Worthologist Tom Carrier takes a look at buttons, ribbons and other memorabilia from the 1908 Democratic convention in Denver.

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A tiny sampling of the Obama souvenirs at the DNC

The last time Democrats held their national convention in Denver was a century ago in July 1908. Denver had fought hard to persuade the party to convene here. It paid the Democratic Party $100,000 and offered free use of its brand-new Denver Auditorium. The auditorium, at the time, was second only in size to Madison Square Garden in New York.

This week, the Denver Public Library and the Colorado Historical Society are exhibiting many old photographs, banners and programs from the 1908 convention. They show downtown streets crowded with delegates, along with parades, demonstrations, souvenir stands displaying political trinkets and trash—what today’s political junkies call “tchotchkes.”

On the political side, Colorado was trying to prove its progressiveness. Even though William Jennings Bryan, the party’s presidential nominee, was not in favor of women being given the right to vote, one of the Democratic delegates from Colorado was Mary C.C. Bradford, an educator and activist for women’s suffrage. Bradford was the first female delegate from the state to attend a national political convention. She joined four other women at the 1908 convention, a delegate from Utah and three alternates.

A 1908 ribbon

A collection of these ribbons, badges and purses was saved by a convention delegate, who took them back to New York and mounted them in a display case as a souvenir from his week in Denver. The display case eventually ended up in the possession of a New York antiques dealer, who brought it to Denver during the annual Worldwide Antique Show in the 1990s.

Native Coloradoan Kathy Genoff attended that show with her mother, who purchased the display case for Kathy as a birthday present for $195. This week, Kathy brought the items in the case to the WorthPoint exhibit at the American Presidential Experience. Genoff is a longtime political and women’s rights activist whose family arrived in Denver during the gold rush of 1859.

Worthologists Thom Pattie, Tom Carrier and Christopher Kent huddled with Genoff for more than an hour learning as much as they could about the history and gauging the likely market value of the items. Pattie, Carrier and Kent concurred that the contents of the display case could sell for thousands of dollars in the event that Genoff should ever decide to part with them.

WorthPoint’s Tom Carrier researching the value of Kathy Genoff’s 1908 convention collectibles

That seems unlikely. “I have a strong sense of Colorado, U.S. and women’s political history,” Genoff said. “These treasures from the 1908 convention in Denver spent most of the 20th century in New York City. Now that they’re finally back in Colorado, I don’t intend to let them ever leave home again.”

A historical footnote: A century ago, the general feeling was the time wasn’t right for women’s suffrage. Despite the fact that women in Colorado had been allowed to vote beginning in 1893, they had to wait fourteen more years to gain that right by federal law.

WorthPoint — The premier Web site for art, antiques & collectibles.

Is everyone really into collectibles as WorthPoint’s CEO Will Seippel so often says? Well, I’m beginning to believe it, and here’s why . . .

Tens of thousands of volunteers from across the country are in Denver this week helping keep things running smoothly during the Democratic National Convention. These volunteers are assigned randomly to venues such as the Pepsi Center, convention hotels, shuttle buses, concerts AND the American Presidential Experience at INVESCO Field, where WorthPoint has a display.

Two of these volunteers, Ida Taylor of Carson, Calif., and Vanessa Finley of Kansas City, Mo., were assigned to staff the WorthPoint display. As you might expect, both Ida and Vanessa are lifelong Democrats. But you might be surprised to learn—as I was—that both Ida and Vanessa are lifelong collectors, as well.

Volunteers Ida on the left and Vanessa on the right

Ida says that she collects “everything but the kitchen sink” but that her most-prized collectibles are Kewpie dolls. Kewpie dolls and figurines are based on comic-striplike illustrations by Rose O’Neill that appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal in 1909. The small dolls were extremely popular in the early 1900s.

Vanessa began collecting baseball cards as a child, and she’s kept at it. A St. Louis Cardinal fan, she has complete sets of cards (no pun intended) from Manager Whitey Herzog’s pennant-winning Cardinals teams of the 1980s. Vanessa’s favorite, though, is a 1950 card of New York Yankee great and Hall of Famer Yogi Berra. Vanessa caught the collecting bug from her mother, and she’s passed it along to her two young daughters. Nine-year-old Piper has a Pokeman collection, and five-year-old Marlowe has a collection of toy animals for her Little Pet Shop.

Vanessa were pleasantly surprised that they had been assigned to our WorthPoint display. “I don’t think there was anything random at all about it,” says Ida. “Everything happens for a reason.”

WorthPoint — The premier Web site for art, antiques & collectibles.

DNC collectibles, serious to silly

You don’t need to hit downtown Denver post offices to pick up a collectible DNC commemorative envelope issued by the United States Postal Service.

The city’s 9News tells us that envelopes, which “feature cachet images of the downtown Denver skyline shown either during the day or night,” may be purchased through the mail (how else?). Send a check or money order (payable to Postmaster) to DNC collectible envelope, Denver Main Post Office, 951 20th Street,Denver, CO 80202-9998.

The price is $10 for each envelope. Indicate whether you want the night or day shot. And, of course, include your return address.

Of a sillier nature, a store in Denver, Fancy Tiger Crafts, is selling kits for making a felted-wool bust of Barack Obama. In about three or four generations, this could be an important collectible. Or not.

The Denver Post also reports that there are 40 vendors selling every manner of DNC memorabilia and merchandise on the city’s downtown 16th Street Mall—bumper stickers, buttons, T-shirts, Abe Lincoln hats, one of which Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper sported at the opening ceremony of the American Presidential Experience.

Captain Cook, explorer and collector

Captain James Cook, the intrepid 18th-century explorer, landed in New Holland—that’s Australia to us—in 1770. He took away with him an aboriginal boomerang. He never figured out what it was for and couldn’t ask the aborigines since, being no fools, they fled whenever they spotted Cook and his crew.

Cook’s widow—he died in a battle with Hawaiians in 1779—kept the strange object. It was passed from one inheritor to another through the centuries out of public view until now.

Reuters UK reports that today’s possessor of the boomerang is putting it up for auction at Christie’s, London, September 25, where it is estimated to sell for more than $100,000.

Wondered if it remained unused through all those the years.

Bling, bling, bling goes the auction

Are you a hip-hop wannabe who wants to dress the part? If so, do we have the auction for you.

Sassybella.com , which bills itself as the chronicler of “fashion news and gossip with a sprinkling of lighthearted beauty tidbits and flashbacks to fashion’s illustrious past,” has the lowdown on the Phillips de Pury sale of such goodies as jewelry owned by 50 Cent Daddy, Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G. and a lot of other biggies in the hip-hop constellation.

Speaking of constellation, you probably can spot from outer space Lil’ Jon’s diamond pendant necklace that weighs 12 pounds and tells us “Crunk Ain’t Dead.” In case you’re not familiar with crunk, it’s a hip-hop genre. Beyond that, you’ll have to Google it yourself.