It's No Inverted Jenny

There is an unmistakable smell that tends to attach itself to old houses. A bit of musty charm with a hint of aging wood and perhaps some remnants of “old-lady” perfume had settled itself to this particular house. With a strong side of mothballs.

Which is why Ellie Scoggins sat as close to the front window as possible, letting a cool, spring morning breeze cleanse her sinuses. She had been on sorting duty in the basement this morning. This basement was nothing short of a small disaster, but the reward in the end was worth it to her. That reward which she excited to settle in to peruse through.

Books.

Ellie’s mother, Laura, was an estate buyer and antique dealer. What started out as a fun hobby of collecting antiques here and there quickly turned into a full-time profession and somewhat of a family business. Over the years, Ellie’s dad had officially been deemed the “Junk Hunk” as he was the muscle that was sometimes needed when moving old china cabinets. Since buying estates only refers to the contents of the house rather than the house itself, Laura was the one who would make a deal for the contents within so that the family would have an empty home to sell later. Ellie was the part-time help who would sort through items. Everything was divided into items to be kept for her mom’s antique business and items to be sold in the estate sale at the end of the week. It was amazing what people would leave behind. To them, the rest was junk. To Ellie’s mom, it was treasure.

The basement where Ellie had been working was like a step back in time, with stacked furniture and boxes left untouched for years. After a long morning of sifting through the dusty corners of that cellar, Ellie was anxious to take a little break and start picking out her “payment” for her day of work. She and her mom had agreed to trade labor for items from the estates that they worked together. Ellie was fresh into her twenties and just getting out on her own, so she appreciated it when she could score something like kitchen appliances or a cool mid-century style lamp.

Ellie settled in by the bookcase next to the window in the front room and pulled down an armful of books. She gently laid them into a neat stack onto the carpet and began to flip through them. She found that you can tell a lot about a person just from what they kept on their shelves. For example, Dorris, the woman who used to live here, loved to travel. There were old road maps and atlases mixed in between books about other states and countries. While the family of Dorris had already collected their heirlooms and family photos, there was an occasional photo of her stuck within the pages from her own travels. One thing that Ellie’s mother had taught her early on when she started helping her with these jobs - to always flip through every old book left behind on a shelf. You never know what you’ll find, she told her. Letters, old photos...or maybe cash!

Ellie had heard plenty of stories of antique dealers finding envelopes of cash tucked away in books before, but she and her mother had yet to ever come across a find of their own. However, discovering little oddities that were tucked away in pages was still endlessly fascinating to Ellie. She once found part of an old train ticket stub from the London Underground. It was probably worthless, but to Ellie it was just a neat bookmark to keep.

Ellie continued going through the pile of books and found one about stamp collections. She quickly flipped it open. Particles of dust flew from its pages, tickling her nose a bit and causing her to sneeze.

“Gesundheit!” came a muffled reply from somewhere upstairs.

She sniffed and continued through her pile of books. Stamp collecting, coin collecting, historical fine art… interesting books for the collecting type, which Ellie was not. She set them aside.

“Hey El,” her mom called from the stairs, “I’m gonna need a hand here in a second.”

“Okay, on the way,” she replied, hopping up from the nest of books that now surrounded her. As she reached the top of the stairs, she turned a corner into the master bedroom where her mom had been working. “Oof,” Ellie mumbled. The walls were a busy blend of overly bright colors and paisley. It reminded her of a terrible shirt that her uncle would sometimes wear to family gatherings.

“What?” asked Laura.

“Just...questioning the wallpaper in here.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, it’s loud,” she agreed, “Kind reminds me of those awful shirts that Uncle Tom wears, doesn’t it?”

Ellie giggled.

“Okay,” Laura sighed as she surveyed the room, “So most of what’s in here can stay for the estate sale this weekend, but I’m thinking of taking this headboard back to the shop so I can repaint it and put it with the rest of the display. What do you think?”

It was a simple enough headboard - an ornate oak border with some nice upholstery work done in the middle. Knowing her mom, she’d have it painted up something chic and cool in no time. “Yeah that looks like it has some potential,” Ellie agreed.

“Okay. Well I need some help getting it down the stairs, think you can handle that? If not, I can wait until Dad shows up and he can-”

“Nah, we can get it.”

“I knew I could count on you,” her mom smiled. “Okay, you take that side and we’ll need to tilt it up a bit on it’s side to get around this corner here.”

Carefully, they maneuvered the old headboard from out behind the bed. Once they reached the doorway, the two coordinated their movements to tilt it up on its side to get into the hall. As they lifted it up, there was a distinct sound of something sliding from within the middle of the headboard and coming to a halting thunk at the end.

Ellie and Laura froze, both suddenly looking up at each other with wide eyes.

“Did you hear that?” her mom asked, almost a whisper.

“I sure did.”

They carefully sat the headboard down in the hall. Her mom quickly began examining the headboard. “Oh, Ellie, this is it. I think this might be it!”

The “it” that her mom was referring to was every antique dealer’s dream - the ol’ bag o’ cash. Dealers spent years digging through musty old houses like this one, checking every nook and cranny for some valuable piece of history that might get left behind. A rare painting left behind in the corner closet, a letter signed by JFK, or shoebox of fine jewelry in the bottom drawer of an old dresser.

Together, Ellie and Laura leaned the headboard forward so they could get a better look at the backside. Her mom ran her hand around the frame where the velvet had been folded and stapled in place. She stopped when she found a gap, carefully sliding her fingers between the fabric and the frame. The velvet had been pulled away just enough for a hand to get through.

“What is it? Money?” Ellie asked excitedly. “An envelope full of money?”

“No…”

“A bag full of money?”

Slowly, her mom pulled out a black book. “Huh,” she said quietly, “This looks like something more up your alley!”

Ellie couldn’t deny that she was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t a lump of cash. Although her mom was right, this certainly piqued her interest. Ellie took the book and let Laura finish examining the headboard for any other hidden features. The book was small, no bigger than the length of her hands. Its black leather cover was soft and worn, the contents within being held closed by a rubber band around the center. She slid it off and began flipping through the pages slowly.

“Well?” Laura asked playfully, “Any treasure maps or safe combinations in there?”

“Nope, I think it’s just a diary,” Ellie replied. The handwriting matched that of other papers scattered around the rest of the estate. She flipped back to the front cover page. At the top left-hand corner it read, Dorris Robinson, 1957.

“Robinson...was that her maiden name?”

Her mom looked up from her examination of the headboard. “I think so.”

Having found nothing else hidden within, the two agreed to take a break to examine their find. Ellie quickly flipped through multiple entries. Apparently Dorris started this journal in her early twenties. Halfway through the book Ellie found a folded up piece of paper. It was a letter on military stationary.

“Oh my gosh...Mom, this letter is from Vietnam!” Ellie exclaimed. She handed it to her mom for her to read.

“Wow, that is pretty interesting,” she said quietly as she read through it. “It’s signed from a David Ward.”

“I thought her married name was Mitchell?”

“It was. This must have been an old flame before she got married.”

“Maybe that’s why she hid this,” Ellie mused. She continued skimming through the pages when something else loose fell from the back pages. “...Or maybe this is why…”

Her mom let out a small gasp. “Are those…old stamps?”

Sprinkled upon Ellie’s lap was an assortment of perfectly pristine stamps. Carefully, she flipped to the back of the book from where they fell through the pages. “There’s more in here too, they’re all pressed in the pages.”

Laura craned her neck to get a better look. “They aren’t stuck to the pages, are they? Like she didn’t lick them and stick them there, right?”

“No, it looks like they’re all loose. Are they worth anything? I know stamp collecting is a big deal-”

“It’s a huge deal to the right people. This is why this book was hidden away… holy cow, hun.” Her mom was oozing with excitement as she carefully picked up the stamps. “These are 1930’s Zepplins! And look, she’s got blocks of them! And in mint condition...” She peered over to the one Ellie had in her hand and squinted. “What’s that blue one there? I don’t have my glasses.”

“It says Hawaii.”

Laura let out another gasp.

“Is that a valuable one?”

“Well, it’s no Inverted Jenny, but yes, that could be worth something if it’s from the right year.”

“What’s an Inverted Jenny?” Ellie asked.

“A very rare and famous error stamp,” Laura replied excitedly. “Gosh, what if there’s a First Ben Franklin in here somewhere…”

Ellie suddenly had a thought. “You know, I was going through her books downstairs and I think I saw one or two stamp collector’s books.”

“Well, we’ll start there then. I’ll have to call my friend out in Arizona, he’s a real whiz at this stuff. He appraises these types of finds all the time.”

Ellie’s eyes lit up. “How much do you think this could be worth?”

“It’s hard to say, really. Several thousand dollars? Maybe twenty, if we’re lucky…”

“Twenty-thousand!” Ellie exclaimed. She and her mom beamed at each other, soaking the moment in. It was too early to tell exactly how much the little pile of stamps could be worth to them. To Dorris, they were worth tucking away in the back of a precious journal filled with her day-to-day thoughts and old love letters from days gone by.

Ellie and Laura spent a few more minutes going through the book before finally deciding that they should finish moving the headboard that had been left in the hallway. They managed to get it downstairs and loaded it into Laura’s truck. As they gathered their treasures from the morning, Ellie’s stomach growled a little. It was almost noon. “So, Mom,” Ellie grinned, “Lunch is on you today, right?”