Boxed sets of five like this from the 1950s are prized by collectors who are prepared to pay upward of £200 ($300) for mint examples. Photo author
LONDON – It was the last weekend of our holiday in the sun but even so, we couldn’t not go to the 47th annual Suncoast Antique Bottle & Collectible Show. After all, we went to the 46th and readers with long memories will recall I wrote about it here last year.
Bob Janowsky with some of the scholars’ stones he sells. Photo: author
LONDON – Fate found us in Venice this week, looking at valuable stones. Except this was Venice, Florida, and the stones weren’t gems, they were … well lumps of rock. It was fascinating. We found an antiques fair and with the weather turning a little cooler than the 85-degree record-breakers of previous days, it was a blessed relief.
Ringling Bros.’ circus toured America in ‘100 double-length steel railroad cars crammed with wonders from all corners of the earth.’ Photo Ringling Museum of Art, Florida State University
SARASOTA, Fla. – It’s impossible to visit Sarasota on Florida’s Gulf Coast and not come into contact with the legacy left to the city by the circus impresarios the Ringling family. We’ve left behind the rain-sodden United Kingdom and are here for our traditional annual holiday in the sun. In contrast to the UK, temperatures are hitting records in the mid-80s.
A large Han dynasty horse potted in gray earthenware with red cold-painted pigment, to be sold with an Oxford authentication test certificate, priced at £3,250. Photo Paul Burnett
LONDON – The latest Star Wars blockbuster and all the excitement around it is all very well, but as collectors of antiques, we prefer to look back in time, rather than what awaits future generations in galaxies far far away.
Collectors of antiquities look back farther than anyone and they have the advantage over most of us: The objects they search out might well be thousands of years old, but that doesn’t always mean they cost the earth.
This rare parure comprising earrings, bracelet and necklace dates from the 1940s and was designed by Marcel Boucher (1898-1965). The necklace also contains a pin that can be released and worn separately to secure a fur stole. The stones simulate light blue sapphires and diamonds on silver tone metal, which is rhodium plated. Boucher was apprenticed to Pierre Cartier and moved to New York from his native France in the 1920s, working for Mazer Brothers. He set up on his own in 1937. His wife Sandra, who had worked for the Fifth Avenue jeweler Harry Winston, continued the business after her husband’s death. Photo Candice Horley
LONDON – It’s a charity shop in a prosperous town (no, I’m not letting on which) that we call on often. I buy books and CDs; the Business Manager, (Mrs. P) buys costume jewelry. All of it is really stylish and much of it so inexpensive that, if money is tight, it’s good enough to give as Christmas presents. She assures me it remains highly wearable.
“Going To The Match,” a signed lithograph of Lowry’s famous 1928 oil painting, now in The Lowry. The print, with Fine Art Trade Guild blindstamp, sold for a record £22,000. Photo Tennants auctioneers
LONDON – It’s a brave man who admits his mistakes. More years ago that I care to remember, I wrote a collecting column pontificating about how the only people ever likely to make any money out of signed, limited edition reproduction prints by L S Lowry were the peddlers of the things (apart from the artist that is, he would have been paid for each print he signed).
North American schoolgirl sampler. Embroidered script reads: ‘Ann Sykes, finished this work April 8 1845.’ It sold for £460.
LONDON – The boy couldn’t care less – his attitude is ‘why buy antiques when you can buy new for less money?’
Shropshire and Worcester Canal truncheon painted with ‘Navigation Constable,’ estimate £100-£120. Photo The Canterbury Auction Galleries
LONDON – I’m not sure where, but somewhere in the house is my late uncle’s truncheon. He was a special constable and, sadly, he died before I met him. From him, I inherited a love of fishing and a fascination with the unusual.
Some of the robots from the single-owner collection to be sold on Dec. 9. Photo Ewbank’s Auctioneers
LONDON – It was one of those impulse purchases encouraged by expert salesmanship combined with my love of gadgetry and the excuse (handy during the ensuing persuasive discussion with the Business Manager, Mrs. P) that a robotic vacuum cleaner would save her both time and energy. It sort of works, although it eats rechargeable batteries and never quite reaches into the corners.
An unusual silver triangular Masonic watch, the mother of pearl dial with Masonic symbols for hours marked ‘Love your fellow man lend him a helping hand.’ An inscription along the side reads: ‘Presented to W Bro H.A Benyon W.M 1941-1942 by the Brethren of the Sirius Lodge 4996 as a token of their esteem & appreciation.’ It sold for £700. Photo Ewbank’s Auctioneers
LONDON – It was Groucho Marx who famously said he wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would accept people like him as a member, and I share the sentiment. But as a collector, I confess to being fascinated by the raft of Freemasonry memorabilia that turns up with frequent regularity in antiques fairs and auctions. Should I start collecting it? Writing this might help me decide.