November 22, 2010 - Auction Central News

Early buyers set attendance mark at West Palm Beach Antiques Festival

This pitcher decorated with Abraham Lincoln’s likeness was produced for the 16th president's second inauguration in 1865. Image courtesy of the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – After a cold front with rain rolled through South Florida, the weather for the Nov. 5-7, the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival was perfect with sunshine and highs in the low 70s. The show was sold out of inside dealer spaces and over 50 dealers basked outside in the semitropical climate.

Another early buyers record was set, and they came early to buy, especially silver and gold with precious metal prices spiking in the last few weeks. Festival owners Kay and Bill Puchstein reported buyers returning day after day and carting off loads of silver and gold. Gold was doing especially well.

Other categories benefited from the buying mood with decorator pieces, holiday items including Christmas pieces, quality oil paintings (both listed artists and Highwaymen), and Modernism furniture and accessories making for brisk commerce.

The Puchsteins reported that dozens of dealers are showing up at the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival for the first time in years and are bringing fresh merchandise with them to South Florida. Attendance was strong, only a few hundred short of the record. The upcoming Dec. 3-5 festival is nearly sold out of dealer spaces, and dealers are signing up for the remainder of the winter shows.

Family partnerships are nothing new in the antiques and collectibles business, but the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival is fortunate to have one of the power teams of the trade as regular dealers. Matthew’s Antiques & Collectibles features the mother/son team of Susan and Matthew Muchnikoff. Susan has been in the business over 40 years and Matthew did his first show at age 15. Their accumulated knowledge base is impressive and they are willing to freely share it with visitors to their booth.

The Muchnikoffs specialize in commemorative items and memorabilia from almost all significant events of the last 200 years and the personalities that drove them. Their inventory ranges from items relating to royalty like Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth to political figures like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Then there are artifacts relating to events like the various World’s Fairs including the 1964 World’s Fair, the Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 and many more. Matthew and Susan know their inventory and can discuss everything they are selling.

They want to educate not only their customers but also people who are just passing through. Making the booth different each month is a sales technique the Muchnikoffs have used with great success since monthly shows attract many of the same shoppers time after time. The team is diligent about rotating in fresh stock during every show. They maintain a storage facility near the fairgrounds where the show is located and can go to the facility and bring in whatever customers are asking for. They also offer something seldom seen at shows – a layaway plan for the more expensive items. Since they do the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival every month, and have done so for 15 years, customers are assured of the safety of their purchases.

This season, Matthew’s Antiques and Collectibles will be offering British Royalty memorabilia dating to the coronation of King Charles II in 1651. Americana, American political memorabilia and historical commemoratives will cover the full breadth of this country’s history. The centennial celebration of President Ronald Reagan’s birth coincides with the dates for the West Palm Beach Antiques Extravaganza in February Matthew’s Antiques & Collectibles will be ready. They will also offer an interesting array of early American and English pottery and porcelain, transferware, Flow Blue china, fine equestrian, and dog antiques and collectibles.

December 3-5 Festival hours are Friday noon-5 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Early Buyer’s admission is Friday 9 a.m.-noon, and the $25 admission is good for all three days. Adult daily admission is $7, seniors $6. Anyone 12 and under is admitted free. There is no charge for parking at the fairgrounds.

The West Palm Beach Antiques Festival is held at the South Florida Fairgrounds located off Southern Boulevard, 1 1/2 miles west of the Florida Turnpike and 1 mile east of U.S. 441/State Route 7.

For more information contact the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival at (941) 697-7475, email info@wpbaf.com or visit the website at www.wpbaf.com.

Work on Wal-Mart museum turns up old artifacts

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) – Renovation work on the Wal-Mart Visitors Center, in the original Walton’s Five & Dime and an adjacent building in downtown Bentonville, is providing a look at the origins of both the giant retailer and the city.

“We discovered a whole bunch of different artifacts and realized the history behind the buildings was rich, not only for the city of Bentonville, but also for Wal-Mart as a company,” said Alan Dranow, director of communications.

Wal-Mart’s roots are in Sam Walton’s ownership of a five-and-ten-cent store on the downtown square in Bentonville, where the world’s largest retailer is headquartered.

“We refer to Walton’s Five & Dime as the birthplace of Wal-Mart. That’s where Sam got his vision for discount resale, really,” Dranow said. “It took hold and got attention. From this Five & Dime store on the square, Sam got his wealth of knowledge about retail. That ultimately gave birth to the idea of Wal-Mart.”

The first Wal-Mart was opened in nearby Rogers in 1962.

Items found inside the Bentonville buildings indicate the Five & Dime building is older than the adjacent Terry Block building, officials said.

“The Terry Block building is said to be the oldest building on the square. We found some artifacts that tend to dispute that, that Walton’s Five & Dime building may be older. We’re talking about the late 1800s,” Dranow said.

For example, an interior wall of the Terry Block building – shared with the Five & Dime building – bore fragments of an exterior advertising poster. That likely means it was on the outside of the building next door when the Terry Block building was erected, noted Sarah Haas, archivist of Wal-Mart renovation.

Haas said the poster fragments showed “a man’s face with a bit of a top hat showing, his bright red mustache, some ornamental patterns in green and yellow (and) the back of some horses feet in brown.”

A pair of socks priced at 39 cents was found during work on the second floor of the Five & Dime store. The archivist believes they are from the 1950s.

“I think my favorite item found is a sheet of price tags,” Haas said. “It’s neat to have something that might have Sam Walton’s or an early clerk’s handwriting on it. It really speaks to the heritage of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart.”

The visitor’s center, opened about 20 years ago, has been temporarily relocated while the buildings are being renovated to enlarge the center and its museum. Dranow said the new museum will have more interactive elements, never-before-seen film footage and more photographs.

It also will feature a new exhibit of items found during the renovation.

___

Information from: KHOG-TV,

http://www.thehometownchannel.com/index.html

AP-CS-11-19-10 0630EST

Stonehenge gets millions for major makeover

Located in Wiltshire, England, Stonehenge is owned and managed by English Heritage, while the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust. Photo by Frederic Vincent, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

LONDON (AP) – Stonehenge is getting a multimillion-pound (-dollar) grant that conservators say will help restore some dignity to a World Heritage site blighted by busy roads and cramped facilities.

English Heritage said that it now has about two-thirds of the money it needs to revamp the area around the prehistoric circle of stones, although the group acknowledged the improvements probably wouldn’t come in time for the 2012 Olympic Games, when hordes of tourists are expected to descend on the site.

Built between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago, Stonehenge is one of the world’s most recognizable sites. But the monument’s vista is blighted by two busy roads, one of which runs right by it.

Stonehenge’s visitor center is also inadequate, with vehicle traffic spilling out onto the grassy area nearby during peak periods. There’s only one outdoor refreshment kiosk to serve the nearly 1 million visitors who see the site every year.

A 25 million-pound ($40 million) plan to redo the site was derailed when the cash-strapped British government moved to curtail public spending earlier this year, but English Heritage continues to seek money from other sources.

Friday’s 10 million-pound grant is being awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which uses money raised through the national lottery to refurbish museums, parks and archaeological areas.

English Heritage spokeswoman Renee Fok says the cash, plus other money, puts the group two thirds of the way to its goal.

___

Online:

http://www.stonehengevisitorcentre.org

http://www.hlf.org.uk/

AP-CS-11-19-10 1010EST

Detroit museum opens exhibit on fakes, forgeries

Interior main hall of Detroit Institute of Arts, Dec. 29, 2004 photo by Frankdegram, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

DETROIT (AP) – The Detroit Institute of Arts has opened its new exhibit dedicated in part to forgery.

“Fakes, Forgeries, and Mysteries” opened on Sunday and will run through April 10. It explains the science and research behind figuring out whether works are authentic

The show includes about 60 artworks and highlights mistakes and other discoveries made over the years about pieces of the museum’s extensive collection.

The exhibit draws on the experience and work of the museum’s own experts.

One gallery displays works once thought to be authentic but later found to be copies or stylistic replicas. Another section shows forgeries made to deceive. And another focuses on puzzles that remain about certain works.

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Online: Detroit Institute of Arts: http://www.dia.org

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Online: http://www.dia.org

AP-CS-11-21-10 0400EST

Big Audubon prints soar to a market high

Perfect for New Orleans, the Louisiana Heron was top Audubon lot at the Neal Auction sale in September. The spectacular shorebird was purchased by a local collector for $137,425, a new record for that image. Image courtesy of Neal Auction Co., New Orleans.

In a year when prices have declined for some Americana categories, values for mid-19th century Audubon bird prints have soared to new levels. In September, Neal Auction Co. in New Orleans set 18 new world records when it sold a large collection of Audubon examples consigned by well-known print dealer W. Graham Arader.

Neal has established its reputation as an important outlet for Audubons through sales figures that have surpassed even the major auction houses of New York and London. This is appropriate, since the Southern city held a special place in the artist’s heart. Born to French parents on the island of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), John James Audubon (1785-1851) later adopted New Orleans as his “natal city.”

After Audubon’s father returned to France, he sent his son to America at the age of 18 to avoid conscription in the Napoleonic Wars. There, the young man married and began a family, while trying many careers without much success. At an important turning point, he decided to combine his interest in ornithology with his talent as an artist.

In Audubon Art Prints: A Collector’s Guide to Every Edition (University of South Carolina Press 2003), Bill Steiner stresses the immensity of the artist’s undertaking: “He committed himself to paint every bird in North America. All of them including eagles, swans, herons, and cranes, were to be painted life-sized.”

Audubon hired engravers, principally Robert Havell in England, to turn his bird paintings into plates that could be printed and bound into a volume. The costs would be supported by selling subscriptions for the massive completed work to interested scholars and collectors.

“The project was finally completed in 1839,” continues Steiner. “The Birds of America was made up of 435 hand-colored prints bound in four huge volumes. The ‘Great Work,’ as Audubon called it, was produced by printing etched copper plates onto double elephant folio paper measuring 28 by 39.”

Although there were later printings of the Audubon birds, collectors prize these large Havell edition prints above all. The prints are usually sold individually, but rare intact sets surface on the market occasionally.

On Dec. 7, Sotheby’s in London will offer a complete Birds of America in a sale of books from the collection of Frederick, 2nd Lord Hesketh. This lot, described as “the most expensive book in the world,” is expected to attract as much interest as the complete copy sold at Christie’s in 2000 for $8.8 million. It is estimated to sell for 4 million pounds to 6 million pounds ($6.39 million-$9.58 million).

When it comes to purchasing individual examples of the prints, suitable for exhibition at home, all birds are not created equal. Large birds that completely fill the double elephant folio page, shall we say, rule the roost.

Marc Fagan, print expert at Neal’s who oversaw the September sale, says, “I think the Audubons are broken up into different tiers, where tier one is big birds. They really have to be posed in a certain way so that they can fit in that format. They’re life-sized so he had to have them bending or leaning, and their necks bent in odd shapes. I just think they are a more exciting package than the smaller birds.”

The big bird category includes many of the beautiful wading fowl found in the Southern United States. Top lot of the September sale was the Louisiana Heron, which sold for a record $137,425. This far surpassed the $89,625 paid for the view in the previous benchmark auction, Christie’s famous 2004 sale of Audubons from the ducal house of Saxe-Meiningen in Thuringia. In order to fit the rectangular format, the heron turns its head back to preen its wings.

Other successful waders at Neal’s were the Purple Heron and the Great White Heron, both bringing $83,650, second only to the Sachsen-Meiningen prices. A male and female Scarlet Ibis found a buyer at $20,315.

Also firmly in the big bird category were two other world record prints: the Great American Cock Male, Wild Turkey sold for $131,450, and the Wild Turkey, Female and Young, sold for $65,725. The Golden Eagle with prey in its talons brought $13,145.

“This sale was interesting because I saw the whole gamut from true collectors who have maybe 10 or 20 prints to people who always wanted one and this was their first purchase,” said Fagan.

When assessing Audubon prints, he points out, “They were all in good to excellent condition, so that always helps. For the true collectors, the condition is all-important. They’re looking mainly for color. Any kind of foxing, even small tears, that can be remedied and not affect the value. But if an example has been faded, you can’t do anything about it – that’s gone.”

In Audubon Art Prints, Steiner says this of the painstaking coloring process: “After the ink had dried, the prints were given to a small army of watercolorists (Havell employed 50). In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, hundreds of books with color prints were produced using hand-coloring methods, and many major cities had watercolorist guilds with apprentices, journeymen, and masters.

“In general, the birds themselves appear to be much more carefully painted than the backgrounds, which probably indicates that the more experienced painters did the birds and the apprentices colored the branches, leaves and landscapes.”

Color – pink, to be precise – plays a major role in values for two of the most popular Audubon prints, the American Flamingo and the Roseate Spoonbill. Both long-necked waders are shown with head bent in a feeding position to fit the format. Prices for the two desirables at Christie’s in 2004 were $197,900 and $175,500 respectively.

Neal Auction Co. offered another example of the latter in their Nov. 20-21 Louisiana Purchase Auction, estimate $60,000-$90,000. “The Roseate Spoonbill is one of the top tier birds, and it has everything going for it,” said Fagan.

“It’s a large shore bird and it has an unusual pink color. The color is absolutely spectacular. It was in a collection and displayed in a dark hallway for over 30 years. That accounts for its nearly perfect condition. I’m touting it as the greatest Roseate Spoonbill since that Sachsen-Meiningen sale.”

ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE

The brightly colored Roseate Spoonbill is one of the most sought-after prints from the Havell edition of Audubon’s ‘The Birds of America.’ In exceptionally good condition, this example from an Alabama estate sold for $95,325 at the Neal Auction. Image courtesy of Neal Auction Co., New Orleans.

Too expensive for the Thanksgiving table, these Wild Turkeys brought record prices at auction in September. The tom turkey with bamboo background sold for $131,450, the hen and her young for $65,725. Image courtesy of Neal Auction Co., New Orleans.

Multiple Mockingbirds fearlessly attacking a rattlesnake in the nest are used to fill the large double elephant folio page format of the Havell Edition. The print brought $21,960 in September. Image courtesy of Neal Auction Co., New Orleans.

An alert male and female Hooded Merganser, perched at water’s edge, sold for $14,340 in Neal’s September auction. Image courtesy of Neal Auction Co., New Orleans.

Peru president says Yale to return Inca artifacts

LIMA, Peru (AP) – Peru’s president announced Friday that Yale University has agreed to return thousands of artifacts taken away from the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu nearly a century ago.

The university issued a statement a few hours later expressing satisfaction at the results of its talks with Peru. The artifacts had been at the center of a bitter dispute for years, with Peru filing a lawsuit in U.S. court against the school.

President Alan Garcia said the government reached a deal with Yale for the university to begin sending back more than 4,000 objects, including pottery, textiles and bones, early in 2011 after an inventory of the pieces is completed.

He said the agreement came after Yale’s representative, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, came to Peru for talks on resolving the fight.

“We are very pleased that Yale University has responded so positively,” Garcia said at the Government Palace.

Garcia quoted Zedillo as saying Yale decided to return “all goods, pieces and parts” that were taken from Machu Picchu by scholar Hiram Bingham III between 1911 and 1915.

In a statement, the university said it “is very pleased with the positive developments in the discussions” with Peru.

“It has always been Yale’s desire to reach an agreement that honors Peru’s rich history and cultural heritage and recognizes the world’s interest in ongoing public and scholarly access to that heritage,” the statement said.

Peru’s government had waged an aggressive international media campaign in recent weeks seeking to pressure the school over the artifacts. That included a letter from Garcia to President Barack Obama seeking the U.S. leader’s help.

The Machu Picchu ruins, sitting 8,000 feet (2,400 meters) above sea level on an Andean mountaintop, are Peru’s main tourist attraction. The complex of stone buildings was built in the 1400s by the Inca empire that ruled Peru before the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century.

Peru has been seeking for years to get the artifacts back. It says they include centuries-old Incan materials, including bronze, gold and other metal objects, mummies, skulls, bones and other human remains, pottery, utensils, ceramics and objects of art.

Peru filed suit against Yale in 2008 arguing that the university violated Peruvian law by exporting the artifacts without getting special permission from the Peruvian government and by refusing to return them.

Yale responded that it returned dozens of boxes of artifacts in 1921 and that Peru knew the university would retain other pieces. Yale described the artifacts as “primarily fragments of ceramic, metal and bone” and said it re-created some objects from fragments.

In 2007, the two sides agreed to give Peru legal title to the artifacts. Under that deal, the pieces were to travel in a joint exhibit and then be sent to a museum and research center in Peru’s ancient Incan capital of Cuzco. Yale would have paid for the traveling exhibit and partially funded the museum.

But Peru backed out of the deal because of a dispute over how many artifacts were to be returned.

Garcia added that Peru recognized that Yale’s possession of the artifacts had kept the pieces from from being “scattered in private collections around the world or maybe they would have disappeared.”

He said he would ask San Antonio Abad University in Cuzco to take temporary custody of the artifacts when they are brought back. He will ask Peru’s Congress to establish a special budget to create a museum and research center in Cuzco as a permanent home for the collection.

AP-ES-11-19-10 2331EST

Texas painting found in W.Va. sells for $334K

H.A. McArdle painting of the Battle of San Jacinto, auctioned for $334,600 on Nov. 20, 2010. Image courtesy of Heritage Auction Galleries. --

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) – A painting that was found under decades of dust in a West Virginia attic has sold for more than $330,000 at a public auction in Texas.

Heritage Auctions said the 5-foot-by-7-foot painting of the Texas Revolution’s decisive Battle of San Jacinto was expected to go for $100,000 to $150,000. It sold on Saturday at auction in Dallas for $334,600.

H.A. McArdle painted the work in 1901, five years after he did a large mural of that scene in the Senate chamber of the Texas Capitol. The painting was lost for almost a century after McArdle’s family moved to West Virginia. It was discovered earlier this year in the attic of McArdle great-granddaughter Lynn Bland Buell’s home in Weston, W.Va.

The name of the winning bidder wasn’t released.

AP-WS-11-20-10 1616EST

Avedon auction in Paris reaps $7.5 million

PARIS (AP) – Christies’ says a Paris auction of prints by the late American photographer Richard Avedon, including a multicolored four-frame picture of the Beatles, has brought in euro5.5 million ($7.5 million).

Auctioneers say an outsized print of the 1955 photograph of model Dovima with elephants at a circus was the top earner at the sale – reaping euro841,000 ($1.15 million) alone.

The psychedelic-toned Beatles shot from 1967 brought in euro445,000 ($608,000). The third-highest take came from a photograph of model Stephanie Seymour cheekily baring herself.

Sixty-five Avedon prints went under the gavel on Saturday.

It was the largest auction of works by Avedon, who died in 2004. The auction was aimed to raise money for the Richard Avedon Foundation.

AP-ES-11-20-10 1454EST

Italian cop on NY vacation spots stolen statue

ROME (AP) – Two ancient statues stolen in the 1980s from Italian museums are now back home, thanks in part to a police art squad expert who spotted one of them in a New York gallery while window-shopping on vacation in the United States.

The bronze statue of the Greek god Zeus and a marble female torso, both dating from the 1st century, had ended up in the hands of a dealer and a collector in New York, officials told a news conference Friday in Rome.

The torso, from a small museum in Terracina, south of Rome, was on display in a Madison Ave. art gallery when Michele Speranza, a member of the Italian Carabinieri art squad that hunts down stolen artifacts, strolled by when on holiday last year.

“I stopped to look at the gallery window and I recognized the statue,” Speranza, 38, told reporters. “I thought I had seen it among the photos in our databank” of missing art, said the officer, who took a photo of the work with his cell phone and did some research when he returned to his job in Rome.

“The statue had been given up for lost” after its being stolen in 1988, said Gen. Pasquale Muggeo, head of the Carabinieri art division renowned for tracking down art treasures and artifacts stolen or illegally excavated from Italian soil.

The bronze and the torso are each valued at euro500,000 ($680,000), authorities said.

The Zeus was stolen from the National Museum in Rome near the capital’s main train station in 1980, and was tracked to a New York collector after a photo of it appeared in a Sotheby’s auction catalog in 2006. The art squad methodically studies catalogues of major auction houses.

No arrests have been made in either theft. Authorities said those who owned the statues were unaware of their illegal provenance.

U.S. customs and immigration officials aided in the investigation.

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Martino Villosio contributed to this report.

AP-ES-11-19-10 1056EST

Kovels – Antiques & Collecting: Week of Nov. 22, 2010

This unique British two-pedestal dining table sold for $5,750 at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C. It was made in the late 19th century for a very large room. Each pedestal tabletop flipped down so the two tables could be kept against a wall. The open table is 47 1/2 inches wide and can be extended with added leaves to more than 12 feet long. The legs are carved to look like human legs with feet wearing laced boots.

The last half of the 19th century was a time of creative energy in the United States. Thousands of patents were granted for improvements to household goods, from eggbeaters and apple peelers to vacuum cleaners. Other traditional designs were “improved,” like the dining-room table that was originally just a rectangular slab of wood held by a trestle or four legs. As early as the 1700s, designers had realized that dining tables could be improved by adding extra leaves held by a swing leg at the end of the table or on a slide attached under the tabletop. By the 1800s, slides were made so table leaves could pop into position when the table was pulled apart. Table legs also were a problem. They were bumped by chairs or human legs, so a single large pedestal with low feet was designed, and for extra-long tables, two or more pedestals were used. Today dining tables are made following rules not considered in earlier times. Tables are made in standard sizes so tablecloths can be mass-produced to fit any table. A table height of 28 inches also is standard to go with the standard chair’s seat height of 18 inches. A higher or lower seat is uncomfortable. And most new tables are 42 to 46 inches wide to match the size that fits in the average dining room. There must be room for the table and the position of the chairs on either side when a family sits down to eat. When buying vintage or antique tables and chairs, measure your room and the furniture. If heights or widths are wrong, the set will not be comfortable and may even be too large for your room.

Q: My all-white figurine of a rearing horse with its front legs on a column is marked “Kent Art Ware Japan.” It is 9 inches tall and looks very modern. When was it made?

A: You have a piece of Kent Art Ware (KAW), which was made in Japan in the 1920s or ’30s. Kent designs are very Art Deco. David Eaton, a researcher who hosts a website on Kent Art Ware, thinks Kent wares were made at the Moriyama pottery in Japan. Several Japanese-made Western-style figurines have been found that are almost identical except for their marks. Noritake apparently commissioned Moriyama to make Kent Art Ware, which Noritake then sold in the United States. Several Japanese companies have made special pieces in the American taste and never sold them in Japan. The name of the brand, Kent, probably was chosen to suggest an American or English company. Most Kent ware is all white. Some pieces are white with added colors on a skirt or leaf. Many resemble pieces made in the Deco style by major German and Austrian potteries. You have a piece of an as-yet-undiscovered collectible, so few people will know what it should cost.

Q: I have a dish marked “1794, Royal Bayreuth, Germany, U.S. Zone.” How can I find out how old it is?

A: Royal Bayreuth was founded in Tettau, Bavaria, in 1794. Germany was divided into four occupation zones after the end of World War II. The words “U.S. Zone” indicate your dish was made in the part occupied by U.S. forces from 1945 to 1949. Royal Bayreuth is still in business but now uses a different mark.

Q: I heard costume jewelry was made by the same people who designed the Barbie doll. I collect anything that goes with Barbie and wondered if what I heard is true.

A: The designers of Barbie, Ruth and Elliot Handler, were two of the founders of Mattel, the company that created and still makes Barbie dolls. The Handlers started a company named Elzac to make costume jewelry in 1941. The jewelry was inexpensive and was sold by Sears and some department stores. Pins were made of hand-painted ceramics or carved wood. Added trim included Lucite, rhinestones, silver, fur and leather. The pins were large, some 4 inches long. Those that depicted the heads of exotic women were especially popular. The jewelry was marked with a label or hang tag that is probably lost now. The Handlers sold their share of the company in 1944 and in 1945 started Mattel, which later produced the Barbie doll and other toys.

Q: My grandmother gave me an old carved wooden cane. It’s very plain with a curved handle that’s carved with the words “Bermuda POW 1915.” Can you tell me anything about it?

A: Throughout history, soldiers, sailors and prisoners of war have dealt with boredom by carving whale’s teeth or wood to make everything from pipes to furniture. Your cane is an interesting piece of folk art. When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, any enemy sailors Britain caught in Bermuda ports became prisoners of war because Bermuda is a British Crown colony. So it’s possible your cane was made in Bermuda in 1915 by a prisoner of war. Prisoners taken into custody in Bermuda were later transferred to Canada. The value of your cane is about $100-$150, depending on the quality of the carving.

Tip: Be careful where you display a fresh pumpkin or gourd for Halloween or Thanksgiving. Put a plastic liner underneath it. A rotting pumpkin will permanently stain wood or marble.

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.

Need more information about collectibles? Find it at Kovels.com, our website for collectors. Check prices there, too. More than 700,000 are listed, and viewing them is free. You can also sign up to read our weekly Kovels Komments. It includes the latest news, tips and questions and is delivered by e-mail, free, if you register. Kovels.com offers extra collector’s information and lists of publications, clubs, appraisers, auction houses, people who sell parts or repair antiques and much more. You can subscribe to Kovels on Antiques and Collectibles, our monthly newsletter filled with prices, facts and color photos. Kovels.com adds to the information in our newspaper column and helps you find useful sources needed by collectors.

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.

Policeman Brownie cloth doll, blue uniform and hat, badge, holding club, 1892 Palmer Cox copyright, 7 1/4 inches, $120.
Shawnee teapot, “Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son,” right hand around pig spout, left hand holding stalk of corn, burgundy, yellow and blue, 7 inches, $150.
American Acoma Indian pot, three-tone swirling design, ivory ground, dated Christmas 1927, 5 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches, $420.
Quilt, cotton, Tulip and Princess Feather pattern, vine border, red binding, 1850-75, 71 x 73 inches, $500.
Cranberry opalescent peppermint-stick water pitcher, optic diamond pattern, 8 1/2 inches, $605.
Sterling-silver stuffing spoons, rounded down-turned tipped-back handles, marked “Peter & Ann Bateman,” London, 1792, 12 in., pair, $630.
English dining table, mahogany, rectangular top, massive turned legs, brass cuffs, casters, circa 1840, 71 x 47 x 29 inches, $920.
Rookwood vase, standard glaze, mustached baroque gentleman, long black hair, large white pilgrim collar, 1903, 11 1/2 inches, $975.
Wacker All Malt Beer advertising calendar, toddler wearing oversized boxing gloves, “I Ain’t Bluffin’,” brown and beige background, 1940, 27 x 13 1/2 inches, $1,245.
Rooster weather vane, copper and zinc, rooster, full body, embossed sheet-copper tail and legs, 1940s, 25 x 24 1/2 inches, $1,775.

Just published! The best book to own if you want to buy, sell or collect. The new Kovels’ Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide, 2011, 43rd edition, is your most accurate source for current prices. This large-size paperback has more than 2,600 color photographs and 42,000 up-to-date prices for more than 775 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 online at Kovelsonlinestore.com; by phone at 800-303-1996; at your bookstore; or send $27.95 plus $4.95 postage to Price Book, Box 22900, Beachwood, OH 44122.

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