Proctor Cronk At Syracuse, parts 1751 - 1754

1751. It was at that moment that Proctor Cronk became a collector of works of art. It was not the usual setting for such a decision, one would rather expect it to happen in a museum, or at least in an art gallery, but it happened in a tar paper shack in a salvage yard.

1752. As so often happens, his first purchase had all of the characteristics of his later collecting life even down to the methods he used to get the object he was after. He was not entirely honest in his methods, but at least what he said was more believable than the Yardman’s claims of grandfathers with sepia photographs of the Coliseum.

1753. At first Proctor only wanted to repair his slightly damaged ego, by showing the Yardman that, although he might be able to diagnose a car problem from a distance, he did not know anything about art or its values. He intended to do this based on the assumption that the man did not know that the Russian icons were valuable. This was an easy mistake for him to make, seeing as he judged the man’s office space by conventional ideas about interior decoration.

1754. “Would you be willing to sell me this print of the “Madonna and Child,” you have here in the black frame?” Proctor inquired. He was referring to one of those sepia reproductions from an old Catholic calendar. The yardman said he would sell it for five dollars. “And what about this print of the Andrea Doria in the frame with the broken glass?” He asked. “Both for ten dollars if you want them but they are not really very good reproductions if you ask me.”

Richard Britell

Proctor Cronk At Syracuse, parts 1747 - 1750

 1747. Having their edges use as clothes hooks obscured even the various things hung on the walls. The tops of pictures were used as small shelves for miniature objects. The antler points of a moose held a collection of women’s gloves. Obviously valuable things were mixed up helter-skelter with worthless trash.

1748. There were only three things unencumbered and not being used in any inexplicable way, they were a large double barreled shotgun leaning next to the door jam under a World War 2 bayonet, and an old baseball bat.

1749. There were many paintings and prints hanging on the walls and Proctor discovered that the huge brown print of the coliseum in a wide oak frame could not be sold because it belonged to somebody’s grandfather who had been born someplace or other. He could not purchase the Piranesi print of a prison interior for a similar reason having to do with some other relative.

1750. The Yardman had a few real Russian Icons, as well as several very cheap prints of religious works. The prints were all in that sickly shade of brown used so often for old religious calendars. The icons, which were obviously valuable, were hung in a group next to the cheapest sort of religious images in frames without any glass. Proctor thought to himself, “they are sorted by subject regardless of their value.”

Richard Britell