Crescent City Auction — A 1915 Rex crown and scepter

After school yesterday, my son and his friends spent over an hour trying to dislodge Mardi Gras beads stuck high in a playground tree. Sometimes they worked as a team, one throwing sticks at a dangling strand while another shook the corresponding branch. Otherwise they worked alone, devising more elaborate strategies involving shoes and rocks.

What struck me was not just their intensity, but their singular focus on the task itself. They were so engrossed that they forgot to establish what would happen once a bead finally came loose. Something primordial had taken over, and there was no stopping it. This wasn’t about the reward, but rather the thrill of the hunt. And the broken, blackened beads were prey.

There are many deeply imprinted instincts that still drive us all today, even grown-ups. For me, auctions are where I feel most at one with my gathering ancestors. To collect and beautify feels just as much a part of me as my desire to eat. Now add in the danger, and adrenaline of bidding, and it’s like I am right back in the cave! The competition becomes more than consumption; it taps into something older, something that pushes us beyond eating and surviving and into striving and caretaking.

Lucky for me, Crescent City Auction will host its Winter Estates Auction this Thursday and Friday. Among the 750 beautiful auction items are works by George Dunbar, Pre Columbia Aztec art, a 1915 Rex crown and scepter and Giltwood Bed Canopy Adam Lambert of Crescent City Auction adds, “Some of the pieces in the auction, like the 96-inch Gibson guitar display, you will just never see anything like that again.” It’s just this kind of energy and urgency that makes us feel human and alive!

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Here are a few of my favorite lots. Happy bidding!