Fine estate property including grand piano highlights Susanin’s sale April 18

Baldwin concert grand piano, circa 1943, estimate $15,000-$20,000. Image courtesy Susanin's Auctions.
Baldwin concert grand piano, circa 1943, estimate $15,000-$20,000. Image courtesy Susanin's Auctions.
Baldwin concert grand piano, circa 1943, estimate $15,000-$20,000. Image courtesy Susanin’s Auctions.

CHICAGO – More than 850 lots of fine estate property will be auctioned at Susanin’s on Saturday, April 18, beginning at 10AM Central.

Featuring furniture from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, the sale boasts a huge selection of top-quality items. Other categories well represented include decorative arts, fine silver, paintings, prints, sculpture, Asian art, rugs and carpets.

The sale represents the combination of several fine Chicago estates, with lots selected by Susanin’s staff to provide the most complementary presentation possible.

Continue reading

Historic sporting rifles made for John F. Dodge star at Cowan’s April 29

Engraved and gold inlaid Winchester Model 1886 Takedown Rifle in unfired condition made for John F. Dodge. Image courtesy Cowan's Auctions.
Engraved and gold inlaid Winchester Model 1886 Takedown Rifle in unfired condition made for John F. Dodge. Image courtesy Cowan's Auctions.
Engraved and gold inlaid Winchester Model 1886 Takedown Rifle in unfired condition made for John F. Dodge. Image courtesy Cowan’s Auctions.

CINCINNATI – Two rare and important American sporting rifles, a Winchester Model 1886 (est. $400,000-500,000), and a Savage Model 1899 Takedown Rifle (est. $200,000-250,000), each made exclusively for American automotive legend John F. Dodge, are set to hit the auction block at Cowan’s Historic Firearms and Early Mililtaria Auction on April 29th, 2009 at Cowan’s 27,000 square foot facility with 400-seat salesroom.

Both rifles are fresh to the market and descend directly from the Dodge family. John F. Dodge and his brother Horace Dodge founded the Dodge Brothers Motor Car Company in 1913, after building a reputation for producing the finest quality automotive parts and supplying them to companies like Oldsmobile and The Ford Motor Company. The Dodge Brothers Motor Car Company grew to be the fourth-largest automobile manufacturer in the country by 1917 and proved a major rival for Ford. The company was purchased by Walter Chrysler in 1928 for $170 million, eight years after John F. Dodge’s death.

Continue reading

Chinese art exhibit features flags made from human hair

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – From afar, the nearly 200 world flags hanging in a Drexel University science building are recognizable but monochromatic, their stars, stripes and crescent moons rendered in shades of brown.

Up close, you can see why: They’re made of human hair.

The flags, which inspire reactions from revulsion to fascination, are the centerpiece of Ink Not Ink, a contemporary art exhibition that features painting, photography, sculpture and video by 40 Chinese artists.

Wenda Gu’s stunning flag installation is likely to get most of the attention. Titled United Nations: Man & Space, Gu created the banners using hair tufts, clippings and strands collected from millions of people around the world. And lots of glue.

Watching sunlight filter through the flags, which cover a glass wall section that’s six stories high and 100 feet long, exhibit co-director Abbie Dean called the work “monumental, astonishing, thrilling.”

“It’s very cathedral-like,” Dean said. “It almost gives it a stained-glass feeling.”

Continue reading

Kovels – Antiques & Collecting: Week of April 6, 2009

This 3 1/2-inch-tall tin rabbit with felt ears and a basket of eggs on its back hops when wound up. The Easter toy was made in the late 1940s and sold for just $42 at a Dirk Soulis auction in Lone Jack, Mo.
This 3 1/2-inch-tall tin rabbit with felt ears and a basket of eggs on its back hops when wound up. The Easter toy was made in the late 1940s and sold for just $42 at a Dirk Soulis auction in Lone Jack, Mo.
This 3 1/2-inch-tall tin rabbit with felt ears and a basket of eggs on its back hops when wound up. The Easter toy was made in the late 1940s and sold for just $42 at a Dirk Soulis auction in Lone Jack, Mo.

Toys often can tell you when and where they were made. A recent sale of Easter toys included a tin rabbit that was marked “Germany … Made in U.S. Zone.” Country names in the marks on toys, figurines, dishes and other collectibles may tell the exact time the piece was made because boundaries and names of countries have changed many times. The rabbit was a tin toy that could hop when it was wound up. First clue to age: Key-wound tin toys were popular in the first half of the 20th century. The U.S. Zone mark was used on things exported from Germany between 1945 and 1949. Those are the years after World War II when Germany was divided and occupied by Allied forces. Other marks indicating dates used for a short time after the war are “Occupied Japan” (1945-1952), “West Germany” (1949-1990) and “East Germany” (1949-1990).

Continue reading