JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) – The Jersey City Museum, one of New Jersey’s most valued art institutions, may be permanently closing its doors.
The museum is facing steep cuts in city and state funding and a lack of donations, as well as debt still owed on prior renovations.
The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Monday that the museum is behind on mortgage payments on nearly $3 million it still owes for a multimillion dollar, decade-old renovation.
Deep cuts in state and city funding, as well as previous cost-saving attempts such as cutbacks in staff and public museum hours, and an anticipated partnership with Jersey City University that never materialized mean the museum may never reopen.
Board Chairman Benjamin Dineen III did not return a phone message left by The Associated Press seeking comment. E-mail messages sent by the AP to several staffers listed on the museum’s staff directory also were not returned.
Board member Ofelia Garcia told the Star-Ledger in an email; “These are hard times for the museum,” and that a working group from the museum’s board would be planning programs in line with its reduced budget.
The museum’s 10,000 pieces are secured and professionally cared for, Garcia told the newspaper, despite the institution’s uncertainty.
An offsite exhibition of works by African-American artists from the museum’s permanent collection will be on display at the Hudson County Courthouse in commemoration of Black History Month, Garcia said.
City funds, which accounted for nearly half of the museum’s $1.3 million revenue in 2009, were scaled back and then eliminated altogether this year, the newspaper said. Federal tax returns showed the $625,000 in annual funding given by Jersey City to the museum between 2007 and 2009 still left the institution with a $243,000 budget gap by the end of 2009, the paper said.
Money from a state grant has yet to be released because of several restrictions. Among them: a proposed memorandum of understanding with Jersey City University that was never realized due to lack of funds.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
March 2001 aerial view of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, New York City, site of the 9/11 terrorist attack of 2001. Photo by Jeffmock. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. NEW YORK (AP) – Two New York lawmakers called Monday for a crackdown on a company that is selling Sept. 11 commemorative coins supposedly containing silver from ground zero.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, both Democrats, said Port Chester, N.Y.-based National Collector’s Mint is “profiteering off a national tragedy” by advertising its coins as an authorized memento of the World Trade Center attacks.
“With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaching, we should unfortunately expect more scams, as criminals and snake oil salesmen seek to profit from the deep emotional connection that millions of Americans have to that terrible tragedy,” Nadler said.
Schumer and Nadler called on the Federal Trade Commission to stop National Collector’s Mint from selling the Sept. 11 coins and to investigate the company’s marketing practices.
National Collector’s Mint President Avram Freedberg said in a statement that the company has donated over $2 million to various Sept. 11 charities. “We are proud of our contributions,” he said.
The company website says, as did Freedberg, that the coins are clad in silver “recovered from the vaults beneath the ashes of Ground Zero,” a claim that Schumer and Nadler said cannot be substantiated. In addition, the website says, the coins are “Liberian government authorized legal tender coin.”
A law passed in July creates an official Sept. 11 medal that benefits the National September 11 Memorial & Museum being built at the World Trade Center site.
Schumer and Nadler said the sale of National Collector’s Mint’s $29.95 coins could deprive the museum of millions of dollars in funds raised from the sale of the official medals.
Memorial spokesman Michael Frazier said the National Collector’s Mint’s coin “will in no way help maintain a national tribute to the 9/11 victims and heroes.”
National Collector’s Mint ran afoul of the law in 2004 when it issued a “Freedom Tower Silver Dollar” that it asserted was “legally authorized government issue.” The company was charged with fraud and forced to pay more than $2 million in refunds and cancellations.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Robert K. Wittman, Founder of the FBI Art Crime Team. Image copyright Donna Wittman. PHILADELPHIA – For the first time ever Robert Wittman Inc. is offering a five-day seminar to the public that will focus on the practical application of investigative techniques to recover stolen art and cultural property. The seminar will be held June 12-17 at Philadelphia’s downtown Pyramid Club.
This seminar will focuses on real industry career opportunities in the fields of national and international investigation, art law, insurance, appraisal, museum security, conservation and art financial services. Presented by professionals, the emphasis is on practical application in careers in the industry.
The course will feature more than 20 hours of instruction spread across five days. Instructors are renowned in their fields, having won numerous national and international awards. Together they have served for more than half a century on the front lines of art security, protection and recovery.
Participants will stay at the luxurious Crowne Plaza Hotel on Market Street in downtown Philadelphia.
Lecturers will be Robert K. Wittman, Robert E. Goldman, James E. McAndrew and Herb Lottier.
Wittman was the founder and Senior Investigator of the FBI National Art Crime Team and was instrumental in the recovery of more than $300 million worth of stolen cultural property. He spent 20 years as an FBI agent, and upon retiring authored the New York Times Best Seller Priceless – How I went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures. Today, he is the president of the international art security firm Robert Wittman Inc.
Goldman spent 32 years working as a local and federal prosecutor. He prosecuted the first case in the nation under the federal Theft of Major Artwork Statute (18 USC 668) resulting in the first federal convictions under this law. Goldman was appointed by the Department of Justice as the first at large prosecutor in the nation for the FBI Art Crime Team. Today, he is the principle in the law firm of Robert E. Goldman Esq. and practices art law on a private basis.
McAndrew has worked with the U.S. government for more than 27 years, first with the United States Customs Service and then with the Department of Homeland Security. He is an expert on international art and antiquity investigations and on customs and international trade law.
Herb Lottier has been the Director of Protection Services at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the fourth largest art museum in the United States, since 1996. He manages a security force of 175 contract officers and 35 proprietary supervisors. Prior to his current profession, Lottier served for 21 years in the Philadelphia Police Department. For the last six of those years he held the rank of captain.
Seminar subjects include Civil and Criminal Art Law; Case Studies Focusing on Investigation Techniques; International Art Law and Topics; Museum Personnel and Collection Security; Conservation and Forensic Techniques to Identify Frauds, Fakes and Forgeries; Fine Art Insurance and Art Loss Database; Protection and Recovery Careers in the Insurance Industry and Private Sector; Gallery Issues; Antiquities Protection; Auction Protection Issues; and Fine Art Financial Service Careers.
Deadline for application submission, including a nonrefundable $100 application fee, is due no later than April 15. The application fee will be applied to the all-inclusive course cost with the remaining balance of $2,500 due by May 1.
Participants will receive individual attention and training. Class size is limited, and applications will be considered in the order they are submitted.
For additional information contact 610-361-8929, email info@RobertWittmanInc.com or visit their website at www.robertwittmaninc.com
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Robert K. Wittman, Founder of the FBI Art Crime Team. Image copyright Donna Wittman.Course brochure for Art Crime Investigation Seminar. Image courtesy of Robert Wittman Inc.
Jeff Koons titled the skateboard deck he did for Supreme in 2006 ‘Monkey Train.’ The work is silkscreen on wood. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Treadway Gallery. CHANDLER, Ariz. (AP) – As long as skateboards have been around, kids have been covering them in stickers and drawing on them with markers.
Maybe that’s why a Chandler art show full of skate decks seems to strike a chord with all ages.
“People are excited about it. People have fond memories of skateboarding as kids, and it just kind of brings back that childhood joy we’d all like to tap back into,” said Eric Faulhaber, visual arts coordinator at Vision Gallery where patrons dropping by this week have been eager to see the gallery’s next show.
Full Deck: A Short History of Skate Art opened last week at Vision. An anthology of skate art from the 1960s to the present, the show includes almost 300 decks borrowed from pro skaters, skateboarding companies and artists across the country.
Skate art graphics “tend to be extremely vivid and extremely personal, and many of them have some strong social, political or economic component,” Faulhaber told the East Valley Tribune. “(Skateboards) have always been a really good mode of self expression for the person using them.”
Among the decks, you’ll see the usual skulls, dragons and monsters, but there are also some unexpected faces: Johnny Cash, Sitting Bull, Batman and Hillary Clinton. Elmo, with his arm in a sling, the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, and a half-octopus pirate baby coddled by a mermaid mother also make appearances.
On other boards, peaceful nature scenes recall vintage national parks posters.
Full Deck also includes a display of about 25 early wood and aluminum boards circa 1960 and a 1920s or 1930s-era rudimentary skateboard prototype.
Lenders to the show include pro skaters Corey Duffel, Mark Gonzales, Obi Kaufman, John Lucero and Lance Mountain, and Skip Engblom, the Zephyr skate shop co-founder profiled in the movie Lords of Dogtown.
The exhibition was curated at the Bedford Gallery at Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, Calif. It is traveling to museums, galleries and universities across North America.
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Information from: East Valley Tribune,
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WS-01-22-11 1730EST
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Jeff Koons titled the skateboard deck he did for Supreme in 2006 ‘Monkey Train.’ The work is silkscreen on wood. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Treadway Gallery.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States has returned to French authorities an Edgar Degas painting that was stolen 37 years ago.
The painting was handed over to the acting French ambassador to the United States, Francois Rivasseau, last week.
It was recently rediscovered before it was due to be auctioned in New York City. Court papers said the seller did not know it was stolen.
Authorities said Degas painted Blanchisseuses Souffrant Des Dents in the early 1870s. A collector donated it to the French government and it was registered with the Louvre Museum.
In 1961, the Louvre lent the small painting to the Malraux Museum in Normandy. In late 1973, a still-unknown thief pulled it off the museum wall and slipped away.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
D’Arcy Gaw for Dirk Van Erp hammered copper and mica lamp, estimate: $25,000-$35,000. Image courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center. LAMBERTVILLE, N.J. – Rago Arts and Auction Center will conduct an auction of 20th-Century Decorative Arts and Furnishings Friday and Saturday, Feb. 4-5, beginning at noon Eastern, both days.
LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
The sale includes approximately 1,200 high-end pieces from private collections accepted from the United States and abroad. Included are early 20th-century pieces such as Tiffany lamps, Arts and Crafts furnishings and pottery; and Modern famous maker furniture, sculpture, glass and pottery from the design movements of the 1920s to contemporary makers.
“This sale is notable for the number of finds it contains: pots by George Ohr purchased from Jim Carpenter and off the market for 30 years; singular furniture purchased directly from Wharton Esherick; special collection of ceramics by Toshiko Takaezu, from a friend of the artist; the best collection of contemporary glass to come to auction,” said David Rago.
Early 20th-century design and arts and crafts will be sold Friday, Feb. 4. Mid-20th-Century and 21st-Century design will be auctioned Saturday.
Highlights of Early 20th Century Design session include a George Ohr, dimpled vessel, $8,500-$12,500; a Gustave Baumann, woodblock print, Cottonwood Tassels, $6,000-$9,000; an Isaac Broome for Lenox, Parian porcelain bust of Cleopatra, 1914, $9,000-$12,000; a Gustav Stickley glass lantern, $7,000-$10,000; a Joseph Heinrichs for Shreve & Co., Arrowheads on lidded bowl, $2,000-$3,000; a Marie Zimmermann, silver and enamel covered box with cameo, $2.000-$3,000; and a Loetz, Titania glass vessel, $3,000-$4,000.
Highlights of Modern Design include a Tommi Parzinger, mahogany and brass cabinet, $12,000-$18,000; a Vladimir Kagan for Dreyfuss, wing lounge chair and ottoman, $7,500-$9,500; a K.E.M. Weber for Grand Rapids Furniture Co., set of six dining chairs, $40,000-$60,000; a James Mont, aak cabinet, $4,000-$6,000; a Hans Wegner for A.P. Stolen, Papa Bear chair, $4,000-$6,000; a Phil Powell, American black walnut sofa, $18,000-$24,000; a Paul Evans, Skyline cocktail table, $8,000-$10,000; and a George Nakashima, Minguren I coffee table, $14,000-$19,000.
The Early 20th C. Design sale features more than 400 lots of decorative arts and furnishings. Among the exceptional items in this segment are Tiffany lamps; Arts & Crafts pottery by Grueby, Newcomb College, Martin Brothers Van Briggle, Moorcroft, Ohr; Arts and Crafts furniture by Stickley, Rohlfs and much more.
Famous European ceramic designers in the sale include Charles Greber, Martin Brothers, Wedgwood, Moorcroft and Riessner, Stellmacher & Kessel and amphora pieces from Czechoslovakia and Austria.
Famous metalwork forgers represented in the auction include Tiffany Studios, Yellin, Roycroft, Marie Zimmerman, Karl Kipp, Joseph Heinrichs for Shreve & Co., Jarvie, Gustav Stickley, E.T. Hurley, Dirk Van Erp, Christopher Dresser for Benham & Froud, Charles Rohlfs, Boston School and more.
The Modern Design auction features approximately 700 lots of furniture and decorative arts. Prominent Modern pieces includes furnishings by famous makers Esherick, K.E.M. Weber for Grand Rapids Furniture Co., Nakashima, Parzinger, Wormley, Paley, Evans, Kagan; sculpture by Bertoia, Takaezu; glass by Zynsky, Chihuly, Venini; Voulkos chargers and Conover pottery.
The sale includes works of art from masters of modern decorative arts, as well as the visual arts, such as Christopher Hilty.
Day two of the sale will also include clocks, jewelry, mirrors, tapestries and rugs.
Telephone, absentee and online bidding are available for those unable to attend.
Auction exhibition/previews will be available Saturday, Jan. 29, through Thursday, Feb. 3, from noon-5 p.m. and by appointment. Doors open on days of sale at 9 a.m.
Rago’s is located midway between New York City and Philadelphia. Directions are available online at ragoarts.com.
Printed catalogs are available for $25 by calling 609-397-9374 or e-mailing a request to info@ragoarts.com.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Army is investigating how 9-foot-tall, decorative marble urns that once flanked the stage of Arlington National Cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater ended up in an auction.
An Alexandria auction house is planning to sell two decorative urns and 14 marble balusters that once stood in the amphitheater next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The urns were apparently removed from the cemetery during a 1990s renovation. Since 1997 they have been at a Maryland antique shop, but the shop owner is closing the store and auctioning its inventory. He said he bought the urns from the company that renovated the amphitheater, replaced the urns and took away the originals.
After learning of the sale from The Washington Post, the Army on Friday asked The Potomack Co. to halt the urns’ auction.
___
Information from: The Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The crew of the ‘Memphis Belle’ stands in front of the famous B-17 Flying Fortress in 1943. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. SPRINGDALE, Ark. (AP) – They were “the girls,” iconic images of wives, girlfriends, movie stars and pinups that graced the noses of fighter planes, bombers and other military aircraft during World War II. They had names like “Little Bit O’Heaven,” “Lady Luck,” “Sleepy Time Gal” and “Lassie, I’m Home.”
Jo Condra of Springdale, now 94, was one of those girls.
Condra was surprised 67 years ago to find out that her husband, 1st Lt. Paul T. Condra, had christened his B-24 bomber “Arkansas Joe.”
She was surprised again in December, when an image of “Arkansas Joe” ran in the Arkansas Postcard feature of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
But Paul Condra has never been far from his widow’s thoughts. Photos on the bedroom wall of her Springdale home remind her of the day he and his colleagues posed in front of a B-17 to celebrate their commissioning as first lieutenants and of the B-29 he was flying when the young couple lived in Albuquerque, N.M., at the end of the war. An image of “Arkansas Joe” hangs there, too.
“It’s the only airplane I ever had named after me,” she said with a chuckle.
“During a mission over eastern Europe in April 1944, ‘Arkansas Joe’ took heavy flak damage that killed the bombardier, Lt. Bud Ackerman, my stepfather’s close friend, and wounded my stepfather,” Condra’s son, Jim Morriss, former executive editor of The Springdale News and The Morning News, picks up the story. “Lt. Condra and his copilot brought the four-engine plane back to base on 1 1/2 engines. Lt. Condra was returned to the U.S. and mostly recovered from his wounds. He carried flak in his body until he died.
“A crew member I met in the 1980s stayed with the plane for several missions, then was transferred to another crew,” Morriss adds. “He survived over 35 missions and eventually saw the former ‘Arkansas Joe’ (the new pilot changed the name) crash into the Adriatic Sea.”
After Paul was discharged in 1946, the Condras moved back to northwest Arkansas and opened an auto parts store in Springdale in February of that year. When Paul died in 1956, Jo took over and ran the store until 1986.
“It sort of became my home,” she said. “I went down there at 5 in the morning and stayed until 5 or 6 in the evening. (The mechanics) weren’t just my customers, they were my friends.”
Needless to say, selling the store didn’t work out for Condra.
“I had been retired for about three months when I began wishing I hadn’t done it,” she saids. It wasn’t long before the buyer, Crow-Burlingame Co. of Little Rock, doing business as Bumper to Bumper, asked her to work part time.”
“The day I went back was one of the happiest days of my life. It’s what keeps me going.”
Condra still works five afternoons a week. Few people know that she was immortalized as “nose art,” but she admits she was “thrilled” to see the image of “Arkansas Joe” in print.
“War is horrible,” she said. “But it brought back a lot of good memories.”
World War II was the golden age of nose art, says Larry Decuers, a curator at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
“It just wasn’t good luck to have a plane that wasn’t named,” he said. “When you were made a pilot in 18 months and became commander of an aircraft, in charge of 10 men, it was nice to have some things from home – like nose art.
“And it was a way for people to express some individuality in the military culture.”
“During World War II, Americans produced 237,000 airplanes. Of those sent overseas to the various war theaters, it would be safe to say that over 90 percent would have some type of painting on the nose,” said Jeff Wood, director of the American Airpower Heritage Museum in Midland, Texas.
“Centerfolds were very popular in that time period,” he went on. “Most nose art paintings were done for $50 or a bottle of scotch by anyone who had any drawing ability whatsoever,” but many of them were modeled on the popular Esquire centerfolds created by Alberto Vargas.
So while the planes’ names paid tribute to wives and girlfriends at home, the images weren’t always based on those women.
“Some are almost like a stencil right out of the magazine,” Wood said, “and others were modified to suit their idea of what they wanted on the side of their aircraft. It was a little bit of both.”
Nowadays, he says, only patriotic images are permitted on U.S. planes, but during World War II, girls weren’t the only inspiration for nose art. Cartoons, political figures, “a whole gamut of imagery was popular.”
The American Airpower Heritage Museum, operated by the Commemorative Air Force, has the largest collection of original World War II nose art in the world – coincidentally preserved by Minot Pratt of Walnut Ridge, Ark.
“Right after World War II, the military realized the country didn’t need and couldn’t support all those aircraft,” the museum’s director explains. Decommissioned planes were sent to five different military bases, and bids were accepted for salvage rights.
Pratt was general manager at the Aircraft Conversion Co. owned by George R. and Herman Brown in Walnut Ridge, Ark., and he had his crews chop out and save 34 pieces of nose art, thinking he’d mount them on a fence along the highway. His son, Tully Pratt III, donated them to the Commemorative Air Force in the 1960s.
“For some time, they were stored in an open-air hanger in Harlingen, Texas,” Wood says, and suffered serious damage from salt air. A campaign to “Save the Girls” paid for the images to be stabilized, and they’re now the centerpiece of the 100,000-artifact collection at the Midland museum.
They’re not only American folk art, Wood says, but a lasting memorial to the bomber crews of World War II and the artists who painted the images.
Nose art was also immortalized on leather jackets worn by servicemen, adds Decuers of the National World War II Museum. The New Orleans collection includes 10 examples.
And the United States wasn’t the only nation that allowed nose art. The Ozark Military Museum has one plane bearing nose art – and it’s Canadian.
“Hardly a plane in World War II escaped without having nose art,” said Leonard McCandless, director of the Ozark Military Museum. “It meant a lot to the pilots.”
It means a lot to those who remember, too.
___
Information from: The Springdale Morning News,
http://www.nwaonline.com
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-CS-01-22-11 1706EST
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The crew of the ‘Memphis Belle’ stands in front of the famous B-17 Flying Fortress in 1943. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
One of the Princess Diana dolls produced by Franklin Mint. Image coutesty of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Pook & Pook Inc. LOS ANGELES (AP) – A Los Angeles law firm that sued the Franklin Mint for marketing Princess Diana memorabilia has agreed to pay the mint’s former owners $25 million to settle a malicious prosecution lawsuit.
The settlement was announced Friday by Stewart and Lynda Resnick, whose company, Roll Global, sold the Franklin Mint in 2006. The couple said they would donate the money to charity, as they did with their share of a previous $25 million settlement from The Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.
“We never sought to gain financially from this effort, but we strongly believed in the underlying legal principles in this case and were prepared to see it through,” Stewart Resnick said.
The settlement caps a 13-year legal battle that began in 1998, a year after Diana was killed in a car crash.
The firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips sued on behalf of the memorial fund, accusing the Franklin Mint of false advertising and diluting the value of Diana’s name with its memorial plates, purses and dolls.
After the suit was dismissed in 2000, the Resnicks countersued.
Manatt’s chief executive officer, William T. Quicksilver, said the law firm still believes it was in the right, but added “it was in the firm’s best interest to settle this matter and put it behind us.”
“We are gratified by the outpouring of public support for the legal positions we asserted, which came from virtually every corner of the legal community,” Quicksilver said.
He also said the company was happy to see the money going to charity and that its own financial position would not be compromised.
The Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, which had been established to hold millions of dollars in contributions made in Diana’s name, settled in 2004.
As the action involving Manatt made its way through the legal system, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled at one point that the law firm did indeed have probable cause to file the original action. A state court of appeals reversed that decision last May.
Roll Global said the bad publicity from the original suit devastated the Franklin Mint.
The year the suit was filed, the company said, the mint’s annual revenue was $620 million. It had plunged to $40 million by 2004, Roll Global said.
“It’s important that someone take a stand against these types of threatening lawsuits that allow lawyers to abuse the legal system and inflict damage on everyone involved,” Resnick said Friday.
Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-ES-01-21-11 1658EST
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
One of the Princess Diana dolls produced by Franklin Mint. Image coutesty of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Pook & Pook Inc.
This 9-inch tall stoneware chicken waterer advertising Jamesway stores sold for $288 last summer at a Morphy auction in Denver, Pa.
Unfamiliar objects used by our ancestors continue to confuse and amuse today’s collectors. “Whatsits” were a popular subject on television shows. We identified buggy-whip holders, eyeglasses for chickens to prevent them from pecking each other, even a spring-loaded candle that was attached to a clock and lit the fireplace each morning. Most unidentified whatsits were made for kitchen or farm use. One item that came in many shapes was the chicken waterer, still used today in a modern form. Early examples look like glass jars turned upside down over a shallow bowl of water, a sort of fountain for barnyard chickens. Marked pottery examples by short-lived factories bring good prices because of their rarity. Waterers by commercial factories that made many of these odd objects sell for $100 to $200.
Q: My mom died in July, and I’m trying to sort through some of her belongings. One of the items I’m trying to price, possibly for sale, is her hutch. Printed inside the drawers are the words, “Rockingham Temple Stuart Colonial Modern Dinette.” I believe it is maple and it’s like new. I looked online and saw prices as low as $50 and as high as $650. Can you help out in any way, either by suggesting a price range or telling me where I might find some information?
A: Temple Stuart Furniture was founded in Baldwinville, Mass., in 1904. Rockingham is one of the lines it made. The company was bought by a Canadian company, Roxton Temple Stuart Ltd. of Waterloo, Quebec, in about 1987. Your mother’s hutch would sell for about $200 to $300.
Q: Have you heard of a California pottery company called California Cleminsons Galagray? When I was married 50 years ago, an aunt gave me a set of the pottery’s dishes as a wedding present. The dishes are marked with those words. I would like to know more about the set.
A: George and Betty Cleminson founded a pottery called Californian Clay in 1941. Betty was the designer and George handled the business end. They worked in their garage in Monterey Park, Calif., and later moved to a larger facility in El Monte, Calif. The company name was changed to California Cleminsons in 1943. Dinnerware, kitchenware and decorative items were made at the factory. Galagray is the pattern name of your dishes. Most Cleminsons pieces are marked. The pottery closed in 1963.
Q: Is there any interest in vintage dental things? My brother recently retired as a dentist. He has several pieces of furniture and equipment that belonged to an associate who retired when he was over 90 years old. He has a gray wood laboratory cabinet marked “American Cabinet Co.,” an old sterilizer that resembles a dishwasher, some old hand instruments and many old bottles of chemical supplies. If there are collectors of such things, how can I contact them?
A: Dental instruments, old bottles and dental cabinets are very collectible. American Cabinet Co. was founded in Two Rivers, Wis., in the early 1900s. Talk to local antique-dealers to find out who sells “technology.” Cabinets with drawers sell well. Prices can be found — for free — on our website, Kovels.com. The first dental furniture sold under the American Cabinet Co. name was designed by Dr. E.J. Soik, a dentist, and Harry C. Growen, a bookkeeper for the Hamilton Co. in 1896. The cabinets were made by the Hamilton Co., a furniture maker. The name “American Cabinet Company” is being used by a different company today and is not related to the company that made dental cabinets. The sterilizer is not as collectible and is of low value, but some instruments sell for more than $100 apiece.
Q: I saw a vase made by Ferock listed in an auction. Can you tell me something about the maker?
A: Pottery stamped “Ferock” was made by Frank Ferrell (sometimes spelled Ferrel), who had a studio in Zanesville, Ohio, in the early 20th century. He used clay from the North Dakota School of Mines. Ferrell worked as a designer and modeler for several Zanesville potteries, including Weller (1897-1905), J.B. Owens, Peters and Reed, and Roseville. He was art director at Roseville from 1918 to 1954. During that period, he designed all of its lines, including Ferella, a line named after him.
Q: Should vintage clothing or linens be washed in soap or detergent? I’ve heard that you can use Fels-Naptha to remove stains.
A: Detergents were invented in the 1940s, but people still like to use soap for vintage textiles because detergents include chemicals and other synthetic ingredients. Soap is made of natural materials, including oil and lye or another alkaline solution, but it can leave scum in hard water and can cause a fabric to become gray or yellowish if not completely rinsed. Lazarus Fels, founder of Fels and Co., began making soap in 1861. Fels-Naptha was introduced in 1893 when naptha, a solvent, was added to the formula. It can be used to remove stains made by chocolate, grass, makeup, perspiration, oil or grease. There are some other uses for Fels-Naptha. If you step into a patch of poison ivy, wash your clothes with Fels-Naptha to get rid of the poisonous residue. Some users claim it also can be used to get rid of aphids on plants, fleas and ticks on dogs and worms on trees.
Q: I have a menu from the SS President Coolidge’s last voyage as a luxury liner in October 1941. My grandparents received the menu from friends who were on that voyage. The Coolidge was then converted to a troop transport, and sank in 1942. The menu is in a frame. Are there collectors of this type of item, and does it have value?
A: Ocean-liner menus are popular collectibles, and many passengers kept a menu as a souvenir of their voyage. Your menu is interesting because it is from the ship’s last commercial trip and also because the ship sank during World War II. SS President Coolidge was a luxury liner that was part of the American President Lines. It was launched in February 1931. After Pearl Harbor, the ship was converted to a troop ship and painted gunmetal gray. The ship sank on Oct. 26, 1942, after it ran into two mines entering the harbor at Espiritu Santo, a Pacific island. The troops abandoned ship, and all but two of the 5,000 men on board got off safely. Ocean-liner menus sell for $5 to $50. The historic interest of your menu would give it added value.
Tip: Sniff your old photograph album. If it smells, it probably is made of vinyl or some other material that can harm photos. Don’t use it. Buy a new album.
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 email 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.
Holt Howard hippie salt and pepper shakers, girl holding peace-sign necklace, boy with long hair playing guitar, label, 3 1/2 inches, $22.
Squirt-bottle topper, “Switch to Squirt, Never an After-Thirst,” die-cut, smiling Squirt boy pouring bottle of soda, plaid background, 1955, 7 1/2 x 10 inches, $85.
Toy drum, tin, wood and pressed paper, military scenes, World War I-style battleship, planes, subs and soldiers, circa 1920, 8 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches, $125.
1914 Pennsylvania license plate, No. 11974, porcelain, white numbers, black ground, $175.
Pinky Lee doll, baggy pants, black-and-white-checked suit and hat, large red bow tie, original box, 1950s, 20 inches, $250.
Yves St. Laurent cloche, black sheared fur, wide brim, felt feather at brim, label, circa 1986, $370.
Painted rocking chair, scrolled crest above pierced lyre-form splat, scrolling arms with turned spindles, apple-green paint, freehand roses, black stripes, circa 1830, 40 1/2 inches, $440.
Sterling-silver chocolate pot, Queen Anne style, lighthouse form with applied cut-card work, wooden handle with applied strapwork, dome lid, eagle mark, 1910, 8 3/4 inches, $555.
Lalique scent bottle, for Coty, Antique pattern, women in long gowns holding flowers, dark-amber patina against frosted ground, signed “R. Lalique,” 6 1/4 inches, $1,955.
Harley-Davidson toy motorcycle, sidecar with two riders, cast iron, Hubley, 1930s, 9 inches, $4,600.
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