Mystery: large concrete object; Quirky: tag No. 20 up for bid

A new resident to the Gills Neck area in Lewes found a curious concrete object on his property recently. He's wondering what it is. I've included a photo of it with this column for reference.

He told me the object is about five feet long and a few feet high, and he's wondering whether it has any historic value.

It looks to me to be some kind of stand for a marker or sign. There was a time when there was a silent policeman in the middle of Savannah Road near Second Street. It was a traffic-calming sign of some sort, or a traffic separator at the intersection.

Given that this was found in an overgrown area along Gills Neck Road not far from Savannah Road, maybe it was moved off the street many, many decades ago, and, because of its weight, not carried far. Nature does a good job of covering items like this over time. Maybe street construction necessitated its removal and it was never returned.

But a couple things are for sure: if that's what it was, it certainly would have withstood any collisions with a vehicle and would never have blown away even with the stiffest northeast winds.

Then again, it might have been poured for another use entirely. In the decades when Otis Smith was mayor of Lewes - the 1950s and 1960s - and his Fish Products menhaden processing facilities were going strong on Cape Henlopen Drive where the Cape Shores community now stands, he did a lot with concrete. He built fish meal silos with reinforced concrete, surfaced roads and warehouse floors with concrete, and built the distinctive concrete post-and-rail fences that still line Gills Neck Road near what I call his Menhaden Mansion.

It's possible that the concrete object pictured here was another item turned out from his concrete molds. If anyone has any ideas about what it might be, please email me a note at dennisforney@capegazette.com.

Tag 20 on the block

Butch Emmert will be hosting his annual high-season summer auction Sunday, Aug. 19, at the new Rehoboth Beach Convention Center. In addition to original art, rugs, furniture and many other items, Butch will be auctioning off Delaware license tags No. 20 and PC33.

Readers who have followed the Delaware license tag mania through the decades know that these unique, low-digit tags can fetch huge sums of money.

Butch is not one to hype items of course, but standing in the grocery store the other day he told me he wouldn't be surprised if No. 20 brought $250,000. That's right, $250,000. "And don't discount that PC33," he said. "$75,000 wouldn't surprise me for that."

At the end of the day, and that's the sure thing about auctions, any item is worth what someone will pay for it. And then it comes to supply and demand. There is an undeniably low supply of low-digit tags in Delaware, and because of that, great demand for them.

"The economy's on the rise, and people like these tags as an investment. They go up in value over time especially because more and more people want them, and there are only so many," said Butch.

And the great thing about these low-digit tags - often many times more valuable than the cars they're mounted on - is that they're only of value to their owners. Only their owners can display the tags legally on their vehicles. For anyone other than the owner, the low-digit tags are just a thin piece of decorated metal.

But for appreciating value, consider this:

In 1994, tag No. 9 sold for just under $200,000. In 2008, No. 6 sold for $675,000, and in 2016, No. 14 sold for $325,000. Clearly, single-digit tags are worth more than double-digit tags, but $325,000 for No. 14 was no shabby price.

There are only six single-digit tags that can be sold. Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are reserved for the governor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state, respectively.

By this time next week, barring any complications, we'll know the true current value of No. 20.