Roar! This afternoon was really cool. It turns out you don't need to go to museums or art galleries to see cool stuff, there are lots of great things hidden right under our noses.
I went over to 145 West 57th Street in Manhattan and headed up to the Spink Shreves Auction House where the were previewing the upcoming auction of the Floyd E. Risvold Collection - American Expansion & The Journey West. I got to look at all these old letters and maps from the then new frontier. I really liked looking at all the Oregon Trail stuff. It brought back a lot of memories. Roar!
There were no photos allowed at the auction but I was able to get pictures of what I looked at off of the auction house's website. Here is an old map of Fort Kearney. Maybe I should stop and look around? Y/N Or perhaps I should press return to size up the situation. Roar!
This is the first letter to ever arrive in Astoria, Oregon. It took over a year for it to get there. I guess things were still pretty post-apocalyptic out there in the frontier. I hope Nathan Hale's army didn't try to stop The Postman from delivering this letter!
This is a really great old map of the Oregon territory. It's from the book Horn's Overland Guide, from the U. S. Indian Sub-Agency...to...Sacramento. Inside the front cover of the book the original owner had drawn some cartoons and the people at the auction house were nice enough to let me take a picture.
Here is the first cartoon. It's call "A Democratic Speech." The speaker on the left is saying, "Three cheers for luck" and then the top three figure are all shouting "hurrah!" On the bottom two men are fighting while another on looker shouts "hurrah." Meanwhile an unseen assassin attempts to shoot the speaker. I'm guessing the author of this cartoon was a Whig. Roar!
The second cartoon is a lot less political and instead offers us some commentary on frontier living. The pioneer on the left is asking the man at the bar for a bottle of whiskey. I guess they drank a lot of it back then.
Oh my! This pioneer had the same name as me! It looks like he never made it to Willamette Valley, Oregon. Frontier times were tough, people couldn't even spell right! Roar!
Downstairs in the same building as the auction house they were having a preview show for some really cool Japanese prints.
The show was of little-seen prints depicting the industrial revolution in Japan. Unfortunately none of the original art was on display but it was still some really cool stuff to see.
Here is an amazing picture of an early Japanese train. I wonder what the poem above it says?
This picture was crazy! Look at all the "western" amenities falling from the fireworks! I wish fireworks could do that for real! Roar!
They had a lot of great stuff on display. I definitely recommend coming here while the show is on to check it all out. Roar!
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