In the sparse, northwest corner of Oklahoma, Waynoka is a small (pop. 993), hard-pressed rural American community actually winning the fight to preserve a local heritage once richer and more colorful. Its weapon is eBay.
Sandie Olson, unpaid president of the Waynoka Historical Society, has gone online regularly for three years, doggedly pursuing collectibles related to the town’s past as a U.S. transportation hub. “I could probably conduct a seminar on how to build a museum this way,” said Olson, who has stocked almost the entire local museum with her purchases. “The new technology is great.”
EBay, a cultural tool? This may come as a jolt to those who regard it as nothing more than a flea market for cyber geeks, but in the relatively short time it took the online marketplace to emerge as one of the most popular — and profitable — sites on the Web, it also has subtly evolved as a valuable tool for museums and galleries, big and small.
“I’m sure some of the more entrenched members of the community would be horrified to know their peers buy on eBay,” said Melissa Rosengard, director of the nine-state Western Museums Association, “but it’s done more and more. It really comes down to how progressive and creative staffs want to be.”
Whether locating research materials, acquiring items for exhibits or even selling artifacts, institutions such as The Henry Ford Museum, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum regularly join the Waynokas of the world to search out and bid on items on eBay.
“It’s really served us well,” said Tess Koncick, associate director for the prestigious John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Fla. “It’s another scholarly mechanism, as far as we’re concerned.”
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For the most part, we’re talking about museums and galleries acquiring inexpensive collectibles in eBay’s buyer-beware, auction format. Approximately 9 million items are listed daily, and the Internet service gives users streamlined search and tracking methods, as well as other aids, to sort through the goods.
EBay has 114 million registered users in 29 international markets. In 2003, there were $24 billion in transactions. In the second quarter of 2004, there were $8 billion in transactions and $1.4 billion of that was in collectibles.
Matt Gustke, a spokesman for the San Jose-based Internet marketplace, said eBay doesn’t separately track transactions by museums, galleries and similar institutions, but he was not surprised to learn eBay has become an important tool for them.
“What we do best is create efficiency in the marketplace where there wasn’t efficiency,” he said, “and, since collectibles are a significant part of what’s offered, I guess museums would have a good chance of finding what they need.”
To be sure, most cultural institutions continue to rely on traditional sources such as private collections, gifts from patrons and reputable auction houses for their big-ticket, costlier acquisitions.
Though eBay acquired an auction house in 1999 intending to incorporate it into an online venue for high-end antiques, paintings and similar items, it quickly discarded the concept. The field already was too developed and popular off-line to crack, Gustke said.
Changes fast and furious
But recently upscale dealers such as the Toomey/Treadway Galleries in Oak Park and Cincinnati have begun conducting sales on eBay and in other Internet marketplaces. “Five years ago this would not have happened,” said Jane Browne, with the suburban dealer, “so the changes are coming fast.”
But thanks to its size and the assortment of things it offers for sale, eBay has a place in the mix.
“There need to be changes, like a central clearinghouse to authenticate items, but that’ll happen and eBay’s going to get bigger,” said Milwaukee Art Museum adjunct curator Glenn Adamson. “You’re going to see its uses grow because some applications are just made for it.”
Indeed, two years ago the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago took down a railroad exhibit and found itself with an assortment of leftover locomotives, rolling stock and model buildings. The museum divided them into 40 lots and sold them in a seven-day auction on eBay. Each lot came with a letter of authenticity from the MSI’s head curator.
“I can recall people first discussing this maybe two or three years ago, and before that, people were pretty much in the closet about using it,” said Devon Pyle-Vowles of the Adler Planetarium. “This definitely is a topic gaining more and more momentum in certain segments of our world.”
The use of eBay is on the agenda to be addressed at next year’s annual American Association of Museums convention, said Pyle-Vowles, chair of the organization’s standing Registrars’ Professional Committee.
Loves online, honest
Kim Bauer, curator with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield easily could lead an eBay session for the association. He signed up in 1995 when the Internet site first opened and has made hundreds of acquisitions this way.
His best eBay find so far, Bauer said, is a Lincoln portrait by Norwegian painter Christian Abrahamsen. Bauer bought it for $325; the painting has since been appraised at $1,200. His latest acquisition is a photo — he got it for $7, but it’s worth $60-$80 — of an 1861 public meeting in New York City following the Confederate firing on Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor.
“[EBay is] especially helpful because so many institutions face budget cuts and find it harder to make acquisitions,” he said. “You have to know what you’re looking for, but I’ve found that sellers are basically honest. If I have questions, the system allows me to get them answered. Many people are happy to know their items are going to a museum.”
At The Henry Ford, as at many other institutions, staffers and volunteers regularly troll eBay for anything that might be helpful for their collections. Not long ago, museum curators were trying to determine what shade of green to paint the Montgomery, Ala., bus civil rights leader Rosa Parks was riding in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. They found a picture of a Montgomery city bus of the period on a postcard for sale on eBay.
“Do you realize how many flea markets we’d need to visit to find something like that?” said Judith Endelman, Ford’s director of historical resources. “Whenever we knew there were special things like that we needed, we’d put out a want list to members and visitors. Now we also go to eBay.”
Mary Turner, executive director of the Illinois Museum Association, says it is the small museums and historical societies dotting the country everywhere that may benefit most from new technology that makes services such as eBay possible.
“I hear stories constantly about how they feed their town’s name into eBay’s search engine and all kinds of neat stuff pops up,” she added. “For them, it’s a real boon because it’s a really inexpensive, but critical, way to build their collection.”
That, of course, is exactly what has happened in little Waynoka, once a passenger and refueling stop on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway cross-country route as well as for the historic Transcontinental Air Transport founded in 1929 by Charles Lindbergh, a periodic visitor to the town. Waynoka also had a Harvey House, one of the Fred Harvey Co.’s chain of restaurants and hotels — mostly in the Southwest — started in the 1870s.
Waynoka has turned the second floor of an old Harvey House (closed in 1937) into a museum. Exhibits include other artifacts connected to the Santa Fe rail line and the airline, which, in addition to Lindbergh, saw Will Rogers and Amelia Earhart fly into town during its heyday.
Olson has limited funds for adding items to the collection. Most things were purchased for less than $50, though Olson said she splurged once and spent $150 on a poster.
Fred Harvey collectibles
“I’ve acquired all kinds of Fred Harvey linens, silverware and dishes on eBay,” she said. “I’ve also bought dozens and dozens of postcards for a few dollars apiece, and they can be very revealing. The pictures are actual photos, but the writing on them also tells us a lot about what travel used to be like.”
Her best catch, Olson said, was a large painting that used to hang in the office of the now-demolished Santa Fe roundhouse. That popped up in an estate sale in Texas, where a former rail employee apparently moved after the depot closed in the 1960s.
“I couldn’t imagine where we’d be without this tool,” she added. “It’s kept us connected because we wouldn’t have the time or resources otherwise to get these things.”
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Score! Museum-quality finds
Here’s what some museums and other institutions have found on eBay for their collections:
– The new Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame acquired old programs, media guides and ticket stubs to supplement an exhibit about the recently razed Veterans Stadium.
– In Oswego, Ill., where the Little White School Museum is a focal point for local preservation, the purchase of picture postcards of the 150-year-old building revealed previously unknown details about the structure.
– At Greenfield Village, adjacent to the Ford museum in Dearborn, organizers of the annual Holiday Evenings event in December found a pair of ice skates from 1920 and original sheet music for Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” to complement a period-oriented program.
– In Tucson, the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame obtained University of Arizona yearbooks to use when it enshrines alum Steve Kerr, a former Chicago Bull, this October.
– At The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., a volunteer found a rare photograph of Ford and Charles Lindbergh together in the cockpit of an airplane, taken before the automobile pioneer went on his first flight.
– In its “Within These Walls” exhibit, showing history surrounding a 200-year-old home in Ipswich, Mass., curators with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History located authentic, period hosiery made in that community’s local textile mills.
– The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., obtained one of is prized paintings, a portrait of the Great Emancipator by artist Christian Abrahamsen, that is on display.
– In Sarasota, old photographs and postcards provided key information for restoration of the mansion that’s part of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.
– Texas Tech University obtained a 13th Century copper printing plate used to produce money in China — 200 years before printing was introduced in Europe — for its Special Collections Library.
– The Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame in Lakeland, Fla., purchased hard-to-find books on the sport to add to its library.
– The British Columbia Orchard Industry Museum in Kelowna, B.C., obtained old packaging labels used in an exhibit on fruit crates.
— Mike Conklin