This Month's Story

I like watching the Antiques Roadshow on television.

We don’t watch the original show that’s shown locally on Mondays; we are usually doing something then. We have more time on Sundays, and after watching the news, Stella and I switch to Mississippi TV and watch the repeat version of the show while eating supper in the breakfast nook in the kitchen.

We like the show because of the personal stories as well as the surprise in the seemingly immense values many of the objects are appraised for. They show that sometimes the most mundane inanimate objects around us have imbedded in their being stories of amazing vivacity.

But I find that sometimes the value of the stories that are told about the objects being appraised and the appraised monetary values have no relationship with one another. Let me make up an example:

“Ma’am, you say this belt buckle saved your father’s life in Korea?”

“Yes. A sniper at Inchon fired at him while he was trying to knock out an enemy tank. The belt buckle absorbed most of the blow and deflected the bullet enough so that he was only wounded. He was in the hospital for a year before he could came home, and we took care of him till he died last year. But he had a wonderful, wonderful life and we all loved him very much.”

“Well, I should tell you that there are on the market today a lot of belt buckles that have deflected enemy sniper fire in almost all our wars. And this has depressed their value. Unfortunately, the going price for Korean War buckles that have deflected bullets at this time is not very high, perhaps $200.

“As a point of information I should mention to our viewers, Revolutionary War belt buckles that have deflected British sniper bullets are much more in demand and have more value.

“However, I do have good news. Your father’s belt buckle is nickel-plated, which is quite rare. Most of the buckles I have seen that have deflected enemy bullets in the Korean War are brass.

“Plus, and this is especially interesting, I see that you have also brought the original box in which the belt buckle was issued. That’s absolutely wonderful. As I turn the box over, we can see that it has a little ten-digit number stamped on the side of the box.

“Now, these numbers are very important as they give us both the date and the place of manufacture. The numbers indicate that the box was made in Madison, Wisconsin that also is very rare. Most of the belt buckle boxes made during the Korean War were made in Amarillo, Texas.”

“Yes, my father always kept the buckle in tissues in that box in his dresser drawer in the bedroom. He was so very proud of it. He would take it out of the box, polish it till it shone like it was silver, then show it to the grandchildren when he told them the story. They loved it and asked him to tell the story over and over.

“They were very proud of him and what he did. I remember one of them won a city scholarship on an essay she wrote on her grandfather’s buckle. The day the mayor gave her the scholarship in a school ceremony, she brought the buckle with her to show everyone. She had polished it so bright I thought she’d wear off the plating.”

“That’s a wonderful story and adds a great deal of provenance to the buckle. Now for the surprise. In my estimation, a nickel-plated buckle that had deflected sniper bullets during the Korean War would sell at auction for between $12,000 and $15,000 dollars.”

“Oh, my goodness! I never would have believed that the buckle would be worth that much.”

“Well, it’s the Government Issue box that you have with the buckle that is really the key factor here. Having it and the proof it was made in Madison rather than Amarillo drives the value up immensely.

“In all my years, I have only seen two authentic Government Issue belt buckle boxes and they were not as near perfect condition as your box containing your father’s buckle nor did those boxes come from Madison.

“However, I should tell you this. A good part of the value of the actual buckle itself was destroyed when your father polished it. It is really too bad that he did that. Physical evidence of the original action is very important in evaluating belt buckles that have been hit by enemy fire.

“If he had kept it in its original beat-up appearance, that is, how it was when the bullet hit the buckle and wounded him, I feel positive that properly motivated buyers would easily bring its value up to as much as between $25,000 and $30,000.”

***

I thought of all this when my old pickup began giving me trouble a few months ago. When I went around looking at the new pickups and finally picked one out, I slowly came to realize that all of that woman’s memories that were wrapped up in her father’s buckle would barely buy a stripped version of my new pickup truck.

It’s a very old story of the real value of something not revealed by a dollar amount.

Five, ten years from now, my new truck may well have been traded in and forgotten. Whereas, any time she wants, the woman can go into the bedroom, open the drawer, and pull out and touch a little bit of her father contained in a beat up, but brightly shined, nickel-plated belt buckle lying inside the tissues of an old GI box that by quirk of fate was made in Madison, Wisconsin.