I used to go to the Merrickville Antique Show every year, but today was the first time since 2003. Talk about downsized. I think the antiques bubble burst in my absence. There were only about 25 dealers and maybe a hundred scroungers. Sad to say, the pickings were pretty slim. The stuff they’re now calling antique makes me feel old, because some of it is stuff I have in my home and still use. You know, stuff from the 80s.
There were some blatantly obvious reproduction ‘antique’ photos. Someone downloaded some old photos off the net, enlarged them without even adjusting the resolution, printed them, stuck them in frames, and tried to pass them off as antique photographs. You could see the pixels.
It looked like I was going to leave empty-handed, but I found some interesting things in the second-last stall. The Scoop of the Day: three copies of Sexology: The Magazine of Sex Science (~mid-1930s) for $8. (Eat your heart out Nik!). I’ll write more about it later, but here’s an exclusive sneak peak at the table of contents:
Poverty and Sex Immorality (Illustrated)
Gonorrhea Mistaken for Appendicitis (Illustrated)
Radium Treatment of the Womb (Illustrated)
Pregnant Virgins
Sex Education of Savages
The Third Sex Disease: Chancroid (Illustrated)
Does Nudism Banish Shame?
Syphillis of the Breast and Rectum
The Self-Love Danger
Sex and Warfare
Homosexuality in Growing Girls (Illustrated)
The Danger of Petting (Illustrated)
Training Children for Sex Life (Illustrated)
Imaginary “Loss of Manhood” (Illustrated)
Sex Impulses of Old Men
The Heredity of Syphilis (Illustrated)
Sex Organs Show Race Mixture
What Causes Prostitution? (Illustrated)
…and much, much more!
I picked up the three copies immediately, so the dealer pegged me as a sex collector and started directing me to related materials. He thought I might like some erotic playing cards. They were repro minis, but only $2 and I could use them in art so I bought them. And then he tried to interest me in some Playboy magazines from the 1980s, which were stashed in a box under the table. Playboy? The 80s? I didn’t think so. But I did buy an old children’s book with lovely illustrations of Gollywogs and invalids. I cannot resist vintage political incorrectness.
After Merrickville I went to the Used Book Sale at the Experimental Farm, and bought a bag of semi-interesting books, but nothing as impressive as Sexology Magazine and Gollywogs.
At 4:00 I went to a 10-minute meeting at work, and then I had raspberries, salami and a Stella for dinner. All in all, it was a very good Saturday.
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