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By Zenitha Prince
Many people throughout the Baltimore-Washington-Virginia “Antiques Roadshow,” which travels around the country helping
region are sitting on goldmines and they don’t people appraise their antiques. “We really don’t have a clue because
even know it. These ores of gold aren’t obvi- we are so busy being consumers.”
ous—they don’t have a trail of clues leading Merrill, founder and president of Nanny Jack & Co., a “one-
to them nor do they bear signs saying stop shop” for products and services related to African-American
“Pot of gold right here” or anything— history and culture, said people often overlook seemingly ordinary
rather, they are hidden. Hidden under items, missing their historic and or monetary value. Many of the
skeins of cobwebs and the flotsam items in his collection, he said, were obtained from dumpster div-
of years, sometimes centuries, of liv-
ing; hiding in old leather trunks, worn
packing boxes and in the quotidian ordi-
nariness of your grandma’s col-
Shows like “Antiques Roadshow”
lectibles. But mostly, said
and e-Bay have really changed the
one antiques appraiser,
treasures are hidden
world when it comes to selling col-
under the dust cloud
of people’s ignorance
lectibles and artifacts...if you scan it
of their history.
“We don’t know
and pop it up on e-Bay people might
our history and
get into a bidding frenzy over it.
when you don’t
know your histo-
ry, you don’t
know ing.
what’s “A four-page handwritten letter on letterhead from Frederick
valuable,” Douglass found in an Anacostia, D.C., home; a letter from Zora
said Dr. Neale Hurston that was found in a Baltimore home in the trash
Philip can...a document from the Baltimore chapter of the UNIA on
Merrill, the floor about to be thrown away, sterling silver, wedding photo
a former albums, rare books....these are the types of items that help to tell
appraiser
for PBS’
Continued on page 17
Philip Merrill, founder of Nanny Jack & Co. and a former antiques
appraiser of PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow” shows off some of the arti-
facts in his collection.
Photos by Zenitha Prince
16 Trends A publication of the Afro-American Newspapers
TTrends Summer 2007.indd 16rends Summer 2007.indd 16 55/29/07 12:21:22 PM/29/07 12:21:22 PM
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