Roman Catholic Michael Salemi put this Hebrew prayer book up for auction on eBay. He had to research answers to questions from potential bidders. Below, a look inside the tiny text. (Michael Salemi)
Michael Salemi of Novi is an Italian-American Roman Catholic, but he grew up in a Jewish pocket of Long Island, lived with a Jewish family for a year and married a nice Jewish girl he met in grad school.
He even likes gefilte fish, which most Gentiles think of as kosher Alpo. But realistically, how much can you expect the guy to know about a miniature Hebrew prayer book?
On eBay, a lot. As Salemi has discovered, people will buy anything if it's cheap enough and online, including a box of tampons older than the first moonwalk. No matter the price, however, they want information. Lots and lots of information.
Salemi's mother-in-law, Golden Jacobson, grew up in Chicago but moved to Seattle in 1960. For the next 48 years, until her death in late 2008, she collected things.
She liked frogs and fine china. She liked little porcelain boxes from Limoges, which is a French city rather than a company, and plates from Wedgwood, which is an English company rather than a city. She liked Peanuts, Disney and anything British.
Most everything without sentimental value wound up in cartons at Salemi's house. Under the name cherryhillone, he'd already used the online auction site to offload some auto parts and odd bits from old businesses. So as the experienced hand, he took on the painstaking task of liquidating Jacobson's doodads, tidbits and thingamajigs.
"I'm not a professional seller," his listings emphasize. Uh-huh, the potential bidders say. And what's the name of the pattern on those Saxony plates? And how old is that silverware from British Airways?
At least he knew the general age of the mostly full 10-pack from Tampax. ZIP codes have been around since 1963 and all but mandatory since 1967. The box didn't have one.
It wound up with a buyer in Indiana for $5, plus $2.50 postage and handling.
Oy vey.
Selling for a living
Salemi, 53, used to own a car wash in Westland. When the credit crunch hit, he couldn't get his loan renewed. Now he's looking for work and looking at the last few dozen of the hundreds of items he's been selling and shipping for 3 ½ months.
An antique English cheese dish collector in Texas bought the 1885 English cheese dish. Someone in Japan paid $100 for three unopened Corgi toy cars and a little metal bobby to write them parking tickets. The pewter cigarette lighter went to Ironwood.
He also sold his 11-year-old daughter's outgrown Spy Gear toys, little burglar alarms and listening devices and such. They went, of all places, to Moscow.
More information required
The Hebrew prayer book, smaller than a deck of cards, came from Israel. It was a gift to Jacobson and her late husband from some friends who bought it on vacation in 1969.
It has a pretend silver cover and some pretend jewels, and Salemi listed it with an opening bid of $9.95. Shortly afterward, somebody posted a question:
"Hi can you please tell me if this book has hannukah prayers, 1-8 days of prayer and the song rock of ages? also does it have the english translation?"
Salemi found the answers -- some, maybe, and yes. And along came another potential bidder, asking for more detail on what was still a $9.95 item: "Does the Hebrew part contain all the markings, or just the constants?"
Exasperated, Salemi went back to the book and Internet and answered in more detail than he actually understood. Then he added an advisory. He's not a Hebrew scholar, he said, and you can't read most of the print without an electron microscope anyway. "As a nice Italian boy," he concluded, "trying to help his mother-in-law (may she rest in peace), I say, 'Capisce?'"
That should do it, he thought. But then along came one more inquiry from someone called Mankaw. If he won the auction, could he pay for quick shipping?
Sure, Salemi said. So Mankaw jumped in at the last second with a bid of $25, and Salemi sent off the parcel with an extra postal boost and one last shrug of his Roman Catholic shoulders.
He had done his family duty, and he had delivered the Hebrew prayer book to Tennessee on Mankaw's curious deadline:
Just in time for Christmas.
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