ago, I bought a box lot of old books for $5.00. A dealer stopped me as I was leaving and asked if I would mind selling him one of the books? I asked him which one? He said the one on baseball. No, sorry fellow. That’s the reason I bought the box….it was a book written by Joe DiMaggio on baseball and AUTOGRAPHED!
Last week when I entered the auction, my heart was skipping all over the room…happy, happy, happy. My husband came to find me and tell me there was a framed and matted page from a Bible across the room.. We had found reproductions there before, so I went to check it out. It was the title page from 1st Samuel about Hannah. My first born granddaughter is named Hannah so I thought it would be something I might give to her one day. I bid on it. There was no interest in it. For a mere $10.00 it was all mine. As I clutched it to my breast I turned around and looked across the room to my husband. He smiled at me. I was overjoyed. He knew I wanted it and it was mine. I was one happy chickadee.
It was a very nice reproduction, but I could not imagine all the trouble someone had gone to to make the pages look so aged with watermarks. They even went to the trouble to make the paper wavy so it didn’t lay flat. Pretty cool, I thought.
A couple days ago, I looked more closely and told my husband I thought I could see that there was print on the backside too. Man, some people will go to a lot of trouble on a reproduction! Ok, the suspense was too much. I ripped the backing off the frame and very gently lifted the matt to see the backside of the Bible leaf. It was a page from an old Bible. A very old Bible. Very carefully we removed the page.
A couple years ago my husband gave me a leaf from a 1613 KJV of the Bible. It is 400 years old! I still had it in the presentation folder and ran to get it. I felt the paper of the certified leaf. It felt identical to the one I just won. We paced them side by side. The lines match. The print is the same. The only difference is this one has more damage. It’s been trimmed, which is common. I imagine the leaves get frayed and trimming keeps them neat looking. This damage simply means to me that this Bible has been used. And that makes it all the more precious!
I Love an auction… and on a really good day, I find a treasure. Then one day, a couple weeks ago, I found a treasure of my heart.
- Antique Bible Leaf 1st Samuel Title page
Shortly after this posted, I received an email from Historic Bibles confirming that this Leaf is a genuine Leaf from a 1613 KJV Bible the same edition as the one I already own!!! This leaf is 400 Years old!!!! I was on cloud nine all day long! And even tho the damage reduces its monetary value…it is a PRICELESS TREASURE to me…..
