Treasures of Pasadena: Name It, This Sale Seems to Have It

As I have for 20 years, I stopped in for a preview of the biennial Treasure Sale conducted by the women of the Pasadena Art Alliance as a fund-raiser for various Southland art projects.

They call it Deja Vu , since most of the thousands of articles they have for sale seem to come out of our own pasts, recent or distant. In fact, the women tell me, many have been sold and resold at this same sale.

The sale this year occupies the ground floor of a new office building at 301 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena. There were no ceilings or lighting yet, so an electrician was installing lights on poles when I arrived.

As usual, a benign chaos prevailed. Women were sorting and pricing donated objects, many of which were hard to classify. A dining table had been set up in the living room for a basket lunch.

In jewelry, the expert was fingering rings, necklaces and cameos, separating gold, silver and gemstones from junk. (Not that the junk wouldn’t sell.)

In the book section, the librarian was trying to alphabetize fiction. Sets of the Durants’ Story of Civilization, Jane Austen’s novels and sets of Kipling, Dickens and Sir Walter Scott were already shelved. Side by side I found Algebra 1 and the complete works of John Bunyan, including a facsimile of his will.

In the living room were the classier objets d’art. “Ojay dahr,” the curator said. A porcelain Aphrodite (or was it Daphne?); gilded Oriental carvings on small framed screens, vases, lamps, a Greek or Roman head, brass candelabra.

“Somebody bought everything in this place,” someone said. “They looked at, liked it and bought it.”

In another room a woman was examining a globe of the world. “Amazing what people will buy,” she said.

Someone pointed out a work by the artist Laddie John Dill. It was about the size of a house window, made of what appeared to be shards of stained glass set in wood and cement. I was told its price would be “in the thousands.” It was on consignment. That is, the alliance would get 35% and the owner 65% of its sale price.

In the den I found a comfortable leather chair. A Danish modern roll-top desk stood nearby. Five carved eagles rampant hovered over a low table. It was covered with glass or marble balls. Evidently they had been donated by the heirs of a man who liked balls. On a high shelf gleamed the skeleton of some animal’s head: A crocodile? A camel? A horse? “We think it’s an alligator,” someone said.

In the bric-a-brac section, one table was covered with ceramic, clay or plaster ducks, rabbits, geese, dogs, cats, a pigeon and a peacock. A plaster cat, black and white, appeared to be snoozing in a canvas deck chair. It looked real. A small boy petted it. Why, I wondered, would anybody have a fake cat when real cats were so commonplace?

The children’s room was in heroic disorder. Toys all over the floor. Play cars were overturned. The reason was easy to see. Two small children had been turned loose in it. “It works,” said the woman in charge.

I was fascinated by an object on a table among other odd objects. It was two steel rings, one inside the other, with balls, or weights, fixed at intervals on each. They kept turning on their axes. It was not electronic. But the motion did not slow. It seemed to be a perpetual-motion machine, but I know perpetual motion is impossible.

“It never stops,” a woman told me.

A pith helmet stood alone on a rattan table. Another table seemed to hold the objects of a seafaring man: barometer, compass, thermometer, clock and miniature diver’s helmet.

The large room across the lobby was inundated with every imaginable kind of household object--from ovens and refrigerators to luggage, sporting goods, tools and a Ping-Pong table, complete with paddles and balls.

A tin tray commemorating the coronation of King Edward VIII hung on the wall. A colored picture of Edward in crown and ermine robe was printed on it.

I doubled back to check the perpetual-motion machine. It was still turning, its speed undiminished.

“I don’t understand it,” I said.

“At night, when we’re asleep,” the woman at my side said, “it stops.”

As I was leaving, I held the door open for a woman who was coming in with a lamp in one hand and a shade in the other.

“They have already enough lamps,” I told her.

“I can believe it,” she said, and moved on in, undismayed.

The public sale will be Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the northwest corner of Lake Avenue and Locust Street, in Pasadena.