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Once Lois bought a bushel basket full of dirty, sooty,
but nevertheless attractive lamp shades at a second-hand
shop. She brought them home to the house on the corner of
Walton and Adams (near Rochester, Mich.) where she and Ben were living at the time
(c. 1958-59). Well, as she was unloading the day's finds
along came Margaret Moran. Lois sold Margaret all of the
shades for 25 cents each which was not a bad profit considering
that she probably hadn't paid more than $2.00 for the whole
basket-full. In turn Margaret sold them for $2.00 or $2.50
a piece.
Some time later one of the people to buy a few shades from
Margaret came back to buy more; in time another person asked
if he could get more of those shades, but by this time they
were all gone. As Margaret said, "Anyone who was interested
in art glass should have taken all at that price the
first time." You see, each of those shades was marked L.C.T
(Tiffany) and Margaret knew that when she sold them so cheap.
She didn't care about art glass and only wanted to get her
money out of them quickly so she could them buy "good early
pieces" instead.
[Lois' son David wrote this down from a conversation with Margaret Moran
on May 4, 1983. Margaret was a dealer, in Rochester, Mich., in the 1950 through
1970 in Colonial and Federal period antiques. The story also circulated
in the family with variants since the time of the transactions. In
one version Mrs. Moran sold the shades all at once to another
dealer who dealt in American art glass, knowing that they were worth more
but lacking connections to collectors in such items which were outside
of her customary areas of business.]
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