Author Topic: Is this just too crazy to consider?  (Read 4870 times)

KC

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Re: Is this just too crazy to consider?
« Reply #15 on: November 13, 2009, 09:50:11 am »
Let me add, if a true collector of French furniture has it...then you most likely won't want to pay the $$$ for it.  However, if someone bought it just because they liked it....it will be more feasible that you could attain it again!

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!  It may take you a lifetime to track these down....that is the adventure of the hunt and the "ah hah" at the end!  Don't give up!  Enjoy yourself and learn along the way!  What you learn, share with us and others on this site!

We welcome you here with your questions and journey!
I'm from the South - but please don't mistake my Southern Manners/Accent/Charm as a weakness!

way2shg

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Re: Is this just too crazy to consider?
« Reply #16 on: November 13, 2009, 03:14:18 pm »
Everyone, I really REALLY appreciate all of the encouragement. It might take me a lifetime and I may not succeed, but imagine the joy I can have whilst searching and the great learnings I'll acquire along the way.

I really wish you'd all have declared these items as worthless copies (smile). That would have given me relief and hope that if I were to find them, I'd be able to get them back. At minimum, I hope to learn what happened to them and perhaps follow their journey, even if in the care of another family.

My grandmother also had a collection of Handwerk dolls in a box in her basement. After I took posession of the house, I found them in a box in the basement. My great-great grandpop on that side had been from Germany and he traveled back and forth twice during the 1800s. He must have brought these over on one of those trips. Anyway, I pulled them out and sat them on my grandmother's chair by the fireplace. They had the original clothes, hair and all. I bought a book on Handwerk and became familiar. About a week later, I told my aunt what I'd found. Two days later I came home from work and the dolls were gone. She'd come in while I was at work, took the dolls and sold them for $500. As a collection, they were worth at least $5k. To me, they were priceless and I would never have sold them. I don't understand my aunt doing this as she was a relatively wealthy lady herself. Nobody in my family has ever struggled for money, so I just don't understand the selling of the family treasures. If you want to sell something, sell your own things, not what has been handed down through prior generations. After that, anything I found, I kept quiet about.


Anyway, thanks again! Will let you all know how its going and will definitely stick around and learn more from the forum.

talesofthesevenseas

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Re: Is this just too crazy to consider?
« Reply #17 on: November 13, 2009, 04:30:51 pm »
 :'(   :'(   :'(  Oh OUCH!!!!! :'(  :'(  :'(
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way2shg

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Re: Is this just too crazy to consider?
« Reply #18 on: November 13, 2009, 06:21:56 pm »
Yep :-\

And, to add insult to injury, this same GGGrandpop, Gephard Harres, who we expect brought the dolls for my GGrandmom, is the GGrandpop of a certain famous aviatrix who went missing over the pacific in 1937.

I couldnt make this up.

So, now, we have the fugitive slave, the aviatrix, and the lost cabinet....

(oh, and the "captive memoirs" that are another topic for another day)

See why i want my stuff back? LOL

Maybe if I can get a book deal, I can earn enough money to get the cabinet and the secretary back.

KC

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Re: Is this just too crazy to consider?
« Reply #19 on: November 14, 2009, 10:10:10 am »
I must correct myself on one thing....about the lock on the door.  I was thinking a lock separate from the handle (what was I thinking, duh).  In that period/time the key in the lock was the handle to open it. (Like many of the items that I have - no handle - just the key in the lock handle!)

The thing that compels me to believe that it's original purpose wasn't a music cabinet is the fact that the family's liquor was kept in it.  A music cabinet had many shelves in it to hold the pages/leaflets of music.  So, they either ripped the wooden shelves out....or....it wasn't a music cabinet to begin with!
I'm from the South - but please don't mistake my Southern Manners/Accent/Charm as a weakness!

way2shg

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Re: Is this just too crazy to consider?
« Reply #20 on: November 15, 2009, 09:54:35 pm »
Thanks KC.
We were thinking it was a music cabinet because the family had several other music cabinets, which all remain in the family. My great-grandfather was an opera singer and his father and siblings, when he was younger, worked the underground railroad as jubilee singers carrying messages for Douglass, Mott, Garrison, Still, etc. If it had been an original Louis XV, I assume it would have been given to him by one of the wealthy abolitionists.

More likely, it would have come from my great-grandmother's family, the Harres'. They were the wealthy side back in the 1800s - gentry of Philadelphia.

I may never know.

I believe the stories behind the antiques give them life. I'd much rather have a 200 yr old colorful life story on a piece of paper than a priceless antique which has lost it's story.

I do hope all of the dealers and collectors will try their best to keep the authentic stories attached to the pieces.




talesofthesevenseas

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Re: Is this just too crazy to consider?
« Reply #21 on: November 15, 2009, 10:12:41 pm »
Well said about a colorful life story Way2shg! And you are inextricably tied to your ancestors. Their story is part of your story. We're all chapters in the book.
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