GOING, GOING, GONE. . .
GOING, GOING, GONE. . .
I've been trolling the online auction sites quite a bit lately. For a collector of fat-themed popstuff, the practice has proven quite fruitful. Comic postcards, ceramic figures, circus memorabilia, music - all the main repositories of plus-size imagery - can be found on these sites.
I first came upon 'em when a Hotbot search for "comic postcards" brought up a series of listings for eBay online. The page it sent me to had a list of illustrated cards, two with the phrase "fat humor" in the header. I clicked on the items in question, found a card that was new to me, and went about registering so I could bid on it.
Postcards were a good place to start because even in an auction setting, they're relatively cheap. Cartoon postcards by and large don't get a whole lot of respect; with the exception of a few artists (Donald McGill, Arthur Thiele), many don't even show up in the postcard price guides. Fine with me: I've bought more than twenty cards through auction, and the most I've spent on any one was five bucks.
From postcards, though, it was inevitable that I'd move into pricier items. First came the circus collectibles. Circus fat ladies are just part of that pantheon, but they frequently get swept up by fervid collectors of all things sideshow. Best I've been able to do on these have been reproductions, which themselves can lead to fierce bidding wars.
Most recently, I've taken to bidding on broader fat collectibles: ceramic figurines mainly, like salt-and-pepper shakers, pin trays, and the like - all with fat heroines. I tend to avoid the unattractive pieces (women in curlers and bathrobe, excessive caricaturizing) in favor of items that I wanna repeatedly look at. My newest acquisition: a reclining bottom-heavy beauty in bikini, red shoes and sunglasses, a book entitled "Life in the Fat Lane" in her hands. She's a pitcher. The liquid comes out of the top of her head.
The figure's reposing on a shelf right above my monitor, next to a ceramic fat lady (who looks like Dolly Dimples) from the "Wallace Berrie Circus" collectible series.
As auctions grow in popularity, the number of stories about rip-offs has been steadily increasing, too. Collectible guru Judith Katz-Schwartz (an attractive zaftig brunette who's appeared on tv's "Personal fx" program) has posted a series of guidelines for would-be auction-goers. The basic rules boil down to this: don't bid on somp'n without a posted picture; check the seller's feedback section before you make a bid. Sites like eBay usually have a place where previous buyers or sellers rate the people they've done business with. When you're talking more than a $2.50 postcard, it's wise to do the feedback section. I have to admit, I haven't consistently followed this rule, though.
I sometimes wonder what some of the sellers think about my purchases - or my emails asking them to remember me when they come across any good looking fat pieces. Do they see it as akin to Black collectibles, a hot ticket item even in its most racist permutations? Black collectible buyers can run the gamut from unrepentant bigots to scholars with an interest in the way Blacks have been depicted. Is there a comparable spectrum in my field?
Perhaps you learn to toss such questions aside when you work the antique/collectible market. Collectors, after all, are just as quirky as FAs.
Lord help us when you combine the two.
September, 1998
Copyright 1998 - Oakhaus Designs