A friend/acquaintance named JW is showing me a house that he has recently inherited from his great aunt. He is going to be listing the house and all of the contents with an auction company, but he says I can pick out any things I like from the house and he'll give me a good deal on the lot. I don't really need anything, but I start perusing just to see what there is.
I start in a downstairs room that is a little bit messy. I see some antique dolls stacked on top of a trunk and I think I might find a special little doll to buy. I don't see anything I'm crazy about in the doll pile, but when I open the trunk I see that it's full of antique puppets. There are all kinds of people and animal figures - I remember a little brown squirrel with a hard body, a little black dog, and dozens of others. I find the perfect doll puppet to keep - she has an unusual expression on her face, like she's done something naughty, and on top of her head is a little rabbit fur black cat with green eyes curled up, also looking mischievous. Perfect! I set it aside to buy later.
In the window of that room I see a little display of pearl jewelry. I wonder if she had a shop at some point - it's strange to display your jewelry in the window for all the world to see. Or maybe she just wanted it to be a decoration - the jewelry and the way it was displayed was really lovely. Most of the jewelry in the display is pretty and ordinary, nothing I really need. An unusual bracelet catches my eye and I pick it up and put it on. The bracelet isn't made out of normal round pearls - the pearls are shaped somewhat like emerald beetle wings used in jewelry, but pearl and in all different sizes.
They are arranged in a really unusual way to appear as though an otherwise traditional bracelet is somehow dripping off of the wrist, with a "tail" hanging down about 8 inches. It is spectacular and eye catching, and I have to have it! I find matching earrings also on display and I put them with the cat doll.
This is going great! I walk into the next room - a kind of dining room and sitting room combination that looks like it has had the furniture moved around and stacked up. I don't see anything I have to have, but I am intrigued by a super tall table lamp in pink glass and brass. It's about 7 feet tall from the top of the table, and very heavy and ornate. I'm afraid that item, even at a discount, might be really expensive (and obviously hard to move), so I leave it there and think to ask the agents about it later.
I walk into the kitchen. The entire kitchen is filled with cast iron items. Some items are obviously in frequent use like some pots and skillets. Other items are just part of a cast iron collection, like miscellaneous farm equipment parts. It's overwhelming to see so much crammed into one place. The room is large, but the collection is vast enough to still require being crammed in. I remark to the agent what a fantastic collection that is, and she agrees. I leave the room to explore other parts of the house.
I enter a hallway and the house is suddenly immaculately clean and organized. In an alcove there is a tall dresser. I open a drawer and find it full of neatly folded clothing. I pull out an item and see that it's a cotton house-style dress in a bright color with a contrasting border. I see that the drawers are all full of items like that - cotton dresses in bright colors and patterns. I hold one up and see that it's about my size. They're all beautiful and I quickly choose a dozen or so dresses and bundle them up together in one of the drawers to come back for later.
Beyond the alcove is the aunt's room - which is 10% bedroom 90% closet. She has a wall of shallow drawers that I start looking in and find her "real" jewelry. I start to pull out items that I think might be valuable or that for some other reason catch my eye. I find another set of file cabinet drawers and I find more jewelry mounted to boards and placed in plastic sleeves, arranged by design category. I find a sleeve labeled "Insects and Chrysalises" which contains jeweled pieces all in insect related shapes. I grab that sleeve and think I've hit the jackpot! There are hundreds of other categories, and drawers containing pictures and negatives there as well. I leave the other jewelry.
I sense that the agents are killing time and ready to leave, so I rush around to check the other drawers really quickly, gather up my haul, and almost forget the dresses and run back for them. I'm wondering how much all this is going to cost. I'm hoping that the agents know I'm supposed to get a discount, it would be embarrassing to be given store prices for all this stuff and have to put things back. I'm so embarrassed in advance that I wonder if I should just pay whatever price they say.
