Dear Lee,

It’s time to clean out my file of bizarre collectibles sold in 2003: A fall auction in England saw the sale of a collection of scenes composed of taxidermied birds and small animals posed at dinner tables or funerals. The top price was over $38,756 for the scene, “The Death of Cock Robin.” An October auction in New York City offered an anti-Dracula kit that included silver bullets, prayer book, rosary, a holder for garlic flowers, holy water, and more. The early 20th-century kit brought $12,000. November featured an auction in Utah where an invitation to the 1895 hanging of a murderer sold for $1,705. In December a “preserved mermaid” was sold at an Internet auction for $2,990. It was a 19th-century figure of the type shown by P.T. Barnum as a sideshow attraction-it was actually a monkey from the waist up with an added fish tail. It sold with papers explaining that it was a genuine Japanese mermaid. The headstones for three pets that once belonged to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s extended family auctioned in New York for (get price).

None of these are very likely to be displayed in our living room, but they are all great conversation pieces. One fall auction did include an item we could have displayed. In the 1960s one of the most important American folk artists was Wilhelm Schimmel (1817-1890), who carved and painted large wooden eagles. Each sale was reported in the antiques press. We never bought one because at about $1,200 each, they were beyond our budget. We had not seen one for sale in many years until an October auction in Pennsylvania offered a 7-inch-high Schmimel eagle with original paint and good provenance for $33,000. We still don’t have one-they’re still too expensive.