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Treasure trove revealed, to be sold

... books, documents, periodicals, stamps, titles, tools, toys ...

A veteran Oklahoma oil field worker has struck a rich reserve in a house he is demolishing along Wildcat Canyon Road.

The house and an adjoining shed contained suitcases and trunk of books, documents and periodicals, some dating to the 1700s.

It’s not clear if all items are originals or replicas. But, the pieces Robert Evers displayed Friday at The Durango Herald make up an eclectic and interesting, if ragtag, collection.

Among the items are letters and magazines, including Better Homes and Gardens, Life, McCall’s, National Geographic, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science and Time.

There’s a 1917 draft board notice from Aztec ordering someone to report for a physical examination.

Evers found unused calendars, postage stamps, the title to a cemetery plot and toys.

A copy of It Is Never Too Late to Mend, an 1856 novel by British writer Charles Reade, has seen better days. The work, turned into a movie and a play, is the story of a pitiless squire who tries to frame and send to jail the lover of a young woman he covets.

One of the oldest newspapers Evers has found so far is a March 19, 1770, edition of the Connecticut Courant, the forerunner of today’s Hartford Courant that boasts of being the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper.

Editions of other newspapers recount the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 and the upset of shoo-in Thomas Dewey by Harry S. Truman in the 1948 presidential election.

A booking sheet, complete with fingerprints, chronicles an arrest in Creek County, Oklahoma.

After leaving the oil fields, Evers has become a jack-of-all-trades. He cuts and sells firewood, practices mechanics and welds.

Evers found lumber and tools at the demolition house that he plans to sell. But, the documents and periodicals he discovered in the suitcases and trunks have kept him busy researching their value.

It appears that the last items stored date to the mid-1990s, Evers said. He hasn’t seen a date later than 1994.

He has sold items from his collection to businesses or people with a particular interest. He’s willing to part with the remainder either piecemeal or in toto.

“I want to sell this stuff,” Evers said. “I’m not a collector.”

daler@ldurangoherald.com

Jan 26, 2015
Treasure finder wants to sell


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