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).
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.
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?
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.
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.
Moriage is a Japanese ceramic decoration technique where ceramic items are decorated with the application of raised slip lines and dots. This gives the pieces a wonderful textural quality although they are prone to being easily damaged.
There is a lovely coffee or large tea-pot, a smaller pot that could be used as a tea-pot or overly generous cream pitcher, a lidded jar that’d work for sugar, tea storage or biscuits, six plates, five teacups and six saucers.
So, it is a nearly complete set for six except for one teacup.
The main scene features Kannon (a.k.a. Guanyin) a Bodhisattva of kindness surrounded by four rakan. Above her head is the traditional heraldic symbol or crest of the Shimazu clan.
According to our source (see item #1230) these ware were produced for export from about 1915. The end date of production of these is less clear but it is seemingly ends during the early Showa Period (i.e., the reign of Emperor Hirohito). Given this uncertainty these pieces could date from the 1930′s to the 1950′s (my guess is the 1950′s).
The tea cups have a lithophane geisha on the bottom much like the ones in the Kutani golden dragon set we had last August which makes sense since I think they bear the same makers mark, which consists of the words “Made In Japan” and a view of Mt. Fuji.
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Old King Coal was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl
And he called for his miners three.
But Omni Exploration
Breathed hell fire and damnation;
And drilled a well straight to hell;
With a steely goad struck the mother lode,
Drilling for dollars in the land of the free.
Every driller he had a drill,
And a very fine drill had he;
Oh there’s none cooked so well, burnt in hell
As Old King Coal and Omni’s miners three.
Set of six tumblers featuring the corporate logo and landscape vision of Omni Exploration. The perfect gift for the petro-capitalist in your life, your rich uncle or a gag gift for your favorite tree hugger.
They’re still in the original shipping box from November 1977 and include a Seasons Greetings card indicating that these were probably stockholder gifts.
Not surprisingly they appear unused.
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He’s not wearing pants. . . .wait, that’s not right.
Let’s try it again.
He’s not wearing pants, but who’s going to counsel a bear with fashion advice?
That’s the nice thing about being a bear. No one is going to tell you that denim is passé, or that you shouldn’t spend a soggy winter day sleeping in.
Really though this is about the piano.
We don’t take pianos. They’re not really that useful for our clients and we know nothing about them. This one snuck in when the gatekeeper was asleep, so here it is and here we are looking to find it a new home.
It’s an Edward B. Healy labeled upright piano that was actually made by Gulbransen Pianos. We’ve been told that it was recently tuned and the musically inclined punk rockers who work in the warehouse think it is still pretty much in tune, but since it’s not a guitar they’re not totally sure.
I’ve got a rough idea of what I think an older piano that’s in good condition is worth but I’d like to hear some offers to see if it is in the ball park. Please email, call or stop in with offers and I’ll let you know if it is a winner.
Delivery is not available at this time.
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One hogshead is equal to about 63 US gallon. The Hogshead Tavern is also the place that the kids from Hogwart’s hang out when they can’t stand the quasi-respectibility of the Three Broomstick’s.
All of which has nothing to do with this sign. It is 29 inches tall and 21 inches wide and probably is an artifact of the faux-colonial / nationalist revival of the the 200 year anniversary of the beginning of the American revolution.
But really, who cares about reality when a plausible fiction is so easy to get at? Tell the kids whatever you want*, they won’t know the difference. . .
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*I recommend the truth: “Listen kid. You know the big final good vs. evil showdown, the Battle of Hogwarts? It was there that Harry, Hermione and that Weasley kid finally blew it and lost to Voldemort. Sure that’s not what the books says but I know, I’ve been there, I bought this sign at the liquidation sale after the Death Eaters foreclosed on the mortgage.”
“Now go to sleep.”
That’s one of the great things about having a banker that doesn’t, that can’t talk, absolute secrecy is guaranteed. There is some risk in ensuring the security of deposits though; your money might be exchanged for even a small piece of steak or for a hearty Good- Boy!
Not to mention the perils of unexpected “laundering”.
But hey, risk is part of investing and even seemingly stable financial instruments sometimes turn out to be junk. The question to ask is who’s move deserving of your trust, some nameless faceless cog in the international banking machine, or this guy with his big eyes and innocent yet noble looks. . .
Good-Boy!
Now where’d I leave that steak?
8 inches tall. He has a slot in his back for deposits and a plug on the bottom for withdrawals.
“Horace you really shouldn’t try to kill the guy at the Community Warehouse.”
“Bah Helena, one runs some risks in dealing with vintage stuff, he knows this.”
“But Horace you’re not even giving him a chance.”
“Whatever.”
“I shall sprinkle plaster roses on his grave.”
Thank you Mr. Circuit Breaker for doing your job and saving me from a serious zapping. As you may have guessed one of these lamps had a serious short-circuit that caused the circuit breaker to trip which in turn has resulted in some rewiring.
This is why I usually test things by plugging the into outlets with multiple breakers in the circuit. Thankfully I only average one minor zapping every two years (except for the incredible smoldering slot machine, which is a story for another time).
This plaster figurative lamp set was made (or copy righted) in June 1952 by Chesterlamp of Los Angeles, California. They stand about 36 inches tall with the shade and are pretty heavy (nearly 10 pounds each). Since they weigh so much and are plaster they could be shipped but it’s going to cost a fair amount.
If one wants them, these lamps even come with age appropriate funky fringed shades that only slightly smell of cigarette smoke.
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*Long before the Electric Light Orchestra came along there was the electric light near-death experience with their big hit Mr. Blue Lips. . .
