This website uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, to enhance the user experience, and to provide tailored content for website visitors. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognizing you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
To learn more about how we value your privacy, visit our privacy policy.
When you interact with RelicRecord.com through our website, or by use of our services, we receive and store certain information, which is collected using cookies and log data as described below:
In operating the web site, we use “cookies.” A cookie is a piece of information that the computer that hosts our website gives to your browser when you access the website. These cookies help provide additional functionality to the website and help us analyze website usage more accurately. In particular:
Our website may set a cookie on your browser that allows you to access the website without needing enter a password more than once during a visit to the website;
We use cookies from Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). The information collected by Google (including your internet protocol (IP) address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information on our behalf for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on the web site activity and providing further services to us relating to the website usage. Learn more about Google Analytics’ privacy practices, and see a copy of Google’s privacy policy, click here.
You can prevent your data from being collected by Google Analytics on our website by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on for your current web browser by clicking here.
When you first visit the website, you will be asked to consent to the use of cookies on the website in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and if you accept we will store cookies on your computer.
On most web browsers, you will find a “help” section on the toolbar. Please refer to this section for information on how to receive notification when you are receiving a new cookie and how to turn cookies off. Please see the links below for guidance on how to modify your web browser’s settings on the most popular browsers:
While we recommend that you leave cookies turned on, because they allow you to take advantage of some of the website’s features, on most web browsers you may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings. Be aware, though, that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of the website.
To find out more about cookies and similar technologies, including how to see what cookies and similar technologies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit allaboutcookies.org.
WW2 Ration Tokens
When milling about an antique store one lazy afternoon, I came across an assortment of red and blue discs, haphazardly displayed inside a locked curio case. About the size and thickness of a penny, made from fibrous material, and designed to look like currency, I soon learned these tokens—and millions more like them—once served a vitally important role in America’s wartime economy during World War II. Read more
Cherokee Trail Trees
Long before an expansive network of interstates and highways cut across America, a network of trails were formed and traversed by the Cherokee. Like today’s interstate system, the Cherokee trails ran north to south, east to west. The trails were used for trade, hunting, gathering, and to make war against opposing tribes and settlers that wanted their land.
Marking those trails were trail trees—hardwood trees whose trunks were intentionally bent to grow low and parallel to the ground before rising upward again. Like today’s highway signs, researchers believe the Cherokee shaped trees to point to things that their people needed on long and arduous journeys.
Sometimes called “bent trees”, “marker trees”, or “signal trees”, surviving examples are now two hundred years old or more. Many are dying due to disease, weather, urbanization, and age, giving urgency to a project organized to catalog them before they’re lost forever. Read more
First Thanksgiving: Truths, Assumptions, & Falsehoods
As Plymouth, Massachusetts, celebrates the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival in 1620, ongoing archaeological work at the original Pilgrim settlement has unearthed a sweeping array of Native American and early European artifacts. These discoveries, together with primary source accounts written by Pilgrims William Bradford and Edward Winslow, have reshaped our understanding of the “First Thanksgiving”; a three-day feast celebrating the Pilgrims’ first harvest in the New World in 1621. Read more
Stingy Jack | Jack-O’-Lantern
Portly pumpkins with twisted faces are a sure sign that the Halloween season is upon us. Often referred to as jack-o’-lanterns, these ghoulish-faced pumpkins have quite the backstory.
Read more
Get The Funk Out Of Here!
If you are a collector of old things, chances are you are also an accumulator of weird smells. As an antique collector, that peculiar funk just comes with the territory. While you might revel in the smell of “vintage”, those around you might not. In fact, it might be time for an odor intervention, especially if someone has told you “I cannot put my finger on it, but there is something about you that just plain stinks.” As painful as those words can be, do not let your hearts be troubled. We some natural remedies to get that funk out of your life! Read more
Masks, Zorro, and Joaquín Murrieta
As we navigate the present circumstances brought about by the pandemic, there has been a lot of talk about masks, who wears them, who refuses to, why, and why not. Having been on my mind lately, my thoughts about masks drifted in a different direction, towards Don Diego Vega, better known by his alter-ego, Zorro. Read more
DIY Museum Labels
If you are looking for creative ways to convert your living space into a museum quality display exhibit, this article might just do the trick. We will show you how (and with what) to accentuate your collection with museum labels, also referred to as captions or tombstones.
Read more
The California Raisins
With a $7.5 million dollar ad campaign teetering dangerously close to being lost, Seth Werner, a 31-year-old copywriter at the ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding, knew it was show time. Moments after walking into the pitch meeting, Werner pressed play on his cassette player. After a brief period of awkward idleness, Werner began to shimmy his way across the meeting room floor as the Motown hit “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” bellowed from Werner’s boom box.
Read moreConfederate Bushwhackers & Dead Man’s Hole
Adolph Hoppe desperately pushed his horse to race faster through the dry and unforgiving underbrush of the Texas Hill Country. With his eyes set on the horizon, towards home, he could feel the bloodthirsty bushwhackers closing in on him.
Read moreIf It’s Worth Collecting, It’s Worth Protecting
If your collectibles were lost, damaged, or stolen, would your homeowners or renters insurance policy pay to repair or replace those collectibles? When asked this question, it’s not uncommon for a collector to respond “Well of course, that’s why I have insurance.” Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.
Read more