Show CURIOS CURIOS WORTH FORTUNES f Enormous Sums That People Pay for Small Articles Philadelphia Press Pre s Economic annals tell teU us that in Sn the tho last halt hale of or the thirteenth century centUra a pig could be bought in Venice for 50 cents and that hens were sold In Inthe the th Paris markets at 2 cents each How times have hae changed In odd od f years y ars Only last July Jul F AV W Yo Martin of i Beloit WIs Is paid raid farmer of I I Independence Mo 10 for a blooded pig and in the closing month of 1907 A J Cheek of Henderson N C paid 1 for a buff Orpington I Ihen hen raised by G G Shoemaker of I York Pa l Anti Ana triese things nave been quite characteristic of recent financial his history tory panics and currency curr nc ney stringencies les lesto to the contrary notwithstanding Dol Dollar Dollar Dollar lar wheat has become an tale whisky has soared to a gallon this tills to balance the growth of prohibition i tion lion news and Mrs Irs W V K Vanderbilt set a new highwater mark for o tea i when she calmly paid 1000 francs for a cup at a French charity charlt fair i Furniture and anti knickknacks have done nicely too A seat on the New NewYork NewYork NewYork York stock exchange has changed own on owners owners ers for and the unpronounceable ble monarch of faraway Slam Siam during i i his Berlin visit last August gave up upa a little matter of for a gold i and thimble i If It benevolence eccentricity i or prompts such purchases as these one may not trace to such causes the Ule record prices i paid of late for those rarities of lit art artand artand I and lIterature Inch have hae become b come the recognized prizes of wealthy collect collectors ors The auction rooms of the year i have been especially rich in famous ramous paintings sold at famous figures The TIle j world wonders onders less at the prices paid than that buyers should seem so easy to find under such con conditions conditions Popular subscription raised for tor the Velasquez Venus and the Mirror now to be seen in London National gallery In August the Du bought In the Kann Kanu pictures for j jOne One of recent sales sates of ot en engravings engravings produced five Instances of oZ re remarkable reI remarkable increases In market values In the collection of Wilfrid Wiltrid Lawson four portraits that had originally been issued at each fetched as the British papers put it il respectively 2050 and 1000 Mr Ir Law Lawson Lawson Lawson son had bought these for a total of Greens engravings of Rey Iley Reynolds Reynolds Mrs Sarah Campbell issued i it less legs than 2 and bought by b Lawson or 10 was waa knocked down dawn for 1050 Which Is la almost sat aj o good moneys money mone moneymaking making as the fate Minister Mh Conger could tell of During the Boxer days In China he bought a rug for tor 90 which he tie sold In Chicago for The bargain of years ear however prom promises promIses to have just come to light The dispatch telling the story dated from Brussels on December 20 W reads What is declared to be an authentic tic Van Dyck has hats been found In a bun buti bundle bundle dle die of miscellaneous tm lately sold soldat soldat soldat at auction at the old convent nt of munster at Bruges It is a portrait of the artists sister Ister who was a nun nunat nunat nunat at The buyer paid a franc for the lot The Tue portrait Is In excellent Twenty Tw nt for a genuine Van Dyck And then a London second secondhand secondhand secondhand hand book dealer bought at waste pa paper paper paper per value a copy of Gabriel Thomas History of Pennsylvania and West Vest New Jersey which went at for SOO Small wonder that a certain Chinese merchant has offered his government 1500 1300 a year forthe for the monopoly of col collecting collecting collecting all alt the waste paper In the thc Kwong Chow and Shiu King prefectures prefectures prefectures tures Me make firecrackers Is his excuse but It is obvious he dreams of colonial pamphlets and old masters The event of or the tho past few months in those usually dingy rooms where the great book prizes of the literary world pass from coin owner to owner was un nfl unquestionably unquestionably questionably the sale of the Internationally internationally famous Lampson copy for Well Vt below this in value yet its peer pe r in Interest was the discovery and sale In June of ofa ofa ofa a first edition of Yorke and Lancas Lancaster ter a venerable drama said to have hate been k the tho tJ e inspiration WIra for The Immortal 1 mo Wills Henry IV It brought I a tidy the only other copies known be being beIng beng ing ng in the at Oxford and the British museum museumS S Half a dozen manuscripts of peculiar Interest and value have figured in the auction room contests of late The high highest highest highest est price of any fell felt to a mediaeval ac account account account count of old St Cuthbert of oC Lindisfarne Its beautiful illuminations bringing at the close of a spirited finan financial financial cial debate Second place came cameto cameto to King William Ills brutal order for forthe forthe forthe the extermination of the te t e The Massacre of oC Glencoe which cost its purchaser just for its wicked words The T past ast years big prices have reached even to teeth and hair In such cases everything depends on the answer to a laconic Who for it H was vas as a mo me molar molar lar hat of Sir Isaac Newtons which brought 1400 a similar relic of Bonaparte had to go at for want of or greater finan financial financial cial appreciation The hair was Charles Dickens a lock of it changing hanging hands for 40 In which connection Is sug suggests suggest suggests gest itself that many man a manless eel cel would gladly gI pay pay ay at that rate for his own If f It could be put back baek The purely personal value attaches to many of the items Hems It ms recently disposed of Thus in a NewYork auction room 1000 was obtained for a bonnet fash lash fashioned fashioned for the imperial and arid aged head of oC Chinas clever dowager and a brok teapot once used by the eloquent elo Burke was considered cheap at 21 though a better one for mere tea making was to be had anywhere for as many pennies Similarly ah an agate match box less Jess than three Inches long Ions was ivas sold in Ber Berlin Berlin Berun lin un last May for that total being reached pot because of Its gold gota setting or 01 even for Its tiny rose diamonds but purely because it had ha once Inspired that famous German Getman tract Satan icus by b a mediaeval prototype pc of Lon Lou dons Father Vaughan The highest price ever paid for a sin single single gle Ie coin wafe wak wa recorded In the adles iles of last June when In Philadelphia a doubloon went for tor The same rome nth across the English channel the tilE I first Rose crown ever offered at pub public public lic lie auction brought 1100 the piece was coined in 1526 by b special order of or Henry VIII and was seen through the royal mint by Wolsey himself If It all this tills sounds of oC the collector class of mere academic appreciation backed by endless dollars there is II yet Pt another side to the talc tale For L B Coxe of or FrankIin Ind md has sold a a sin lIn single single lIngle gle ear of corn for which figures down to exactly 20 cents a kernel and Oscar Vanderbilt disposed of the entire apple crop of or his farm farm near Portland Ore for a price which reckons Out at ata ata ata a shade more than tha 11 ii I cents an an apple |