I found this pretty way to display vintage door knobs at Exit 55 Antiques (Fergus Falls, MN). I love how they look like a bouquet when grouped in the old silver vase.
For a collector of antiques and vintage items, there’s nothing quite like a bouquet of old items — which won’t fade or die! Maybe we should all be singing, “You don’t bring me doorknobs, anymore…” *wink*
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:
A sealed copy of a first pressing of Elvis’ first album (RCA LPM-1254, 1956), which contains Blue Suede Shoes. The auction estimate is $3,000 “and up”.
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.
For your wall, a hand-painted concert poster promoting the December 10th, 1954, performance at the Eagles Nest nightclub (located on Highway 78, outside of Memphis) which was previously owned by Los Angeles KRTH-FM (101.1) disc jockey and Elvis aficionado, Brian Beirne. (The vintage concert poster is also signed by Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana.) Auction estimate is at least $30,000.
There’s also a 1934 National Style “O” Model Resonator Guitar (Serial Number S5245) played and signed by Elvis Presely:
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.
Auction estimate on the guitar is $5,000 and up.
If you’re a movie Elvis fan, there’s an early Elvis Presley signed motion picture contract dated March 5, 1956:
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, 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!
Among the other objects selected as finalists and worthy of expert analysis are a piece of a Japanese Zero from the attack on Pearl Harbor, an antique campaign writing box from the 1700s believed to have been owned by Roger Sherman (the only person to sign each of the four major documents that built this nation: the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution), and Venetian glass mosaics depicting Christopher Columbus‘ “discovery” of America (eighteen feet by five feet panels built on six inches of concrete for the 1893 Chicago’s World’s Fair, presumed lost for at least 40 years).
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?
That choice was an epic fail.
Gunar Gruenke (owner of the mosaics), I feel your pain. (You can visit the site and donate to help restore the mosaics.)
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.”
America’s Lost Treasures airs Wednesday nights at 9 pm ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel and is produced by Original Productions, a FremantleMedia Company.
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
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.
A lovely portrait of an old composition doll, wearing a pretty dress, propped-up by a pillow.
Vintage negative, circa 1940s, via Lynnstudios.
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!
All photos via Lynnstudios.
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.
Some of the items up for bid came directly from Rock Hudson’s estate, which were left to one of his caretakers, Martin Flaherty, who runs Rock-Hudson-Estate-Collection.com.
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.
The world is celebrating Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday this year, and one of the many events includes a world tour, retracing the historic steps that Charles Dickens made during his famous American tours, by Gerald Charles Dickens, great great grandson of the author himself. Two days of the historic tour will be celebrations involving Vaillancourt Folk Art, makers of fine chalkware collectibles. (I interviewed Luke M. Vaillancourt, the son of founder & artist Judi Vaillancourt, back in 2009.)
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.
I know this is a bit early — but it’s a pretty big deal for Dicken’s fans! Get more details and tickets here. And watch for news on more Vaillancourt Dickens’ Christmas items too.
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.
The other is from the History Channel, looking for “energetic trademen, collectors, and restorers” to appear as guests on American Restoration. They, too, say Las Vegas is the place to be, but they’ll put up with you if you’re willing to travel. By “guests” my guess is they’re looking for people to pose as clients, as other shows by Leftfield may not be completely truthful, but, hey, what do you care – you’ll be on TV!
I explore abandoned houses and such places. The rule is not to take anything (or leave anything, like garbage). I photograph the outside of old farm houses mainly, seldom entering them at all. In more than five years exploring the only thing I have ever taken was a green Pyrex bowl which I found out in the deep grass, full of rotting weeds. It took several bleach washings to get the smell out of the bowl. I kept the bowl and I have no desire to sell it. I kept it for the house, the history of the place.
My Mom and I go to auctions, flea markets and thrift stores. We also pick up stuff from the side of the road if it looks good. But, we don’t sell it. Most of it gets refurbished and then we give it to family members and friends who need it. We repurpose. The odd time something ends up being left at the bottom of our own driveway for another picker to pick it up and see what they do with it.
A few times I tried selling old things we don’t still use or have space to keep around. But, it was annoying to deal with people who wanted to shop, rather than buy.
When does collecting become hoarding? I think a lot of people forget the actual pleasure of having something you enjoy. Instead they just want the hunt, the finding of so-called collectibles and then they just want to own it. Not to enjoy it, but just to own it, like having the right number in their collection. They forget to actually enjoy having it. Someone could move all the items and they could never see them for years and it would make no real difference. They might even prefer to just collect it again rather an feel the loss of it.
I like to watch the shows about antiques, collecting, the storage locker buyers and even (less often) the hoarders. But, I don’t think I will take it on as a business. That would take the fun out of the picking up of junk and turning it into something of value. Plus, I don’t want to take on more stuff. There is only so much space available and only so much time I want to spend on dusting and maintaining stuff.
The above photo is upcycled jewellery from The Key of A.
When I first discovered this little plastic man with a movable mouth in an auction lot of winnings, I thought the was Uncle Sam or something because of his red, white, and blue coloring — and the hat. Well, he’s red, pinkish, and blue… And the hat wasn’t your typical Uncle Sam hat, but that’s what I thought. Until my mom schooled me that he was Mayor Phineas T. Bluster from the Howdy Doody Show.
Sometimes you’ll see these vintage plastic figures called “cake toppers” but while there’s nothing to stop anyone from using them on top of cakes, these are little plastic toy puppets made for children who were fans of Howdy Doody. They were early television show merchandising tie-ins from TeeVee, Kagran Corp.
According to one of the original point-of-sale display cards, there were five characters from this classic TV show: Mr. Buster, Clarabell, Howdy Doody, Princess Summerfall-Winterspring, and Dilly Dally.
The display card encourages kids to “Put On Your Own Puppet Show.” To make them talk, “simply jiggle the lever in back of his head.” That’s a bit less than Buffalo Bob Smith had to do. *wink*
Staying in character, Clarabell does not talk — instead, kids could blow his “musical” horn.
The toys stand about four inches tall and are made of plastic, not celluloid.
Additional Image Credits:
Original Tee Vee display card via 69ferrari69.
Photo of all five vintage Tee-Vee Howdy Doody toys by Kagran via PACKRAT-COLLECTIBLES130.
Recently, a North Sydney (New South Wales, Australia) publication, Northside magazine, asked a “few locals” why they collect the things they do.
Academic and psychologist Mark McKinley, thinks that collectors are actually “supreme consumers”. While being called a “consumer”, supreme or otherwise, in the USA is often akin to an insult (even if my 2008 interview with economics professor Marina Bianchi ought to have cleared that up), I believe McKinley means it in a good way:
“While many persons see shopping as a chore; something to be endured, many collectors are just the opposite,” he says.
“Spending the weekend combing garage sales, antique stores and ‘marts’ provides an escape into another world that is both exciting and pleasurable – it gets the adrenalin flowing when a ‘find’ is made.”
That certainly resonates with me.
Another person, Sonia Sattout, who also sells antiques and vintage collectibles online, said, “Some collectors are quite normal, in that their lives have routines like work, home and so on, and they fit their collecting around those activities. Other collectors prioritise everything in their lives a distant second, after their passion or obsession for collecting whatever it is they collect.” Which is rather a nice way of saying that collectors are unique — but we’re not all hoarders.
Sattout also said she thinks there are four different types of collectors:
* the aesthetic collector, who responds to the way something looks
* the obsessive, who is always looking for something they haven’t got
* the canny investor
* most commonly, the nostalgic collector for whom what they collect is a powerful memory.
While there are probably as many reasons to collect as there are collectors, I think Sattout’s list is probably a pretty good start in terms of general categories them.
But maybe I’m a bit biased because she collects boxes as I do. *wink*
Why do you collect? And is there something you’d add or change about the four categories?
Pickers aren’t the only ones bold enough to invite themselves onto your property, into your homes; Jessica Saia was so charmed by the Painted Ladies (the Victorian houses around Alamo Square park you see in many shots of San Francisco, including TV’s Full House), that she sent letters to the folks living in them so she could get a look inside. One of them said, “Yes!” Here’s the story, complete with photos.
