No Kidding!

Ever notice that you don’t see many children at auctions and antiques shops? Me too. In the minds of some folks, a place of business that involves valuable old objects—objects whose financial worth is often contingent on condition—is no place for kids. I disagree.

I occasionally bring along my daughters, now 9 and 5, when I go to antiques shops and malls for “research.” I’ve even brought them to auction previews at Skinner in Bolton, Mass. Most people smile when they see the girls browsing with me, but I do get the occasional furrowed brow that sends the message, “What are they doing here?”

Don’t worry: I always prime them before walking in: “No running around, and be careful where you walk, and don’t touch anything unless I say it’s okay.” And sure enough, the girls are well behaved—they understand that the items at an auction house or antiques shop (or a yard sale, for that matter) should be treated with respect.

Of course, kids’ instincts when they see unusual objects is to touch, feel, hold, and play. To help the girls fight the urge, I enlist them as photographers; as we browse a shop or showroom, they’ll take turns capturing interesting items with a point-and-shoot digital camera.

One of the images 5-year-old Karsyn recently took sticks out in my mind. On her own accord, she photographed the upper shelf in a glass case of vintage dolls and teddy bears. Technically, the photo needed more light and tighter focus, but... I love it for the angle: Karsyn’s li’l vantage point (she’s 3 feet, 8 inches) resulted in a priceless view of a Kestner bisque “Googlie” character doll. The Kestner that caught her eye is propped way, way up there—so far out of her reach that it might as well be in another country.

Alas, I didn’t end up bidding on the doll (it sold for $4,113), but the girls realize from our antiquing travels that we can’t buy everything that catches our eye. Hey, just looking and learning about things people owned in “the olden days” can be fun, don’t you think? For Quinlyn and Karsyn, “Kestner” or “Steiff” may not have the appeal of the latest Bratz doll, but they do understand that those are names to know in the world of antiques.

So the next time you head out to an auction or an antiques shop, bring along a child. His or her interest in your interests will make it even more fun.

Pictured above: a 5-year-old’s view of a top-shelf Kestner amidst other antique teddy bears and dolls. (Photo by Karsyn Canale)

That Awful Day

In traveling to Antiques Roadshow events around the nation every summer, I always try to schedule an extra day to take in the sights and sounds of a city --- a museum, or a hoppin’ section of town, or a baseball game in the city’s stadium, or a historical site. In Dallas in June 2008, my top destination involved the latter: I wanted to visit Dealey Plaza, the site of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

I wasn’t quite 4 at the time of the JFK tragedy, but my folks have always been admirers of the popular president. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed hearing their take on the Kennedy years. And as legions of people have, I’ve read reams of printed material and watched hours of documentaries about the “Camelot” years. So visiting the site where it all came crashing down was intriguing to me.

If you know Dealey Plaza only by grainy footage and black-and-white photographs, you likely have a feel for what it looks like --- especially the view from the “grassy knoll” area, where Abe Zapruder happened to capture the assassination on film. But there’s nothing like actually setting foot on that soil, walking up Elm Street, and looking up at the Texas School Book Depository. The building from which the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald (or one of the assassins, if you’re a conspiracy theorist), fired his shots is now the Dallas County Administration Building. The sixth floor of the structure is a museum that encapsulates JFK’s life and death in narrative, photographs, films, and memorabilia.

As you survey the area, you can’t help but picture the images you’ve seen from Nov. 22, 1963. Look hard enough and you can almost see Kennedy’s motorcade driving by the Book Depository, and then curling toward the grassy knoll, with rows of onlookers lining the sides of the street on that sunny, innocent day. And then you can only imagine those shots ringing out....


At one point on the morning I was visiting, a siren suddenly went off and an ambulance came speeding down the street. The shrill sound and the hurried pace of the vehicle got my heart beating a little faster.

At another point, I climbed atop the concrete retainer wall upon which Zapruder stood to shoot his footage. You can see instantly why he chose the spot: It gave him a great view up Elm Street so he could capture the motorcade approaching. Instead, he found himself filming a shocking 25-second span that still haunts America.

Standing on the Zapruder wall, I got a good look at two eerie symbols: a pair of white Xs painted onto the Elm Street pavement to mark the location of Kennedy’s limousine when he was struck. A few feet away from the Xs, embedded at the edge of the knoll, is a small National Park Service plaque. The stark notation, oddly, doesn’t mention the president: It reads, “This site possesses national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America.”

Later, after touring The Sixth Floor Museum, I walked back to my hotel feeling, honestly, quite depressed. Then I thought about something I saw at Antiques Roadshow the day before: a wonderful 1960 JFK campaign poster reading “A Time for Greatness.” (Appraiser Rudy Franchi was impressed with the poster, noting that its retail value is $6,000–$8,000.) The image of a young JFK as presidential candidate serves as a visual reminder of a more hopeful time. So for me, that large, colorful poster is a far better way to connect JFK to Dallas. The grassy knoll, on the other hand, just feels like an awful place, made so by an awful act on an awful day.