This rare horizontal Grueby tile features an incised and embossed scene of a family of elephants, covered in polychrome matte glazes. The example, mounted in a period Arts and Crafts frame, sold in June 2009 for $26,400. Courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center During the Arts and Crafts period at the turn of the 20th century, Grueby in Boston produced elegant and organic handmade pottery that won medals at home and abroad. Now that the art pottery market has settled back down to earth from the extremely high prices of five or 10 years ago, excellent examples of Grueby vases and tiles are once again affordable acquisitions for collectors.
Although the vases made later in his career have received the most attention, William Grueby (1867-1925) started out as a manufacturer of glazed tile and architectural elements, established in 1894 as the Grueby Faience Co. Glazed terra-cotta tiles, brick, and revetments were a popular building material for interior and exterior use at the time. The material was colorful, durable and “hygienic,” or easily cleaned. Grueby had learned tile production and glazing while working for the J. & J.G. Low Art Tile Works in Chelsea, Mass.
‘Bermuda Every Friday’ – that’s a hot ticket. Adolph Triedler’s poster for Grace Lines dates to the early 1930s. Measuring 40 inches by 24 inches, the color lithograph has a $2,800-$3,200 estimate. Image courtesy Bloomsbury Auctions.
NEW YORK – While last winter’s vacation to a faraway land is a fleeting memory, the images in Bloomsbury Auctions’ Vintage & Modern Posters sale Nov. 12 are as clear and vivid as they were the day they were hung in the travel agent’s office. Bloomsbury Auctions’ sale will consist of more than 150 posters, many of which will be travel related. The auction will begin at 2 p.m. Eastern. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
As posters became a less popular form of advertising after the advent of film and radio in the 1920s, posters postdating these events have become exceedingly scarce. Bloomsbury’s sale features a plethora of posters from the 1930s onward.
A unique highlight in the sale is a collection of eight posters promoting travel to Bermuda. Grace Line, a Furness Cruises division, and the Island of Bermuda brought on artists to create these spectacular, and now, nostalgic images from the 1930s through the 1960s. Vintage posters promoting Bermuda are hard to find in the market, and this group of eight features rare posters from the 1930s.
Another notable collector’s item for sale is a poster depicting a stylized airplane emerging through French-shaped clouds – an advertisement for Air France by Francois Charles Cachoud, titled Le Mont Blanc. The color lithograph has a $600-$1,000 estimate.
Travel posters by KLM, Pan American, and several other airlines are also included in the sale. Alongside these items will be posters by Cunard and Pacific Lines, which represent a bygone form of travel, transoceanic cruising.
The vintage automobile posters section will illustrate the evolution of the car over the last 100 years with posters depicting early examples of Peugeot, Clement, de Dion-Bouton and Michelin tires among other brands.
A highlight in the rail travel section is a 1946 color lithograph advertising the New York Central System. It has a $1,000-1,500 estimate.
The highest estimate in the sale goes to lot 144, a poster by Toulouse-Lautrec titled Catalogue d’Affiches Artistiques. The 10- by 15-inch poster has a $30,000-35,000 estimate. An 1894 color lithograph by Jules Cheret, Palais de Glace, Champs-Elysee, 93 by 35 inches, has an $8,000-$12,000 estimate.
Bloomsbury Auctions, the leading auction house for rare books and works on paper, is headquartered in London with salerooms in New York and Rome. The New York saleroom is at 6 W. 48th St.
For details phone 212-719-1000.
View a fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet during the sale at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
The theme of Clarence Coles Phillips’ poster for the U.S. Fuel Administration is evergreen. The color lithograph, 28 inches by 20 inches, has a $1,000-$2,000 estimate. Image courtesy Bloomsbury Auctions. Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1896 poster titled ‘Catalogue d’ Affiches Artistiques’ carries a $30,000-$35,000 estimate. The framed poster is 10 1/2 by 14 inches. Image courtesy Bloomsbury Auctions. The Pennsylvania Railroad transported tourists to Atlantic City in comfort. Edward M. Eggelston’s color lithograph, 40 inches by 25 inches, has an $8,000-$12,000 estimate. Image courtesy Bloomsbury Auctions. Jules Cheret’s poster ‘Palais de Glace, Champs-Elysees’ measures a towering 93 inches high by 35 inches. The 1894 color lithograph has an $8,000-$12,000 estimate. Image courtesy Bloomsbury Auctions.
Dome-headed Pachycephalosaurus displaying its prominent skull roof. Pencil drawing by Arthur Weasley.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – A noted Montana paleontologist is putting forward a theory that says up to a third of classified dinosaur species are really just juveniles or subadults of already known species.
Jack Horner, director of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, recently published research co-authored with Mark Goodwin of the University of California, Berkeley, in the peer-reviewed online science journal PLoS ONE.
Horner says he and Goodwin focused on dome-headed dinosaurs and theorize that those dinosaurs went through vastly different forms of head hardware as they aged.
Horner says the changes occurred so dinosaurs could signal species difference to other dinosaurs as well as their sexual maturity. Horner says the dinosaur skulls appear so different at various ages that they were incorrectly classified as unique species.
Horner says CT scans of dinosaur skulls backs up the theory.
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Information from: Billings Gazette, http://www.billingsgazette.com.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
A collection of antique cigar box guitars, banjos and ukuleles. From the National Cigar Box Guitar Museum. Photo by Shane Speal.
WALLA WALLA, Wash. (AP) – For his pay-the-mortgage job, Kurt Schoen flies cargo for UPS.
For his live-the-dream work, the Walla Walla man drives to a somewhat-secret location to play a different sort of tune.
Schoen, 44, has been creating custom, “cigar-box” guitars for nearly a decade. His tools consist of old wood, glue, antiquemetal and more old wood.
“You see this piece?” he asks, selecting a length of rugged lumber. “This wood is from New Orleans, from homes that didn’t make it through Hurricane Katrina.”
Running his hand gently over the wide plank, Schoen (pronounced “shane”) explains the wood originally came from a barge that brought supplies down the Mississippi River once upon a time.
The primary stars, however, are the wooden boxes sitting here, there and everywhere in the ramshackle workshop. Those will eventually become the bodies of Schoen’s signature instruments.
Little did he know back in 2001 that a project for his kids would become an abiding love. In hopes of inducing daughters Cheyenne and Daisy to become interested in music, Schoen took a couple of cardboard cigar boxes, ran a stick through and attached a pair of guitar strings to each. “They were not much,” he recalled with a laugh.
Enough, though, to ignite a desire to keep going.
Schoen began experimenting with wooden cigar boxes, then wondered just how nice he could make the homemade instruments, he said.
Eight years, countless experiments and hours of research later, he has his answer _ nice enough to make his creations sought after by unknown and renowned musicians alike. And not just cigar-box guitars, but handmade electric guitars, as well.
He calls the cigar-box instruments, outfitted with hand-punched aluminum resonator cones, “Turbo Diddley” after the Diddley bow homemade instruments significant to blues history.
Cigar-box music is, like the wood it comes from, going to be a little “rough around the edges,” Schoen noted. “Cigar-box guitars have really come to mean homemade instruments. Cigar-box music is not going to sound all that well produced.”
It shouldn’t. The guitars produce rich, thickly complex twangs of tonal layers. And although Schoen claims not to play guitar, his fingers say otherwise as he strums chords.
Now the special guitars are everywhere, from Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top to Andy Summers of The Police fame. Prices for the one-of-a-kind instruments, which take up to 120 hours to build, range from $1,500 to $5,000.
With some famous hands on his strings, Schoen started getting order after order, many of those repeat customers. He also began using other wooden boxes, like the Black &White Scotch whiskey box he is scraping clean. The age of the wood is an important factor in the resonance, he explained.
Schoen finds the old-growth boxes mostly on eBay. He also buys old suitcases for the aged hardware and hunts down steamer trunk keys to use as tuners, he said.
“You don’t want something new on something that looks old.”
On this day, guitars No. 98, 99 and 100 await completion. Then comes the hard part, shipping off the finished project.
“It’s like sending a child off to college,” Schoen said. “You’ve put so much of yourself into it … wondering how it’s doing. I need to know this instrument has met the mark.”
The best gift the guitars offer their owners is accessibility, Schoen said. “The whole reason to make it visually exciting is to entice the owner to pick it up and play with it.
“It’s non-threatening. It’s a cigar box. How approachable is that? It’s something you saw in Boy’s Life magazine growing up.”
And that brings Schoen’s music theory full circle – people need music, and music equals people, he said.
“The great thing about what I do is the relationships with people.”
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Information from: Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, http://union-bulletin.com.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
One of the projects in which Konrad Dannenberg was intrinsically involved was the development of the V2 rocket. Shown here is a replica of the V2 rocket in the Peenemünde Museum in Germany. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) – The family of a former German rocket scientist who helped the U.S. send astronauts to the moon has donated his papers and memorabilia to the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The collection from the family of Konrad Dannenberg includes books, photos, awards, memorabilia, models and documents. Among them are the immigration papers when Dannenberg came to the U.S. after World War II to continue working with Dr. Wernher von Braun’s team of rocket scientists.
Danneberg died in February at 96.
“It really makes it a legacy for him that lives beyond his lifetime,” said his son, Klaus Dannenberg, who is deputy executive director for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Washington, D.C.
The family considered other institutions, including the Smithsonian, but several factors led them to choose UAH.
Klaus Dannenberg said that in Huntsville the papers and other items will remain readily available to family.
Researchers and historians will also find the collection conveniently near the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Marshall Space Flight Center and Redstone Arsenal, which are all involved in preserving the von Braun team’s legacy.
The scientist’s widow, Jackie Dannenberg, told The Huntsville Times they found his working diaries for 1941-44 at Peenemuende, where von Braun led Germany’s development of the V2 rockets.
“When you’re looking back into the time period when we first penetrated space, here you have the log of what was tried, what worked, what didn’t work, the corrections that they made,” Klaus Dannenberg said. “I mean, it’s kind of like finding the log for Christopher Columbus.”
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Information from: The Huntsville Times, http://www.al.com/huntsville
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
This record-price toy auctioned last month. The 18-inch-long Marklin live-steam fire truck sold for $149,500 at Bertoia Auctions in Vineland, N.J.
An important collection of toys is being sold in a series of auctions by Bertoia Auctions of Vineland, N.J. At the two auctions held so far, several records have been set, including $149,500 for a 1912 toy fire pumper. Toys were made to replicate real full-size items, and this German-made Marklin toy powered by live steam was a copy of a real fire truck. It was in very good condition. Only five examples of the toy are known to exist, and this one is going back to Europe. In spite of the economy, the spring sale of this collection brought $4.2 million, and the fall sale took in more than $3 million. More sales of the collection are to come. The lesson for collectors is clear. Boy’s toys have long been at the top of toy collectors’ choices. Trains, cars, robots and mechanical banks are popular with grown men who remember them from their childhood. The best-of-the-best of any type of collection holds its value and can be resold at good prices. And it’s not just items at the $100,000 level. Other records set so far this year include $8,250 for a Winking Cat glass candy container, $2,700 for a Daum Nancy toothpick holder, $8,500 for a 1955 Regency transistor radio and $23,444 for an 1890s fishing creel.
Q: My grandmother sold Larkin products door-to-door back in the early 1920s and received a ceramic platter as a prize. It’s marked “Limoges China Co., Sebring, Ohio.” The platter will be handed down to one of my children, but I’m curious about its history. What can you tell me about the Larkin Co. and Limoges China Co.?
A: John Durant Larkin (1845-1926) founded a soap factory in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1875. The first soap it made, Sweet Home Soap, was sold by street vendors. Larkin products eventually included several types of soap, cosmetics, perfume, pharmaceuticals and other items that were sold by traveling salesmen and through mail-order catalogs. The company began offering “elegant picture cards” as premiums in every box of soap in 1881. Later, handkerchiefs, towels, watches, silver-plated flatware, lamps, furniture and other premiums were offered. Sets of dinnerware were first offered as premiums in the 1893 catalog. The company went out of business in 1967. Don’t be confused by the word “Limoges” on your platter. It isn’t Limoges china from France — although Limoges china made by a French porcelain factory was offered as a Larkin premium in the early 1900s. The Limoges China Co. of Sebring, Ohio, was in business from 1900 until 1955. The company used various trade names for its products during those years. It advertised pieces as “American Limoges” beginning in the late 1940s to avoid a lawsuit.
Q: I bought an old library table that’s made of wood, but the grain was painted on. How was this done? Is it worth more than regularly finished furniture?
A: Grain-painting was a popular technique for decorating furniture in the 1800s. Many 19th-century American families couldn’t afford furniture made of expensive woods like mahogany. So they painted cheaper wood, like pine, to imitate and sometimes exaggerate the veins, grains and figures of real hardwood. The result, when well done, is a furniture piece that’s stylish and economical. In the 19th century, graining was achieved using two-tone painting, vinegar painting, mottling, sponging, stippling or feather painting. Several layers of paint were required to produce the desired effect. Sometimes a thin coat of opaque or semi-opaque paint or glaze was applied to soften the colors. Antique American furniture with its original paint can be very expensive. Removing the paint from a piece decreases its value and makes it harder to identify where it was made.
Q: My silver syrup pitcher with an undertray is marked “Quadruple/Van Bergh S.P. Co., Rochester, N.Y.” Can you tell me something about the maker and age of my pitcher?
A: Van Bergh Silver Plate Co. was founded by brothers Frederick and Maurice Van Bergh in Rochester, N.Y., in 1892. It became part of Oneida in 1926 and moved to Oneida, N.Y. Your syrup pitcher is quadruple-plate silver, which means it was plated with four times the amount of silver as standard silver plate. Syrup pitchers were popular in the late 1890s.
Q: I have a “Baylor Zale’s Jewelers” 15-inch round hanging electric wall clock. Please tell me what it’s worth.
A: Zale’s, the big jewelry store chain, dates back to 1924, when it was founded in Wichita Falls, Texas. Baylor was Zale’s store brand of wristwatches. Most advertising wall clocks like yours date from the 1940s to the ’60s. A Baylor Zale’s clock like yours sold recently for $40.
Tip: If you live in a Northern state and you find gift packages left out in the cold by your front door, be careful. Freezing temperatures make glass and ceramics brittle. Bring the package inside and open it, but do not unwrap the contents until everything is room temperature.
Terry Kovel answers as many questions as possible through the column. By sending a letter with a question, you give full permission for use in the column or any other Kovel forum. Names, addresses or e-mail addresses will not be published. We cannot guarantee the return of any photograph, but if a stamped envelope is included, we will try. The volume of mail makes personal answers or appraisals impossible. Write to Kovels, Auction Central News, King Features Syndicate, 300 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019.
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CURRENT PRICES
Current prices are recorded from antiques shows, flea markets, sales and auctions throughout the United States. Prices vary in different locations because of local economic conditions.
“Make Love, Not War” Vietnam-era slogan button, white ground with black letters, circa 1968, 1 1/4 inches, $20.
World War II G.I. greeting card, “If I Could Pin My Hopes on Just One Thing, This Is the Wish I Would Wheedle,” G.I. jabbing Hirohito with bayonet, $30.
“The Nurses” paper dolls, from 1963 CBS-TV Series, color cover photos of stars, two dolls, 52 costumes, Whitman No. 1975, carrying-case package, uncut, $65.
“Man ‘o War, The Wonder Horse” glass tumbler, reads “Bred in Old Kentucky, On Faraway Farm, Lexington,” 1930s, 4 3/4 inches, $80.
Toy soldiers set, flag bearer, officer, marching soldiers with rifles, painted metal, Barclay, 1950s, five pieces, 3-inch figures, $140.
War poster, “America Calls, Enlist in the Navy,” Lady Liberty shaking hands with sailor, 41 x 28 inches, $235.
Spatterware cup and saucer, handleless, peafowl pattern, blue, 1840s, 3-inch cup, 6 1/2-inch saucer, $305.
Players Navy Cut Cigarettes sign, sailor with cigarette pack, simulated rope frame, circa 1900, 20 x 25 inches, $460.
Federal inlaid game table, mahogany, double gateleg support, tapered square legs, circa 1800, 29 3/4 x 36 inches, $805.
Chief Big Moon mechanical bank, Indian at teepee with fish, frog leaps from pond, cast iron, J. & E. Stevens Co., circa 1896, 4 x 10 x 6 inches, $2,250.
Just published. The new full-color Kovels’ Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide, 2010, 42nd edition, is your most accurate source for current prices. This large-size paperback has more than 2,500 color photographs and 47,000 up-to-date prices for more than 700 categories of antiques and collectibles. You’ll also find hundreds of factory histories and marks and a report on the record prices of the year, plus helpful sidebars and tips about buying, selling, collecting and preserving your treasures. Available at your bookstore; online at Kovels.com; by phone at 800-571-1555; or send $27.95 plus $4.95 postage to Price Book, Box 22900, Beachwood, OH 44122.
