By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
My boyhood home away from home was an old Trappist monastery in Northern Utah which closed in 2017. The Huntsville abbey lives on in many interesting and unusual ways, however, including in the secondhand markets for historic collectibles.
I like to call it Monks on eBay.
I started looking online for monastery stuff after my friend Bill White—who now owns and cares for the abbey land—told me someone had stolen one of the abbey’s iconic signs. I wanted to catch the thief.
Bill also told me that his son was in a thrift store one day and found a table clock one of the Utah monks had made. I’m sure it got there by mistake.
Utah monk Brother Nicholas Prinster—the abbey’s cattle rancher and resident philosopher—built those clocks by hand for friends and family. They are priceless.
Nobody in their right mind would give one away. Bill’s son immediately bought and preserved it. (BTW, I checked, and none are for sale online.)
There are some old monastery photos available online, but not nearly as many as I thought I’d find. eBay carries a fifty-year old black and white Salt Lake Tribune photo of the abbey facade, with prints available for just under $15 each. A 1992 photo of the abbey bookstore and gatehouse from the Houston Chronicle sells for $19.99.
The first Utah monk collectible I bought online was a wonderful watercolor litho-painting of the monastery building. The print depicts the Quonset hut abbey and nearby mountains in gentle blue, green, and rose shades.
The same image appears on a Holy Trinity Abbey postcard from 1949. The backside says the image came from a popular maker of postcards, the Curt Teich Company of Chicago, which operated from 1898 to 1978 and was known for its best-selling “Greetings From” cards.
Teich employed hundreds of traveling salesmen who encouraged business to create postcards, photographed the featured locations, and then worked with customers to create a desired image. I think that for the 1949 monastery card, with its reference to “C.T. Art Colortone,” Teich likely took the architect’s sketch of the abbey and recreated it in an artist’s colored sketch.
Although Instagram and cell phone photos probably have displaced them in popular use today, postcards are a big market item for Utah monastery collectibles. So far, I’ve found about a dozen for sale online, both in black/white and color, and ranging in price from $2.88 to $29.95 each.
The vintage cards depict various Huntsville scenes, including: monks at work and at prayer; the Quonset hut building in all seasons; the abbey gatehouse; the Trappists’ spectacular Salve Regina stained glass window; and the monk’s quaint and peaceful cemetery.
And then, of course, there are the books.
I found lots of copies for sale online of my own Monastery Mornings in various conditions, and offered for as low as $2.22 (ouch). Gratefully, secondhand booksellers in Australia and the UK, offer it for close to $30/copy, $10 over retail.
Monastic Practices, the wonderful book by Utah Trappist Father Charles Cummings explaining what monks do and why, commands an even better price range, from $8.65 to $84.95 per copy.
Our autographed versions of these two Utah abbey books might be worth even more.
eBay offers—for the bargain price of $3,500—a copy of Thomas Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation signed by the author as well as five other Kentucky Trappists, including fellow monk/author Father Raymond Flanagan and Abbot James Fox.
My monastic collectible purchase options grew significantly when I expanded my Google search terms to include other Cistercian monasteries.
I found coffee mugs, pottery, branded empty fruitcake tins, DVDs, CDs, and even stoneware, from lovely and sacred places like Merton’s Abbey of Gethsemani, New Melleray Abbey in Iowa, and Genesee Abbey in New York.
I also found beer bottle caps from Spencer Abbey in Massachusetts, Christmas record albums from Gethsemani and from the sisters at Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham, Massachusetts, stained glass from Santa Rita Abbey in Arizona, and a cookbook from Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina.
I’m glad there is a market for monastic collectibles. It makes sense.
A collectible is something that has more value now, sentimental or otherwise, than when it was originally sold or created, because of popularity or rarity. Monks remain intriguing to popular culture, but unfortunately are increasingly rare.
I have my own set of Utah abbey collectibles too, including (thanks to Bill White) benches from the monastery church. In the spirit of the monks, I’ve given some of the benches for charitable purposes or to other friends/supporters of the monks.
I am also fortunate to have a Brother Nick clock as well as Huntsville monastery photos, notes, postcards, creamed honey container lids, and old stationary. I think of them as relics from kind and holy men.
Although I love that there is a second-hand market for their stuff, I could never put any of my memories on sale.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
