Fancy illustrations and the note of “F”

Happy Memorial Day weekend!!!  I’m almost done with grading EACH research paper with comments on each.  On the most important page of the paper (where is that?) I have typed in each students’ grades. My Friday deadline I gave myself is almost up.  Many of my students will awake to check their e-mail and find out their grade for Comp II.  For me, it will be nice to actually go on vacation tomorrow.  I will drive two hours due west to tend to the cemetery plots of my Norwegian relatives S.A. Olsness and his brother Aslak .  Also, I will put plants next to my great grandparents and grandparents, the Aslaksons graves.  Usually my Mom and I go together for this yearly tradition but she is busy with other things.  Also, I have many people I want to talk to about S.A. Olsness while in his neck of the woods.

Once I’m back home again, I will go through boxes and boxes of the vintage sheet music I inherited from a former, musical student of mine.  This music have more than just the “note of F” but G, A, B, as well all the others.  Flats and sharps, louds and softs are inside all this sheet music that was mass produced in the late 1800s and early 1900s. However, the most interesting are the FRONT covers with its artwork.  Each piece can be sold for about $5 to $10 on eBay or other places that specialize in antique kind of things.  I’m just checking out the market since I have 100s of this vintage music that are in the 1910s, 1920s.  Some of the illustrations are so pretty.  I will scan some and then see how I do with marketing them on the Internet. Most customers are cross overs from other areas besides music, they buy just for the front covers.  Some into military might buy the piece above.  Others into ballet may buy a cover with a ballerina.  If some famous singing star (like Elvis) is on the front, it can sell into the $100s of dollars.  It just depends what is showing on the front, the way the notes look are immaterial to the casual buyer.

I’ve been selling books on half.com for the last five years and it gives me extra pin money.  This will be extra fun to see what the market is for old Irving Berlin songs or for quadrilles, waltzes and Polish polkas.  I’ll keep you all posted on how the music selling business goes!