Significant Objects

Cracker Barrel Ornament

Friday, October 30, 2009

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Maud Newton, has ended. Original price: 59 cents. Final price: $24.50.] This astonishing “Cracker Barrel” artifact appears to be a souvenir of modern vintage, representing a down-home North American restaurant-and-country-store chain that upholds Christian values by refusing to hire gay people. In fact, the object dates to [...]

Sea Captain Pipe Rest

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

3 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Michael Atkinson, has ended. Original price: 34 cents. Final price: $21.50. ] … Somebody’s grandfather’s pipe stand, back when men smoked pipes that they cared to buy handcrafted out of specific hardwoods, made by Europeans, maybe old artisans they found in narrow-street shops while away at war [...]

“Hawk” Ashtray

Friday, October 2, 2009

12 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by William Gibson, has ended. Original price: $2.99. Final price: $101.00] In 1969 my friend’s dad was a Pentagon technocrat. My friend said that when his dad came home with a new tie-tack, it meant there was a new weapon in the works. Not that there would be [...]

Ornamental sphere

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

0 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Charles Ardai, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $20.50. ] The telegram arrived too late. The morning mail had brought the box, wrapped in a double thickness of brown paper and covered with fibrous packing tape I’d had to dig out the heavy Wüsthof cook’s knife [...]

Maine Statutes Dish

Monday, September 28, 2009

5 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Ben Katchor, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $42.] This beautiful, but slightly worn, example of early 20th century porcelain “bookware” was manufactured and distributed free-of-charge along with newly printed copies of the “Maine Revised Statutes Annotated” — a dreary compendium of state laws. This example, [...]

Round Box

Monday, September 14, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Tim Carvell, has ended. Original price: 50 cents. Final price: $35.] On December 17, 1948, the Humboldt twins entered the world, Jerome screaming, Luke laughing. This pattern held. Jerome grew up to be as petulant, difficult and miserable as Luke was cheery, optimistic and polite. Their father, Max, [...]

Praying hands

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

3 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Rosecrans Baldwin, has ended. Original price: $1.50. Final price: $26. ] The North Americans refused accusal. Constructed great cities and gave their names to them and let them crumble and then walked away. Disappeared in The Big Sand. Said never to apologize and seldom to slow down. [...]

Grain Thing

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Joanne McNeil, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $20.50.] Among the many misconceptions that prevail about my great-grandfather, Hartford Townes Hastings, the most infuriating is the idea that he was a disinterested playboy benefactor, squandering the family fortune on “women and dreams,” as the New York [...]

Russian Figure

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

10 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Doug Dorst, has ended. Original price: $3. Final price: $193.50.] Figurine of St. Vralkomir (glass cover not included) This is an icon of the fourteenth-century saint Vralkomir of Dnobst, the patron saint of extremely fast dancing. Handcrafted in a snowbound convent by the nimble-footed Sisters of the Vralkomian [...]

Kneeling Man Figurine

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

2 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Glen David Gold, has ended. Original price: $2. Final price: $56.50.] Hell, of course, has a hierarchy; it is by definition all hierarchy. As James Blish noted, any act of magic requires harnessing the work of one demon at a time. Those who answer the call are [...]

Metal Boot

Friday, July 31, 2009

9 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Bruce Sterling, has ended. Original price: $3. Final price: $86.] In early 1861, before the Union blockade closed the port of New Orleans, four ships arrived from distant Naples. They bore eight hundred and eighty-four Italians, soldiers under the command of a little-known Louisiana adventurer: [...]

Nutcracker with Troll Hair (or something)

Friday, July 17, 2009

8 Comments

[The auction for this Significant Object, with story by Adam Davies, has ended. Original price: $1. Final price: $14.50.] Authentic MR. YODELS Love Totem The “Sylvia St. Etienne” edition This is the only witness to — or, some say, the cause of — the tragic death of legendary chanteuse and muse to famous Ecuadorian footballer Francisco Chavarria NOT AN IMITATION! Condition The artifact [...]

Tag Archive | "history (invented)"

Cracker Barrel Ornament

Sea Captain Pipe Rest

“Hawk” Ashtray

Ornamental sphere

Maine Statutes Dish

Round Box

Praying hands

Grain Thing

Russian Figure

Kneeling Man Figurine

Metal Boot

Nutcracker with Troll Hair (or something)

S.O. v1 — the EXPERIMENT

S.O. v2 — for 826 National

S.O. v3 — for Girls Write Now

Special Epistolary Week