From The Associated Press:
Custom chopper signed by Obama to be auctioned

It’s the United States Chopper built by Hardcore Choppers. It has a six-speed transmission and a powerful 150-horsepower engine. AND it will be autographed by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. The motorcycle goes under the gavel September 23 to 25 with proceeds to help military families. Rev up your bidding engines.

From The Berkshire Eagle:
Auction of Nazi items called off

If auction house owner Dolores Meissner had checked her calendar, she might have seen that last Saturday was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for Jews. It was, perhaps, not the best day to be auctioning Nazi memorabilia. Meissner discovered that after being inundated with e-mails and calls demanding she pull the items. Not sure if she legally could, she did find a loophole and removed the items from the sale.

From The New York Times:
In a Toy Shop, a Sanctuary for Nostalgia

If you have a thing for toy collectibles, you might want to check out Burlington Toys the next time you’re in New York City. It’s brimming with such treasures as “a 100-year-old platoon of French Napoleonic soldiers crafted by Lucotte (one just sold for $1,800), a set of Confederate infantry fashioned in France by Mignot (for which a buyer paid $280) or Briton-made Victorian-era lifeguards in crested hats (rarely available, and $200 each).” Among proprietor Steve Balkin’s customers are Bruce Springsteen, Robin Williams and George Herbert Walker Bush.

From BBC News:
Portsmouth’s ‘haunted’ manor house fails to sell

Calling the Ghostbusters. Written about in the 1086 Domesday Book and featured on TV’s “Most Haunted,” bidders may have been scared away by Wymering Manor’s reputation of being inhabited by specters. No one came up with the $585,000 reserve.

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Common or scarce? Political buttons were created for campaigns, for issues, even for special events—or sometimes just because. With so many different kinds of political campaign buttons available since they were first created in 1896, and more than 3,000 for the Obama campaign alone, how can you know which ones to collect? I spoke with Mark Evans of Collectors Archive of Avon, New York, a long time political collectibles dealer, about the tried and true method of determining what is collectible.

“An awful lot of it is supply and demand and the graphic appeal of the item,” Evans says. “There is a wonderful button of Teddy Roosevelt with draped flags in his Rough Rider hat when he ran for Governor in 1898, but it’s very common. There were thousands and thousands of them made.” But, because of Teddy’s outsized personality, collector’s demand for this particular button has pushed the value for this relatively common button higher.

A more recent example of this phenomenon is the “In Your Heart, You Know He’s Right” campaign button of the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign of 1964. The satirical buttons of this campaign, such as “In Your Guts, You Know He’s Nuts” or “In Your Heart, You Know He’s Right – Far Right” also have values much higher than the supply.

With 3,000 buttons for the Obama campaign alone, how do we determine what is valuable as a collectible? Look for buttons that were used for a one day event, Evans says. Buttons of this sort were made in much more limited quantities, usually by local clubs or commercial companies and so their value remains high. Also, look to a candidate’s initial runs for political office. A Joe Biden campaign button for president in 1988, for example, now sells for $20 to $50 when just recently it was only about $2.

Matched pairs are also collectible. This is a commercially produced button series where both the president and vice president candidates are each produced on a separate button. Collectors go out of their way to find the mates, producing an instant collectible.

“Another factor,” Evans says, “is how well a button is made.” Evans shows a 1980 campaign button for Ronald Reagan where the graphic, while interesting and unusual, was poorly made. Spots, or foxing, started appearing on the paper reducing its value considerably. On the other hand, an interesting or unusual illustration, where the colors are bright and the quality is good, will only increase in value as a collectible over time.

So, to find value in political buttons, it is more than supply and demand. An unusual or catchy campaign slogan, buttons used for one-day events, early campaign buttons of elected presidents and vice presidents, matched pairs of candidates produced commercially, and unusual buttons that are well made. These are all factors in finding continued value in political button collectibles.

Still, there is one last thing to remember when collecting political buttons that tends to make all the difference. “As a collector, you should collect what you like,” Evans counsels. Hard to do in politics, but this is really the last word in collectible political buttons.

Watch a video with Tom Carrier talking to Mark Evans about political buttons here.

Tom Carrier is a general Worthologist, with an expertise in a wide variety of subjects.

WorthPoint: Get the Most from Your Antiques & Collectibles.

This 1-inch Iowa button comes from Senator Biden’s short-lived 2008 presidential campaign. He dropped out after finishing a distance fifth in the Iowa caucuses. There also exists similar buttons with the outlines of New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. From the time of his withdrawal to immediately prior to Obama selecting Biden as his running mate, this button was worth about $2. Now, there is renewed interest in Biden buttons. The current value of this button is:

A. $5
B. $10
C. $20

Recently on Ebay, a letter signed by 41 Democratic Senators including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joe Biden and Barbara Boxer. It sold on Ebay for $2.1 million to benefit the Marine corps Law Enforcement Foundation. They will provide scholarships for children of those killed in action, according to the buyer, the Eugene B. Casey Foundation.

The cover page said, in part, “Although Americans of goodwill debate the merits of this war, we can all agree that those who serve with such great courage deserve our deepest respect and gratitude. That is why Rush Limbaugh’s recent characterization of troops who oppose the war as “phony soldiers” is such an outrage.”

The letter was significant because it specifically took exception to Limbaugh’s use of the words “phony soldiers” when referring to those in uniform who advocate US withdrawal from Iraq on his radio call-in show. Many op-ed pieces and articles later appeared from soldiers who also vehemently disagreed with the phrase, including some 82nd Airborne soldiers (of whom I was once one myself) serving in Iraq who wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times strongly disagreeing with that phrase. Two of the contributors to that article were subsequently killed in action in Iraq within a week of the op-ed article’s release.