Collecting the Golden Arches

QUESTION: My kids have all grown up. Recently, as I was going through some boxes in my attic, I noticed one filled with little toys that my children received in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Are these of any value as collectibles?

ANSWER: The answer is yes, but...and there’s always a “but.” To be of any value to a collector, Happy Meal toys need to still be encased in their packaging and not used. There are some rare pieces that have value even if out of their packages, but generally, as with other toy collectibles, mint in package is the rule.

McDonald's collectors aren’t simply food groupies picking up recent Happy Meal toys. Collecting McDonald's memorabilia can be a complicated affair. Categories are numerous and subcategories extensive. Items can be instantly available or hard to find. Prices range from a couple of dollars to thousands. As with any collectible, the law of supply and demand rules.

McDonald's memorabilia encompasses a vast amount of local, regional, national, international material-ephemera, advertising and print items, cross-collector character items, McDonaldland character items, restaurant pieces, books and comics, sports and non-sports cards, glassware , and plates, watches and jewelry, garments, vehicles, dolls, toys, and more. The list is almost endless.

The McDonald brothers started their fast food drive-in restaurant in 1948, so an item from the early 1950's  could carry a hefty price tag.

A novice McDonald's collector could amass hundreds of Happy Meal toys in a very short time.. For example, nearly 90 different toys had been in Happy Meals in 1996 alone, and millions of each toy had been issued. You can easily find toys from recent years selling for one to two dollars. A manufacturing variation or recall may create a toy of a little higher value, but even these are available in quantity.

Happy Meal toys and related display memorabilia remain are the most popular items to collect. Each Happy Meal has a specific and variable number of toys, including a special U3 toy which meets special standards for children under three years age, some bags or boxes, a stand up display and possibly counter displays, as well as banners, posters, and signs.

McDonald's collectors are as fussy about cleanliness, condition and completeness as any other collectible collector. Since McDonald’s had many of the items produced in the millions, prices for most packaged items remain low, and the package must be perfect. Loose Happy Meal toys have little value, especially once they’ve been tossed in a box, as the paint rubs off and are lost. Paper items need to be pristine and unmarked to bring top dollar.

Figurine Happy Meals toys are the most popular, especially those which feature well-known characters. Special packaging can also increase the desirability. The April 1996 Walt Disney Masterpiece Home Video Collection Happy Meal is a McDonald’s collector’s Holy Grail—eight nicely made classic figures, each in a fitted half-size videotape box, with well designed color cover artwork and McDonald’s logos. Dumbo is the U3 toy in the set. A single Happy Meal bag completes the set.

Happy Meals which feature books, buckets, or. little-known characters are usually of lessor interest to collectors, but there are exceptions. The four small soft cover Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit books from a 1998 Happy Meal, in mint condition, complete with the Happy Meal box are worth about $80 as a set. The Peter Rabbit Happy Meal was a "regional" which had limited geographic distribution. Any books that have been in children's hands are hard to find unblemished. Usually, this happens moments after opening the package as little ones’ hands are often sticky from eating fries and the like.

Elusive, scarce items can bring big dollars. The growing interest in fast food collecting has helped many wonderful older items to surface. However, many may or may not be valuable. Experienced McDonald's collectors look for complete older items in excellent condition and newer items that might be unusual or limited.

Most non-Happy Meal McDonald's collectibles feature the company name, one of the corporate logos, the trademark “M,” or recognizable characters.  Remember that a copyright date is only the year of first issue—a seemingly early piece may still be in circulation.

Early and scarce are the key words in McDonald’s collecting, although they may not occur simultaneously. Look for design features and characters no longer in use, such as Archy McDonald, the early character Speedee, items with the golden arch logo with a slash mark, and items related to the old style "red and white” restaurants. A 1966 Ronald McDonald costume with slash-arch logos, complete with makeup and wig, surfaced at an unclaimed storage locker auction. Needless to say, a collector paid several thousand for that hot item.

Most people think the same toys appear in all McDonald’s Happy Meals. In fact, they vary from region to region and country to country. This brings the total issued into the millions. And the more produced of any collectible, the less value it eventually has.

It May Not Be What It Seems

QUESTION: I’m a big fan of the Civil War. I’ve read a lot about it and go to re-enactments regularly during the summer. Recently, I started a collection of Confederate items. My most recent purchase was a cartridge belt plate with the letters “CSA” on the front. It looks real enough, but I’m not so sure. Can you tell me how to tell the fake from the authentic items?

ANSWER: As in all collecting, the more educated you are as a collector, the better off you’ll be. You must become an educated buyer. Purchasing on sight just because an items looks good and the price is right isn’t enough.

There’s a sucker born every minute. And when it comes to identifying Confederate militaria, there’s probably one born ever couple of seconds. In fact, someone once said that if the Confederates had everything that’s now believed to have belonged to them, the would have won the war and had a surplus.

Confederate items can be worth 10 times those that belonged to Union soldiers. So the market for Confederate fakes is ripe. Be wary of dealers that won’t tell you anything about an object, then offer it to you for what amounts to a bargain basement price. If the price is too low, the item most likely is a fake. Even selling it for a low amount, the dealer will make out on the deal.

To make objects look as if they’ve literally been in battle, some have minie balls hammered into them. A tell-tale gray ring will show that the ball had not been fired into the object.

Demand that a dealer authenticate a Confederate object. Ask if you can get the item appraised by a professional appraiser before agreeing to purchase it. Whether you plan on buying a $1 minie ball or a $10,000 Henry repeating rifle, it always pays to ask. If the dealer refuses to let you get it appraised, just walk out of the shop or away from his or her booth at a show. If the dealer is selling legitimate Civil War memorabilia, he’ll let you bring it back for a refund.

If you purchase what you think to be an authentic Confederate object for a relatively substantial price and it turns out to be fake, then you have the right to prosecute the dealer for fraud. Doing so will probably prove difficult, since fraud is difficult to prove, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

Confederate coins are a good case in point. Unscrupulous dealers have hundreds cast, and sell them for modest prices. Coins are minted, not cast, so they’re fakes. But, then again, how do you prove that the maker wasn’t making honest reproductions to sell to re-enactors?

Sometimes labels on objects will reveal their authenticity. First, paper labels didn’t come into common usage until the turn of the 20th century. If an item has a paper label on it, it would pay to have the paper tested. You might just discover that the process used to make the paper didn’t exist before the 1930s.

As for belt plates, two types exist, excavated—dug out of the ground—and unexcavated. Fakers will use acids and brass-black to pour over the buckle and create a dark color to make a patina. Look for signs of liquid in tiny pits, or smell the buckle. It will have a harsh foul smell, like something rotting.

A faker often makes a reproduction of an unexcavated buckle by making it look damaged. You should look for evidence that parts have been filed off. The belt plate also should have the same color throughout and "no spots where the brass is shining through. Above all, be suspicious of any buckle marked "CSA" or "CS." And if it has a date like 1862 on it, it’s not authentic.

Within militaria, the Civil War is a problem because there are more items from it around. One way in general to tell if a product is fake is to judge its quality. Very few can duplicate the quality of merchandise that they had back then.

A Case of Romantic Identity

QUESTION: My husband and I recently purchased what looks like a plain sideboard while traveling through South Carolina. It’s smaller than a regular one and has only four legs instead of the usual six, plus it’s about 10 inches taller. It looks to be made of a more common type of wood like pine or elm and has little decoration. Can you tell me about this piece of furniture?

ANSWER: It seems you bought what some people call a huntboard and what most Southerners call a slab. Whether it’s antique or not is dubious.

The word "huntboard" conjures up visions of dashing red-coated Southern sportsmen sipping mint juleps from frosted coin-silver cups while engaging in spirited conversation with soft-spoken young belles—all gathered around a high four-legged serving table, an inlaid mahogany demilune sideboard, circa 1800, often found in Southern dining rooms.

But more likely the huntboard turned up beneath a spreading oak tree, conveniently placed so that overheated horsemen could grab a refreshing drink without dismounting. And every Southerner worth his or her riding crop knows huntboards were built a good five to ten inches taller than sideboards because men in high hunting boots couldn't bend their knees and found it more comfortable to eat standing up. Another equally practical explanation for the huntboard's height was that it kept food out of reach of high jumping hound dogs.

Both scenarios are completely fictional, devised in 1925 in a romanticized account of Southern furniture, part of the romantic, if mostly incorrect, Colonial Revival Movement, perpetuated by the grey ghosts of the Civil War. Imagine a tall, gleaming, highly polished walnut four-legged serving piece set with coin silver and transfer-pattem earthenware, complete with a long rifle, and you can almost hear the thunder of the horses’ hoofs and the hunter’s horn sounding in the distance.

If the term had been part of aristocratic Southerners' vocabulary at all, it would have been their name for the piece of furniture out on the back porch or in the back hall of the "big house"—not in the dining room of the plantation home. In the Southern mansion the hunt-board was a basic piece made of native poplar or pine, not a glamorous item of walnut or mahogany. And when meal-time came around, the humble huntboard was set with pewter, crudely fashioned wooden bowls, and crockery, not the costly imported earthenware and handcrafted coin silver.

In other words, in the wealthy Southern plantation home, huntboards were just utilitarian pieces designed for the servants and slaves to eat around—a "board," as in "room and board." This variety of 19th-century huntboard comes closest to the original purpose of a sideboard—a simple stand-up serving table.

During the mid-19th century, the agrarian South—unlike the industrialized North—had few cities to support major cabinetmaking shops. Modest farmhouses and the occasional plantation sprawled throughout the region. This spread-out population—and the abundance of Southern forests—meant that it was more economical for furniture to be made "on site" by a traveling craftsman or even a handy family member than purchased from a faraway joiner's shop. During those months when the crops were planted, dinner—as they called the heavy noonday meal—had to be served efficiently. So slaves at the plantation main house set out biscuits, gravy, and other vittles on a quickly, even crudely, constructed sideboard called a “slab.”

The term "huntboard" was born at a time when a falsely romantic image of the South was at its peak. During that time, the demand for Southern huntboards far surpassed the supply. There had been little reason to keep the plain, crudely made slab once the servant and slave society disappeared. And many middle-class families that held on to the better walnut and cherry serving tables during the bleak postwar days quickly discarded their "old furniture" after the economy improved. As a result, furniture companies produced fake and reproduction huntboards by the truckload in the late1920s and '30s. Those authentic slabs that survived were often found in deserted country houses. Though "huntboard" sounds great, there’s no evidence that people actually used the word during antebellum days.

So the piece you purchased most likely dates to the late 1920s or early 1930s. Age and neglect probably made it appear much older. One way to tell if it’s authentic is to check the wooden pegs used to join it together. If it’s old, the pegs will be slightly elliptical and jut out of their holes a bit. If newer, they’ll be round and flush with the surface of the wood.

Those Oldies But Goodies

QUESTION: My husband recently purchased an old jukebox for a game room we created in our basement.  It’s a Wurlitzer 1015, and considering it’s 68 years old, it still plays pretty well. He paid $3,500 for it. Can you tell me more about this machine and others like it? Did my husband get taken on this deal?

ANSWER: While the jukebox is more or less a thing of the past, a few still exist in arcades and roadhouses off the beaten path and in the private collections of people who yearn for a return to those happy days. The one your husband purchased is the most popular of the oldies but goodies and normally sells for twice that amount. 

A jukebox, for those of you who may not know, is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that plays selections from self-contained media, at first records, then CDs. The classic jukebox has buttons with letters and numbers that patrons to restaurants, diners, and bars pushed  in combination to choose and play a specific selection at first for a dime, then later a quarter, fifty cents, and upwards.

Although jukeboxes, in one form or another, had been around since an Edison phonograph with a coin slot was exhibited in San Francisco in 1889, the early machines were staid affairs.

In 1928, Justus P. Seeburg, who manufactured player pianos, combined an electrostatic loudspeaker with a coin-operated record player and gave the listener a choice of eight records. This Audiophone machine was wide and bulky and had eight separate turntables mounted on a rotating Ferris wheel-like device, allowing patrons to select from eight different records. Later versions of the jukebox included Seeburg's Selectophone, with 10 turntables mounted vertically on a spindle. By maneuvering the tone arm up and down, the customer could select from 10 different records.

The term "jukebox" came into use in the United States around 1940, apparently derived from the familiar usage "juke joint", derived from the word "juke" meaning disorderly, rowdy, or wicked.

While jukeboxes had once been enclosed in wooden cabinets, the machines of the era beginning in 1937 were made of gaudy plastic, frosted glass, jeweled mirrors, and chrome ornaments. Many of those Art Deco creations were self-contained light shows with polarized revolving disks, bubble tubes, and flashing pilasters.

During those golden years, the Leonardo da Vinci of jukebox design was Wurlitzer's Paul Fuller, who was responsible for 13 full-size machines, five table models, and numerous speakers. The Golden Age of jukebox design ended when he suffered a heart attack in 1944 and died the next year. By then a new generation of larger jukeboxes had appeared, and the classic machines from the golden years—1937 to 1949—were, for the most part, relegated to the junk heap and forgotten.

Forgotten except for a small group of admirers of the design achievements of the 1937—49 period, who began busily picking up the pieces and reassembling the classic jukeboxes.

The popularity of jukeboxes extended from the 1940s through the mid-1960s, but they were particularly fashionable in the 1950s. By the middle of the 1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in America went into jukeboxes.

And even with all of today’s high-tech music devices, the sound from one of those old machines was fabulous. Nothing beats hearing an old 78 on a machine created just to play it. Those were the days.

The Red Carpet Treatment

QUESTION: My great grandmother left me a beautiful Oriental carpet runner. My grandmother said it is quite old, but I’m not sure by how much.  What can you tell me about antique Oriental carpets? I have no idea about its origins, pattern, and such.

ANSWER: What most people classify as Oriental carpets are actually Persian (now Iranian) or Turkish carpets. Originally made to cover the sand in the tents of nomads and to kneel on when saying daily prayers, these beautiful floor coverings have a long history.

Oriental carpets have been highly prized in the West since their first appearance in Venice in the 13th century. By the 18th century they were common in wealthier households. But relative demand was fairly small, so the production of carpets declined. During the 19th century, trade routes improved, contact with the Orient increased, and the Western obsession with the exotic grew. So Persian weavers produced great quantities of carpets for export.

Carpet-weaving is an integral part of Iranian culture and art and dates back to ancient Persia. Weavers from other countries copied the designs of Persian carpets, but Persia produced 75 percent of the world's woven carpets.

Generally, Persian carpets can be divided into three groups—Farsh/Qa-li, any carpet greater than 6×4 feet, Qa-licheh, sized 6×4 feet and smaller), and nomadic carpets known as Gelim including Zilu, meaning "rough carpet," mostly for use in tents.

Wool is the most common material for carpets but cotton is frequently used for the foundation of city and workshop carpets. There are a wide variety in types of wool used for weaving Oriental carpets, including . Kork wool, Manchester wool, and in some cases even camel hair wool.

Persian rugs have both a layout and a design which in general include one or more motifs, so it’s not unusual to find more than one motif in a single rug. The original designs act as the main pattern and the derivatives as the sub patterns. Rug experts have identified 19 pattern groups---historic monuments and Islamic buildings, Shah Abbassi patterns, spiral patterns, all-over patterns, derivative patterns, interconnected patterns, paisley patterns, tree patterns, Turkoman patterns, hunting ground patterns, panel patterns, European flower patterns, vase patterns, intertwined fish patterns, Mehrab patterns, striped patterns, geometric patterns, tribal patterns, and composites. The most common motifs include Boteh, Gul, Herati, Mina-Khani, Rosette, Shah Abbasi, Azari Kharchang, and Islimi Floral.

Persian rugs are typically laid out using one of four patterns—all-over, central medallion, compartment and one-sided. So a rug’s design can be described in terms of the manner in which it organizes the field of the rug. One basic design may serve the entire field, or the surface may be covered by a pattern of repeating figures. In areas using long-established local designs. the weaver often works from memory, with the patterns passed on within the family.

Weavers often tailored the dimensions of their carpets to suit Western needs. They produced a disproportionate number of runners—long narrow rugs originally designed to cover the sides of rooms or tents since these had special appeal to Westerners. Even so, the standards remained the same. The major carpet-weaving centers—Persia, Turkey and the Caucasus—continued to use traditional motifs and techniques, maintaining the carpets’ regional integrity and originality.

While carpets made before 1800 are extremely expensive, the antique carpet market offers some excellent buys for the beginning collector. High quality runners generally cost between $1,500 and $15,000, depending on overall design, pliability, date, and type and number of knots.

Edgar Allan Poe once said, “A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of carpets must be a genius.” And as hard as they are to judge, they’re certainly easy to enjoy.

Shaker Chair Chic

QUESTION: Some time ago, I bought a simple chair at a country estate auction. I love that chair but know very little about it. Someone told me that my chair was Shaker. Since I didn’t know much about the Shakers, I couldn’t tell. It just looked like a simple country chair. What can you tell me about my chair?

ANSWER: Your chair certainly looks like a Shaker chair. But you need to know a bit about the Shakers to know for sure.

Mother Ann Lee, who led the Shakers to America in 1774, had enough to do to get her sect organized. She began with a community in Albany, New York, and sent out missionaries to establish Shaker communities elsewhere in New England. But it wasn’t until Mother Lee had died and another generation of leadership took over the Shakers that the idea of producing items for sale as a way of supporting the communities came to be.

The Shakers attracted skilled cabinetmakers and craftsmen to their ranks, so it was a natural to use their skills to produce furniture for the communities. By this time, the Shakers were totally self-sustaining. In the early 19th century, the sect began to attract large numbers of people, mostly those who were discontent with society in general or were out of work. The communities offered security and food and lodging to people who might otherwise not have had it.

To support all these people became a major problem. So the elders of each community came up with ways to produce items for sale. Some made chairs, others produced seeds, clothing, especially wool capes, or took in mending and such. Many members were very creative and invented unique items such  as the electric washing machine. They were extremely organized as well, so mass-producing items like chairs wasn’t a problem. 

The Shaker communities' peak growth came in the second quarter of the 19th century. In1840, an estimated 4,000-6,000 members lived in 18 self-contained communities from Maine to Kentucky and west to Indiana. During that time, they produced the icons of Shaker design—the spare, functional chairs that inspire today’s collectors. The best display uncompromising craftsmanship combined with absolute simplicity—ladderback chairs whose turned posts have been pared to the narrowest possible dimensions. At first they produced these chairs for use within the community. But later they chose the best design and reproduced it for sale to the outside world. Customers loved their simplicity and sturdiness and the Shaker chair business took off.

But not every piece of furniture made by Shaker hands is a design masterpiece: Some pieces were poorly crafted. Some were beautifully crafted but poorly proportioned. And some exhibit such bare-bones functionalism that they’re awkward and ugly. Often they’re barely distinguishable from country furniture of the same time and place. Indeed, unscrupulous dealers and auctioneers often promote plain country pieces as Shaker and sell for several times more than they would otherwise bring.

The chairs that the Shakers designed to be sold to the public were lean and severe and produced in huge quantities that ended up on back porches and summer cottages across America. Their popularity led other manufacturers to copy their look, and these pseudo "Shaker" chairs appear in quantity at country auctions and small antiques shows. Each of the endless variety of styles has its own Shaker-designated model number. Most were originally stained dark brown, and slat-backs predominate.

Each community made their chairs a bit different from those of other communities, changing or adding little details. And while they all began with the same design template, each community’s craftsmen added their own touches for their community. For instance, many people believe that all Shaker chairs have tiny acorn finials and arms that terminate in mushroom-shaped turnings. Not so. It’s possible to tell which community made which chair by the shape of the finial alone. The back slats were also often slightly different. The Number 7 rockers, for example, have mushroom arms, four slats, and a shawl rail connecting the backposts that replaces the more common finials. The Shakers often attached a decal identifying the piece as Shaker to the back of a slat or leg. But pieces meant solely for use within the Shaker communities didn’t have decals.

Although for years Shaker chairs never sold for more than $500, now even the most common three-slat rockers bring $600-$800 or more. Some even go as high as $1,700-to-$2,200.

Pieces from Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana—often less austere, less "Shaker-looking" than their eastern counterparts—often have a Victorian feel and sometimes resemble local country furniture even more closely than classic eastern designs. .

The earliest collectors of Shaker chairs—active from 1920 to 1960—tended to be serious academic types. They studied Shaker life and doctrine, became friendly with living Shakers, and often acquired pieces directly from them as the sect's numbers dwindled. Then Shaker chairs became attractive to doctors, lawyers, and other professionals whose bank balances boosted prices to new levels.

The Porcelain of the Royals

QUESTION: I recently saw some Meissen porcelain at an antique show. I fell in love with it but the price seemed high. What can you tell me about this type of porcelain? I’d like to start collecting it, but I’m not sure I can afford it.

ANSWER: Meissen porcelain was the first porcelain made in Europe. It’s origins are royal. Augustus II, known as Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony and King of Poland, who reigned in the early 18th century, avidly collected porcelain from China and Japan, as did many of his fellow monarchs. By the time the Asian-made porcelain reached Europe, it was so expensive that only a king or queen could afford it.

For Augustus, it wasn't enough to fill his Dresden palaces with Oriental imports. He wanted his own porcelain, made in Saxony. After a great  many failed experiments and the expenditure of large sums of royal revenue, his court alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger, hit upon the correct formula and produced true porcelain at Meissen, a suburb of Dresden, in 1708. The early wares of the factory were imitations of the Chinese or Japanese styles.

Although Meissen produced a wide range of porcelain ware, both ornamental and practical, he company  is best known for its figures. From medieval times, German court dining tables had displayed decorative centerpieces composed of mythological, allegorical, or comic figures modeled in wax or spun sugar. Porcelain figures replaced these in the early 18th century. The earliest bore the mark “Hofkonditorei,” meaning royal confectionery. Because of their origins in entertainment, the subjects are usually cheerful and, when modeled in groups or two or more on a single base, often tell little stories.

Johann Joachim Kändler, who worked from 1731 until his death in 1775, was the great modeler at Meissen. In the hands of most modelers, porcelain figures were mere dolls. In the hands of Kändler, they became sculpture. Though collectors seek out all of Kändler's work, they especially admire his animals and birds, based on observations of the royal Saxon menagerie.

The commedia dell'arte inspired some of Kändler's finest work. His contemporaries immediately recognized the stock characters—the Doctor, Pantaloon, Scaramouche, Harlequin, Columbine— from these plays. Kändler dashingly modeled and brilliantly painted them with colors that have faded little in two centuries. These figures have never been inexpensive, and often sell for five figures or more.

Kändler's greatest achievement in tableware was the celebrated Swan Service, which he had his fellow workmen model in the grandest baroque style. It was made between 1737 and 1741 for Augustus's chief minister, Count Bruhl. Consisting of 2,200 pieces—plates, tureens, sauceboats, wine-bottle stands, and candlesticks, among other items—many in swan form and all painted with the Bruhl family coat of arms, the Swan Service has been called "the most beautiful and magnificent table service ever to be executed by a porcelain factory."

Having successfully produced his own porcelain, Augustus began to show signs of megalomania. He planned a "Japanese palace" paneled and furnished entirely in porcelain. He commissioned Kändler to do a life-size statue of him for the palace, but it cracked before it could be fired. A number of animal and bird figures from the project survived, and several examples have been sold.

The most expensive single piece of European porcelain ever sold was a 26½ -inch-tall macaw from the palace project, which brought $195,000 at a 1978 London auction. It came from the collection of German millionaire leather manufacturer Robert von Hirsch and was bought by the Kunstgewerbemuseum of Cologne.

Porcelain making is an art that has made little "progress" in 200 years. Eighteenth-century Meissen is considered by most collectors to be the finest porcelain ever made in Europe. And prices for it reflect that. The costliest lot of porcelain ever sold at auction was a 21-piece Meissen tea service ordered by King Christian VI of Denmark about 1730 and painted with the royal arms of Denmark and the insignia of the Danish Order of the Elephant. It brought $433,000 at a London auction in 1986. The royal connection was obviously a great asset, because a similar 27-piece tea and coffee service from the same period with no such provenance sold for a more typical $70,000. The demand for Meissen is consistent. At most sales and auctions, Meissen sells for prices way above the rest. So if you intend to collect it, you better win the lottery or start saving your dollars—not your pennies.

Ooolala...Art Deco French Style

QUESTION: I have a pair of upholstered arm chairs that originally belonged to my great grandmother and were passed to my grandmother and then to me. They have an unusual shape. Can you tell me anything about them?

ANSWER: Your chairs seem to be classic French Art Deco, dating from the late teens to mid 1920s of the last century.

The term Art Deco, actually coined in 1966, refers to a design style that originated around World War I and ran through World War II. It’s epitomized by the works shown at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exhibition of Modern and Industrial Decorative Arts), held in Paris in 1925. Indeed, the name of this vast exhibition would later be abbreviated to Art Deco, giving a catch-all and rather imprecise label to an enormous range of decorative arts and architecture.

Most people associate Art Deco with the mechanized, metalicized objects that appeared in the U.S. in the 1930s. Like haute couteur fashion, this high style was more popular with the wealthy and avant garde than with the average person, mostly because this group had more education and its tastes ran to fine art and design.

Developed by a group of French architects and interior designers who banded together to form the Societe des Artistes Decorateurs, the Art Deco style incorporated elements of style from diverse artworks and current fashion trends. Influence from Cubism and Surrealism, Egyptian and African folk art are evident in the lines and embellishments, and Asian influences contributed symbolism, grace and detail.

Disillusioned by the commercial failure of Art Nouveau and concerned by competitive advances in design and manufacturing made by Austria and Germany in the early years of the 20th century, French designers recognized that they could rejuvenate a failing industry by reestablishing their traditional role as international leaders in the luxury trades, a position they once held during the 18th century. The founding in 1900 of the Société marked the first official encouragement of new standards for French design and production through annual exhibitions of its members’ works.

In 1912, the French government voted to sponsor an international exhibition of decorative arts to promote French pre-eminence in the design field. The exhibition, originally scheduled for 1915, had to be postponed because of World War I and didn’t take place until 1925. If the exhibition had taken place as scheduled, the sophisticated style of Art Deco probably wouldn’t have evolved.

The Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris was a vast state-sponsored fair that dazzled more than 16 million visitors during its seven-month run. The works exhibited—everything from architecture and interior design to jewelry and perfumes—were intended to promote and proclaim French supremacy in the production of luxury goods. The primary requirement for inclusion was that all works had to be thoroughly modern, no copying of historical styles of the past would be permitted.

But creating from scratch isn’t something that occurs in the arts. All art—painting, sculpture, writing, music, theater—evolves from what’s been done before in some way. So many of the objects exhibited had their roots in the traditions of the past. The stylistic unity of exhibits indicates that Art Deco was already an internationally mature style by 1925—it was just getting started before World War I but had peaked by 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.

In France, Art Deco combined the quality and luxury of the French furniture tradition with the good taste of Classicism and the exoticism of distant, pre-industrial lands and cultures. Many designers used sumptuous, expensive materials like exotic hardwoods, lacquer, ivory and shagreen in order to update traditional forms like armchairs, dressing tables and screens. Motifs like Meso-American ziggurats, Chinese fretwork, and African textile patterns offered a new visual vocabulary for designers to play with in order to create fresh, modern work.

Early Art Deco furniture introduced sleek, rounded corners, and futuristic styling. Seating often curved slightly inward, suggesting intimacy and sensuousness. Geometric designs and patterns often provided a counterpoint to the soft rounded lines of classic Art Deco furniture. Designers often incorporated fan motifs using layered triangles, and circular designs were common.

The concept behind French Art Deco furniture was one of luxury and comfort using rich wood and textural elements. Finishes were shiny or glossy. Wood was heavily lacquered or enameled and polished to a high sheen.

Fabric choices enhanced the feeling of luxury and opulence in Art Deco furniture. Designers used bold geometric, animal or exaggerated floral prints in soft, sumptuous materials to contrast and compliment the sleek styling.

French Art Deco reflected the general optimism and carefree mood that swept Europe following World War I. Sunbursts and chevrons represented hope and prosperity. They also employed vivid colors in paint and upholstery. Both furniture and textiles tended to use decorative designs that exhibited a strong painterly quality reminiscent of Impressionist, and post-Impressionist, Fauve, and Cubist techniques.

Sometimes ornamentation was straightforwardly applied to the surface of an object, like a decorative skin. At other times, potentially utilitarian designs—bowls, plates, vases, even furniture—were in and of themselves purely ornamental, not intended for practical use but rather conceived for their decorative value alone, exploiting the singular beauty of form or material.

After the 1925 Paris Exposition, American designers began working in the Art Deco style in the U.S. For American audiences, however, there was less of an emphasis on luxury and exclusivity and more interest in mass-production, accessibility and the machine age. 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 even trash cans.

Kolorful Kitchen Kollectibles

QUESTION: I have been cleaning out my grandmother’s house after her death. In the kitchen drawers, I’ve found dozens of quirky looking utensils, most with colorful wooden handles. Some of these I’m sure I can use today. Should I use them or put them aside as collectibles?

ANSWER: Every American kitchen had a least some of these handy-dandy doodads. Each utensil had one use, so housewives had to buy a large number of them to take care of all the tasks a typical kitchen required. And, yes, some of them may be somewhat valuable—at least the rarer ones.

These early 20th-century kitchen gadgets have a strong relationship to today’s “As-seen-on-TV”  gadgets, advertised on many of the retro channels. Take the one-hand blender. Except for its streamlined shape and lack of a colored handle, it’s very similar to the one-handed eggbeater that worked with an up-and-down motion, similar to a top, created in 1909 by Benjamin T. Ash and Edward H. Johnson of upstate New York. It puts a new spin on the old saying, “What goes around comes around.”

But why the colorful handles? Brightly painted cooking utensils of the 1920s brought the first dab of color into American kitchens. Apple green led the cutlery color wheel, followed by Mandarin red. But manufacturers also produced wooden handles in white, blue, black, or yellow, and sometimes two-toned with ivory stripes.

All these utensils—from food mincers, pitters, and corers to spiral whisks, ice picks, and jar lifters—eased even the most basic of the housewife's culinary chores. Ingenious kitchen gadgets made exacting tasks—such as defining the outer edges of a piecrust with a pie crimper—a pleasure. Colored handles only added to their attraction.

Kitchen gadgets, from spoons to mashers, were originally all-wood, simply carved, and shaped to meet various purposes in the kitchen. Pie crimpers are a good example. Whalers often carved them of whale ivory for their wives and sweethearts back home. By the 20th century, makers introduced metal with the wood and a sea of new items appeared in homes.

Black was the first "color" used to paint wooden handles, then white, just prior to 1920. It wasn’t until the  late 1920s that other colors began to appear and continued in use through 1950, when plastic handles took over.

The history of colored cooking aids directly parallels that of the emerging automated kitchen. Prior to the industrial revolution, agateware offered lackluster, all-white kitchens their only hint of color. Kitchenware, dishes, pots, and other items were also plain and unimaginative. Utensils—in their bare steel frames plated with tin, nickel, or chrome, and later stainless steel were just as pallid until color came along.

It happened around 1927. Competition was everywhere, especially in real estate. To attract buyers, builders resorted to gimmicks such as using pink and blue tiles, instead of the traditional white, in bathrooms. The tiles were a hit—an indication that America applauded merchandisers' efforts to add vibrance to homes. Houseware manufacturers quickly responded. A color revolution in the kitchen had begun, and it hasn’t let up yet.

By the end of the decade, the "Color Craze" had replaced the "White Enamel Era," so-called by women's and home-fashions magazines. Department stores such as Abraham & Straus, Macy's,,and Wanamaker's led the market selling utensils and other kitchen paraphernalia in color. Sears Roebuck, Kresge, Spiegel, and F. W. Woolworth—also retailers catering to middle class housewives—offered serving trays, canisters, spice sets, breadboxes, clocks, scales, garbage cans, dishes, and even dustpans to eager homemakers.

Kitchen-tool manufacturing was widespread in the early part of this century. Many small businesses produced all types of labor-saving devices with and without color. Acme Metal Goods Mfg. Co., of Newark, N.J., and Bromwell Wire Goods, in Cincinnati, Ohio, were only two.

But antiques dealers say the name on utensils that probably pops up more often than others is A & J Mfg. Co., of Binghamton, N.Y. Colored utensils from A & J are widely available at flea markets and antiques shows and shops simply because these products proliferated nationally and internationally in the kitchen-cutlery market for about 40 years. Stamped into the tool's metal, their trademark is a diamond shape with the Monogram "A & J" superimposed on the utensil.

A & J began humbly in 1909 in the homes of Benjamin T. Ash and Edward H. Johnson, who lived in rural upstate New York. After creating and marketing their first product—a one-handed eggbeater—they added numerous other kitchen gadgets with natural wooden handles to their product line. By 1918, A & J had moved to a commercial building and employed 200 workers who cranked out some four million tools annually.

A & J was the first to offer knives, spatulas, ladles, and other items in one package. In 1923, the company entered the toy market, producing its regular kitchen items in miniature, with the same colored handles, for young girls. The half-sized eggbeaters, waffle irons, strainer spoons, and rolling pins were exact replicas of the ones Mother employed. Johnson's intent with the company's line of Mother's Little Helper Kitchen Tools for Little Cooks and Bakers was to familiarize future housewives with the A & J name so they would buy the company's products when they grew up and had a home of their own. The strategy worked.
                                   
A & J was so successful that Edward Katzinger, founder of Ekco, bought the company in 1929 and moved it to Chicago in 1931. Ekco kept the A & J trademark and line until the 1950s, and sold the toys until 1937.

So while some of the items advertised on TV today may seem futuristic, their purpose is the same—to make like easier with less work for not only mother, but anyone who cooks.

For more information, see an earlier post of this blog on kitchen gadgets from February 18, 2013, entitled “Less Work for Mother.”

All That Glitters Isn't Always Tiffany

QUESTION: I recently bought what I thought was a Tiffany lamp. I paid several hundred dollars for it and thought it was a steal. Now I'm not so sure. I cannot find a signature on it anywhere. Can you tell me if you think it's a Tiffany?

ANSWER: Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, "You got robbed." Well, not exactly. No, your lamp isn't a Tiffany. It's not even close. But what you paid for it probably is what it's worth. And as long as you like it, that's what counts.
 
The sight of what looks like a Tiffany lamp sends some people into a dream-like state. Others begin to see dollar signs at the mere mention of the name. Tiffany lamps have become the Holy Grail of antique collecting for many people. To find one—to own one—is paramount to winning the MegaMillions jackpot. And there lies the rub.

Because lamps made by Tiffany Studios command such a high price, people tend to lump all stained glass lamps into this one category. They think that any stained glass lamp is a Tiffany and that they’ll be set for life. In a million-to-one shot, they just might be, but more than likely, their lamp had been made by another company. While its not a fake, neither is it a Tiffany.

Between 1895 and 1915, small factories in New York and Chicago produced a huge variety of mosaic stained glass lamps to satisfy a growing demand for stylish lighting designs to complement the new electric lamps. While Tiffany Studios set the industry standard, other companies produced excellent designs as well.

Companies such as Duffner & Kimberly and Gorham, made lamps of a quality equal to Tiffany Studios and created styles that appealed more to the Victorian taste, although on its way out, that the American middle and upper middle class preferred. Some companies, like Wilkinson, made high quality bases, and took short cuts with their shades. Others, like Unique, focused on creating complex shades and paired them with simpler bases. Many copied Tiffany’s Art Nouveau designs—in many instances almost exactly—and many copied each other.

Tiffany lamps are about the most flamboyant art objects ever produced in America. They attract celebrities, speculators, and decorators, whose buying whims have driven the Tiffany market into a frenzy and then leave it a shambles when the next fad comes along. For the last few years, the market for these wonderful leaded-glass lamps, most produced during the first two decades of this century, has been recuperating from a decade-long manic-depressive binge.
 
During the 1950's, a few pioneer collectors began looking at the sensuous floral lamps made by Louis Comfort Tiffany and his Tiffany Studios. Louis was the son of the founder of the famous New York jewelry firm, but for most of his life he preferred painting, the  decorative arts, and interior design.

During the 1960s, interest in the lamps grew rapidly because their restless, fragmented, colorful designs fit nicely into eclectic, psychedelic decorating schemes of that time. Inflation in the 1970's drew investors, speculators, and celebrities into a market where prices sometimes doubled from year to year. Recession in the early 1980's drove those buyers from the market, and prices collapsed. Since then, prices for  some lamps have moved back to, or even above, their former highs; but the market is still very selective one.
 
The current record price for a Tiffany lamp is the $528,000 paid in December, 1984, at  Christie's in New York City for a large floor lamp with a shade in the Magnolia pattern.  The lamp was one of several being sold by record producer David Geffen, who had been a major Tiffany buyer during the era of hectic growth. Although it was set long after those halcyon days, the record was more a last gasp than a portent of things to come. Today, authentic lamps made by Tiffany Studios and signed either “Louis Comfort Tiffany” or “Tiffany Studios” on the rim of the shade go for as high as $30,000. No wonder there are so many “Tiffphonies” out there. Neither of the lamps pictured here are Tiffanys.

Shining Like a Jewel

QUESTION: My mother had a collection of ruby glass that she left to me. She would always display it around the Christmas holidays. To this day, I still take out select pieces to dress up my holiday table. What can you tell me out this beautiful glass?

ANSWER: Ruby glass is the dark red color of the precious gemstone ruby. This popular Victorian color never went out of style and it’s still cherished today as it was then.

Ruby glass has been around since Roman times. But the secret of making red glass, lost for many centuries, wasn’t rediscovered until the 17th Century in Brandenburg, Bohemia. Johann Kunckel, a chemist from a glass-making family, re-discovered how to make gold ruby glass around 1670.

To make gold ruby glass, include gold chloride, a colloidal gold solution produced by dissolving gold metal in Aqua Regia (nitric acid and hydrochloric acid) in the glass mixture. Tin (stannic chloride) is sometimes added in tiny amounts, making the process both difficult and expensive. The tin has to be present in the two chloride forms because the stannous chloride acts as a reducing agent to bring about the formation of the metallic gold. Depending on the composition of the base glass, the ruby color can develop during cooling, or the glass may have to be reheated to ‘strike’ the color.” Today, glassmakers use selenium to make ruby glass.

Over the years, the number of companies making ruby glass has diminished. Since the EPA has come down hard on these manufacturers, it became too costly to make ruby glass.

Other than its inherent color and possible shape, ruby glass pieces aren’t easily identified. Most Royal Ruby glass wasn’t marked or signed. The glass usually came from the factory with a sticker identifying the ruby color. During the 1940s, ruby glass manufacturers began using stickers which eventually got washed off or pulled off.

Major glass companies such as Sandwich, Cambridge, Mount Vernon, Gadroon, Blenko, Paden City, Hostmaster, Glades, Fenton, and Fostoria all made ruby glass in all the popular Depression glass patterns—Old Cafe, Coronation, Sandwich, Oyster and Pearl, Queen Mary, Manhattan. 

One company, Anchor Hocking, became synonymous with the manufacture of ruby glass. They initially began making and promoting it in 1938. Anchor Hocking's glass, which the company called Royal Ruby, unlike most handmade ruby, used a formula in which the principal colorant was copper. The result, an evenly colored, dark red glass. The amount of Royal Ruby in existence today is tremendous, far more than the amount of red glass from other manufacturers.

Anchor Hocking’s first made Royal Ruby in 1939 in round plates in dinner sets. Since this color became so popular, the company produced pieces of other patterns in this ruby color, including Oysters and Pearls, Old Cafe, Coronation, Bubble, Classic, Manhattan, Queen Mary, and Sandwich. However, difficulty in obtaining copper during World War II, halted production until 1949, after which Anchor Hocking began making an assortment of novelty items— apothecary jars, cigarette boxes, powder boxes, and such—sometimes combining it with crystal.

Footed and unfooted sugar and creamer sets, jam jars with crystal bottoms and ruby lids, plus assorted glasses--ribbed, old café, gold rimmed tumblers, and footed wine goblets—were among the myriad of pieces made in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Ice tea sets with large ice-lipped pitchers and six to eight tumblers were especially popular.

Overall, ruby glass has appreciated in value because, like most glass items, breakage causes scarcity. But many items still sell in the affordable range of $15-65.

Rocking Into Butter

QUESTION: I recently purchased an odd sort of butter churn at a local antique show. It’s a horizontal container suspended by straps to a truncated wooden frame. The only type of butter churn I’ve heard of is the vertical cylindrical type. It has the name and location of the company that made it—"Davis Swing Churn, No. 2, Vermont Farm Machine Co., Bellows Falls, Vt."—painted on both sides. Can you tell me something about it?

ANSWER: What you have is what’s commonly called a “rocking churn.” It seems women used to hook the churn to a rocker using a hook and a length of rope and as they rocked, they pulled the churn from side to side, agitating the cream inside.

To better understand how this type of churn works, it’s important to know how the churning process works. Women used a variety of churns to turn cream into butter. The most common type of churn is the vertical churn into which a person inserted a pole inserted through the lid.

The agitation of the cream, caused by the mechanical motion of the device, disrupts the milk fat. This movement breaks down the membranes that surround the fats in the cream, forming clumps known as butter grains. These butter grains, during the process of churning, fuse with each other and form larger fat globules. The mechanical action introduces air bubbles into these fat globules. The butter grains become more dense as fat globules attach to them while action forces the air out of the mixture. This process creates buttermilk. With constant churning, the fat globules eventually form solid butter and separate from the buttermilk. The butter maker then drains off the buttermilk and squeezes the butter to eliminate excess liquid, forming it into a solid mass.

Historians believe the word “butter” came from the Greek word boutyron, meaning “cow cheese.” That’s because goat’s milk doesn’t work well to produce butter because of its lower fat content.  Evidence for the use of butter dates back as early as 2000 B.C.E.. And the butter churn, itself, may have existed as early as the 6th century A.D. Historians also believe that early nomads may have discovered butter by accident after having filled skin bags with milk and loading them onto pack animals. The movement of the animals shook the bags, creating butter.

Before commercial dairies began producing butter, every home had tools to make its own. Butter churns came in a variety of styles. The most common is a container, made of stoneware in the mid-19th century and later of wood, where the person making the butter creates it by moving a pole, inserted into the lid, in a vertical motion. This type of churn is also known as an “up-and-down”’ churn, plunger churn, plumping churn, or knocker churn.  The staff used in the churn is called a dash, dasher-staff, churn-staff, churning-stick, or plunger.

Another common type of butter churn is the paddle churn. The butter maker turned a handle that operated a paddle inside a container, causing the cream to become butter. Yet another type is the barrel churn. This consists of a barrel turned onto its side with a crank attached. The crank either turns a paddle device inside the churn, as in the paddle churn, or turns the whole barrel, whose action converts the milk to butter.

Finally, there the rocking chair butter churn, invented by Alfred Clark. This device, invented by Alfred Clark, consisted of a barrel attached to a rocking chair. While the rocking chair moved, the barrel moved and churned the milk within into butter. Today, a rocking butter churn in good condition sells for over $500.

Taming Your Collecting Passion

QUESTION: I love to collect things. But my passion for collecting seems to be getting out of hand. How can I control this? And how can I judge whether certain items are worth collecting?

ANSWER: You’ve obviously been bitten hard by the collecting bug. With the advent of eBay and the Antiques Roadshow, everyone has the idea that everything is worth something. And if something is old, it must certainly be worth a lot. If you believe this, then you’re wrong on both counts.

The first question you need to ask yourself is “Why do you collect things?” Is it for their intrinsic or monetary value, is it for the pleasure they give you, or is it for some vague idea of self-worth?

Asking avid collectors why they do what they do is like asking, "Why do you breathe?" They might reply that something about human behavior wants—or is fated—to gather and accumulate, to crave and classify, to seek out and hoard. Passion plays a part in many serious collectors' pursuits, as does, many admit, the thrill of the hunt.

This can be true even, or perhaps especially, when time is long between looking, finding and acquiring. The rarer an object of desire, the less frequent or instant the gratification of its discovery; for some determined collectors, though, pleasure resides in the long, unpredictable search for a coveted item. Inexplicably, it may also dissolve when it leads to a find.

For many people, collecting is a way of getting in touch with a past era, even if they didn't live through that particular period themselves. Some enjoy owning objects from what they may imagine was a simpler, less stressful age. Or they may have a strong nostalgic or family connection to a certain period and place.

Some people collect with investment value in mind, others to develop an informed knowledge of a our material  culture. Either way, passion plays a part in many serious collectors' pursuits, as does the thrill of the hunt. Identifying personally with the objects one admires can also feed the collecting impulse.

Some collectors embrace—and celebrate—their magnificent obsessions; like entertainers, they enjoy displaying what they have amassed and sharing their enthusiasm with friends. Conversely, to be sure, many a treasured collection is a private, secretive affair.

Collecting has broaden in scope over the decades. It used to be that antiques included only decorative objects and furnishings. Today, anything 100 years old or older is considered an antique. Anything newer a collectible. And while some antiques may be considered collectibles, not all collectibles are antiques. Take typewriters, for instance. The oldest ones are antiques but newer ones from the late 20th century are technically collectibles.

What's old is new in the evermore-diverse collectibles market, and as long as someone, somewhere values something enough to acquire it and stimulate trading in its field, it can become a common practice to do so. Thus, along with such old favorites as stamps and coins, items like Barbie dolls, tea tins, and buttons, in fact, just about everything can be deemed a collectible.

So where do you draw the line.  The first rule of collecting is collect what you like.  The second rule is to be knowledgeable about your collection. The third rule is buy low and sell high.

Understand why you’re collecting what you do. What got you started? Have you kept up with your collection or has it run its course? If your collection is languishing, then perhaps you’ve lost interest. Life changes. You change.

Do you know a lot about what you collect? Have you studied up on the history of the objects? Do you know the makers and the marks? Do you know the last word on the subject? Have you kept up with the market value?

Too many people get caught up in the entertainment value of auction sites like eBay. For some it’s like playing poker. They even get to “win.” Many pay far more than an object is worth just because they want to be the winner. If you’re a true collector, you’ll not even bid on an item unless you know you can get it for a good deal below market value. And that means you have to know what it’s worth before you bid.

Do you just collect things or do you keep an inventory of your collection? To understand the true value of your collection, you need to know when and where you purchased each piece, how much you paid and how much it’s worth now. You may even want to photograph each item as a record for insurance purposes.

Of course, as any collector knows, there’s a price to pay. Thus, beginners and seasoned veterans alike usually pursue their collecting passion at some cost. No matter what your field is, there's something all of us inevitably collect and unless you pick the pieces off the junk pile, you’ll have to pay for them.
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A, B, C, D, E, F, G...

QUESTION: My grandfather gave my parents a wooden child’s chair, covered with letters, that he had when he was a kid for me to use. I remember singing the alphabet song while sitting in the chair, and that’s pretty much how I learned my ABC’s. My grandfather is gone now, but I still have the chair. Can you tell me anything about this chair?

ANSWER: What you have is a wooden alphabet chair with lithographed letters of the alphabet decorating it. If your chair is in really good condition—many of these are not—then you have something of some value.

Lithographed toys range from dollhouses to acrobat figures to nests of blocks to an array of boats, horse-drawn carriages, and trains. Collectors value for their often substantial size, handsome graphics, and careful attention to precise details.

Of the three types of lithographed toys—tin, wood, and cardboard—the latter two have vibrant, two-dimensional details printed on paper that’s combined with a three-dimensional shape. Collectors appreciate the intimacy and color of these hand-drawn but mechanically printed designs.

Before the development of chromolithography—the process of printing a color picture from a series of lithographic plates—by German printers in the 1840s, toys had to be handmade. So most toys were too expensive for all but wealthier people. Less affluent families had to make do with homemade toys.

By the 1870s, French, English, and American firms had patented chromolithography production methods, which offset designs from inked sheets or rollers onto toy surfaces. By the 1890s, they had standardized the process, and both the American and European toy industries were able to mass-produce colorful toys inexpensively. In time, American toymakers, such as Rufus Bliss, John McLoughlin, and Parker Brothers, refined the technique and became world-leading toy manufacturers.

Production of all three types of lithographed toys ran from the late 19th century into the early 20th. But just as horse and steam power gave way to the internal combustion engine, production of wood and cardboard lithographed toys waned as technology developed. By the 1920s, after ore became available for cast-iron toys, manufacturers found metal better suited for mass production and that lightweight tin could more easily house clockworks and springs than wood.

The mass production of toys came at a time when parents were beginning to view their children less as miniature adults to be instructed and more as children to be entertained as well as taught.

Numerous wood lithographed replicas of horse-drawn fire engines, prairie schooners, steamboats, and luxury side-wheeler river steamers paralleled a strong interest in the rapidly changing modes of transportation at the turn-fo-the-20th-century.

Today wooden lithographed toys are available at auctions; estate sales, and flea markets. Because of their fragility, however, it’s difficult to find examples in excellent condition. Those that have survived the years are worth from $50 to $4,000, depending on size, condition, and rarity. Since your alphabet chair is of the larger variety, it’s worth more, depending on its condition.

The Sweet Smell of Sweet Grass

QUESTION: My grandmother just gave me a flat basket that smells as sweet as new-mown hay. She said it belonged to her mother but isn’t sure where she got it or when. Can you tell me something about it?

ANSWER: As the fragrance implies, what you have is what’s known as a sweet-grass basket.

The story of South Carolina's Low Country sweet-grass baskets begins centuries ago on the rice farms of  West Africa. During the 15th and 16th centuries, black men brought over to America as slaves made strong, sturdy baskets out of bulrush, a coarse marsh grass that grew along the tidal rivers of what’s today South Carolina. The baskets winnowed rice, stored grain, and held vegetables collected from the garden.

Eventually buckets and crates replaced the baskets, but families still used them to store bread, fruit, clothing, and other household staples.

After the Civil War, former slaves continued to make baskets on their own family farms, but now the women made them while the men gathered and harvested the sweet grass and taught their sons to do the same. The women chose sweet grass as their medium because it is softer and more pliable than bulrush and retains the scent of fresh-mown hay for years.

Although coiled sweet-grass basketmaking has died out in many South Carolina communities, the 300-year-old tradition continues to flourish in the coastal town of Mount Pleasant, north of Charleston. Today, it’s the only place where this type of basketmaking is done. For years, individual artists have made them at home using age-old techniques passed down from generation to generation. Ancestors of many of today's basketmakers got a boost back in 1916 when a local Charleston bookseller began buying Mt. Pleasant baskets in quantity. He sold them first in his store and later by mail for more than 30 years.

In the 1930's, basketmakers saw a new surge of interest from gift shop owners, museums, and handicraft collectors. The paving of Highway 17 North and the construction of the Cooper River Bridge made the route through Mt. Pleasant a major north-south artery. Basketmakers then started marketing their wares from roadside basket stands in their front yards, which were directly accessible to tourists.

Some basketmakers would also make the trip to Charleston to sell their homegrown farm produce and their baskets at the open market there. Old photographs capture these merchants with baskets on their heads, bearing their wares.

Though traditional basket shapes are still popular, many creative shapes have been added over the years. There are bread trays, sifting baskets, magazine baskets, place mats, clothes hampers, and baskets to hold firewood, hats, and cakes.

The time, care, and skill that goes into each basket can never be recouped by the price. Basketmakers spend long hours making these baskets. Even for the most experienced basketmaker, a simple design can take as long as 12 hours.

The grasses must be gathered, hauled, cleaned, dried, and stored. The artist starts each basket from the bottom up, beginning with a knot of sage-green sweet grass. The grasses are coiled round and round and are sometimes mixed with rush. Coils are then bound with white strips of palmetto, using a tool called a "bone." The bone is generally fashioned from an old teaspoon handle that's been hammered and filed, but some craftspeople use half a scissors or a pocketknife as their tool. Whatever the choice, each basketmaker usually has a favorite bone and works with it exclusively. The bone works like a shuttle between the rows of coiled grass to make space for the binding strips of palmetto.

Once the basketmaker forms the bottom, she builds up the sides, and may add a handle or cover. Some makers decorate their baskets with pine needles.

Today, South Carolina Low Country baskets have become part of the collections at the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History, as well as many individuals. While older ones can sell for three figures, newer ones from the latter 20th century can be had for $10-25.

19th Century Tupperware

QUESTION: I recently won a box lot at a local auction. Inside the box I found what looks like a cup with an attached saucer. It’s heavy and a bit crude. Can you tell me what it is?

ANSWER: What you have is a 19th-century grease lamp made of stoneware. Farmers used these lamps, fueled by animal fat, in their homes. They often threw away early, less refined versions, as better ones appeared on the market. 

Stoneware is one of the hardy perennials of the American antiques trade. Each year, auction houses, antiques shops, and flea markets sell thousands of pieces at prices from $25 to several thousand dollars. The record price stands at $15,000 for a rare 1773 stoneware inkstand. Only a handful of pieces fetch prices in that stratospheric range.

Stoneware is a heavy, hard pottery that resists odors and tastes and won’t absorb water. The first American stoneware appeared in the last half of the 18th century, and for more than 100 years people used stoneware vessels to store and transport foods and liquids. It was essentially the 19th-century version of Tupperware. When glass and metal containers came into common use, people stopped using it.

Generally, it’s difficult to date stoneware unless a piece has the name and town of the maker or the name of the company that used the vessel to hold its product stamped on the bottom. For this reason, many collectors like to buy pieces made in their areas. But stoneware that can be identified as the work of an early potter may be worth several hundred dollars. For example, a double-handled crock inscribed "Commeraw" sold for $800 because it was made by Thomas Commeraw, a New York City potter active from 1795 to 1820. At a Massachusetts auction, a jug with the initials J. F. sold for $600—it’s attributed to a 1790's Boston potter named Jonathan Fenton. Sometimes the initials on a piece belong not to the maker but to the original owner, which makes the piece attractive to collectors interested in genealogy.

As with many other antiques, age isn’t the main reason in determining the price of an object—its decorative qualities are far more important. An attractive late-19th-century jug will fetch more at auction than a homely Revolutionary-era piece. Most stoneware forms, such as jugs, crocks, jars, churns, and pitchers, are very simple and vary only slightly in shape and design. Decoration, if any, tends to be sparse. When a potter decorated his pieces, he often used simple floral, bird, or scroll motifs painted on the stoneware in three basic colors—blue, brown, or black. The most common stoneware style has a gray-glazed background with blue decoration. Such run-of-the-mill pieces, which represent about 90 percent of the stoneware available today, are generally worth less than $50.

Because many stoneware items look alike, the most valuable pieces are those with unusual or imaginative decoration. A rare form, such as your stoneware grease lamp, or an odd-sized piece, an exceptionally large crock, for example, can be worth several hundred to several thousand dollars.

More on Organizing Your Collections

You’ve figured out a numbering system and assigned numbers to the items in your collection. The next step is to apply them to your objects. Whichever technique you used depends on the surface of the object. The labels must be removable in case you sell an item from the collection, but they must also be durable and long-lasting. Choose a place for the label on the bottom or back of objects, being careful not to obliterate any trademarks, serial numbers, patent dates, or maker's signatures. Use a thin pointed Sharpie marker to print the numbers on the labels. Removable labels work the best.

Paper items can be labeled with a soft pencil, never with ink or a rubber stamp. Apply the label in an inconspicuous place, preferably on the back, always keeping in mind that it may have to be removed. Place the label on a sturdy portion of the paper, not so close to the edge that the paper will tear if the number is erased.

For such textiles as rugs, quilts, samplers, wall hangings, and clothing, use small fabric labels numbered with a laundry pen or fine ballpoint pen. Always test the pen first on a piece of scrap label to make sure that the ink does not bleed or smear. Attach the label to the fabric with only one or two stitches at each corner so that the label can easily be removed without damaging the fabric. Although self-adhesive labels or iron-on tape may seem quick and easy, they are not recommended because they fall off in time. They sometimes permanently discolor the object or leave a residue that can damage it.

If you recorded your collection on cards or in a looseleaf notebook, you can break it down into individual classifications for filing purposes. You may wish to even break down those classifications further.  Some specialties may not require such complete listings, and some individual headings may need to be expanded. For example, if the specialty is Eastlake-inspired furniture, subheadings can be added in the furniture category to identify makers or types of furniture. In the case of bottles, for example, specify the type of glass, blown or molded, the color and shape, and the type of bottle—whiskey bottle, flask, bitters bottle, or house-hold bottle. The contents of your collection and your planned future acquisitions will determine the headings you choose.

Using a digital camera or camera-equipped smartphone, you may wish to add photos of the items in your collection to your listings or database. Photograph the items individually. If you’re working with small objects, consider buying or making a lightbox—a box with white paper on three sides and bottom—in which you can photograph them. Save the originals as is, but make copies of all the photos first and rename them using the catalog number you’ve assigned to that object.

Most growing collections represent substantial investments of time and effort as well as money. Besides its obvious uses for insurance claims, a carefully kept catalog is valuable to those who may buy or inherit your collection. Cataloging is also a way of becoming intimately acquainted with all the objects in your collection, identifying the collection's strengths and weaknesses, and  taking the time to enjoy it thoroughly.