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$100 000 Canvas Portage Pack now on sale

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Who's got some money to blow? Maybe some folks have seen this infamous canoe pack floating around eBay for a few years - a canvas Poirier Pack (predecessor to the modern day Duluth # 3).

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First heard about it in October 2009. Now the price has been reduced to a mere $60 000!

Apparently the claim is that this is a prototype pack made by Camile Poirier himself. There is an oxidized copper plate with the date of Nov 10, 1882 and Poirier apparently received his patent on Dec 12th, 1882 so the working theory is that this is a prototype before the patent was granted and somehow extra special. I did some digging however and found that all Poirier packs have the metal plate stamped with the date of Nov 10, 1882 and were made until 1911 when Poirier sold the company to Duluth Tent and Awning (i.e. Duluth Pack today). Here's another example in better condition with the same metal plate:

http://warymeyers.blogspot.ca/2011/06/1882-camille-poirier-duluth-pack-sack.html
 
WOW! If it ever sells (even at that amazingly reduced price!!) you know that in the transaction there was at least one crazy, maybe two! Reminds me of the religious relics that were sold to the faithful through out Europe. Hmmm...."Camile Poirier" is that Saint Poirier? If I could sleep on it overnight, would it cure all manner of joint/skeletal problems? Perhaps slim the waistline, grow hair and of course brighten teeth!
Ah well, perhaps I'm as I should be at this point. But if anyone hears of a true talisman against bears please tell me!

Always faithful and frequently confused,

Rob
 
In the world of antiques, there's such thing as provenance. Documentation and cataloguing of the object, to trace it's history and origins. Simply having an old thing, may or may not be enough. That's likely a silly thing to expect for a canvas pack, but so is the asking price. How hard would it be to fake this? I think this is a valid piece of history, but not quite a fur trade relic. The decimal point must be WAAAY out of place.
 
If the pack had been on the Lewis and Clark expedition and had provenance the price might be worth it. Meanwhile mouse fodder. (I suspect it's kept in a hermetically sealed vault)

I would like to see this pack on Pawn Stars I love that show for learning about Americana, but in Vegas I doubt they see much canoe stuff.
 
My favourite TV show series, that I've recorded, is an archeology programme called Time Team. http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/blogs/time-team?page=2
I watch episodes over and over. My wife complains my treasure trove of television is taking up valuable room on our PVR. She'd rather record cooking or mystery shows. I can't blame her. The only real piece of history I've touched and possessed, was finding two arrow heads as a child. It was easy to stand in a corn field and imagine that place a century or more removed, long before a rubber booted child picked up those flints from the soil. In this archeology show I mention, they scrape and find signs of Roman, Medieval, and pre-history below their feet. It must be a thrill to touch an object last handled centuries or more ago. But I suppose we should also value our more recent history as well. I also like Antiques Roadshow, both the UK and the US versions. On the UK show recently, there was a small gold ring, found in a field that dated back to the dark ages. It's funny how the monetary value didn't live up to my rose tinted vision value. On the US show I saw a Navajo blanket, that was verified and valued at a staggering price. Again, despite an eye watering evaluation, it didn't live up to my imagined sense of a higher place in cultural history. Price tags are funny things. Sometimes they reflect a value, other times they merely suggest a price tag. Perhaps that Poirier pack would be most valuable to the Poirier family? If I were a Poirier descendant, I'd consider it ... priceless.
 
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