Welcome to the Misadventures of Widowhood blog!

Welcome to my World---Woman, widow, senior citizen seeking to live out my days with a sense of whimsy as I search for inner peace and friendships. Jeez, that sounds like a profile on a dating app and I have zero interest in them, having lost my soul mate of 42 years. Life was good until it wasn't when my husband had a massive stroke and I spent the next 12 1/2 years as his caregiver. This blog has documented the pain and heartache of loss, my dark humor, my sweetest memories and, yes, even my pity parties and finally, moving past it all. And now I’m ready for a new start, in a new location---a continuum care campus in West Michigan, U.S.A. Some people say I have a quirky sense of humor that shows up from time to time in this blog. Others say I make some keen observations about life and growing older. Stick around, read a while. I'm sure we'll have things in common. Your comments are welcome and encouraged. Jean

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Road Maps and Joyful Noises


Hallelujah! I finally sold my last batch of gas station road maps. My husband had ten collector’s albums full of maps from various oil and gas brands, close to a 1,000 maps---a different brand in each of nine books and I’ve been listing one album a week. I didn't want to list them all at once because I figured map collectors would bid higher if they could replenish their bank accounts in between albums, not to mention they were too heavy to haul them all to the post office in the same time frame. All of the maps were dated between the 1920s to the 1960s and if I had sold each one individually I could have made a lot more money, but to photograph each map and write up its listing would have put me in Road Map Prison forever and I don’t like maps well enough to form a personal relationship with them. Nope, I’m happy to have two empty bookcase shelves in my library. Have I cheered, “Hallelujah” enough times to express my happiness? The tenth album that I just sold was the best in my opinion because it was an album of mixed, oddball and obsolete brands but it only sold for $245.00 which was disappointing but, hallelujah they’re gone! 

I say I didn’t have a personal relationship with maps but I really did. My husband bought and sold them for ten years before his stroke and guess who got to clean them, put them in plastic sleeves, price them, enter them in our inventory software and restock our mall booths when needed and guess who packed them in our motor home when we went to gas and oil memorabilia swap meets and conventions. That would be me who did all that if you didn't pick up on my clues. He was the Shopper and Salesman in Chief for our booths and I was the worker bee.

Cleaning maps or any antique paper, by the way, is done with a piece of white bread with the crusts cut off. Gently rub the bread across the item. The bread crumples but you’d be surprised at how much it brightens up grimy paper. If your paper or book has a musty smell put it in loose a fitting plastic bag and put it in the freezer for a couple of days. That kills the mold that’s causing the odor. But after you take it out of the freezer you’ll need to put the item in an airtight box with charcoal bricks or baking soda for 48-72 hours to absorb the moldy smell. Too many people skip or don’t know about putting moldy smelling paper goods and books in the freezer first so the odor eventually comes back. There was a time when I was in love with turn of century books and my freezer had more books inside than food.

Gas station road map collecting isn’t just about seeing how many you can accumulate. Some guys collect by brand names or by brands within certain state. (Most of us today couldn’t name more than 6-8 brands of gas, but there were dozens back in the boom days before the smaller ones got bought up and consolidated.) A few people collect maps done by famous illustrators, others who own antique and classic cars want period maps that match the ages of their cars. Still others collect maps related to the World Fairs---my favorite---or Route 66 maps during its heydays which happens to coincide with the heydays of architectural design of gas stations and roadside amusements. The man who bought the above mentioned last album said he’d been looking for one of the maps in that book for 35 years and he was willing to buy them all to get it. He’ll sell off all the rest and he’ll probably make good money doing it. He was one happy man! I could hear the "hallelujahs" when I opened his e-mail.

But the most satisfying map I’ve sold on e-Bay wasn’t a map like most of us would recognize. It was a 1,050 page book printed in 1916 that covered the entire United States and it read like Google Maps text descriptions of how to get from here to there. (See the page photographed at the top). There was no such thing as standardized road and highway signs back in those days so maps printed in the era when automobile trips were just becoming a ‘thing’ are fun to read. “Turn at the church” or saloon or stone wall were common directions as were warnings to down shift on certain hills or “if it’s raining don’t attempt this road.” 

In good condition I’ve seen these automobile map books go for $50 to $200, but my copy was in very poor condition. The cover was not attached and the binding was loose. I listed it with close-up pictures of the damage and as needing a new home to save it from going into a recycling bin. A guy working on a historical novel won the bidding for a whole five bucks plus shipping. "Hallelujah!" I was elated and I chalk this transaction up as another success story from Jean’s Antique Adoption Center (as opposed to Jean's e-Bay Central sales). It would have hurt to throw that book out. But if I was a nice person I could have told the new book daddy, who e-mailed ahead of bidding to ask if it had silverfish damage----which it didn't---that he could read the book online. It’s historically significant enough that a university has the entire book posted. ©

29 comments:

  1. You are making amazing progress. I am surprised each time you write about another collection at what interesting things people collect.

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    1. I have always joked that we collected collections. Wait until you see my spaghetti poodles from the fifties.

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  2. This is fun to read about. I didn't know there were so many gas stations at one time. I'm not surprised there are people who want to collect the maps, though. Seems like a much easier thing to collect than globes of world. 😉

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    1. Maps are easy to collect now with the internet but when my husband started, not so much so the prices have fallen a lot over the years. Still popular and still rather cheap to collect compared to other kinds things.

      Serious gas station memorabilia collector can tell you all the brand names that got consolidated into the brands we know today. My husband loved the history of Gargoyle. You learn a lot about the history of our nation by studying the gas and oil industry. Fortunate were made and lost and I think that's why the hobby is still going strong today. The popularity of most collectibles doesn't usually last last more than a few decades.

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  3. Congratulations Jean. All of the maps are gone. The only map I have is the one about Southern Ontario so that I know where when I go some where. LOL You seem to really know where you are going, where and when. You are good my friend. Sometimes I'm so confused I wonder who I am. LOL See ya my friend.

    Cruisin Paul

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    1. I'll tell you a secret, Paul. None of us needs to know who we are or where we're going to be happy in life. You've got a good family, a wife you love and a classic car. What more does a guy need.

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    2. Friends like you which I have. Thanks.

      Cruisin Paul

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  4. You guys have collected the most interesting things. I remember the days of using a map well - because I was a horrible map reader. I had no idea they were collectible and now that you've explained it I can see the fun in it. Live and learn. That is what makes life interesting.

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    1. Most people all collect things that bring warm fuzzy feelings back from their youth. The sports cards which never interested my husband because he never played or watched games growing up. But like a lot of teen boys in his generation, he hung around a gas station in his teens. I loved Cracker Jack as a kid and collect the toys that used to come with each box. There's always a story behind a collection.

      I can read a map really well and will print them out from Google Maps when I'm going some place new.

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  5. Wow, I am always blown away by the random (to me) things your hubby sought to collect and the fact that there are collectors out there waiting for the treasures. So glad you are finding homes and dollars for them. Turns out they were decent investments.

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    1. You name it, there is someone who collects it. Dawn from the Bohemian Vallhalla blog has a large jar of Monopoly game board pieces that I lust after. I've got a dozen or so full games but it never occurred to me to collect just the trinket part of the games. She has probably the most bizarre collection of collections I've run across and it's been fun trying to understand why she is drawn to certain things. Collecting runs in our blood, so we understand each others obsessions even if we don't necessarily like the same things.

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  6. The collection of collections! No wonder you have such a large house with basement and garage! How on earth did you learn about cleaning old maps/books with bread and then baking soda and then into the freezer? Your brain must be full of such interesting information. THANK YOU for sharing. So fascinating.

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    1. People who collect things buy books on how to fix, repair and restore stuff. Not state secrets. LOL

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  7. Well done, you! If only you lived in Lansing I'd pay you beaucoup bucks to help Ebay my life. And thanks for the book tips!

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    1. Honestly I'd never take on the responsibility of e-Baying other people's stuff. It's stressful enough watching my own. There are some antique malls that will do it, but the items usually has to have a potential of selling over x-dollars and then they take anywhere from 30% to 50% depending on whether that includes e-Bay fees are included.

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  8. This was so interesting to read! I know that people collect all sorts of stuff—our nostalgia works on us in powerful ways—but it’s always fun to find out everyone’s little niche hobbies.

    Does your book deodorizing method work for cigarette smoke too?

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    1. That's a good question and I don't know the answer. The freeze step wouldn't be needed because you wouldn't be trying to kill the source of the smell but I'd have to guess that the baking soda or charcoal step in an airtight box would work. Worth a try. Just leaving stuff outside in the fresh air helps a lot with smoky stuff.

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  9. I bet in my day i would have bought a lot of them. I have a very very old one from NYC that I got at a flea market. I have that one framed. It's of Manhattan from the 40's. I used to buy old maps to decoupage on furniture and the like as well. Those were not the expensive ones.
    I did all the drawers on a six drawer dresser for a foyer once.
    It was accurate and it wasn't easy to line up like that but boy did it look cool. Got a lot of compliments on it and while it did yellow a bit I thought that made it only look better.

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    1. I loved that fad when road maps were decoupaged on stuff. I did a suitcase and a box. I'm sure your dresser was amazing.

      Your Manhattan map would be very interesting, comparing it to today's map.

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  10. Wow, I didn't know collecting Maps was a thing! I guess you can collect anything! Great job on getting them sold.

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    1. There isn't anything in the universe that isn't collected by someone. My niece's husband collects antique yard sticks and has enough that he covered the walls of his office with them.

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  11. For someone like me who has never been drawn to collecting things (well, maybe varieties of daylilies), your downsizing process is a revelation. I had no idea that there were so many different kinds of items that people collect!

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    1. I haven't even named everything I collect and still have to sell. LOL

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  12. I love looking at maps! What a cool collection. And that tip about freezers and bread and baking soda? I have several old books that will be getting that treatment soon! Thanks!

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    1. The older the map, the more fun they are to read.

      I always used charcoal instead of baking soda but supposedly it works just as good and isn't as messy as the charcoal. I had a box set up to do books in volume so, for me, I could line the airtight box with charcoal and had have raised racks above it to put the books on.

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