If you lived in the country as a child, you probably knew there were two reasons to head out to freshly plowed ground: fishing worms (probably) and arrowheads (hopefully). If you were lucky, you'd find plenty of one and a whole one of the other.

For most of us, the arrowhead collection was relegated to an old cigar box somewhere in our kid stuff as we grew older, but not Stephen Graham of Tuckerman, Arkansas. For more than 50 years, Graham collected Indian artifacts and arrowheads from his property in Arkansas' Delta region. What began as a hobby grew into a massive collection, some dating as far back as 13,000 years.

Graham died recently, and his family has decided to auction that massive collection. So, 8,000 or so assorted pieces are headed for the auction block this weekend.

According to Shane Grady, the auctioneer whose company is holding the event, it's something unique to his experience. The majority of arrowheads and similar pieces are traded among collectors or in specialty gatherings across the United States. It's not normal to see a collection of this size in a single location, much less with each piece for sale. As Grady says, there's a lot of history represented. "There are over 8,000 pieces in this collection," Grady explained, "artifacts from the Paleo, Archaic, Woodland and Missisippian Time periods - the majority of the artifacts pre-date the discovery of America by Columbus."

The Mississippi Delta region is well represented in the collection, but there are also pieces from exotic locations such as the "Llama Effigy Canopa" from Peru. There are also thousands of particular types of arrowheads (Clovis, Dalton, Hardin and Bird points), stone tools (Sedalia and Ramey knives, warstones, bannerstones, spatulates, and plumb bobs) and pipes.

"It has been a learning experience, to say the least," said Grady. The staff spent more than 45 days sorting, cataloging and photographing the artifacts in this auction. "When they brought this collection to us, we thought, what have we gotten into? We knew ahead of time there were a lot of pieces in the collection, but it's hard to realize how many until they are all laid out on a table in front of you."

"For someone who does not collect artifacts and does not know the terminology associated with artifact collecting, this was a real challenge," Grady said. Fortunately, Grady Auction received invaluable help in cataloging the artifacts from local collectors and from Dr. Julie Morrow, at the Arkansas State University-Jonesboro station of the Arkansas Archaeological Survey.

As a kid who trudged the plowed fields at home with a stick (to prod for arrowheads in dirt clods) and a coffee can (fishing worms), the concept of seeing 8,000 arrowheads and other artifacts laid out for sale is intriguing. But, I think I'll just stay at home and watch the auction on the internet - like nearly everything else these days, you can either show up in person at Arkansas State University, or follow along as the 1,000 lots move across the auction floor and on to their next temporary owner.