Elleda Wilson: 'Can I get one?'

Elleda Wilson, The Daily Astorian, Ore.
·1 min read

Oct. 27—A mummy encounter in Egypt was described by George Ade for The Oregonian in 1906.

Apparently a young American owned a shop near Ade's hotel, selling antiquities, including mummies. "Can I get one?" Ade asked. "I can get you a gross if you want them," the shopkeeper quipped.

"Until I talked to the dealer, I had no idea that mummies were so plentiful," Ade noted, appalled. "In some parts of Egypt people go out and dig them up just as they would dig potatoes."

"... A Rameses or Ptolemy cannot be touched for less than $1,000 (about $34,000 now). A prince, a trust magnate or a military commander brings $150 ... (then) the dealer showed me one for $7.50 — probably a tourist."

Mummy sales were big business back then, and many were shipped to America to private collectors...which possibly explains there were so many angry mummy movies in the 1940s.