I’ve held onto this vintage glass juice set for years, hoping I could confirm the oranges were indeed hand-painted oranges from Gay Fad Studios. My set has a clear glass ribbed carafe or water jug and two small clear glass juice glasses — each painted with a cheery orange in shades of yellow and orange, and leaves of greens. The pitcher or carafe also has bands of yellow, orange and green painted on it. There probably were at least two more glasses in the set originally, and the paint has flaking; all of which I (oddly) find more charming. The wear is proof of its age and service, and juice for two provides a cozy breakfast scene!
In all these years, I’ve never seen another set quite like it — but I’m still rather certain it is a Gay Fad breakfast juice set.
The first clue lies in the story of Gay Fad Studios. Fran Taylor, founder of Gay Fad, began her business in 1938. With just a $30 investment, she began painting on glass “blanks” from the major glass companies of the day (such as Anchor Hocking, Federal Glass, Hazel Atlas, and others). By the 1940s, and throughout the 1950s, she and her staff of decorators would make Gay Fad Studios a major glassware design company whose pieces are heavily collected today.
The second clue lies in the glassware itself. While the little clear juice glasses bear no markings, the ribbed juice carafe or water jug does. It has the Anchor Hocking mark on the bottom, and is readily identified as a piece from the Anchor Hocking Manhattan pattern of clear Depression glass. (It does not have the matching circular ribbed lid, if it ever did.)
Production of the Manhattan pattern began in 1938 — the same year Taylor began her glassware painting. The pattern was retired in 1943, making it a true Depression era pattern, and soundly keeping the piece within the Gay Fad Studios lifetime.
So even though I’ve never seen another set like this — not by Gay Fad, Anchor Hocking, or anyone else — I’m fairly certain this is a vintage Gay Fad glass juice set.
…Of course, it could be hand-painted by anyone too. So any help is appreciated!
The Heritige Elvis Memorabilia Signature Auction will be held August 14, 2012, in Memphis — with online bidding ending at 10:00 PM Central Time the night before. Some of the rare items included in this auction are:
If you prefer something more intimate, there’s Elvis Presley’s signature on a Humes High School library card from 1948. The card proves then 13-year old boy who would become The King checked out a copy of The Courageous Heart: A Life of Andrew Jackson For Young Readers. The card was discovered years later by a Humes High librarian while clearing some old books from inventory and is offered with the copy of the book along with a COA from Richard Consola. Estimated value is $4,000 — and up.
A 1950s Country & Western band from Harrisville, Rhode Island, named Uncle Jim and the Westones sometimes played gigs at county fairs in Tennessee, appearing on the same bill with a young upstart named Elvis Presley who occasionally sat in with them. After an occasion where Elvis played this very same resonator guitar, he signed it for its owner, Westones leader Jim Riley. The signature is between the slots on the headstock of this beautiful, original instrument. Presley apparently used a blue ballpoint pen and he pressed down hard enough to break though the varnish and leave a deep, permanent impression into the wood. Careful viewing shows much of the blue ink remaining.
Two pages, mimeographed copies of the original typed document, dated “March 5, 1956,” outlining the agreement Hal B. Wallis and Joseph H. Hazen of Paramount Studios made with the then 21 year old Presley as he was embarking on his film career; eleven ‘boiler plate’ points are listed, including salary [“First yearly period $15,000 / Second yearly period $25,000,” etc.], transportation [“You agree to furnish me with round-trip first class transportation to Hollywood and to allow me $50.00 a day expenses…”], and other like terms; signed on the second page in blue ballpoint ink “Elvis Presley” and in blue and black fountain pen ink by the two producers; this document was likely a file copy as it’s mimeographed, though all signatures are actual ink on paper. 11″ x 8.5″. COA from Rich Consola. Estimate: $8,000 – up.
If iconic American moments are your thing, how about the suit Sonny West, Elvis’ friend and personal bodyguard, wore during that historic meeting between Elvis and President Nixon in 1970? It may not be Elvis’, but it was literally darn close! The auction estimate is over $6,000.
During a recession, it is always more difficult to obtain credit, which makes it vital to keep your credit record in good condition. You can make a positive step towards this by visiting the Credit Expert website for a free online credit check.
Given that collectibles are, by definition, luxury goods, it is not surprising that the market has nosedived since the recession kicked in. Tough economic conditions and rising unemployment have led to an increase in the supply of collectibles, with many collectors being forced to sell off some of their prized collections in order to make ends meet. By the same token, collectors have had less money to spend on building up their collections, and the net result of this has been to drive down the prices of most collectibles.
For example, in the US market for baseball collectibles, prices of rare baseball cards have fallen through the floor, with cards that were worth hundreds of dollars a few years ago retailing for tens of dollars – and they are still moving slowly. The popularity of online auction site eBay has also had a downwards influence on prices, which has made things increasingly difficult for dealers. During a recession, hardcore collectors rarely stop collecting, but they will slow down, and buy less expensive items. For more information on this topic, take a look at this article from the Missourian newspaper blog.
However, at the top end of the market, ultra-rare collectibles are still fetching record prices. This is because the market for these types of items has always consisted of high-net-worth individuals who have less to fear from the recession than the majority of working people. It is likely that this trend will continue for the foreseeable future, and some dealers have repositioned themselves in order to cater for this low-volume, high-value end of the market. This increases the risk for dealers, starved of the cashflow produced by a steady stream of low-value collectibles sales, but for those dealers who have stayed in the business, this remains an area where great profits can be made if they are sufficiently well-connected.
On the other hand, for those who have the disposable income to spend on collectibles, there has never been a better time to buy, as prices will surely begin to rise as the economy recovers.
Photo Credits: Mike French of Dugout Sports Cards in Columbia; by Irene Rojas of the Missourian.
The front page of the Pittsburg Post-Gazette for Tuesday, August 3rd, 1920, brought a mysterious story:
Diamond Merchant’s Sudden Death Closes Pages In Famous ‘Ghost Book’
Chicago, Aug. 5 — The sudden death of Samuel T.A. Loftis, millionaire diamond dealer, after a night of wine and taxis, has closed the pages of a famous “Ghost Book,’ which Loftis has kept up for 14 years.
The book was found in the dead man’s apartment. It’s pages are of glazed paper, which, after being written on, were creased down the middle, causing the writing to blot in a freakish double smear.
Loftis, friends say, gave credence to the significance of “ghost signatures.”
This verse occupies the front page of the “Ghost Book”:
“Shadows form in our ghostly past; Ho! Ho! young man. Ho! Ho! From forgotten graves they will rise at last; It is so, young man, it is so. You may run, you may dodge, you may Twist, you may bend, The flying phantoms win in the end; Ho! Ho! old man, Ho! Ho!”
No further explanation of his death is given, not even why a photograph of his ex-wife was made part of the story.
The late Mr. Loftis held the distinction of inventing a new business model for diamond dealing: selling directly to the public on credit. Loftis Bros. and Company advertised in large metropolitan newspapers, offering low monthly payments for fine diamond jewelry. Owning diamonds was now within the reach of the burgeoning middle-class, but excessive debt was also one facet of the beginnings of the lending crisis that brought on the Great Depression. Loftis’ business was launched shortly after DeBeers began their campaign to push diamonds into the forefront; Loftis’ credit system helped make the diamond the de facto wedding ring stone for people of any income.
A “ghost signature” is produced just as described in the Loftis article. The process was much more effective in the days of fountain pens, with slow-drying India ink and a loose method of depositing the ink. The ‘glazed paper’ helped the process by preventing the ink from soaking in. The book was held sideways and the subject was encouraged to sign the book on half of a page, in their official hand and leaving as much ink as possible. The page was creased in the middle and the page folded back upon itself, creating a Rorschach-like inkblot, something for the mind to interpret in innumerable ways. Faces, bodies, animals, spirits, and monsters all appeared in the squished and smeared John Hancocks of the willing contributors to a Ghost Signature book.
As you might have guessed, the business model of preying on the turn-of-the-century middle-class with a promise of acquiring unaffordable luxury doesn’t spring from the minds of well-balanced, altruistic people. In June of 1907, Samuel Loftis suffered a gunshot wound and a split scalp…caused by his brother, Joseph Loftis — one of the “Loftis Bros.” on the masthead — during a business meeting. Samuel Loftis had read a motion to remove his brother as vice president due to unignorable indiscretions; the secretary of the company, Loftis’ wife, seconded the motion. One dissenting ‘nay’, from the soon-to-be-ousted vice-president, wasn’t enough to overturn the motion. Joseph Loftis was discharged from his position, and in return he emptied all six chambers of his revolver in Samuel Loftis’ direction and then leapt upon the wounded president with the intent of finishing the job by beating him with the butt of the revolver.
Samuel Loftis declined to press charges. Joseph was sent west and was the head of the Loftis Bros.’ Omaha office until Samuel’s death.
In 1910, Clifford Loftis, the other member of the “Bros.”, was arrested, but acquitted, in the murder of Joseph Lafferty in Bakersfield, California. Lafferty had stopped Clifford from beating a horse, which resulted in a fistfight. Clifford wasn’t satisfied with the result and brought a gun along to renew the discussion the next day. The New York Times reported that Clifford, a cowhand at the time, had been sent west and left out of the diamond business “to get him away from the temptations of city life.”
Mark Twain wrote that the “last fad is ‘ghost – autographs.’ You write your name down the crease, then fold & press the paper while the ink is still wet & will blot. It generally makes something resembling a skeleton.” He had made one of his own in 1905 and sent it off to his daughter, Clara. The “fad” enjoyed a brief popularity at a time when autograph books were becoming passe. From the mid 19th century until the early 20th it was a friendly gesture to exchange or collect signatures in a little autograph book as a memento of friendships and other events. The mid-19th century also brought the fun artwork of “klecksographie,” popularized by the poet and artist Justinus Kerner. The “ghost signature” overlap of inkblot art and autograph exchanges wasn’t a lasting fad, but it held enough attraction to spawn custom hardbound books designed specifically for making ghost signatures, like the one owned by Samuel Loftis. At the height of the fad, around 1909, ghost autographs were solicited from presidents, dukes and dutchesses, and other celebrities.
In 1909, Samuel Loftis and his wife, Harmon — the company secretary — dissolved their marriage in a fit of hostility. Harmon cited abuse and neglect, stemming from Samuel publicly striking Harmon in the face at at the South Shore Country Club ballroom. Samuel responded by charging his wife with drunkenness and infidelity. The divorce was granted in 1912, and Harmon moved to California with a $125,000 check in her pocketbook.
Samuel T. A. Loftis
Samuel, free of the shackles of marriage, set himself on a path marked by wine, women, and song, and his multi-million-dollar diamond business allowed him to afford all the indiscretions his heart desired. The housekeeper of his Chicago apartment described dozens of women coming and going over the months he resided in the apartment, which would prove to be his final residence. On August 30th, 1920, a drunk Samuel Loftis brought a girl to his apartment, Miss Ruth Woods, the fiancee of a business partner. By the end of the night, the fiancee, furrier Roy Shayne, was at the apartment, and Loftis was dead from a blow to the head. Woods claims she called Shayne for help after Loftis fell and hit his head on the floor. The story the police believed was that Loftis had attempted to ravage Miss Woods by force; she summoned Shayne for assistance, and a liquor bottle to the head ended Loftis’ conquest. An inquest was held, both Woods and Shayne were questioned, and when the inquest ended on August 4th the death was ruled accidental, due to a fall. On August 8th, ten days after Loftis’ death, Shayne and Woods were married in Milwaukee, after receiving a special dispensation to waive the five-day waiting period on Wisconsin marriage licenses.
The original, complete wire story about Loftis’ death included many more details of Woods’ and Shayne’s testimonies, and more information about Loftis’ life. Whether due to sloppy editing or a taste for the bizarre, most newspapers cropped the story down to end just where my quote above finishes: Loftis died, and he had a book of ghost signatures. The sensationalism of the reporter who composed the original wire story appears to have attempted to tie together the reckless life of the Loftis clan to the occultism of the 1920s, and to start a much longer story with an attention-getting zinger. Reporters visited crime scenes, and the book probably caught the eye of a beat reporter looking for something interesting to punch up the article. Loftis was probably just hip to the fads of the time, and used it as a conversation piece, collecting the autographs of friends and marveling at the mysterious shapes. Loftis’ actual life was far more sinister than the so-called “ghost book” of the news reports.
The poem the newspaper quoted from the forward of Loftis’ ghost book helps identify his book as The Ghosts of My Friends, the most common of the preprinted spirit autograph books from the first decade of the 20th century. The poem is by Gerald Villiers-Stuart, and appeared in his book The Soul of Croesus. Ghosts is attributed to Cecil Henland, who had made a name for herself by producing other books of the same format, with some front material and then blank pages for the purchaser to fill in, and in founding the National Society of Day-Nurseries. Henland married Lieut. Col. Arthur Percival at age 38 in 1907, but was widowed in World War I. Heland’s next most popular book was The Christmas Book, which included blank pages for people to write their wish-lists, and additional pages laid out to record the celebrations and events of the Christmas season.
The Ghosts of My Friends is somewhat common in online stores and websites, with the price varying quite wildly, but mostly sells for around $40. In 2009, a copy belonging to Fred Astaire, or someone in his family, was placed for auction and sold for several hundred dollars. Your Hidden Skeleton is less common and tends to bring a little higher price. People who own copies of either book tend to be rather proud of their ghost signatures, frequently posting samples online. If you’d like to make one of your own but without damaging an antique book, there is a company producing ghost autograph books similar to Cecil Henland’s, which can be purchased from Reflections of My Friends.
When I first heard about the National Geographic Channel’s new show, America’s Lost Treasures, I was excited. The premise is that folks parade in, Antiques Roadshow style, to have their objects evaluated — not simply for monetary value, but for their historical value — to answer the question, “Could you have a museum-worthy artifact hidden in your house?” The artifacts discovered or uncovered each week then “win” the opportunity to be included in a special exhibit at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C., stated to be sometime in 2013 (though the exhibit does not yet appear on the museum’s calender— which, at the time I write this is scheduled through the end of April, 2013).
While the series has a game show element of competition, the focus appeared to be on the history and museum-worthy value of objects. Sure, there’s a $10,000 prize to with such an honor; but I fell for the idea of the recognition. What collector doesn’t want some validation? And, let’s be honest, a $10,000 cash prize for loaning an object to a museum seems a low price for objects deemed of such great historical value.
But then I watched the show.
Problems erupted everywhere.
Show hosts Curt Doussett and Kinga Philipps are literally talking heads with little, if any, experience in history, antiques, or collectibles. Sure, their enthusiasm is high; but their knowledge is obviously low.
When Phillips meets a couple with antique shaving mugs, she literally gushes and coos her ignorance. Who hasn’t heard of shaving mugs?! I think Old Spice still puts them out at holiday time. OK, maybe not everyone has heard of shaving mugs; but then not everyone hosts an antiques & collectibles history show either. And that’s my point.
And Doussette, who studied music composition and theory at Brigham Young University with the stated intention of becoming a master conductor, may have become overwhelmed with emotion at having the opportunity to fulfill his lifelong dream to conduct at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (it was a cool, moving moment), but he continually over-estimates the importance, value, and condition of musical instruments. It’s all rather mind-boggling, really.
And it might be OK, these talking heads who are nearly empty-headed on the subject they are hosting, because there will be experts, right? Well…
Enter curator emeritus Chris Baruth from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, who is the expert visited to authenticate and evaluate a walking stick from the 1893 World’s Fair held in Chicago which contains a map of the fairgrounds. Despite the cautionary comments of the woman who owns the antique walking stick, Baruth rips the fragile old map! And do make matters worse, you can hear Baruth (or perhaps it’s Doussett?) say, “Now what do we do?” While I tried not to cry (or was it faint), Baruth offers to tape it. Really?! Oh. My. Gawd. Thank heavens Doussett promises complete restoration to the owner. You can watch the catastrophe here:
How’s that for damaging your credibility as an expert?
But wait; like a set of Ginsu knives, America’s Lost Treasures has more!
The piece of metal from the WWII Japanese Zero plane was identified behind its frame and glass via webcam connection — something ludicrous, given the images we are shown of the webcam connection. There is no investigation of the owner’s story; his father’s story is taken virtually at face value. Meanwhile, the descendants of Roger Sherman don’t have it so easy; they don’t have the properly documented provenance of the item passing down the generations in wills and so are removed from the running. I guess one father’s story isn’t as good as another’s.
And at the end, perhaps the greatest injustice of all.
When the piece of WWII Japanese place goes up against the Venetian glass mosaics, the museum curator chooses —
The piece of plane.
I’ve nothing against recording WWII history, but this piece was poorly authenticated to begin with; plus there are museums dedicated to WWII (including the one in Hawaii which said they wanted the piece). And they opt for that instead of those incredible, humbling an huge, antique mosaics made of glass from Venetian glass that came from Murano, Italy; some no larger than a seed, some sandwiched with actual gold. Mosaics which not only have been presumed lost, but which would illuminate parts of history and art which many people know next to nothing about. And isn’t that a large part of what museums are supposed to do? Preserve as well as tell the stories of our past so that they are not forgotten?
In many ways, it’s the Milwaukee episode which most encapsulates the train-wreck quality of America’s Lost Treasures. (In fact, the examples given here all come from that single episode!) If you can get through that one, and still find something fascinating to watch, then you’ll like this NatGeo series.
I myself can’t say I like it. I’ve watched three episodes so far, and I may watch more. But I’m pretty sure it’s for all the wrong reasons. …Well, maybe not “all” the reasons are wrong. I do like to see old objects, and learn what I can. But the more I watch this show, the more I feel like an expert. And I know that as a generalist in this business and hobby, that would be a rather silly thing to say. But apparently Shakespeare was right: “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
Mitzi and I have already shared our lists, but this promotional video from Collectors Quest (where I still write) has some interesting ideas! What do you bring? …And while we’re at it, what do you wear?
It was only a matter of time until Oddities had a spin-off; it’s hard to go anywhere in this business and not hear someone talking about the show, see the increased sales of “creepy”. But for fans of Loved To Death, who has had a great online presence for years (at least longer and, sadly, better than Obscura), the launch of Oddities: San Francisco seems overdue.
Like the original series on Discovery’s Science channel, Oddities: San Francisco focuses on the staff and customers of a shop selling old curiosities, medical and biological oddities, and the decadently obscure. The San Fransisco shop is located at the heart of Haight Street. It is owned and run by artist Audra Kunkle (center in photo), who makes the charmingly freaky taxidermy dioramas and jewelry in her upstairs studio. (Which, viewers will note, must be where she appears ascending from when another staff member calls her to the store.) Other Loved To Death staff on the show are goth model and “brainiac” Wednesday Mourning (left) and well-tattooed “stock boy” Korrie Sabatini (right).
If you haven’t noticed by now, these three look far more like the stereotypical “types of folks” who would make, buy, and sell this stuff. Or maybe they just look like stereotypical Californians? *wink*
It may not be entirely fair to compare the Oddities shows or staff… It somehow seems personal or negative. But that’s not my intention; and let’s face it, spin-offs are compared to the originals. In such a comparison, the new Oddities fares well. It captures the same interests and fascinations, yet is different enough, in staff and objects, to not seem like exactly the same thing. Both series are produced by Leftfield Pictures, so it’s not surprising the same successful formula would be used, right down to street and sideshow performances (and the rather annoying too-frequent recaps of stuff that happened in the same episode). In short, if you love the New York Oddities, you’ll love Oddities: San Fransisco.
Episodes of Oddities: San Francisco air, in back-to-back pairs, every Saturday night at 9PM ET/PT throughout the rest of the summer. I will be watching.
Many of my literary tastes were forged in an 8th grade English literature class. I find myself going back to many of those short stories, fond memories of classic and modern literature in little bits with some analysis and language learning involved. One particular tale blew my mind, and planted a seed that has lasted decades — regarding international money systems. I know, I tend to grab on to the boring parts, but bear with me a bit, here.
The story is The Bottle Imp, a short horror-thriller by Robert Louis Stevenson. Keawe, the main character, buys a ‘genie in a bottle,’ so to speak: a bottle imp, a trapped magical being who grants wishes, but with the trope of there being tragedy in the reward. One of the rules of the bottle imp is if you die with it in your posession, your soul is lost. The only way to part with the imp is to sell it, in coin, for less than it was purchased for. Its original purchase was an immeasurable fortune; by the time Keawe gets it, the price is down to $50. Through the story, the price drops and drops, a game of hot potato with the immortal soul as its prize, until Keawe buys back the bottle for a penny.
Here’s the twist: Keawe learns that there are French Polynesian coins worth less than a penny. A centime, he hears, is worth a fifth of a cent, so the hot-potato game goes on until an unlucky sailor ends up with the imp for a single centime, and resigns himself to Hell with nary a complaint.
I believe my teacher explained the centime like a pre-decimal British half-penny, part of a monetary system with many more subdivisions than the U.S. dollar, but she was incorrect: just as there are a hundred pennies to a dollar, there are a hundred centimes in a franc. The truth has more to do with my last article. Keawe exploits the difference in value of international currencies — let’s do the math here. If you’ll remember, the Stella was set at $4 because 20 francs was worth about $3.92. That makes a franc worth about nineteen-and-a-half cents. So, you divide a franc into a hundred parts, and what do you get? Each centime is worth slightly under a fifth of a penny, just as Keawe discovers.
So, you have to give Robert Louis Stevenson a bit of credit for defeating an ancient horror through the vagaries of international currency conversion. Once Keawe is down to a penny, he sells the imp for five centimes — which doesn’t break the rules, because five centimes is ever so slightly less than a U.S. penny in value. Unable to break the currency down even further, and with an odd number of transactions to be made, Keawe is guaranteed to end with a single centime in his pocket and the bottle in the hands of another.
If you want an idea of just how worthless the centime was, fast-forward to 1960 and the introduction of the “new franc”. The nouveau franc was worth 100 of the deprecated franc, making the pre-1960 centime worth 1/100th of a new centime. By the time the 1980s rolled around, even the new centime was removed from circulation due to further devaluation making the coin useless. That centime was worth 0.15 of a eurocent at the time of conversion, or even less than the centime-to-penny conversion of the late 19th century.
If you held on to your centimes since the 1890s, you’d actually make a tidy profit in the collector’s market. 19th century centimes sell for a few dollars at sites like eBay, and are less common than the ten- or fifty-centime coins of the early 20th century. The progressive devaluation of the franc from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century resulted in a variety of changes in designs and metal content, making for a much more interesting collection compared to a complete set of U.S. pennies or quarter-dollars of the same time period. Just make sure you keep a handful of centimes handy: you never know when your eternal soul might be on the line in your international currency exchanges.
Yesterday, I wrote about collecting vintage matchbooks at Collectors Quest, but I couldn’t find these photos; so here I am, adding a Post Script, of sorts. While matchbooks, with their small size, seem like a manageable collection, let me assure you they can literally pile up. Placing matchbooks in jars seems kind of lazy and a possibly unsafe way to display your matchbook collection. Organizing matchbooks in binders might work if you have the time and discipline — but it still relegates your collection to sitting unseen on shelves. But this idea, spotted at a flea market, seems rather ingenious!
Here matchbooks are slid inside the hollow plastic parts of a plastic poster frame. (These are the cheap frames you can find at Wal-Mart; the kind you just slide apart. Since you only want the plastic frame parts, just get the frames with the cardboard backs.) Since the matchbooks are about as thin as the poster with the cardboard backing, the plastic holds them in place and on display.
I would suggest that the plastic “rods” be set or hung inside a curio cabinet — that way, the antique and vintage matchbooks can be protected behind glass. The plastic frame parts are very easily cut.
I know collectors of holiday items do not only collect seasonally, so I just had to show you these vintage Halloween snapshots of children in costumes!
Let the heavens open wide and pour shoes with Wedgwood heels!
Yes, shoes with heels made of Wedgwood jasper, some even trimmed with Wedgwood cameos. Jasperware high heels were the idea of Sir Michael Rayne of the H&M Rayne shoe company, who’d made footwear for several generations of the British Royal Family, including the royal wedding shoes for Queen Elizabeth II.
These shoes are hard to find, even on eBay — and with the matching handbag? Yikes! No matter the year, color, or style, a pair of Wedgwood heeled shoes by Rayne will sell for at least two hundred dollars; with the handbag, you’re talking like $600.
At those prices, you don’t care how much it could hurt getting hit by shoes falling from the sky; you’ll take the bruises and run out to catch as many as you can!
As for damages to the shoes, I imagine the leather fares far worse in the fall — and even the general wear — than the heels. According to the Wedgwood Museum, the strength of the jasper was of concern to R&D:
The company’s in-house magazine, ‘Wedgwood Review’, in November 1958 extolled – ‘Mr. Edward Rayne famous shoe manufacturer, is always good for a surprise. This time it is shoes, some with heels made of jasper and some trimmed with Wedgwood cameos.’ The entry went on to describe how – ‘Exhaustive trials, long to be remembered…were necessary before the first perfect batch was delivered hot from the oven to H&M Rayne. Within a few days they had been made up and were on their way to a special fashion show in America.’ The heels and cameos were produced in pale blue, and sage green with white bas reliefs. Rayne revealed their ‘Wedgwood Collection’ at the New York’s Plaza Hotel, and also at the National Shoe Fair held in Chicago during October 1958.
… [The] original 1958 Rayne shoe features a small, round, white on pale blue jasper cameo, with the head in bas relief of a vestal. The stiletto heel bas relief is of ‘Hebe and the Eagle’ surrounded by a laurel wreath.
But not all the Wedgwood heeled shoes are from 1958. Different styles debuted in 1959 — and the winter of 1977, Wedgwood and Rayne briefly reintroduced the jasper shoe heels in new, vibrant shades of primrose, pale blue, sage green and lilac. These were launched in the USA in January 1978, as shown in this page from the March issue of that year’s Vogue.
If you have a pair of vintage Rayne shoes with Wedgwood heels that you’d like repaired, (or, as shown above in the eBay past sales image, the jasper Wedgwood heels occasionally show up for sale, without shoes), you’ll want to find an expert cobbler to attach the heels to another pair of shoes. As Jaynie writes:
It is important for any shoe repairs that you must establish that the person doing any repairs on your vintage shoes is indeed familiar with vintage shoes. New glues, dyes etc. may react with the vintage materials, creating new problems. That not only means more money for more repairs, but in fact may ruin or ‘total’ the shoes.
Image credits: Vintage Wedgwood Jasperware women’s shoes in green via rocknbar; the 1959 version in high-contrast blue and white via the Wedgwood Museum; photo of Wedgwood Jasperware High Heels with Rayne Box from the collection of Replacements LTD; scan of Rayne Wedgwood shoes in Vogue March 1978 via Vintage Chic.
I found this antique tin advertising piece at the flea market this past Sunday. The little clay marble or ball inside it intrigued me… At first, I wasn’t sure if it had inadvertently stuck itself in there, but it rolled back and forth freely and there was a hole in the back that looked like a manufacturing punch to insert the ball. I played with it a few minutes… Rolling the ball back and forth. Not the worst game ever; but not exactly riveting either.
An older man watched me playing with the piece, so I looked up and asked him, “Do you know what this is?”
“Advertising…”
“I know,” I responded politely, “But what was it for?”
By now another older man had joined us and they both simultaneously replied, “It’s a towel holder.”
Ah, so that was it!
Having played with it, I decided to honor the dealer’s time (and patience) by buying it. Then returned back to hubby, who was waiting in our sales booth (yeah, we were supposed to be making money, not spending it; but that’s how flea markets go!) I was pretty sure if I’d never seen one, I could stump him.
But since a huge part of my interest in collecting is learning, my enthusiasm didn’t stop.
This antique advertising piece is from the Mahlum Lumber Company of Brainerd, Minnesota, (the lumber business formed in 1904, but incorporated in 1914) and it promotes the company as “The House Of Dependable Lumber & Coal.” But, unless you collect such advertising pieces, that’s probably not the most interesting part.
Called “The Erickson Towel Holder“, this antique tin piece was made by the C. E. Erickson & Company of Des Moines, Iowa, “Manufacturers of Advertising Specialties” and, according to the original box of one of these towel holders, “Makers of the ‘Result-producing Quality Line.'” C. E. Erickson & Co. were also creators/owners of a number of patents. However, the only patent I see for a towel holder is for a paper towel holder (one I am quite familiar with). Yet that one doesn’t seem to bear the name “The Erickson Towel Holder”.
The Erickson Towel Holder ought to have been patented (and perhaps it was; I just didn’t find it), because it really is a neat contraption.
Good-Bye Unsightly Nails and Disfigured Walls.
No torn towels — no towels on the floor — increased life to the towel and a convenient place for it.
Through the use of this Holder the towel is held by either end — or by the center, increasing the service and life of the towel.
As a mom, I know the problems of towels which seem to “jump” from the towel bar; no one around here ever admits to pulling it off during use. And as a thrifty and environmentally conscious person, I like the idea of hand towels — if they are properly used. When hands are washed clean and dried on the towel, they do not get dirty; the towels merely get wet and dry in the air. (Something I remind my family about every time I find dirty hand towels — when you thoroughly wash your hands at the sink, there are no grubby prints or smudges on the towels!) Plus, this small holder (less than 7 1/2 inches tall and 3 inches wide) fits easily into small spaces; something more modern towel holders cannot.
Because C. E. Erickson & Co. was a promotions making company, they also made these nifty postcards for their customers to mail out:
This illustration of the Erickson Towel Holder will give you an idea of how handy and simple it really is — No home is complete without this practical, convenient device. We have one for your home and want you to call and receive this useful household necessity with our compliments.
Sincerely,
Kindly bring this card
(The blank spot after “Sincerely” was where Mahlum Lumber and other companies using these advertising premiums would place their names.)
How this nifty towel holder works is best described on the original packaging: “Simply insert the towel under glass ball with an upward movement. Remove with the same.” As stated before, my towel holder has a clay ball; presumably this version is an earlier form of the holder, with glass replacing the clay in later versions.
I cannot resist telling you that while writing this post, my daughter spotted this old towel holder, immediately picked it up, and began playing with it, rolling the clay marble back and forth just as I had! Even once it was explained to her, she still found the towel holder and its design as fascinating as I do. Best of all, she did it all right in front of her father. Hubby may have known what it was; but I was the one who knew how exciting this find was!
This Friday, Stack’s Bowers Galleries will be selling a rare gold coin that invites a strong Stanley Kowalski imitation to say its name. The “Stella” was a ‘pattern coin’, a sample design minted in its intended form for the purpose of evaluating its monetary usage. The Stella came out in 1879, in the unusual $4 denomination, as a hope of improving international commerce.
Through the 19th century, currency had been slowly evolving from being valued by a coin’s weight in precious metals, to simply the denomination stamped on the front. Coins were still made of precious metals, of course, but as the ease of international travel shrunk the world, the wide variety of international currencies made it difficult to take your U.S. gold coins with to Europe and trust an easy or reliable exchange into the local funds.
The time was also one of other changes. The Metric Act of 1866 authorized the metric system as a legal system of measurement for transactions in the U.S., following the lead of many European countries. Ounces, rather than grams, were still how American money was measured, complicating things. About that same time, European countries were attempting to standardize their currencies in the proto-Euro Latin Monetary Union. Each country’s coins were close, but not quite a even trade, and some were silver, some gold, so the hopes were that a single common currency could help facilitate inter-country transactions.
The U.S. hoped to get in the game as well, by producing its own coins that overlap with the standardized European money. Through the 1860s and 1870s, a few varieties of coins were proposed, but in the mid 1870s Iowan John A Kasson, one of the promoters of the Metric Act of 1866, found a reasonable overlap between a European coin and the American dollar. The eight florin Austrian gold coin, the equivalent of twenty francs, was just under $4 U.S. in value. Kasson’s plan was to mint a $4 coin, whose value in precious metals would be listed on the coin’s face in metric weight, for the purpose of international trade.
Two designs were made of the Stella: a “flowing hair” version, like the one in the Stack’s Bowers auction, and the “coiled hair” design, which is rarer. The “flowing hair” Stella was designed by mint artist Charles E. Barber; the “coiled” by George T. Morgan. Both designs were quite similar, and both shared the same reverse. The reverse design is what gives the coin its name: the center of the coin is filled with a large star — a “stella” — thus giving the coin a casual name, like the “eagle” gold coins which came as portions of $10. Being worth $4 means it could be divided in fourths into smaller denominations, like a dollar and the $10 gold eagle were.
The Stella started out as a small mint run to show the size and weight of the coin to the officials who would evaluate approving the coin. The Stella never made it into production, in either design, but as was the custom of the time it was possible to request the U.S. Mint to produce pretty much any design it had dies for, for the cost of precious metals and seignorage. The Flowing Hair Stella was used to produce about another four hundred coins at the request of various politicians, and those are the most commonly seen Stellas today.
Identifying the difference between the pattern Stellas and the collectible-run Stellas is difficult for the non-expert, but there are a few clues. The pattern Stellas are much more exact in weight, and are of a much higher quality striking than the second run of coins. The second run coins vary in weight a bit, and many have some visible striations, a ‘grain’ in the metal, left from the manufacturing process of the original planchette that was struck. The Flowing Hair Stellas also often have a bit more wear, because they were passed around by the politicians who purchased them (and legend has it that many of the coins found their way into the jewelry boxes of D.C. madames). The Stack’s Bowers coin is of very high quality, but they do not specifically say whether it was one of the original pattern strikes or a later minting.
Strips of wood from an old weathered lattice, twine, and clothespins are used to make this picture frame to display photographs.
Of course, this could be used to display a collection of postcards or other ephemera too. I would heartily advocate placing the photos or ephemera in protective plastic sleeves first.
On June 24, 2012, Bonham’s will hold an Entertainment Memorabilia including Animation Art auction in Los Angeles, California. Among the items are original promotional paintings for films, movie star portraits, film scripts, and other items from silent and classic film history. Included are many items from the estate of Rock Hudson.
Among the personal and professional items from the actor, there are many documents, including Rock Hudson’s birth certificate:
State of Illinois certificate of registration of birth for Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. born November 17, 1925 in Winnetka, county of Cook in the state of Illinois. The certificate was issued in 1926 and lists the surname of Hudson’s biological father who later abandoned the family during the Great Depression.
For me, the item that most catches my fancy is the red silk-lined, black wool opera cape with black velvet collar which was worn by Hudson in performances at his home theater.
If you are unable to attend the Bonham’s auction, you can register as an absentee bidder.
Items belonging to Flaherty which do not sell at auction will be placed for sale back on his website.
A few months ago I was driving down I-94, on my way back into town after a work assignment, and I got a call from The Wifey. She had gone to the Fine Arts Club‘s semi-annual rummage sale, and wanted to know when I would be home. She wanted to make sure I’d be back in time to go to the sale before they close, because my expertise and obscure knowledge was required. Never one to back down from a challenge, I knew I had better be back in time.
I made it with plenty of time to spare, and we got to the sale a few minutes before they were about to close. When I arrived, the lovely ladies of the Fine Arts Club, who had already briefed on my talents by my wife, were excited to hear what I could tell them. I was shown this small metal canister:
Everyone was all abuzz about this fabled expert in strangeness, and I wasn’t one to disappoint. I picked up the little container, turned it around in my hands, slid the little door open and closed, and made my assessment.
“I believe it’s a container that held nibs for fountain pens,” I proclaimed. ” See, they eventually wore out — you wanted to keep them sharp — so you had to replace them regularly. You bought a bunch of them at once and these came in this little tin. Usually the tin got tossed out I’ll bet, but this one managed to survive somehow.”
This revelation brought about gasps of “AHA!” and compliments to my wife on the accuracy of her claims of my ability to identify the little box. It had been brought in by a member to be sold, and it had been placed on the antiques table. Many customers had attempted to identify the little canister, but none had reached such a satisfactory description.
Of course, now that I had properly identified the artifact, I was, by their standards, the best possible customer to purchase the tin as well. I could certainly have declined, but I also felt the same curiosity and intrigue that the tin brought everyone else, so I negotiated the price down to $10, and took my new mysterious prize home.
Now, I may have shown an unshakable certainty at the rummage sale, but I wasn’t entirely certain of my answer. Nib packaging is still the best answer I have, but the name of the product made me more interested in the actual origins of the tin.
According to the tin, this belongs to the Atlantic Cable Pen, manufactured by Cutter Tower and Co. of Boston. It was patented in October 1856, and it’s identified as a No. 29 E.F., whatever that might be. It doesn’t give enough information to say whether the pen or just the tin was what the patent was for, and being such an early patent I could find no relevant patent from October 1856 in the online patent records. Cutter Tower and Co was an office supply and stationery distributor, who sold all sorts of writing implements, paper products, and other office equipment, often rebranded as their own. Still, the Atlantic Cable Pen eluded discovery.
The key to the tin came when I connected the 1850s with the atlantic cable — the Trans-Atlantic Cable, that is. Through the 1850s and 1860s several attempts to run a communications cable across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean were made, with final success arriving in 1867. As a communications revolution, a cable connecting Europe to North America was a big deal, and, well, if I were running a company whose products revolved around interpersonal communication, I’d try to capitalize on it, too.
So, the tin remains a mystery, but here’s what I think it is: With the coming of trans-Atlantic communications, Cutter-Tower Company decided to capitalize on the new technology by branding one of their pens as the “Atlantic Cable” Pen, evoking the future of communications. Just as “HD” is used inappropriately or 7-segment displays were added to analog equipment to call them “digital”, piggybacking your product on the buzzwords of cutting-edge technology is a tried-and-true road to success. Had the 1857 attempt to run a cable succeeded, Cutter-Tower might have had a big-seller on their hands, but it was ten years before a cable made it from one end to the other intact. I’d also guess that the patent is on the unique and charming container design, but was displayed prominently to encourage the idea that somehow the Atlantic Cable Pen was a new technology. In the end, it was an average pen, needing new tips, and the tin, and all it’s fancy design, was to sell a rather commonplace pen to the masses.
As a bonus, here’s what was inside:
This tin one belonged to Bessie Bayless, from Pennsylvania and Ohio. From the Atlantic telegraph lines, to Pennsylvania and Ohio, to the Fine Arts Club in Fargo, North Dakota, and finally into the hands of someone who obsesses over trivial mysteries, this tin is more than just a holder of nibs: it’s a world traveller and a mystery for the ages — and it’s mine.
[C]omprising a percussion cap pistol with octagonal steel barrel, foliate etched box lock and walnut bag butt, a steel bullet mould, a mallet and four oak stakes, a set of Rosary beads, three glass bottles (two labelled Holy Water and Holy Earth), a Book of Common Prayer dated 1857, all contained in a blue velvet lined mahogany casket with fitted lift-out tray, the inner cover set with a gilt metal and mahogany crucifix, the silver lock escutcheon in the form of a cross, 31cm by 23cm by 13cm
As well as the weaponry, the box holds a copy of the Book of Common Prayer from 1851 and a handwritten extract from the Bible which quotes Luke 19:27.
It reads: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”
Prior to the kit being listed at the auction site, Oonagh Drage from Tennants Auctioneers said, “I’m not sure who will buy it as we are yet to put it on the internet. I know there are quite a few Americans who are interested in this kind of thing.”
Yup, we American are all about the vampire lore.
Drage credits Bram Stoker’s Dracula for, perhaps, inspiring such kits. But collectors today have a much longer line to whet their fantasies — and wet their pants. *wink* From Virginia Dare to the more recent Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, we even love to incorporate vampires into our American history.
Because of that, one must always consider the faking of such kits by assembling period items in a period box. I’m not in any position to inspect this kit, and I’m not disparaging its authenticity; but I’ve written about these vampire kits before and so must caution collectors about such general issues in this area of collecting.
Drage estimates this antique vampire killing kit to sell between $1800 and $3000; previous sets have sold for close to $15,000. Because we Americans love our vampire collectibles!
If you can’t make it to Leyburn, North Yorkshire, to bid, you can still bid on the 19th century vampire slaying kit; there’s live internet bidding on this item, and others, in Arms, Armour, Militaria & Ethnographica Auction at Tennants.
On Friday, September 21, 2012, Gerald Charles Dickens will honor his great great grandfather by doing as Charles Dickens himself did in 1868: performing A Christmas Carol at the Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA. On on Saturday, September 22, 2012, there will be two performances at Vaillancourt Folk Art in Sutton, MA; at 2:00pm, The Republic of My Imagination and Oliver Twist, and at 7:00pm, A Child’s Journey with Dickens, and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.
All I know of A Game of Thrones is that the series, which I cannot watch due to a lack of HBO and/or time to devote, looks totally awesome. As with most stories with a devoted set of followers, the replica-makers come up with some pretty amazing stuff. A small mint has produced a set of Game of Thrones money, and I was particularly taken by the Dothraki Puli. This is a “chain” of coins, minted from a single strip of precious metal and designed to be left together as one piece of money, or cut off smaller denominations as needed. I was surprised to see the note from the maker, which says these coins were based on a Russian coin style that was used for nearly a millennium.
The common method for minting a coin is to start with a planchet or flan. This is a disk of the right size and weight for the intended coin, punched from a rolled-flat sheet of precious metals or cast from a blank mold. The disk is then placed between two dies, and are pressed or pounded to leave an impression of the obverse and reverse on each side of the blank. This tends to be more accurate for creating uniform size and weight of coins, although sometimes in the past the coins were cast with their fronts and reverses from the start, but that varied and depended on the material. Bronze, for instance, was a bit too hard for die striking and were cast entirely.
Beginning around 980AD, minters in Russia came upon a novel method of minting coins. They found that it was easier to control the uniformity of thickness and quality by starting with a wire of the precious metal, then cut it into lengths of the right weight, and then strike the coin from those wire chunks. Although the wire was flattened before the die striking, it gave the ‘wire money’ a unique look, oblong with obvious blunt ends were the wire had been cut off. This unique shape earned these coins the name ‘fish scales’ in the Russian language. The simplicity of the process kept it in use until the 17th century and the introduction of modern minting processes, and the last of these coins were made in the early 1700s.
You’ll note that this is quite a bit different than the fanciful Game of Thrones coins above, which retained their wire-like form. Actual minters and financiers would realize a large flaw in the Thrones money quite readily if it were ever used in practice. The weight of a coin in precious metals is something that requires uniformity to ensure that the coin can be trusted to be an accurate payment. “Reeded” edges on coins are designed to foil coin-shavers, people who cut off small amounts off the edges of coins to collect the precious metal and then spend the now-smaller coins at face value. Now, take a look at the Game of Thrones coins. If you were to pull out your string of wire money, you could snip off the requested denomination slightly smaller than needed, and hope that the merchant doesn’t check the weight. Then, you take the extra-long end you just made, and trim it off a little smaller than it should be, too. Do that enough, you get to keep a bunch of the copper or silver while shortchanging the people you do business with. Even the ‘pieces of eight’ were not commonly actually cut into eight pieces, at least not in common money dealings. I suppose, on far-off Westeros, they may have a different way of dealing with these fancy currency, but here on Earth we’re less trusting of hand-cut coins. Although the Shire Post website doesn’t currently have any of their wire coins for sale, real antique Russian wire coins are actually quite plentiful, and can be purchased many places for just a few dollars each.
Have you been collecting long enough and have decided you’re finally ready to make the move to television like everyone else? There’s two casting calls out right now looking for people with a taste for old things.
First is an unusual venue: VH1 wants people who collect pop culture, so you can finally justify to your mom that the 150 boxes of C3PO cereal in your closet are actually going to get you somewhere in life. They’re just looking for people within driving distance of New York, so you’re outta luck, Mama’s Family freak from Sioux Falls.
. (These are the 
Two designs were made of the Stella: a “flowing hair” version, like the one in the Stack’s Bowers auction, and the “coiled hair” design, which is rarer. The “flowing hair” Stella was designed by mint artist Charles E. Barber; the “coiled” by George T. Morgan. Both designs were quite similar, and both shared the same reverse. The reverse design is what gives the coin its name: the center of the coin is filled with a large star — a “stella” — thus giving the coin a casual name, like the “eagle” gold coins which came as portions of $10. Being worth $4 means it could be divided in fourths into smaller denominations, like a dollar and the $10 gold eagle were.
Everyone was all abuzz about this fabled expert in strangeness, and I wasn’t one to disappoint. I picked up the little container, turned it around in my hands, slid the little door open and closed, and made my assessment.
This tin one belonged to Bessie Bayless, from Pennsylvania and Ohio. From the Atlantic telegraph lines, to Pennsylvania and Ohio, to the Fine Arts Club in Fargo, North Dakota, and finally into the hands of someone who obsesses over trivial mysteries, this tin is more than just a holder of nibs: it’s a world traveller and a mystery for the ages — and it’s mine.
