Even when they’re not particularly long and dreary, New England winters tend to be pretty darned long and dreary. And January, expected thaw aside, is just one big, gaping, 31 day drag. There’s just no way you can X off those days fast enough to get you through to February when there’s all kinds of good stuff like Groundhog Day, the evening’s staying light later, and the odd crocus peeping it’s little headie out.
And then comes the decidedly marvelous news that, later this week, a couple of photos of Lady Di are going to be auctioned off.
There’s this one of the pre-glam Diana chillin’ with a pal at just about the time that her engagement to Prince Charles was made public. This is from the time when she was just plain, old vanilla Diana Spencer, step-granddaughter of the far more famous Barbara Cartland, who wrote all those ghastly romance novels that looked reality-based next to the Diana-Charles “fairytale”. The extra good news for those who have perhaps been priced out of the Diana memorabilia market, the minimum bid for this photo is a mere $200.
Fast forward a few years, and here’s our girl more coiffed, dyed, and made up – and sporting that definite late-1980’s look – looking mighty pensive. Perhaps because she’s attending a marriage 
conflict resolution seminar. It must have been part of HRH’s royal duties, because the minimum bid for this is only $100. Surely, if the marriage conflict resolution were her own, personal marriage conflict resolution seminar, and that arm belonged to the very Prince of Wales, sitting there wishing he were Camilla’s tampon, or whatever wishful thinking he used to engage in, this snap would demand more than $100.
(Years ago, a non-profit I’m involved with was given a donation of a Princess Di gown. Visions of big bucks danced in our heads but, alas, we got about one-third of what we’d fantasized getting. Can’t remember whether it was before or after Diana’s death, but the value wasn’t all that great, mainly because she had an awful lot of gowns, and ours hadn’t been used for any spectacular occasion.)
Anyway, I’m wondering just who would be willing to pay $100 or $200 for a photograph that they could, well, just print off this blog and frame up for themselves. I mean, it’s not as if it’s an original Matthew Brady shot of dead Union soldiers. Or an Alfred Stieglitz shot of Paris.
But you never know.
If I remember to look it up, I will be interested in seeing how much these snapshots go for.
RR Action, up in Amherst NH, is doing the honors on the Di pic sale, and it’s definitely worth looking at the other stuff they have on offer.
Good stuff like a tube of juice that Yuri Gagarin took into space.
And signed calling cards of famous folks like Thomas Edison, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Gago Coutinho.
Gago Coutinho, you may be asking yourself:
Aviation pioneer (1869–1959) who was the first to cross the South Atlantic Ocean by air in 1922. Original personal calling card bearing Coutinho’s name, 3.5 x 2, signed in fountain pen, “Gago Coutinho,” and dated October 1931. In fine condition.
Then there are all sorts of photos being auctioned off, including a handful of shots of “Hippies” (minimum bid for 20 snaps: $200).
Groovy!
I will say that all this is just the kind of crap that, if I stumbled across it in a junk antique shop, I’d completely scoop up for a few bucks, tuck it somewhere, and, when I stumbled across it a few years later, I’d be scratching my head wondering why and what.
Interesting stuff, nonetheless.
Bid away on those Diana photos…
Source for article on auction: Boston.com
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