Photo Credit | By JOE NICKELL of the Missoulian
|
Enter the fascinating world of the Appraiser Chronicles!
Timothy Gordons’ Appraisal Chronicles are a collection of writings detailing his personal impressions of poignant and unusual stories encountered over the course of his career. Internationally recognized appraiser Timothy Gordon has devoted his life to pursuing rare, valuable, and historically important items. His adventures have brought him to encounter strange, wonderful, and bizarre situations across the globe. Whether re-discovering a lost Old Master painting, evaluating fine estate possessions, or navigating fabulous museum collections, he has learned that the true story is never about the object itself. It is more about the fascinating lives of it’s original owners whether they be dead or alive. All characters appearing in these works are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. However, Timothy Gordon’s life experiences are very real and interesting and whenever possible, he shares in these chronicles, glimpses from his adventures ….but of course he must be and always is confidential for his clients. |
The Carousel
It was a very cold morning in January, 2004 when he called. His number was displayed on the caller id. I had contemplated not answering, before I finally hit the “on” button. A call from him generally meant hours of talking, or that he had some “urgent” need for an intense favor, about nothing important at all. He was a lot of work, as friends go and he could be a real Jekyll and Hyde…one minute he was brilliant and charming … and the next, too impossible to deal with.
He had inherited millions of dollars, so he had never had to work. To compound this personal dilemma, he had also been involved in an accident in his twenties, which had put him into a wheelchair. The stories about the accident ranged from a motorcycle wreck, to something more mysterious. However it happened, he had time on his hands; so he liked to sit up through the night and into the daylight of morning, drinking and talking to friends about everything…about nothing. It could not be called “idle chit-chat”, as the level and the topics were intense, witty, maudlin charming, dangerous. It was a draining experience, unless you yourself uncorked a bottle to get you through it, then it became more of a defining conversation. ...continued at the link below. |
Coming Home
It was early in the morning and my coffee was cold, as I drove the long drive away from my appraisal at the State Museum in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I had been down there several weeks and was just now unwinding from it all.
Appraising the most treasured possessions of an entire state is mind blowing. The museum director had requested that I select out the most valuable pieces for appraisal. Being in a bit of a trance, I rolled open the deep, cool museum drawers filled with Sacred Indian artifacts. There were the long “lost” possessions of the famous Indian Chief Washakie …. his painted elk robe detailing a dozen heroic and brutal battle kills; his pipe tomahawk, cool to the touch and covered with brass tack work and his sacred medicine bundle, housed in a buffalo testicle bag. From another drawer, I carefully withdrew the electrically charged treasures of Buffalo Bill Cody… pulling out his guns, his hat, his thigh high leather boots. I placed them delicately into a charcoal gray archival storage box, which I placed alongside his soft, deer-hide fringed shirt. The poem by e.e. cummings came to mind as I examined them... ...continued at the link below. |
Short Stories
...Below are samplings of things that have happened to me in my career. Please let me know via email, which one of the unwritten chronicles listed below you wish to have me write next!
Story #1 My afternoon with (Princess) Diana at Kensington Palace: It was unusual that the gown, a rich velvet treasure created by Katherin Walker, famous London designer and friend to Diana had been worn several times by Diana and not laundered. Her DNA was visible on the fabric at the collar, under the arms. It felt so strange to hold the gown up before me in the damp dimly lit room. It was eery, as if she was standing very close before me….I took the black light and began a slow up and down inspection, seeing if the light would reveal to me secrets of the construction of the amazing fabric. Katherin was such a perfectionist that she was known to design the very fabrics and have them woven in her shops for Diana…I reached the area where her knees had once pressed back against the crushed velvet, and I suddenly notices odd little clusters of five – round indentations per cluster were into the velvet at knee level. I spent several minutes trying to decipher them…and then it came to me. These were created by tiny little hands, Prince William with grubby little hands had been hugging his mother’s knees. ...continued at the link below. |
