I’m pretty sure all you collectors know Wes Cowan from 13 years appraising on Antiques Roadshow and six years as a History Detective. Many of you might also know that he was raised in a household filled with Victorian antiques by a mother who liked all things “old” and that he turned his love of “old” into degrees in anthropology and archaeology; eventually teaching and then becoming Curator of Archaeology at the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. But what you might not know is that Cowan has always been a collector.

As a child Cowan collected fossils, arrowheads, and china plates; as a young man in college, he collected antique photographs. In fact, if it weren’t for a passion for collecting he might never have become “Wes Cowan, Auctioneer,” let alone a regular on those TV shows. After 15 years of collecting photographs, Cowan had amassed what was, at the time, the best collection of Frank J. Haynes photographs & stereoviews — which he (somewhat painfully) sold to start his business.

When we met Cowan briefly before his Thursday night lecture, part of the Plains Art Museum’s Trash or Treasure event, it was really clear that his passion for collecting isn’t just some front to appease collectors or fans of the shows. Within the first few minutes the talk turned quickly to collecting. Not just asking us what we collect, but making an off-hand comment that he’s been kicking himself for not starting a collection of hotel door key cards earlier. It’s just the sort of comment you’d expect a traveling collector to make.

Once he began his talk, Cowan focused on the appeal of History Detectives. He said that the show “taps into our inherent interests in the history of our country and the history of our families.” His enthusiasm for collecting and understanding of collectors was clear as he talked about how objects hold stories and how collectors should think of themselves as curators. (In my notes I wrote, “It’s like Wes reads my columns!”)

When discussing History Detectives, Cowan winced and ducked from imaginary tossed tomatoes as he told us that none of the stars of the show do the research. He explained that they may suggest objects and stories they run across but it’s the producers who select the objects & then assign them to the show’s researchers. Working in pairs, researchers have six weeks to do the research. From this research, a loose script or story lay-out is created, allowing the History Detective to provide off-the-cuff narration — including the inclusion of new or changing information as it comes in. Each History Detective then has three days to be filmed telling the story, with two days of travel. (With so much travel, it’s no wonder Cowan laments not starting that hotel door key collection earlier.)

Cowan feels honored to be a part of the show, saying, “It’s a privilege to be invited into homes & stories and to go & do what others can’t.” Watching him say it, there’s no doubt of the sincerity of his words.

Antiques Roadshow production has far more of a family atmosphere among the appraisers; not just because he’s been a part of the show for twice as long but because he and the other 75 appraisers work together at each show. And boy do the appraisers work at each show. Even if each city Roadshow visits airs as multiple episodes, it all was taped in one day. That means 75 appraisers work with 7,500 people — each one bringing multiple items — all in one day. None of the appraisers are compensated in any way for participating in Roadshow — flights, food, hotel etc. is all paid for out of each appraiser’s pocket. Each appraiser does it for the fun and exposure. Or I should say for the potential exposure. For while there are 12 million viewers, there is no guarantee that any appraiser will have a taped segment. As appraisers run into great stories, they have to make a pitch about being filmed to producers. If they make a strong enough case, they may get air time; if not, they’ve paid for the trip, done an exhausting day’s work, all for naught.

Well, almost naught…

Appraisers are allowed to set their cards and literature on tables. However, they are absolutely forbidden to solicit business. This includes verbally giving out their contact information. Cowan tells the story of a lady who asked how to contact him. He replied that he couldn’t say, but mentioned where his card could be found. When she stated she was unable to read the print on his card, Cowan told the woman she would need to get her granddaughter to read the card because he was forbidden to read it to her. That’s pretty strict; but just goes to show you how ethical Roadshow is.

As for his “day job” as auctioneer, Cowan says the business has changed a lot. “Farm auctions are no longer lucrative,” he said, and, “Sotheby’s & Christie’s have proven that auctioneering is all about marketing.” And he addressed the impact of the Internet too.

Within 5-7 years, eBay and the like have quickly shown that “rare” is indeed a relative term based on dealer opinion &/or experience. Once “rarely seen” things were shown for the readily available stuff they were, and the prices for low-to-middle end antiques & collectibles dropped drastically. However, the accessibility of the Internet has assisted those searching for scarce items, likely bringing stronger auction sales for high end antiques and art. He also said the accessibility was a good thing, allowing people to find objects, connect with other collectors & collecting groups, as well as research more easily.

On Friday, before the VIP Trash or Treasure dinner, we had yet another opportunity to talk privately with both Wes Cowan and his colleague, Danica M. Farnand, a specialist in American Indian Art. We have lots more to share from those conversations, but for now we’ll leave you with the one question that every collector & watcher of History Detectives wants to know: What are their favorite resources for research?

Farnand first mentioned Google, then added that she most often uses the Burke Museum database, as well as the Smithsonian database, AskArt.com, and Peabody’s database (but added that it was a bit difficult to use). Cowan added ArtFact.com, Prices4Antiques, Ancestry.com, ABE.com, CivilWarData.com, and The Library of Congress’ American Memory Historical Collection to the list. He also said that more and more universities and museums are adding their archives online, so the resources would only be growing.

Skeptical that they were hiding something, like secret databases and clandestine meetings in private libraries off limits to the average collector, we pressed a bit. “On History Detectives you have a lot of access to archives and libraries of organizations… Do average collectors have such access?”

“In my experiences, as a collector, researcher and auctioneer, I’ve found archivists & librarians are always anxious to help,” he said.

“Even if you’re not a History Detective?” we asked.

“It’s not like a librarian’s ever going to tell a researcher to go away,” he added, laughing. Then he leaned in, grinned and conspiratorily added, “But being a History Detective doesn’t hurt!”

Related items currently available for sale

The biggest thing to hit my universe in the past week has been Mega Man 9, and it hit me hard enough to knock the paintbrush right out of my hand. Seriously, I need to get back to work.

Playing through the new game, which is styled in perfect 1990s-era 8-bit graphics, has sent me back into the dangerous tailspin of retro gaming. These things have to happen in phases, because if they all happened at once, my heart would explode like an atom bomb of love. Which would ruin the value of my collectibles.

Wikipedia tells me that there are 779 8-bit NES cartridges out there. Finally having a finite number in mind, I’d decided a few years back that I’d slowly collect them all, and when I had them all together, I’d probably do something neat, and as-yet-undetermined, with them. Not only is the cartridge art often an amazing example of ridiculous hyperbole, but the games bring back a simpler (and far more difficult) era in video gaming. In my day, we didn’t have any of this infinite continue nonsense. If anything, we had codes that we scoured the back of magazines for or traded snacks with friends for, and if you were really lucky, you had a Game Genie to tweak your way through the harder parts of the game.

Of the aforementioned 779 NES carts, not all of them are licensed or were sold in the US. While my collection currently only spans official Nintendo carts, I know that these are going to come into play eventually, and they won’t be cheap.

Wisdom Tree produced a variety of religion-based video games which are less common than the average NES cart, due to pressure from Nintendo which prevented retailers from selling Wisdom Tree’s unlicensed products next to official Nintendo products. For being a company that based their games on ethics and morality, their decision to craft games that worked around Nintendo’s proprietary system and lockout chip certainly doesn’t seem ethical. Their games for the NES include Bible Adventures, Sunday Funday, Exodus, Bible Buffet, King of Kings, and Spiritual Warfare - the latter of which concluded with an extremely creepy battle with Satan. Of this group, most can be purchased for under $10, with Bible Buffet, a bible quiz game with unsettling box art, fetching the highest price, at around $30. I think that at least $25 of that is for the pictures of the anthropomorphic food on the cover. Something tells me that a game that also happens in ‘Fast Food Land’ would not be ‘Family Approved’ today, either.

Generally, Wisdom Tree’s games are regarded as glitchy, overly simplistic and not exceptionally fun, so are usually only collected by NES completists, and completely ignored by purists.

Camerica is responsible for another collection of unlicensed, and often rarer, NES games. Of the 15 games that they eventually released, all can be visually distinguished from a genuine NES game by a slightly different shape (with the game ‘handle’ extending across the entire center of the cart), upside-down cart art, and silver or gold coloring instead of the typical NES grey. Like Wisdom Tree’s games, most can be bought for under $10, with a few exceptions. Quattro Arcade doesn’t seem to appear as often, and so fetches slightly higher prices.

While many of these games are regarded as fun and playable, it’s worth noting that seven of their games require the Aladdin Deck Enhancer add-on, also produced by Camerica. The Deck Enhancer functions like a regular NES cart into which smaller carts could be inserted (similar to a Super Game Boy for the SNES). Because the Enhancer cart itself contained the mechanism to get around the security devices of the NES, Camerica’s ‘Enhanced’ games could be produced for less. The Aladdin Deck Enhancer can be found for $50 to $100 dollars, and unfortunately, is a necessity to play Big Nose Freaks Out, Micro Machines, Quattro Adventure (which features four games, including the popular Super Robin Hood), Quattro Sports, Dizzy the Adventurer and the similarly titled Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, and Linus Spacehead’s Cosmic Crusade. These carts are much smaller, and trapezoid shaped.

Some of these come in ‘Deck Enhancer’ versions. and some are full carts, so be aware of what you’re purchasing!

Far more rare are the two unlicensed Active Enterprises games, Action 52 and Cheetahmen II. Of all unlicensed NES games, these are the rarest, and usually regarded as the two worst games in the history of gaming, and an affront to human decency and all that is holy.

Action 52 included 52 mini-games, and originally retailed for $200. Seeing as how this debuted in 1991, when the average video game price was $50, the ridiculous price didn’t find many buyers. The manual that described play through the 52 games was incomplete, but offered more detailed manuals for each game at the price of $1 each. Not only was the manual incomplete, but the game itself was incomplete, with many games were constructed without being tested for actual playability. Games were repetitive, or would freeze in the middle of gameplay. Again, despite being an abysmal game, this cart can be found for around $50, which is still a steal compared to the original price of three human kidneys.

Cheetahmen II expanded upon one of Action 52’s minigames, but was never officially released. In 1997, all 1500 unreleased copies were found in a warehouse and trickled into circulation through the secondary market. While almost impossible to find, they do appear on eBay from time to time, and a sealed copy recently sold on eBay for $1450. Like Action 52, the game cannot be completed because of a bug that the developers never resolved before producing the game.

Panesian is another company that made unlicensed NES games, all of which were adult in nature. Bubble Bath Babes, Hot Slots, and Peek-a-Boo Poker probably weren’t things that your friends down the block had, as these were not distributed via the normal channels, and it’s fairly sad when your need for pornography is so great that you’ll settle for highly pixelated nudity on a video game system. These three games usually sell for around $300 each.

Perhaps the rarest, kinda-released game of all time is the 1990 Nintendo World Championship cart, which was used, predictably, during the 1990 Nintendo World Championships. Competitors had 6 minutes to earn as many points as they could through Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer and Tetris. 90 grey editions of this cart were given to finalists, and 25 gold carts were given to Nintendo Power subscribers. In addition to the one other cart that was used at the tournament, that equals 116 carts in existence. The asking price for a grey cart is $8000, while the gold cart easily goes for twice as much.

Astute vintage gamers will note my exclusion of ‘Stadium Events’, a game that was released only in Woolworths in the Northern US, and then quickly recalled. Because the game was licensed and released at retail, if even for a short time, it doesn’t really belong on this list. It also exists in a European (PAL, not NTSC) version, which is very common. The US eventually saw the re-release of this game as the common World Class Track Meet, for use with the Power Pad.

With 131 games in my collection, I’ll be focusing on the ‘pure’ Nintendo games - the ones that come with memories, rather than ones that come with a high price tag. And quietly hoping to find ‘Cheetahmen II’ at a tag sale.

Related items currently available for sale

The fun thing about collecting is that you never know where the ‘hunt’ will lead you. This spring, hubby found a group of circus posters at an estate sale. We put them away, thinking we’d do some research on them. We recently pulled them out and one in particular intrigued me. It was the one with Mae Wirth – the World’s Greatest Equestrian. It shows her with a horse and the name of the circus as well. I wondered about May, was she really that great? How does one become a circus star? Was she from the US or elsewhere? When was she popular and was she still alive?

Well, when in doubt “google it.” Wish we had this marvelous vehicle many years ago when I was a child. It is fantastic! In any case, I entered her name and found out a lot of things about this fascinating lady. She was born in 1894 at Bundaberg, Queens (Australia.) She was the daughter of John Edward Zinga, a circus artist and his 2^nd wife, Dezeppo Marie. After her parents separated, May was adopted in 1901, at the tender age of 7, by Mary Elizabeth Victoria Wirth. She was an equestrienne and sister of Philip and George Wirth. She married into this “circus family” – her husband being a circus musician, and they with their daughter Stella toured overseas with Wirth Brothers’ Circus in 1893 until 1900. May’s early start in the circus was in balancing and tumbling, as a tightwire performer and contortionist. She also learned equestrian skills and then was taught how to do somersaults on a bareback horse. At the early age of 10, she was a ‘real trick rider’ and in 1906 was billed as “May Ringling.” She was very pretty and grew to only 4 foot, 11 inches.

Her career continued and she was with John Ringling’s Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1911. She was billed as the “world’s greatest bareback rider.” Little May developed her act by somersaulting backwards through rings and by leaping from the ground to the back of her galloping horse with her feet encased in baskets. Kids – do not try this at home! She was seriously injured in a fall during a performance in 1913, but was able to return to the entertainment world in 1914, this time in vaudeville in England and France.

She returned to circus life in 1915 with the troupe “Royal Wirth Family.” In 1917 they toured with Ringling Brothers and May remained the star equestrienne. In 1919 she married her manager, Frank White, who adopted the professional name of Wirth – they never had any children.

She continued performing in various venues, retiring in 1937, at the peak of her career. Eventually, May moved to Sarasota, Florida where her name was added to the Circus Hall of Fame in 1964. She was predeceased by her husband, and died in 1978 in Sarasota.

Her life was quite fascinating and after learning this I do understand some of the magic of collecting circus and fair-related items. It certainly sounds like an interesting life. There have been numerous books written on circuses and their performers. We do not live very far from Baraboo, Wisconsin and have taken our daughters to see the circus acts and those incredible wagons on several occasions. These were brought down by railway for many years and we all enjoyed watching them in the famous “Circus Parade” in Milwaukee. We are also close enough to go to Delavan, Wisconsin, which was called the “19^th Century Circus Capital of the World.” We’ve seen the sign and “Romeo” the elephant statue but never understood its significance. After checking this out on my-new-best-friend, Google, I learned that it was given that title because “Between 1847-1894 Delavan was home to 26 different circus companies.” The original P.T. Barnum Circus was organized in Delavan in 1871.

So, finding a few old posters led me to all of this information to share with you. We understand that the photographs of ‘circus freaks’ are highly sought after and have gotten very pricey. Considering that we have been collectors for over 35 years, and that we are ’sandwiched’ between several heavy-duty circus colonies, it is pretty amazing that we’ve never found any circus memorabilia. Perhaps all you collectors are keeping it to yourselves. After doing this research, I can understand why!

Related items currently available for sale

Trash or Treasure Event At Plains Art Museum, Fargo

It’s that time of year again — the Plains Art Museum is having their second annual Trash or Treasure event.

Hubby and I attended the event last year & had such a great time we were hoping it would become an annual event. Sue Petry of the Plains Art Museum says that along with being a fund raiser for the museum the event raises awareness of collecting and celebrates it. “We had a couple of great finds: a book someone found in a closet in an old house was worth $1,500 for example. People really enjoyed learning more about the things they collected,” she said.

I know we did.

This year’s event began three weeks ago with their weekly lecture series, which are free to the public. I’m not only all about “free stuff”, but as the series focuses on collecting, well, I’m so there.

Last week, October 2nd, the session was The History & Collectibility of North Dakota Cable Pottery, with University of North Dakota Ceramics Professor Donald Miller. The session began with a viewing of UND Clay: The Cable Years, a documentary produced by the UND Television Center, covering the history and legacy of the ceramics department at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.

UND School Of Mines Stamp

It’s a fascinating story involving a chemist, the first state geologist, and founding dean of the School of Mines, Earle J. Babcock, who teamed up with an artist, Margaret Kelly Cable; both of them believing that the seemingly limitless supply of North Dakota clay would be a means of economic development, allowing North Dakota to create a pottery industry to rival Ohio and other states with a large pottery industry.

Under Cable’s direction, North Dakota clays & glazes were researched, examined, tested & perfected as part of the School of Mines. Ceramics classes were open to more than UND students, family members of faculty and local citizens were also involved. Because of this, UND School of Mines pottery has many levels in artistry. You have works from the many talented instructors (such as Cable; her sister, Flora Cable Huckfield; Frieda Hammers, Margaret Pachl; and Julia Mattson), talented students such as Laura Taylor Hughes (who went on to start Rosemeade), and average, everyday, folks with not-so-much talent.

Due to the number of years the UND School of Mines was open, from 1910 to 1963, you have many influences: Art Deco, Art Nouveau, and the Arts and Crafts movement. Popular designs feature regional interest such as crocus, prairie rose, wheat, flickertail, ox cart, cowboys, buffalo, horses, & Native American images.

1926 North Dakota Products Vase By Cable

One of the most famous examples of regional designs is the North Dakota Products vase. In 1926, Governor Sorlie asked Cable to create a single vase depicting an amazing number of North Dakota Products: corn, wheat, flax, clover, pigs, chickens, turkeys, cows, sheep, bees, potatoes, sugar beets, lignite coal, Dakota Maid flour, a pumpkin, a flickertail, a wild rose, a lump of clay and a cream can. Cable not only met the challenge, but did so with a stunning example of sgraffito (in which the blue glaze is scratched away to reveal the white of the pottery). While there was quite a demand for replicas of the presentation vase, Cable only made four of these beauties and denied all other requests. Donald Miller brought along one of the four North Dakota Product vases (the one which had belonged to Governor Sorlie). A collector next to me told me that it would likely fetch $25,000.

There I was, inches from it.

Some of the most coveted pieces are called bentonite pottery. Bentonite pottery, created by painting on a slip glazes of red, brown, creme, result in monochromatic yet vibrant works, such as these by Ruth Schnell, a Grand Forks resident who began UND ceramics classes when she was 46.

Bentonite Pottery By Ruth Schnell

Along with the usual conditions issues with pottery, there are several things to know to look for in UND pottery. Authentic pieces will bear the cobalt blue School of Mines stamp — even the most uninspired pinch-pot can fetch $50 to $100, as long as it bears the proper UND School of Mines stamp. Not all pieces are stamped thus; some have a more simple UND stamp. Artist names can be confusing; not all student records exist to cross reference, some women signed their husband’s name, and Cable herself signed her Prairie Pottery pieces with “Maggie Mud.”

Good references are University of North Dakota Pottery: The Cable Years, second edition, by Donald Miller, the heavily illustrated UND POTTERY: a History and Comparative Study of the Art Pottery, by Ken Forester, and the UND North Dakota School of Mines pottery collection website will be adding additional images and information. There’s also The North Dakota Pottery Collectors Society, which has their own “Road Show”.

Sgraffito Vase By Margaret Kelly Cable

Because of this Trash or Treasure lecture series event, I learned much about UND pottery. I have Andy Maus, Mark Ryan, and Rusty Freeman of the Plains Art Museum to thank for that. They are the folks who choose sessions and select lecturers. Maus says the team, “attempts to reflect the diversity and interests of our collecting community and those curious about collecting. As a regional museum, we do whatever we can to reflect the interests, talents and diversity of our community through all of our programming.”

The Trash or Treasure event continues at 7 P.M. tonight, with Discovering the Past Through Objects: Adventures of a Real-Life History Detective, a lecture by Wes Cowan. Yes, the Wes Cowan of History Detectives. He and Danica M. Farnand of Cowan’s Auctions, Inc. are the headliners at Friday night’s VIP Appraisal Dinner and Saturday’s Appraisal Fair.

That means I have three “dates” with Wes Cowan this week!

If I was nervous last year, you can only imagine how much worse it is this year… It’s not like I have any UND pottery to take along.

Intellectually, I know I shouldn’t be intimidated. But it’s Wes Cowan! The kids and I have huge crushes on him. (The kids think I’m cool and want me to get Cowan to autograph a photo or something. How nice that I can really blame it all on the kids!)

The lecture tonight is free and open to the public. And there’s still time to get tickets for Friday & Saturday’s events. As an extra bonus, those attending can watch me stammer & sound like a school girl when talking with Cowan.

Related items currently available for sale

I’m not much of a traveler. My idea of a perfect vacation involves me being alone in a quiet room. The windows are open, I’m surrounded by every art supply I could possibly want, and a nigh-endless collection of Doctor Who DVDs and Jethro Tull MP3s for atmosphere. As a result of these vacation proclivities, my travel souvenirs are limited to upstate NY paraphernalia, but my vacations are WAY cheaper than yours, buddy.

If I were to travel, Bill Bryson has already convinced me to see the US first, for all of the vast nothing and everything that it encompasses, since I happen to be a big fan of nothing. Business travel has recently placed me in such exotic locations as Atlanta and Chicago, but I’d not thought to memorialize these rare visits with a single item (aside from a plane ticket or a restaurant receipt) until a dear friend of mine asked me to bring her back a shot glass from Chicago.

PS : Chicago, and I can’t say this enough, your pizza wasn’t that great. If I wanted pizza soup, I’d have ordered a pizza and ruined it myself, and it wouldn’t have taken two and a half hours.

As someone with collecting in my blood, I wondered why I hadn’t thought of the shot glass idea sooner, though I venture that it’s because my blood also has an intense dislike for alcoholic beverages and Dr. Pepper already comes in a convenient can. Regardless, every city in every state is going to have a fair collection of touristy junk, and it’s really not going to be that hard to find. You can’t take fifteen steps in New York City without tripping over a Statuette of Liberty or the omnipresent ‘I Heart New York’ t-shirt - so there’s no doubt that every airport that you fly into (or gas station you refill at) will have a shop to memorialize their fine city in every imaginable form, from underpants to magnets to snowglobes. Of all of the options presented at these shops, shot glasses are indeed the classiest. And state underpants just imply that you’re ‘well-traveled’, in all of the wrong ways. ‘Idaho’ panties are a disservice to everyone.

Chicago’s airport had a fine selection of local shot glasses, but unfortunately, the brief layover in Atlanta did not give me enough time to properly hunt down a companion shot glass. Both airports did, however, yield the requisite local fridge magnets. Magnets, I’d like to add, are far cheaper and simpler to snag and pack away as you vault through the airport. Unfortunately, like most cheap and simple people and things, magnets are far less sexy. Unless you’re some kind of science nerdo with a fetish for vector fields and dipoles.

The origin of the shot glass has been lost to time, and even the time when shot glasses were originally used is an ambiguous thing, with some sources citing ‘the Old West’, and others citing the Prohibition Era, while others cite Italian taverns from over 200 years ago. I’d venture that your average shot glass user is concerned less with the historical origins of their drinking vessels than what’s in them, shortly before they’re more concerned with which direction is the ceiling and which direction is the floor. Shotglass.org informs us that only Utah has passed a law to regulate the size of a ‘shot’ within a shot glass to 1.5 ounces, though a ‘shot’ remains a non-standard unit of measurement.

It’s said that shot glass value rests comfortably around what the average shot glass cost is, in the $3 to $5 range. An aspiring shot glass collector should begin by collecting shot glasses of things that they like. In my case, that would be shot glasses featuring images of Drinky Crow, Star Trek insignia and Batman. As your collection becomes more serious and you want to start adding items of monetary value, scour tag sales for shot glasses that are either old (as determined by clear labeling) or unusual. Shot glasses made from nontraditional materials or decorated by antiquated techniques tend to be worth more than their plain ol’ clear glass counterparts. Shot glasses with limited runs, to promote small business instead of national sports teams, also tend to be worth a bit more. More detailed information can be obtained from Mark Pickvet’s extensive writing about shot glass collecting, as well as Shotglass.org, which includes a message board, and an ever-expanding searchable database, which has many descriptions but few images.

As far as collecting state shot glasses goes, it was nice to step outside of my own collecting tendencies and assist someone else in their own endeavours. Sure, you can order them online from countless websites, but collecting them from the location that they describe seems more genuine, and requires a healthy amount of effort. Usually I’m just hunting for a GI Joe BAT for my toy collecting friends. Shot glasses, somehow, involved far less shame.

Related items currently available for sale