Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Art Deco vs. Art Moderne

 

QUESTION: I’m a great lover of all things Art Deco, although I don’t know much about it. I’ve heard some people refer to this style as Streamlined Modern while other call it Art Moderne. Can you please tell me a little about this style? And what about Streamlined Modern? Is it related to Art Deco?

ANSWER: Art Deco and Art Moderne overlap, both stylistically and chronologically. Both were in vogue in the first half of the 20th century. But it's more a question of style than dates. While Art Deco emphasized verticality and stylized, geometric ornamentation, Art Moderne was a horizontal design, emphasizing movement and sleekness;.

The Art Deco style made its debut at the 1925 World's Fair in Paris—the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes or the International Exhibition of Modern and Industrial Decorative Arts—but the term Art Deco wasn’t used until 1966. A group of French architects and interior designers, who banded together to form the Societe des Artistes Decorateurs, developed the style to incorporate elements of style from diverse modern artworks and current fashion trends. Influence from Cubism and Surrealism, Egyptian and African folk art can be seen in the lines and embellishments, and Asian influences contribute symbolism, grace and detail.

Art Deco was already an internationally mature style by 1925—one that had flourished in the years following World War I and peaked at the time of the fair. The enormous commercial success of Art Deco ensured that designers and manufacturers throughout Europe continued to promote this style until well into the 1930s. 

Sometimes Deco designers applied ornamentation to the surface of an object, like a decorative skin, but at other times the utilitarian designs of bowls, plates, vases, and furniture were themselves purely ornamental. These objects weren’t intended for practical use but rather created for their decorative value alone, exploiting the beauty of form or material. Among the most popular and recurring motifs were the human figure, animals, flowers, and plants. Abstract geometric decoration was also common. 

Victorians loved to apply ornamentation onto furniture, to embellish basic frames and shapes. With Art Deco, the texture and embellishment came from contrasts in a variety of colored woods and inlays or in the material itself. Designers often used burled or birds-eye or visibly grained woods, tortoise shell, ivory, tooled leathers. Lacquered glosses accentuated color differences. Animal skins and patterned fabrics in bright colors were also popular as upholstery.

Though it spread to other countries, Art Deco was a distinctively French response to the postwar demand for luxurious objects and fine craftsmanship. French designers utilized lavish materials and such rich, traditional decorative techniques as inlay and veneer on streamlined geometric forms.

Art Deco reflected the general optimism and carefree mood that swept Europe and the United States following World War I. Hope and prosperity are represented in sunburst designs, chevrons and references to the good life in the elegant figures depicted in casual, sensual poses, often dancing or sipping cocktails. The modern influences heralded a bright and shining future outlook that found its way to architecture, jewelry, automobile design and even extended to ordinary things such as refrigerators and trash cans.

Exoticism also played a role in Art Deco. During the 1920s and 1930s, the French government encouraged designers to take advantage of resources—like raw materials and a skilled workforce—that could be imported from the nation's colonies in Asia and Africa. The resulting growth of interest in the arts of colonial countries in Asia and Africa led French designers to explore new materials, such as ivory, sharkskin, and exotic woods, techniques such as lacquering and ceramic glazes, and forms that evoked faraway places and cultures. 

Art Moderne
 Moderne, also called Streamlined Modern, was an American invention that first appeared in the 1930s and lasted into the 1940s. Although taking its design concepts from Art Deco, it was a completely different style It was bigger and bolder. While Art Deco placed an emphasis on shape, Art Moderne was streamlined. Unfortunately, this is the style most Americans confuse with Art Deco.

Think of Art Moderne as Art Deco on steroids. Moderne was positively streamlined—at the time a new scientific theory that shaping objects along curving lines to cut wind resistance would make them move more efficiently. The furniture in this style was much more pared down, making its outline more geometric in sleek curves like a tear drop or torpedo. Moderne designers often conceived pieces as a series of escalating levels- similar to a staircase or the setback effect of skyscrapers that were rising in every city.

While rich colors, bold geometry, and decadent detail work characterized Art Deco, evoking glamour, luxury, and order with symmetrical designs in exuberant shapes, Art Moderne was essentially a machine-made style focused on mass production, functional efficiency, and a more abstract look coming from the Bauhaus in Germany.

Much of it was designed to be mass-produced, but even if it wasn't, it looked as if it could be: Art Deco's balance and proportion extended to regularity and repetition. Much of the decorative interest in a Moderne piece comes from the precision of line and duplication of functional features. Art Moderne designs often conveyed a sense of motion.

Art Moderne designers favored simpler, aerodynamic lines and forms in the modeling of ships, airplanes, and automobiles. In the modern machine age smooth surfaces, curved corners, and an emphasis on horizontal lines came into fashion. Streamlining appeared on everyday objects and buildings such as roadside diners, motor hotels, movie theaters, early strip malls and shopping centers, seaside marinas, and air and bus terminals. Trains, ocean liners, airplane fuselages, as well as luxury automobiles all sported the Moderne look.

People often refer to furnishings and buildings from the 1920s through the 1940s as Art Deco. Understanding the difference between Art Deco and Art Moderne isn't always easy, especially since Art Deco was originally called Moderne.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Age of Photography" in the 2023 Holiday Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.


Friday, February 2, 2024

Inside Out

 

QUESTION: While browsing a recent antique show, I discovered a delightful little copper box with what looked like an embossed design. The dealer told me it was probably made around the turn of the 20th century or at least before World War I. She said the design was repoussé on copper. I’d like to know more about this repousse technique. Can you give me a bit of history and an explanation of how it’s done?

ANSWER: There are two techniques for hammering copper—chasing and repousse. The difference between the two is that chasing pushes the metal in from the front side while repousse pushes the metal out from the backside.  Both techniques frequently employ a backing to support the work material and confine the movement of the metal to the immediate area around the tool.

While the word repoussé comes from the French word repoussage, meaning "pushed up," the word chasing, which also derives from the French word chasser, meaning ”to drive out.” Repousse is a metalworking technique in which an artisan shaped a malleable metal by hammering from the reverse side to create a design in low relief. Chasing is a similar technique in which the piece is hammered on the front side, sinking the metal. The two techniques are often used in conjunction. Many metals can be used for chasing and repoussé work, including gold, silver, copper, and alloys such as steel, bronze, and pewter. Tool marks are often intentionally left visible.

With the simplest technique, sheet gold could be pressed into designs carved in intaglio in stone, bone, metal or even materials such as jet. The gold could be worked into the designs with wood tools or, more commonly, by hammering a wax or lead "force" over it.

Both techniques date from antiquity and have been used widely with gold and silver for fine detailed work, such as the burial mask of King Tutankhamun, and copper, tin, and bronze for larger sculptures, such as the Statue of Liberty. Both methods require only the simplest tools and materials, and yet allow great diversity of expression. They’re also more affordable, since there’s no loss or waste of metal, which mostly retains its original size and thickness.

Before the use of repousse, ancient artisans pressed gold sheet into a die to work it over a design in cameo relief. Here the detail would be greater on the back of the final design, so some final chasing from the front was often carried out to sharpen the detail.

In 1400 BCE, ancient Egyptians used resin and mud as a softer backing for repoussé. The use of patterned punches dates back to the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE  Craftsman made the simplest patterned punches using loops or scrolls of wire.

By 400 BCE., the ancient Greeks had begun using a combination of punches and dies on a beeswax backing to produce repousse on their bronze armor plates.

The resurgence of repousse and chasing first occurred in England during the late 19th century as part of the British Arts & Crafts Movement. Most notably was the work produced at the Keswick School of Industrial Arts, founded in 1884 by Canon Hardwicke and his wife, Edith Rawnsley, as an evening class in woodwork and repoussé metalwork at the Crosthwaite Parish Rooms, in Keswick, Cumbria. Hardwicke designed the curriculum to alleviate unemployment. The school  prospered, and within 10 years more than 100 men had attended classes. 

The school prospered and swiftly developed a reputation for high quality copper and silver decorative metalwork. By 1888 nearly 70 men were attending the classes. By 1890 the school was exhibiting nationally and winning prizes; Its students numbering over 100,  it had outgrown its cramped home in the parish rooms, forcing Rawnsley to raise funds for a purpose-built school nearby.

The Newlyn Industrial Class, later renamed the Newlyn Art Metal Industry, established in 1890 by John D. Mackensie, was similar to Keswick and shared a common purpose with it. Inspired by the teachings of John Ruskin, they aimed to provide a source of employment in small communities where work came and went with the seasons. At the Newlyn classes, held in a net loft above a fish-curing yard, the pupils were mainly fishermen, while at Keswick students were pencil makers, laborers, gardeners, shepherds, and tailors.

Both metal workshops specialized in the production of repoussé copper work, This technique and material was popular with amateur craftsmen and women across the country because it was easy to learn. A student placed a flat piece of copper face down on a bed of pitch, or, as in the Newlyn workshops, lead. These materials were chosen because they would yield to the force of the blows of the punch but would still support the metal. Once a student had punched the design out from the reverse, he or she turned the metal over and chased finer details on the front.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Age of Photography" in the 2023 Holiday Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.


Thursday, December 7, 2023

The Clock is Ticking on Clock Collecting

 

QUESTION: I’ve been interested in clocks for a long time but only recently have I had enough extra cash to start a serious collection. How do I know what clocks to collect? I have a limited budget.

ANSWER: One of the quirky things about collecting clocks is that, depending on the size, they can not only take up space but also time–the time needed to keep them running. Clocks are precision instruments, even the smallest alarm clock has tiny working parts that need regular maintenance. 

However, not every old clock is worth collecting. In fact, collecting clocks can be a challenge because of the amount of space they take up. So people who do collect them are very particular. 

With antique clocks, condition is prime. To be worth anything, an antique clock needs to be in working order—in other words, it needs to tell time almost as good as it did when  first made.

From 1680 to 1840, tall case clocks was popular in America. Master clockmakers produced fewer than two dozen of these clocks a year. Eventually, these clocks became known as grandfather clocks. 

While these early clocks demonstrated the finest quality of workmanship, the cost of $50 or more excluded anyone but the very rich from owning one. Today, these same clocks can sell for four or five figures. While clockmakers produced the clockworks, coffin makers made the cases. Until about 1770, the brass dials had silver decoration. Painted dials and those coated with white enamel didn’t appear until 1790. Cheaper models had plain paper dials pasted on an iron or wooden background. While clockmakers produced the clockworks, coffin makers made the cases. Until about 1770, the brass dials had silver decoration. 

Next in the timeline of clockmaking came wall clocks. In 1802, Simon Willard patented his improved Timepiece," a wall clock shaped like a banjo. This style would be copied many times. Years later, the Waterbury Clock Co. manufactured a .umber of banjo clocks and used the name "Willard."

While the Willards introduced new lock styles, it was Gideon Roberts, a Revolutionary War veteran from Bristol, Connecticut., who began to make the clock more affordable. Roberts replaced he brass movements used to that point with less expensive wooden movements and also used painted paper dials. Imitating the German styling known as wag-on-the-wall, Roberts would also make clocks without a case. The exposed works could be encased for an additional fee. Using these methods, Roberts was able to produce 10 or more clocks at a time.

Clock manufacturers produced an infinite number of styles of mantel clocks from 1810 to 1860. These included papier-maché clocks, as well as pillar-and-scroll clocks with wooden movements.

Eli Terry been has generally credited with bringing mass-production to clockmaking in America. In 1797, Terry was granted the first American clock-related patent. In 1807, he signed a contract to make 4,000 clock movements within three years. Legend has it that Terry spent the first two years designing and constructing the machinery, which would allow him to fulfill his obligation. In 1810, with the help of apprentices Seth Thomas and Silas Hoadley, Terry's pillar-and-scroll shelf clock became the first inexpensive, factory-produced clock available to the American public. Thomas and Hoadley purchased Terry's factory that same year and worked together until 1813. Thomas eventually became one of America's best-known clockmakers.

The cuckoo clock dates back to 1730 when Swiss and Bavarian clockmakers developed the pendulum striking mechanism and the cuckoo concept. Unfortunately, cuckoo clocks never became popular with American manufacturers, but many American travelers purchased them in Germany and Switzerland, as did soldiers returning from World War I and II..

By 1850, technology would change most movements from weight to spring-driven, and brass coiled springs would be replaced by cheaper steel springs. Among the most popular clocks were the schoolhouse clock, the pressed oak "gingerbread" kitchen clock, the steeple clock, and the OG clock, which featured a double continuous S-shaped molding.

Novelty clocks have become another popular collectible category. There have been flower clocks, animated animal clocks, advertising clocks, and even dancing girl clocks. 

Researching an antique clock’s origins can be challenging. Those made in the 18th and at least the first half of the 19th century bore no labels. Some clockmakers did sign their works, especially those that made tall case clocks. Generally, they signed them somewhere on the dial. Many of those that did have labels in the latter part of the 1800s, lost them over time.  

The key to acquiring museum quality clocks is learning how to research, properly identify, and evaluate antique clocks. Rarity, provenance, originality, quality of manufacture, and quality of restoration all affect value.

An antique clock isn’t always as good as it appears. While a clock may look great from the outside, the condition of its works is what counts. Over time, abuse and bad repairs can add up, rendering what could have been a great find nearly worthless. 

The sad thing is that many antique clocks cannot be repaired. Even the best horologist can’t work miracles on many old clockworks. The reason is that most cannot obtain the parts needed to do the repairs. And the few younger clockmakers just don’t have the skills necessary to make the parts themselves. 

Because of the wide range of antique clocks available, many collectors choose to specialize, collecting one type of clock from different makers or a variety of clocks from the same maker, perhaps Seth Thomas. Another possibility is to collect a fine example of each type of clock. Some collectors assemble collections of clocks with different types of movements. 

But unlike a piece of antique furniture that has been restored, an antique clock that isn’t running isn’t worth collecting. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Age of Photography" in the 2023 Fall Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Seeing the World in Almost 3-D

 

QUESTION: When I was a kid in the 1950s, I received a View-Master stereoscope for Christmas. It came with several reels of photos, plus I could buy additional ones. I loved viewing photos of my favorite TV show characters, especially the westerns, as well as scenes of faraway places. As an adult, I continued my fascination with the stereoscope when I discovered an antique one at a fleamarket. It came with a box of paired photos mounted on cardboard. I’ve always wondered how the stereoscope came about? Can you give me some insight into its history?

ANSWER: A stereoscope was an instrument in which two photographs of the same object, taken from slightly different angles, could simultaneously be presented, one to each eye. This recreated the way which in natural vision, each eye views an object from a slightly different angle, separated by several inches. This is what gives humans natural depth perception. A separate lens focused each picture, and by showing each eye a photograph taken several inches apart from each other and focused on the same point, the stereoscope recreated the natural effect of seeing things in three dimensions.

Sir Charles Wheatstone invented the earliest stereoscopes, which optician R. Murray made for him in 1832. On June 21, 1838, Wheatstone gave a presentation of his invention at the Royal College of London in which he used a pair of mirrors at 45 degree angles to the user's eyes, each reflecting a picture located off to the side. It demonstrated the importance of binocular depth perception by showing that when two pictures simulating left-eye and right-eye views of the same object are presented so that each eye sees only the image designed for it, but apparently in the same location, the brain will fuse the two and accept them as a view of one solid three-dimensional object. Unfortunately, Wheatstone introduced his stereoscope the year before the first practical photographic processes became available, so he had to use drawings at first. This mirror stereoscope allowed two pictures to be used if desired.

Though David Brewster didn’t invent the stereoscope, he built a simple stereoscope without lenses or mirrors, consisting of a wooden box 18 inches long, 7 inches wide, and 4 inches high, which he used to view drawn landscape transparencies. In 1849, he suggested using lenses to unite the dissimilar pictures. This allowed a reduction in picture size, creating hand-held devices, which became known as Brewster Stereoscopes, which Queen Victoria admired when he demonstrated them at the Great Exhibition of 1851.


But Brewster couldn’t find a British instrument maker capable of constructing his design, so he took it to France, where Jules Duboscq , who made stereoscopes and stereoscopic daguerreotypes, improved the design, allowing the display of Queen Victoria’s likeness to be displayed at The Great Exhibition. Thanks to her, stereoscopes became a huge success, with 250,000 of them produced, along with a great number of stereoviews, stereo cards, stereo pairs or stereographs. Stereoscope makers sent stereographers throughout the world to capture views for the new medium and feed the demand for 3D images. They then had cards printed with these views often with explanatory text. When a user looked at them through the double-lensed viewer,  also called a stereopticon, they could see both. 

In 1861 Oliver Wendell Holmes created but deliberately didn’t patent a handheld, streamlined, much more economical viewer than had been available before. This stereoscope from the 1850s, consisted of two prismatic lenses and a wooden stand to hold the stereo card. This type of stereoscope remained in production for a century and is the type most associated with the name.

Another type of viewer was the multiple view stereoscope which allowed viewing multiple stereoscopic images in sequence by turning a knob or crank, or pushing down a lever. Antoine Claudet patented the first one in 1855, but the design of Alexander Beckers from 1857 formed the basis for many revolving stereoscopes manufactured from the 1860s onward. The user placed the images in holders attached to a rotating belt. The belt could usually hold 50 paper card or glass stereoviews, but there were also large floor standing models capable of holding 100 or 200 views.

A more advanced multiple view stereoscope was only intended for glass slides and was especially popular in France, as the printing of stereo images on glass was a French specialty popular until the 1930s. The French made most of these devices, but ICA and Ernemann also made them in Germany. Users placed the glass slides in a bakelite or wooden tray. Turning a crank or pushing down a lever to lift a slide from the tray, bringing it into the viewing position. Turning further placed the slide back in the tray and moved the tray over a rail to select the next slide. The most sophisticated and well known design was the Taxiphote by Jules Richard, patented in 1899.

In the mid-20th century, the View-Master stereoscope, first patented in 1939, featured a rotating cardboard disk which contained image pairs. It was originally popular as a way for people to virtually travel to faraway places, but by the 1950s had become a popular toy. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Coffee--The Brew of Life" in the 2023 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.


Thursday, September 2, 2021

Stuck on Beauty

 

18th-century paper 

QUESTION: While touring some historic houses, I’ve often marveled at the beautiful wallpapers on their interior walls. I’ve always loved wallpaper. In fact, every room in the house I grew up in had wallpaper on the walls. But getting it off was such a chore that many people turned to painted walls instead. I’d love to know how wallpaper originated and some of the history behind its use. Can you help me?

ANSWER: People have adorned their walls for centuries. During the Middle Ages, the wealthy hung woolen tapestries to help keep out the cold. Later, painted cloths came into fashion. And through the evolution of interior decoration—wallpaper. 

Early on, makers of wallpaper used the same wooden printing blocks used on textiles on heavy paper. Most likely its introduction to Europe occurred in the 16th century, following the Dutch trade with China and Japan. Dutch ships returned from the Far East with exotic decorated papers when they then exported to England and France. 

Hanging wallpaper sheet

The first wallpapers to appear in Europe were small, approximately 12 to 18 inches square and very expensive. Merchants used the earliest wallpapers to decorate the insides of cupboards and smaller rooms in their houses. 

Up until the late 18th century, creators of these small squares of wallpaper hand painted them. That made hanging the paper difficult because many times those smaller pieces didn’t join together very well. As a result, there were gaps, and designs and patterns didn’t meld together that well.

Others attached pieces to frames and let them hang freely. The dark, damp halls of chateaus and manor houses were usually drafty, so people placed these hanging papers where they might cut down on drafts that blew through the large open areas and hallways.

Ancient Roman scene in frame

Many early wallpapers featured stylized floral motifs and simple pictorial scenes copied from contemporary embroideries and other textiles. Makers printed them in monochrome, in black ink on small sheets of paper. It wasn’t until the mid-17th century that wallpaper makers joined the single sheets together to form long rolls, a development that also encouraged the production of larger repeats and the introduction of block-printing. In this process, printers engraved onto the surface of a rectangular wooden block. Then they inked the block with paint and placed it face down on the paper for printing. Polychrome patterns required the use of several blocks----one for every color. They printed each color separately along the length of the roll, which they then hung up to dry before the next color could be applied. “Pitch” pins on the corners of the blocks helped the printer to line up the design. The process was laborious and required considerable skill.

French wallpapers

A number of fine French wallpapers offered different themes than those of the classic English papers. Often, the French papers displayed floral patterns, and many rendered figures from history and literature, whereas the English wallpapers favored landscape and bucolic compositions.

When wallpaper arrived in Colonial America, it was much too expensive for many to afford. Rather than pay the expensive costs for the wallpaper, many continued to paint or stencil their walls. However, some people found the imitation French papers affordable and applied them to their walls in small pieces instead.

Out of proportion design

The floral designs and landscape scenes commonly found were sometimes primitive, with houses and trees out of proportion. The skill of the artist or paperhanger directly affected the appearance of wallpaper. The progression leading to those long rolls of wallpaper allowed people to decorate large expanses of wall space without dividing the areas into those small panels.

By the early 19th century, expensive, imported wallpapers decorated the walls of prominent New England homes. Those papers were of various designs and patterns, and some of them depicted scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. American historical scenes were also popular.

Block printing wallpaper

Up until 1840 all wallpaper makers employed the slow, labor intensive block printing process. So manufacturers wanted to find ways to speed up production. Potters & Ross, a cotton printing firm based in Darwen, Lancashire, England, patented the first wallpaper printing machine in 1839. Adapting the methods used in the printing of calico fabric, the paper passed over the surface of a large cylindrical drum and received an impression of the pattern from a number of rollers arranged around its base. Troughs beneath each one simultaneously inked the rollers with colors. The first machine-printed papers appeared thin and colorless beside the richer and more complex effects of block-printing and most had simple floral and geometric designs with small repeats.

Wallpaper evolved into an art form. One example depicted the Scottish Highlands, complete with sportsmen stalking deer. Another showed a scene of Italian peasants dancing and harvesting grapes. And yet another depicted riders leaping fences.

Historic panorama scene wallpaper
Victorian wallpaper floral

The frieze-filling-dado wallpaper scheme highlights the popularity of wallpaper in Victorian homes. In 1868 as a way of breaking up the monotony of a single pattern on the wall, and by 1880 it was a standard feature in many fashionable interiors. The dado paper covered the lower part of the wall, between the skirting board and chair rail; above this hung the filling, and above this the frieze. And as if three different wallpapers weren’t enough decoration for any room, the scheme was often combined with ceiling papers to complete the densely-patterned effects. Ideally, the frieze should have been light and lively, the filling, a retiring, all-over pattern, and the dado should be darker to withstand dirt and wear and tear. Co-ordinating papers, printed in muted greens, reds, yellows and golds, could be extremely attractive but the frieze-filling-dado-ceiling combination often led to visual overload. Hallways and stairs benefitted best from this wallpaper treatment. But by 1900 ceiling papers had disappeared and, in artistic interiors, wide friezes hung above plain or simple paneled walls.

Antique wallpapers are of interest to several kinds of collectors. Some might be interested in specific themes or designs, such as papers depicting historical scenes, or those displaying floral patterns; wallpapers from England or France or some other country might engage the attention of others; still, some individuals like to collect papers produced by certain manufacturers, such as Cole & Son or William Morris. And some of  those assembling a collection might be interested in a certain time period such as wallpapers manufactured in the 17th or 18th century.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about railroad antiques in "All Aboard!" in the 2021 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.