An Antiquarian Treasure

On the evening on 28 April 2010, I received from far away Hirshima, Japan, my Ebayeum auction win! "Yr Obdt Srvt: Some Postcards Of Howard Phillips Lovecraft Sent To Wilfred Blanch Talman".

Over the next few days I'll type in the oddities of an antiquarian collector - me.

It started - as it always does - as a whim; an impulse click. "Hmm, that's pretty interesting." Then, click! Assuming I would lose the bid, I moved on to perusing images of the beginning of the 20th century Providence, Rhode Island. Imust be very wary, and in a perfect control of will, before I stroll through to much "antiquarian Lovecraft teritory" lest I cede the mortgage of the house in lieu of acquiring some $15,000 Lovecraftian obscurity.

I checked back at the end of the auction, and - knock me over with a feather - I won! Thus began the next journey of R. Alain Everts' quaint little book. (c) 1988 The Strange Company, this unnumbered, unsigned copy of a printing of 200.

It's journey was interupted, becuase little did we realize the package had to be signed for. I came home, signed the slip, placed it back out in a zip lock bag on a rainy night tucked into the corner of our brass mailbox for the postal person to pick up the next day. Three days later, it had arrived.

I came home, but the world trabveler had to ait a bit longer, and my 48 minute, 18 mile drive home through clogged Derby Week traffic left me fatigued. The fish pon pump had to be cleaned, and a plant righted. (We now have 5 large, and oddly after 5 years, 12 baby fish that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere last Fall.) Then off to a few other things, and as the 10 O'clock hour approached I finally opened the packet.

More tomorrow.