This weekend my family and I went to an International Festival held in Raleigh, NC. We really enjoyed it and we will definitely go back. As we were walking around the different booths, we came across the one for Russia. I immediately began to wonder if they would have anything about Tsar Nicholas from The Shadow stories The Red Menace and The Romanoff Jewels. I began searching for a clew among the items they had for sale!
Then I found it! Nestled among the Russian nesting dolls was a nesting doll featuring the Romanoffs! It featured Tsar Nicholas, Empress Alexandra and their son Alexei. When you opened it up, inside were paintings of Nicholas' daughters. I found it sitting between nesting dolls of Putin and Lenin!
Here is a picture of the Romanoff nesting doll with a partial view of Putin on the left and Lenin on the right and various other nesting dolls around it. The second picture I cropped out some of the other dolls to exclusively look at the Romanoffs. I wish I had taken more pictures, especially of the inside dolls.
While this was nowhere near a great discovery like the Romanoff jewels, it was still a small connection to history and a connection to two of my favorite Shadow stories!
One collector's item I've been on the trail for is an "autographed" picture of The Shadow from the 1994 movie. I had seen pictures of it and as I researched the picture I learned that it was part of The Shadow Club membership kit for the movie. After a lot of searching and looking, I was finally able to get a complete Shadow Club membership and the much coveted Shadow picture!
Here's a scan of the picture I received. It's in pretty good shape, just a few slight dents and minor crinkles. It is a 5" X 7" picture of The Shadow and his two .45 automatics. If you've seen the movie you'll recognize that this is a scene from the beginning of the film when The Shadow rescues Dr. Roy Tam. The picture also features The Shadow's "autograph."
I'll write more about the membership kit in a future article!
