Saturday Morning, January 31, 2026
A Midwinter's Night Dream
This week we began a most interesting adventure. Our duty is to empty a home filled with a tremendous number of categories. The job will consume the month of February. This is not a trip through history, more so, an amalgamation of two lives entwined. Curiosity fills each room. Their world was not wasted in the mundane, but in mankind. One partner's achievement earned the nod of the highest scientific award in the world. In fact, his work has extended many of your lives. So, we go forward from designer furniture to books, jewelry to clothing. This is an unveiling. A chance to glimpse into a world few touch. A true midwinter's night dream.
YOU ARE THERE!
Striding a military step and walking from one window to another, the teacher released the string on each Venetian blind. Behind her rhythmic bangs matched her pace as each smacked upon the window sills. With overhead lights switched off, the classroom faded into gray, enough for a film, though not enough to hide boys' shenanigans.
Key to Mitchell's1846 Pocket Map.
Selection of Hermes neckties, also Gucci.
Today, we are going to study the Mexican War of 1846. You boys, John and Bill, keep quiet! None dare challenge, even respond. The room fell silent except for the whurring noise from the projector. Bright white light flashed onto the screen followed by countdown numbers. A 1950's grade school movie, always in black and white and bland. Distributed by Young America Films, the best part was the chance to catch a nap. It would take Bell Labs in the late 1950's to release color video with alluring content, so interesting, it grabbed each kid and slammed him down in his chair, not unlike those Venetian blinds. The best movies were always the atomic bomb exploding. Those videos made you learn. Atten Hut!
We foreshadow this week with a hint of the coming Days of Haute Couture. You will be pleasantly surprised.
Remember the Alamo!
The Mexican-American War was never a standout historical point in the classroom. Most of what transpired was soon overshadowed by the Civil War. And yet, 1846 enjoyed its moments. Take a look.
Unfolded handcolored map.
A country in infancy.
Mitchell was a prolific producer.
Early in the year, the Mormons uprooted from Illinois, trekking to Utah. Today, we are blessed with their adherence to family geneaology. Secured within the Granite Mountain vault, over 12 billion names are protected. Anyone seeking his or her roots can access this database. Why they have created such an outpost is even more interesting. Mormons believe in baptism, alive or dead. If administered to the deceased, then their souls will be cleansed and received in the afterlife. This, the reason all these records have and continue to be maintained. Their goal is simple. Baptize all the dead.
Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
On May 23rd, 1846, the Associated Press was founded in New York City. It was chartered as a nonprofit cooperative among newspapers to share daily stories. The reason? The cost of covering the Mexican War was prohibitive for individual competing newspapers, so to save money, editors formed an alliance to gather news. And it worked.
Five-compartment partitioned ambrotypes
secured in a guttapercha case.
The case's design is Two Lovers Going to the Well.
Like them, for most of us, we never arrive. 5¾" x 4¼"
Meanwhile, on the west coast, the California Republic declared its independence from Mexico. The Mexican government capitulated, relinquishing control turning the region into a U.S. Territory. Life is all in the timing. In 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill. Quite soon after that, California earned its statehood. The Golden State was indeed golden.
The Nation's Attic
Favorite of favorites, on August 11th, the Smithsonian Institute was established. A castle on a very empty mall. Its founding donor, ironically, was Englishman James Smithson, a British scientist. Perhaps his drive was to repeat the famed scientific Royal Society in London, an organization with a singular purpose.
Five sequential Bank of England White Fives 1934 notes.
Each measuring 5¼" x 8½".
London, Kenneth Oswald Peppiatt, Chief Cashier..
But this was America, with discoveries so vast, they covered the horizon and buried the Smithsonian. Millions of items have found a home within its walls, from every endeavor conceivable. One visit to any branch will impress one with the breadth and depth of the assemblage. It looks like the homes we empty, or the ones you live in, just a grandeur scale.
Donner, Party of...
1846 went out with a real bang. On November 30th, the Donner-Reed wagon train, on their way to California, were mired in the Sierra Nevada winter. Their time to pass through safely had run out. It was a horror. Help could not reach them. Their only chance of survival was cannibalism. Extreme to the core, nonetheless, it worked. Of the estimated 89 members, perhaps 48 survived, majority children. YOU ARE THERE. Well maybe you don't want to be. Today we meet our snowstorms with plows, snowblowers, and resistance. Happily, we rather be here, and will be again this Saturday, despite winter's protocal.
Pendleton Beaver State wool coat.
Doors open at 8 AM. Auction starts at 9 AM. PA AU 1265L [bb]