A week ago, I wandered through a little antiques mall in Appleton, bemused once again by just how many old things there are that I don't want at all. But it did come to mind that there was a section of the mall set aside for a dealer in a strange assortment of old books -- so I eventually headed to them.

As noted, I'm often asked in antiques stores what it is that I might be looking for -- and I never have a suitable answer. I'm after what I might find that I'd like. (I once spotted a doll that was clearly from the same lot as one I'd had when I was 5 or so -- and had to have it, of course. But I certainly didn't go into the shop with the idea of finding that doll.) Heck, during this visit, I tried asking one of the dealers who had a number of card games from the 1920s whether he had or could find one I've been looking for: It was called Excuse Me -- which is not something easy to find in a Google search, let me tell you. The guy practically sneered at my question: It wasn't expensive enough for him to bother with, apparently. Ouch!

In any case, amid the books that I found in that strange assortment there were a number of sheets that both intrigued me and simultaneously made me cringe: they'd been razor-bladed out of old issues of Harper's Weekly. Some of them were simply scenes of the time -- but some were full-page political cartoons, and I couldn't pass up this one, from June 1, 1872 (when Ulysses Grant was running against Horace Greeley). (It's not the full image, thanks to the limitations of my scanner. In fact, to get the Nast signature in the scan, poor Grant got cut out. But you get the idea.)