May 28, 2008
toys in the attic
A British man had a cup his grandfather gave him as a child appraised for roughly a million dollars.
John Webber says his grandfather gave him the 5.5-inch high mug to play with when he was a child, back in 1945. He assumed the golden cup, which is decorated with the heads of two women facing in opposite directions, their foreheads garlanded with two knotted snakes, was made from brass.
comments
3 Responses to “toys in the attic”
Leave a Reply
This reminds me of a great short story by Neil Gaiman–”Chivalry.” It was read on Selected Shorts by Christina Pickles, and she did a splendid job of it. An old widow, browsing in a local junk shop, finds the Holy Grail. And the remarkable thing is that she knows exactly what it is. Without much excitement she takes it home, washes it (had some brownish stains in the bottom), and puts it on her fireplace mantle. A bit later, Sir Galahad knocks on the door and tells her of his quest. She makes sandwiches for him and gives him some advice–but won’t part with the Grail. She thinks it looks nice where it is, and she doesn’t particularly want anything else enough to trade. She relents in the end, and sends him off on his charger with the Grail and a sack lunch.
i like the fact that he used the cup for target practice with his air gun, the irreverence that has
Oh, yes, I like that, too. In my household we use coins mounted to a backstop as air gun targets, but we’ve never shot any from our collection of ancients (unless you consider a US ‘Mercury’ [pre-1945] dime ancient).
This also reminds me of the Sherlock Holmes tale in which Holmes, between jobs and bored, is sitting in the digs on Baker Street, firing his air gun at the mantle and tracing out the initials V[ictoria] R[egina].