Minnesota history hides out in our readers’ homes

Six months out from retirement, Charles Spevacek has an estimated $2,000 on the floor of his Minneapolis law office. It’s got to leave the office when he does. But Spevacek doesn’t want the money, now rolled up in the form of the original blueprints to the Metrodome’s ill-fated roof.

“I’ve got an office full of memories,” Spevacek said. “This is a good memory.”

In October, the Minnesota Star Tribune asked readers what they had hiding in their offices and attics, basements and garages that might have historical value. Forty-five people sent responses, featuring several mysterious rocks, a rusted handgun and many letters, which we sent to appraisers.

Attics and basements will backdrop a tremendous societal shift, and possibly an uncomfortable one. Baby boomers are set to transfer an estimated $53 trillion to other generations in the next 20 years, most of it tied up as real estate or investments. But some of it is packed away in storage boxes or cluttered offices.

There, families may fight about what’s worth keeping. But they also might misjudge what’s valuable to collectors or significant to institutions, said Sean Blanchet, who appraised the Star Tribune items for Revere Auctions.

“The collectors and the families that hold the objects don’t always perceive value the same way,” said Blanchet, who has appraised art since 2010 and co-founded Revere in 2017.

History sells at auction, Blanchet said, even if it’s preserved in mundane ways. Indeed, paper was consistently among the most valuable things submitted by readers, scrawled with personal notes or unfinished manuscripts.

Here are two items readers found in their personal collections that Blanchet highlighted:

Spevacek came to know the blueprints under a different name: Exhibit 318. They were evidence in a lawsuit filed by the state government after the roof of its new stadium showed a propensity to collapse.

Spevacek’s client was David Geiger, the architect whose signature appears at the bottom of the blueprints. Spevacek considers the final verdict a win. But by the time it came, Geiger had died from a heart attack in a Tokyo hotel. His architectural firm had collapsed. And no one was left to claim Exhibit 318.

So for nearly 40 years, the blueprints have sat, rolled up, in Spevacek’s office. At times, he considered turning a few pages into artwork. But Spevacek said he felt that the renderings, which total several pages, should stay together. He’s hoping they find a way to the Minnesota Historical Society upon his retirement.

Blanchet agreed, even though he figured Spevacek could get a couple thousand dollars at auction for the blueprints.

This charcoal sketch is a family heirloom of Janet Shockley’s, who wrote that the author and illustrator from New Ulm gave it to Shockley’s grandfather when they were students at the St. Paul Institute of Art together.

Gág’s whimsical watercolors, typically of swaying trees or landscapes and painted on sandpaper, attract the most collectors, according to Revere.

The artwork is mesmerizing, Blanchet said, depicting a defiant Gág. But important, too, is the big signature in the bottom corner.

“Wanda Gág is one of Minnesota’s most important and underrated artists,” Blanchet said. “She was part of this family of artists. She was immensely talented. She had a definitive style unto herself.”

As baby boomers begin to get rid of their stuff, Blanchet warns Gen Z adults against doing the same. They might be eager to part with the artifacts of their childhoods as they move into their 20s. But Blanchet said those are the items most likely to be coveted decades from now.

The Minnesota Historical Society, for its part, isn’t necessarily after a Viking runestone. Seemingly mundane documents — even old farming maps or minutes from board meetings — sometimes carry some of the greatest historical value, said Kate Hujda, a senior curator. Archives, Blanchet said, have started to carry monetary value, too.

“History is all around us,” Hujda said.