CHARITY ROW:
Like the Baldelli coin bank we had a few weeks ago this vintage cat-shaped bank is probably also derived from the design work of Lisa Larson and it is further embellished with flowers and leaves.
I suspect it was made in Japan. It is 6 1/2 inches long, 4 1/2 inches tall and 4 inches deep.
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This is a nice vintage Turnabout “4 in 1″ Dumbo cookie jar. The head and body can be rotated to display four different configurations of Dumbo (and was used for other characters too, like Mickey and Minnie and my favorite, the Donald Duck/Jose Carioca combo).
He stands 13 1/2 inches tall and is in good to very good condition with no chips or cracks. Even the over-glaze paint is in much better than average condition. Often on these jars the paint is largely gone, due to handling wear and washing.
Not surprisingly the design is patented*. What is surprising (to me) is that the patent for a reversible cookie jar of this sort wasn’t issued until 1944 (and again for good measure).
It’s odd when one considers that Dumbo (the film) was released in 1941 and Dumbo (the character) was nominated as Time Magazine’s mammal of the year in December 1941, even in the face of more pressing world events. He had originally been intended to be the cover character for the final issue of the year, but with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the American entry into the World War he was demoted in favor of General MacArthur.
Given the divergent dates between the release of Dumbo and the successful patenting of the reversible cookie jar (note the patent was issued when this piece was made) I suspect this particular piece was made after 1944 and may be from the early post-war period.
*The patent holder was an employee of the American Pottery Company. This company made the cookie jars and then they were sold to the Leeds China company, which was a distribution firm that had the license to sell Disney products.
To further confuse things American Pottery Company was involved in cooperative efforts with the American Bisque Pottery Company (which in turn worked with Ludowici-Celadon Co., Terrace Ceramics and made and decorated jars that were distributed by Cardinal China Company).
Dux was a San Francisco based company started by Swedish designer Folke Ohlsson around the time he moved from Sweden to the United States in 1953. By 1955 Dux was featured in major trade magazines as mentioned in Arts and architecture: Volume 72 (1955): “Dux: A complete line of imported upholstered furniture and related tables, warehoused in San Francisco and New York for immediate delivery; handcrafted quality furniture moderately priced; ideally suited for residential or commercial use; Write for catalog – The Dux Company 390 Ninth St. San Francisco“
Ohlsson is also credited with introducing the idea of shipping furniture disassembled in a flat pack or knocked down fashion, thereby reducing costs and contributing to the democratization of design.
As anyone who has ever exhaled a deep breath in the vicinity of furniture from that Swedish place beginning with the letter ‘I’ that I won’t mention by name here knows, flat pack furniture sometimes doesn’t hold up well in the long run. This may also be a problem with older knock down furniture as the corners/legs of this piece look to have after-market reinforcement blocks. Who ever did this did a nice job. Also, there is one very small crack in a stretcher and two slightly grey spots on the top itself.
All of these details may be seen in the pictures.
When made up this table is 19 1/2 inches wide, 29 1/2 inches long and stands 20 1/2 inches tall. As the mark shows it was made in Denmark. Even with the minor flaws I’d consider it to be in good condition.
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Just yesterday we offered another Carol Grigg print, Wearing the Robes. We have two copies of this one, titled Learning the Song and they came out of the same collection of unfinished projects. Like the other print these are 24 inches by 18 inches and have some minor crinkles (notably in the corners). Unlike the other print these do not have any faint stains. $30 each.
UPDATE 2/4: One has been sold.
Light snacks and drinks will be served. This is a great chance come by and even bring a friend that you want to rope (introduce) to the Warehouse and volunteering.
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Unless they get sold or snapped up by a big bad wolf these two little piggies will be there. They’re circa 1950′s vintage and were imported from Japan by Lefton. They used to be part of a set of three, but one of them has gone off his rocker and is busily building a brick house.
Funny the things people find when they’re cleaning out the house. Take this Carol Grigg print for instance. It’s been packed up for a long time and was never framed. One of our generous volunteers brought it to us in recognition that if it takes 20 years to start a project it stands a good chance of never being completed and one might be better off without it at all.
So here we are. This print is 24 inches wide by 18 inches tall. It’s in good condition with a couple minor wrinkles in the corner and three really hard to see reddish spots near the upper edge (almost directly over the rider’s left hand). They’re barely discernible in the picture.
Because of this minor damage and since the print is unframed we’re willing to let it go for $25.
Happy February 2nd. It’s also Groundhog’s Day, Candlemas, Imbolc, and/or St. Brigid’s Day. It’s a busy day with all those holidays stacked one atop another. Luckily they’re pretty much mutually exclusive and none of them have any relevance to the subject at hand, namely this vintage love seat.
It’s a decent old piece. The wood work is nice and the upholstery is in fair shape but in a somewhat dated pattern (little flowers, thank goodness it’s not plaid). Generally it is in fair condition.The major strike against this piece are two water stains, one on the far left edge of the seat and on the left arm and one on the upper portion of the left side back.
I gave them both a good sniff and they don’t smell bad or even seem to stink at all. This is a good thing, 1) ’cause I don’t have sinuses saturated in wretchedness and, 2) the love seat can still be used until you can get to reupholstering it.
This piece is about 58 inches wide, 36 inches tall and 32 inches deep. The exposed wood work appears to be mahogany and it has a collection of carved flowers and leaves at the center of the back.
In real life Big Bird is an “eight-foot two-inch (249 cm) tall bright primrose-yellow bird.”
Really, he is.
He’s known for being both easily confused and for being surprisingly talented. Among his many talents are skating, dancing drawing and riding a unicycle. This is a little incongruous since he is described as a six year old in the TV show’s writer’s guide. Luckily slight inconsistencies like this haven’t undermined his career.
He’s also know for saying wise phrases as “I guess it’s better to be who you are. Turns out people like you best that way, anyway” which seems equivocal and subject to revision at a later date. Maybe he’ll decide that people will like him more if he’s a cookie jar? Obviously, if this really were Big Bird’s favorite cookie jar it would be more than just a touch narcissistic.
What Big Bird is here, for us, now is a cookie jar.
He’s 12 1/2 inches tall. Although he looks like he is from about the same era as the E.T. lamp we just had the text along the edge of the base shows the design was copyrighted by the Muppets in 1971.
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This is a BCM/HL Registered Design which is a mark of high quality furniture. Well, I hope it is.
The BCM/HL label seems to be something of an enigma, with no one exactly sure what it stands for. I did a little looking around and it seems that BCM most likely stands for Bath Cabinet Makers.
Not the ‘rubba-dub-dub’ kind of bath, but Bath, England, which might be most familiar from reading Chaucer in high school.
The HL component of the name is unknown to me but it should be decipherable with access to the correct references (which I don’t have).
Bath Cabinet Maker’s was founded in 1895 and claimed to produce the highest quality furniture in England. At some point after the late 1960′s the company was absorbed into the Herman Miller empire, however the brand survived to some degree at least as late as 1984.
This armoire/wardrobe is about 40 inches wide, 77 inches tall and 17 inches deep. It is in great condition and has two clothes hanging bars in the upper section, with attached hooks. Below is a full width drawer.
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Mr. Froggy went a courtin‘ and since he was a bank he only paid 15% taxes on the income earned while he was doing it.
Meanwhile the hard working blue tailed fly was holding two jobs just to keep current on his mortgage for a little dung heap that was worth less than he paid for it. He paid 30% on his income.
Seething with the injustice of his exorbitant tax rate Mr. Froggy ate Mr. Blue Tail Fly as he was commuting to his second job one afternoon. Then he foreclosed on the fly family dung heap.
He was a model business-amphibian.
Vintage ceramic frog bank. He’s about 10 1/2 inches tall and in great condition. Like investment banks, retirment plans and ponzi schemes everywhere he does not have a hole by which one can remove one’s deposits. You can attempt to fish money out via the slot you put it in or you can smash the whole thing and start over.
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This is a smashing vintage silver-plate tea and coffee service in the Ascot pattern by Community Plate. The only thing missing is your own personal* Peter Vaughan (who played the old Mr. Stevens in Remains of the Day).
Included in this set are a coffee pot (9 inches tall), tea-pot (7 inches tall), cream pitcher (4 1/2 inches tall) and lidded sugar bowl (5 1/2 inches tall). The large rectangular tray is about 30 inches long (including the handles) and 17 1/2 inches wide.
All the pieces are in excellent condition. $150
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*Rest assured that the continued decline of the middle class, the slow painful death of the social safety net and the aging baby boomer population will combine to make sure there is a good supply of workers who will have to keep at it long after their ability to do so is gone.
Maybe having your own tea and coffee service will be the edge to get you in the downstairs employment door when it’s your turn?
The payoff for doing my job and working as part of this blog is that I get to learn new things and feed my research addiction*. For instance, until last Tuesday I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a Stilton scoop or server. That was the day that one of my whip-smart colleagues figured out that’s what these are.
I never thought of having a specialized tool just for a particular cheese. My kitchen seems so inadequate now that I know I don’t own even a single Stilton scoop, and I quail in horror at the missing Cheddar pincer, the lack of a Camembert épée and most regrettably the vacant space upon the counter where a Roquefort chisel should be.
In a city full of foodies (and wanna-be foodies) I imagine you must be at least somewhat sympathetic to this glaring inadequacy. And now, with this public confession, my credibility is shot.
However, there is still time to save your reputation (or that of one of a close friend) with this lovely set of six Scottish silver-plate Stilton scoops.
They’re each 7 1/2 inches long and come in a presentation style box. They were made and sold by Wilson & Sharp Ltd, Goldsmiths Silver Smiths & Watchmakers, 139 Princess Street Edinburgh and Dundee.
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*For example I learned that in the flatware family tree cheese scoops are closely related to marrow scoops and that Wilson & Sharp was a partnership between Robert Wilson and Andrew Sharp which was established in 1880′s. The firm made a wide variety of items including condiment sets, menu holders, hollow-ware, flatware, candle sticks and watches. Sometime in the 1970′s they were absorbed into the English firm Mappin & Webb. This then is a terminus ante quem for when these were originally purchased.
A very well crafted hardwood sculptural box signed C. Cobb* and dated 1978. When it is closed it is 6 inches tall, 5 3/4 inches wide and about 2 1/2 inches thick. The interior dimensions are about 1 3/4 inches deep and between 2 and 4 1/2 inches tall.
I’m not sure of what kind of wood it is made from, but it includes at least two kinds of clear grained hardwoods. I like the organic, flowing lines this piece has.
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Perhaps Charles B. Cobb?
So I was showing off this awesome toothpick pecking bird and she said “I’m so glad you don’t bring more of the stuff you find home.”
Foiled again.
This plastic bird is about 4 1/2 inches tall. When you press down on the bird’s head a little drawer slides out and it picks up a toothpick in its beak.
Retro cool!
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This is a nice pair of bowls in the ever popular Burple pattern by Anchor Hocking Glass. I believe it’s real name was actually Inspiration, but almost no one calls it that now. The pattern was introduced in the 1940′s and these are the so-called Large Dessert Bowl (as opposed to the “I’m on a diet” size small bowl).
They are 8 1/2 inches in diameter and are in perfect condition.
We’re selling them as a pair for $20.
Gertrude got married not long after she had her hair bob cut*. It was the 1920′s and along with china and glassware, furniture was a good wedding gift. There were tables, a Windsor rocking chair (now mine), fern stands and bedroom pieces. She didn’t get this particular piece, but I remember seeing one a lot like it so I presume this is from the same era, if not somewhat older.
This dresser is in very good condition and has two half-sized drawers and two full-width drawers. Having the beveled edge mirror oriented in the landscape position is a bit unusual and I think it’s a nice touch.
It is just over 42 inches wide, just under 20 inches deep and almost exactly 58 1/2 inches to the top of the mirror.
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*They did a bad job and then she had to have the chop job fixed by her father, a part-time barber. This must have been a great mark of shame or recrimination since we still remember it. The cool part was that she kept her long braid when her hair was cut. It was found in a box in the back of her closet over 60 years later and then we knew where the family auburn hair came from and who we should blame for all of us going gray before 30.
He grew up to be a fierce latch hook dragon rug. It was a long way from when he was just a scrawny little scaly latch key reptile.
It shows you never can tell, that awkward kid you knew in elementary school might now be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or a nightmarish terror straight out of a fairy tale.
The rug is about 67 inches wide and 35 inches tall. As you can see in the picture above the edges were never bound so it looks unfinished. The rug could also use some backing and it is slightly soiled (maybe a real good vacuuming would do the trick?).
School days, school days
Dear old Golden Rule days
‘Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hick’ry stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful, barefoot beau
And you wrote on my slate, “I Love You So”
When we were a couple o’ kids
A nice pair of antique cast iron and wood school desks. Each has a shelf for books, a hole for an inkwell, a pen groove and the seats fold. Both are in pretty good shape and are roughly 28 inches deep, 21 1/2 inches wide and a maximum of 26 inches tall.
We’re selling them separately.
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Telephone tables are sign number 437 that things have changed and kids have it too easy.
“Back in my day we had to have special furniture for our phones. It wasn’t some easy thing where you carried around more computing power in your pocket than the Strategic Air Command and could do internet searches for even the simplest stuff, like how to breathe. No, we had to remember phone numbers or look it up in a book. Ever hear of a book kid? It’s not some E-lek-tronik doo-dad, no sirree, its analog and uses paper and you had to know how to spell to use it. Bah you kids!
Wanna play Words With Friends?”
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This old mahogany game table is in good shape. The only notable flaw is that one of the feet has been broken off, but it was re-glued and appears to be firmly attached (see pictures below).
When fully opened this table is about 30 inches square and 28 1/ inches tall. When folded in half for storage (or for a game of cards for two) it is about 15 inches by 30 inches and 29 1/2 inches tall.
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Rupert knew he was special, not just because his mother told his so, but because the light of the world emanated from his hind-end.
Approximately 20 inches tall by 14 inches wide and features a plastic giraffe 3/4 mounted on a brushed copper plate with savannah scene. The photo doesn’t do it justice as it’s not quite as red as the picture above, yet not as pale as the picture below and the strange effect of the light is best viewed in person.
The Watercloset Gallery will be open from 10 am to 4 pm.
This is a Fenton, hobnail, milk glass, crimped-edge epergne. That’s a very high falutin’ name for a centerpiece, but that seems to be what they’re called.
It is 8 1/2 inches in diameter and 6 1/2 inches tall. There are four pieces, namely the base and three flower-like “horns”. All the pieces are in perfect condition and it may have never been used at all.
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Valentines Day is coming and what better way to say to that not quite special someone “You’re so something but it’s not special” than to get them this thing?
This vaguely heart-shaped dish is made of glass pieces and held together with large amounts of lead. The coded message is that you’re subtly saying “I don’t give a rat’s derriere about your central nervous system” at the same time.
Perfect!
It is about 7 inches by 6 inches and weighs nearly 1 1/2 pounds.
George regularly said his prayers as a child.
He forgot to say them for a long time in his later youth and adult years.
Then on one June afternoon in 1875 he found himself wishing he had kept it up.
This little ceramic figurine is about 4 1/2 inches tall.
Last week I salvaged some sterling silver from a shipment of scrap we were about to send out. I looked around a bit more after that and found a few more pieces that seem too nice to melt down. Here they are.
Here we have four individual butter knives by Oneida Sterling in the King Cedric pattern (who the heck is/was King Cedric?). This pattern was first issued in 1949 and combined they weigh a total of 3.59 troy ounces. $110
It weighs 1.06 troy ounces and I think it is an olive spoon. The handle does have a monogram that appears to read MAB. $35
Finally there is a nice set by Stieff Sterling in the famous Stieff Rose pattern. There is a large hollow handled knife, a wacky looking lettuce server, a little two prong fork, and two tea spoons.
Due to the stainless steel blade and the filled hollow handle we didn’t include the weight of the knife when we considered the scrap value of this set. The remaining Stieff Rose pieces weigh a combined total of 4.17 troy ounces. SOLD to a very nice gentleman.
