Ask the Archivist: Issue 215

Case File No. 215 · Accession 2017.044-B

Every month the Paranormal Museum Archivist answers one question from the public, whether or not the public wants it answered.

THE QUESTION

Dear Archivist, is the grape press cursed? Everyone says it's cursed. My uncle says it's cursed. My uncle says everything is cursed.

— T. Alvarado, San Benedetto

THE SHORT ANSWER

No comment.

THE LONG ANSWER

The press is from 1902, oak, iron-banded, and has been implicated in exactly one murder, which is more than most furniture. That's the whole case for the curse. One murder, one press, one very good story, told for decades.

So let's do this perfectly properly, because the museum has to keep the press in a room and the room has to earn its keep.

The press has inherent vice. That's a conservation term, and it means an object is degrading because of what it's made of, not because of how it's treated. Oak. Iron bands. A century of tannin soaked into the grain. It stains. It creaks when the humidity rises. It smells like a musty cellar.

Every one of those things gets read as evidence of the curse. Every one of them is chemistry.

With all that behind us, yes, it’s totally cursed, which is why we keep it at the paranormal museum.

Did I mention the murder?

FROM THE COLLECTION

Accession No. 2017.044-B — Wine press, oak, iron bands, 1902.

Provenance: contested.

Condition: fair, staining at the base, joint movement at the north stile.

Notes: creaks. A lot. Attributed by staff to three separate causes on three separate occasions. GD Cat will not sit on it. GD Cat has sat on everything else in this building.

THE PRACTICAL BIT

If you think your antique is cursed, run the vice check first.

Smell it. Old wood holds vinegar, tobacco, and other people's kitchens for decades. A smell is information, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a haunting.

Look at the joints. Movement means moisture, and moisture means the story started recently, not in 1902.

Check the metal. Corrosion has a color and a pattern. Learn them and half your mystery evaporates.

Then read the paperwork. The seller's story is almost always the real curse. What they were told, by whom, and what they needed to believe.

NEXT MONTH: "A Ouija board followed me home from an estate sale." 

Yes, they sometimes do that.

— The Archivist, San Benedetto Paranormal Museum.

Nothing in this column has been tested for lethality. Yet.

Want to learn more? Read Pressed to Death!