the lore of the auction

my husband and i car pool to work every day as we work just a couple of miles apart 30 miles south of our home. we like to take the country or back way to the interstate. the road winds across a river, thru a hilly wooded area and across some beautiful farm country. about a month ago we saw a sign posted for an upcoming auction. it was at an old two story home straight out of the last century or maybe even the one before that. i immediately said "oh, can we go? please let's go". i love auctions. it is such a thrill to go early and browse thru all the wares, looking for a special item that reminds me of my childhood or my grandparents. there's always a couple of things i think i just have to have, usually some little item that won't cost much. this auction was saturday morning and it did not disappoint. the very first items i spied were boxes and boxes of old books, magazines and sheet music. i spent a good deal of time sorting and looking thru the boxes to identify which ones i wanted to bid on. i was lucky in that this auction was so big that there were three different auctioneers all working at the same time, so when they started auctioning off the books there were very few bidders. i came away with the big box of sheet music above. not only are the covers beautifully illustrated but the insides will be delightful additions to my collages.



i also bought a box of books plus a few single books. the photo above shows some of them spread out in the sun to air out a bit as they were rather musty. one is an old accounting ledger with the entries handwritten in pencil. what fun they will be to add to collages. the grand opera book is also chock full of interesting music and illustrations. i wanted to stay longer and bid on a large box of hand written letters and postcards but we had other things to do. i could have sat there all day enjoying the bidding and the delighted looks on people's faces as they won each coveted item. there were no hummels at this auction which i've started collecting or i'm sure we would have stayed just a bit longer. it was a fun and relaxing morning. now i just have to figure out where oh where i'm going to put all the sheet music and vintage books. my art room runneth over!!!