Bargain of the day: Weir plow catalogue 'buried' in a box.(collector finds old farm equipment catalog in box)(Brief Article)

Farm Collector, September, 2002

Jim Piacenti, a life-Long resident of Ladd, Ill., collects postcards, trade tokens and advertising items from his hometown. When he decided to walk across the alley to a neighbor's auction recently, he was hoping to find some nifty, old advertising items for sale. "The people who lived there had farmed in the area for years before moving to town," he explains, "but disappointment set in when all I could find was a pen from a local business." Because he and his wife also are fledgling antique dealers, Jim decided to "shift gears" and look for something they might resell.

"I decided to bid on a certain box lot after finding a small metal bowl from the 1933 Chicago World's Fair in it." He says he'd attended auctions before but never as a bidder,...