Web auctions and e-mail banter uncover items ranging from an antique cane to a V-neck sweater
A recent eBay search for “Union College” revealed items including a printing press block with the College logo, a brass doorknob set and an old V-neck sweater.
“I’m on eBay right now and I don’t even know what I am bidding on,” said Jason Oshins ’87, a College trustee, president of the Alumni Association and collector of Union memorabilia.
Rare items purchased via Web auction sites like eBay or with help from tips traded in e-mail messages have bolstered the College’s Special Collections and private collections like Oshins’. A few top examples of items acquired with help from the Web: a cane given to former President Chester A. Arthur, two copies of a book published in 1873 called William H. Seward’s Travels Around the World and a rare book chronicling the lives of the Class of 1875.
The cane was acquired by the College and the books by Oshins, who gave a copy of the Seward book to President Stephen C. Ainlay at his inauguration in September.
“We are acquiring things through unconventional means that we never would have known about before,” said Thomas McFadden, a librarian at Schaffer Library. “It’s the world’s biggest flea market.”
The cane, dubbed “Chet’s Cane,” was purchased in October for $2,400 using private donations and money given by various College departments. McFadden was tipped off to the cane auction in an e-mail from Vince Guerra ’55, who knew of the auction house based in Salem, Mass. Guerra’s tennis playing partner, Hank Taron, owns the auction company and handed off a catalog to Guerra after a match one night last summer. While flipping through the index, Guerra noted Arthur’s cane and sent an e-mail to the College Relations Department.
“Through these e-mails I became aware that Union was interested in the cane. I put Tom in touch with my friend. I am delighted that Union has the cane,” Guerra said.
The 36-inch long cane was a gift to Arthur and was carved from ash wood taken from his family home in Fairfield, Vt. Arthur graduated from Union College in 1848 and served as the 21st president of the United States from 1881 to 1885. McFadden participated in the cane auction by phone last fall and later drove to Rockport, Maine, near Acadia National Park, to pick it up. “Rather than trust it to the mail, I decided to go get it myself,” McFadden said.
The cane will enhance to the College’s permanent collection of Arthur artifacts. Last September the College staged an exhibit in the Nott Memorial featuring items including photos, letters and a walnut desk used by Arthur during his tenure as a Civil War general. The cane was acquired after the exhibition ended.
McFadden has purchased items on eBay ranging from postcards to an old wooden eggcup decorated with an image of the Nott Memorial. And he is not alone on campus. Doug Klein, professor of economics and director of the Center for Converging Technologies, bought a slide rule engraved with the College logo in an eBay auction in 2004. Klein paid about $16 for the slide rule, which likely belonged to deceased alumnus William E. Fasake ’48.
Klein gave a lecture to alumni about five years ago that dealt partly with eBay. That’s when Oshins first considered searching eBay for Union items.
“I’m really proud of the stuff I’ve bought,” Oshins said. “I have a book published in 1891 by Leroy Press about the Class of 1875. The stories in it are just amazing. I got it from a guy in Tyler, Texas who had bought it at a bookstore in Arkansas. It is great when you get back something in Tyler, Texas. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
The College’s most prized artifacts are stored in the Special Collections section of Schaffer Library. Among them are the original Joseph Jaques Ramée drawings of campus, the “elephant folio” edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America and a rare 1922 edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses that is printed on handmade paper crafted in England.
Oshins has also obtained two copies a leather-bound book published in 1873 called William H. Seward’s Travels Around the World. Seward graduated from Union in 1820 and served as secretary of state under former President Abraham Lincoln and was responsible for negotiating the Alaska Purchase in 1867 for $7.2 million.
The book includes about 200 illustrations and recounts a two-year trip around the world Seward made after completing the Alaska Purchase, according to Thorn Books, a seller of rare and out-of-print books. Seward crossed the United States, visiting Mormon leader Brigham Young in Utah before stopping briefly in California. From there, Seward sailed to Japan, and later visited China, India, Palestine and Europe, according to the Thorn Books summary.