The Many Faces of Victorian Whimsy

QUESTION: My great aunt left me a very unusual chair, probably because I admired it when I went to visit her. The chair has a grotesque face carved into its back. It’s legs are curved and there are groves carved into the ends of the arms. Can you tell me anything about my chair?

ANSWER: What you’ve been admiring and now own is a bit of Victorian whimsy. The Victorians loved decoration, the more fantastic the better. This love of whimsy can be traced to the English Romantic Age.

Bored with the classicism and artistic restrictions of the Age of Reason, Romantic artists found their inspiration in the Medieval Age, albeit an idealized one. Crumbling castles, enchanted realms, and magical beasts filled their art. The Victorians loved this and when English draftsman Augustus Charles Pugin published his Specimens of Gothic Architecture in 1821, the Gothic revival was born. Wealthy English families built Gothic-style houses and filled them with furnishings reminiscent of castles and medieval cathedrals. As time went on, carved plants, animals, and mythical creatures began to appear on the furniture they used to decorate their homes.

A wave of whimsical furniture soon appeared in England and swept across the Atlantic where it flooded houses from Boston to San Francisco. By the end of the 19th century, parlors and bedrooms overflowed with fabulously carved furniture. Griffins supported sideboards, lions roared from the pedestals of dining room tables, and North Wind faces whispered from the backs of chairs.

The most curious item produced in America toward the end of the 19th century was the Roman-style,or cross-frame, "face chair." In design, the chair resembled the folding 14th-century Italian Savonarola chair. 

This odd little chair became a must-have item for American parlors. A backrest onto which grotesque faces or carved fruit had been carved, stood upon simply fashioned legs, gracefully curved arms, and a curved seat. The most common face was a stylized North Wind blowing wooden tendrils of” "wind" from its mouth.

Other faces included grinning ogres, laughing gremlins, and satyrs with wickedly out-thrust tongues. Neptune and the Green Man, or foliate head of Celtic mythology, were also popular subjects. It isn’t surprising that the stone ancestors of these faces stare down from the tops of medieval cathedrals and guildhalls across Europe.

The origin of the faces is fairly easy to trace. Woodcarvers arriving in America from Germany in the mid-18th century found work in Midwest furniture factories. They brought their traditions and mythologies with them. In a way, their carvings were like fairy tales and folk tales fashioned in wood to delight and entertain.

Heywood Wakefield of Wakefield, Massachusetts, and Chicago and Stomps Burkhardt of Canton, Ohio, were just two of the many furniture manufacturers to produce face chairs. Workman would roughly carve the faces using machines, then finish them off by hand. They fashioned the backrests from oak or mahogany while they used less expensive wood, stained to match the backrest, for the rest of the chair. While they lavishly carved the faces, they kept the rest of the chair’s design relatively simple. Sometimes, they carved grooves into the ends of the arms to suggest fingers, and sometimes they turned the chair’s stretcher bars.

By the early 20th century, face chairs had all but died. As time progressed, the design pendulum swept from sumptuous Victorian ornamentation through the more restrained carving of the Eastlake period to the even cleaner lines of Mission-style and Art Deco furniture. Unfortunately, even paint couldn’t modernize these chairs, so most of them ended up in attics and basements. Many people simple destroyed them.

Surfs Up!

QUESTION: I recently found an old surfboard at an architectural salvage store. I’m not exactly sure what it was doing there, but I bought it anyway since the price was right. I used to surf as a kid at the beach. I never owned my own board but would rent one from the surf shop at the beach where my family went for its annual summer vacation. The board is light in weight and in fairly good condition. What can you tell me about it?

ANSWER: It sounds like your board is made of fiberglass, perhaps over a balsa wood core.  While boards like this are still made today, their heyday was during the 1960s and 1970s.

Long before Sandra Dee became the face that launched a thousand surfboards, the kings and queens of Hawaii rode the waves on carved slabs of wood. Balancing on solid planks up to 18 feet long, Hawaiian royalty dominated the seas in a display designed to reinforce their dominion over their subjects.

But Christian missionaries and the subsequent immigration of Europeans to the islands nearly wiped out surfing by the turn of the 20th century. Missionaries forced native Hawaiians to abandon their surfboards and devote themselves to their new religion. Fortunately for surfing enthusiasts, a young Hawaiian named Duke Kahanamoku almost single-handedly saved the sport from extinction.

Kahanamoku became a celebrity when he won a gold medal in swimming at the Olympics in Stockholm in 1912. While swimming was his sport, surfing was his passion. His surfing exhibitions caused a sensation that fueled interest in the sport along the Southern California and Australian coasts. As the sport exploded in those places, his influence revived the tradition of surfing in Hawaii and by the 1920s several hundred boys regularly surfed the beaches there whenever the surf was up.

Even with this renewed interest, however, the surfing subculture mostly paddled quietly along until 1959, when the movie “Gidget” rolled into the public awareness like a 20-foot wave at Waimea Bay. By the mid-1960s, surfing was in full swing with the younger set.

Post-World War II boards shifted in composition from solid wood to balsa. Bob Simmons made the first balsa boards which are highly sought after by collectors. Today, hollow balsa wood boards by any maker in good condition command top dollar at auction. But a surfboard's composition isn't necessarily an indication of its age.

Boards from the 1960s are readily available and highly collectible. However, avoid "popouts," the mass-produced boards manufactured to meet the overwhelming demand for surfboards in the 1960s to early 1970s. These relatively inexpensive boards have little value as collectibles.

The most desirable boards are those hand shaped by a surfboard craftsman. A "shaper" refines the profile of a board that has been produced in surfing world because their expertise can make a board faster or easier to turn. Many shapers sign their surfboards on the "stringer"—usually a strip of wood that runs down the center of the board to add strength. Many of the best surfers shaped their own boards, and these are hot collectibles. Also highly collectible are name brand, commercially made boards, such as Hobie, Gordon and Smith, or Greg Noll.

Placing value on surfboards can be difficult because so many things, such as name recognition, condition, age, composition, general design, and eye appeal, affect a board’s value.

Unfortunately, surfboards are prone to dings, holes, loss of the fin, and water damage. This means it's hard to find a vintage surfboard in all original condition. The more damage, the greater the negative impact on value. It’s important to see boards closeup, so serious collectors don't even consider buying them online.

Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels

QUESTION: I was recently cleaning out drawers in my mother’s house after her death and came across a bunch of coins with the slogan “Millions for Defense, But Not One Cent for Tribute” impressed on one side. On the other side is the Liberty Head and the words ONE CENT. At first glance these look like pennies but are larger. What can you tell me about them?

ANSWER: What you have aren’t coins but tokens. Like the famous wooden nickels, merchants used tokens as a way to promote their businesses and some commemorated events. By 1900, tokens had become a common type of coinage by which merchants not only advertised, but created good will and repeat business. The token was in effect a pledge redeemable in goods but not necessarily for currency.

Tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins and either have a denomination shown or implied by size, color or shape. The use of tokens dates back to Roman times. Back then, the Romans used coin-like objects called spintria to gain entrance to brothels and gaming establishments.

Medieval English monasteries issued tokens to pay for services from outsiders. Residents of nearby villages called these tokens "Abbot's money."

Though token manufacturers usually made them of cheaper metals, such as  copper, pewter, aluminum, brass, and tin, they also used fiber, bakelite, leather, porcelain, and wood.

Sometimes called merchant tokens or “good fors,” American trade tokens originated during the late 18th century, when early circuses produced them for admission to their performances. In the 1820s, manufacturers began commercially producing tokens and this led to a greater demand.

In July, 1836 Congress enacted President Andrew Jackson's "specie circular" law, requiring specie—that is, gold or silver—to be used to pay for government land. This caused people to believe that paper currency, at the time issued by state banks, was unsound. As more and more people began using specie, regular coins disappeared from circulation.

To make it easier for individuals to trade for goods, business men and various organizations began issuing tokens that could be used instead of coins. These tokens became a substitute for one-cent pieces, since they had the same metallic content and size. The token designs could be divided into four categories: those that mentioned the bank and the banking crisis; those that were satirical and sarcastic, the political cartoons of the day; those that were made in imitation of real money; and those issued by enterprising merchants carrying advertising.

The Hard Times tokens of the 1830s and 1840s continued to make merchant tokens popular. During the Civil War, tokens again came into wide use because of the coin shortages caused by it. After the war, merchants once again issued tokens and people continued to use these “good fors” to trade for goods.

Among the many tokens made in imitation of the coins driven from circulation were a number using the phrase, "Millions for Defense, but Not One Cent for Tribute." These tokens bore the familiar Liberty Head and on the reverse the wording was strategically placed to have an enlarged ONE CENT appear as it would on government issued coins. The phrase, "Millions for Defense, but Not One Cent for Tribute," was a rallying cry for America on two occasions in history.

Besides Civil War tokens, there were also wooden tokens, transportation tokens for bridges, toll roads, ferries, and the like, gaming tokens, political tokens, as well as those used by magicians for admission to their acts, churches for permission to receive communion, tokens for telephones, and to pay sales tax. Elongated coins—often pennies pressed flat and made smooth on one side to take etchings of the Lord’s Prayer, Scouts’ oath, and club insignias also were popular.

All kinds of merchants issued tokens for use in their own businesses, including general stores, grocers, department stores, dairies, meat markets, drug stores, saloons, bars, taverns, barbers, coal mines, lumber mills and many other businesses. The era of 1870 through 1920 marked the highest use of "trade tokens" in the country, spurred by the growth of small stores in rural areas.

Railways and public transportation agencies used fare tokens for years, to sell rides in advance at a discount, or to allow patrons to use turnstiles that only to took them. The use of transit tokens in America began in 1831, when John Gibbs issued them for use on his U.S.M. stage in New Jersey. The 1830s saw tokens used on horsecars and horse-drawn omnibuses. By 1897, the U.S. had its first subway in Boston, and in 1904 the New York subway system opened. Ferry, bus, and streetcar companies also produced tokens often out of cheap white metal, aluminum, or more costly bronze. Most of them featured cutouts in the shapes of letters to differentiate them from other coins.

Some churches used to give tokens to members passing a religious test prior to the day of communion, then required the token for entry. Most of these were pewter, often cast by the minister using the church’s own molds.

But probably the most well-known token is the wooden nickel. Merchants and banks gave them to their customers to redeem for a specific item, usually a drink. On December 5, 1931, during the Great Depression, the Citizen’s Bank of Tenino, Washington, failed and issued emergency currency printed on thin shingles of wood. Local merchants couldn’t get change without traveling 30 miles over mountainous roads which took four hours one way.  So the bank, at the insistence of the Chamber of Commerce, decided to issue it’s own money, some of which was in five-cent denominations.

The Chicago World's Fair in 1933 issued wooden nickels as souvenirs, and the tradition of wooden nickels as tokens and souvenirs was born. The phrase, "Don't take any wooden nickels," reminds people to be cautious in their business dealings since some unscrupulous characters tried to use them in their dealings with people.

Little Keepsakes That Tell a Story

QUESTION: I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended some of the events at the Olympic Games held here in 1996. During the games, I acquired about 100 Olympic pins through purchase and trading. I’m particularly proud of the groups of pins I was able to collect, such as one in which all the pins are in the shapes of guitars. My favorite are the blimp pins commemorating the Good Year blimp that helped in media coverage of the games. Can you tell me how the tradition of collecting pins began and what the market is like for Olympic pins today?

ANSWER: You certainly seemed to have amassed quite a number of pins during the Atlanta Games. Today, pins come in all shapes, colors, and sizes and represent a myriad of people, activities, and events at the Games. With the start of the Summer Olympics in Rio this week, it seems appropriate to take a look back and see how pin collecting began.

Pin collecting has become a sport unto itself. But it wasn’t always like that. The Olympic pin tradition began with small cardboard badges worn by athletes and officials at the first modern Olympic Games held in Athens, Greece in 1896. Athletes from competing teams traded them as a gesture of goodwill. At the 1908 Games in Paris, designs of pins grew as specific groups like judges, coaches, and reporters got involved.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued the first pins to be sold to spectators at the 1912 Games in Stockholm, Sweden. Today, the pins created for the 1940 games,  cancelled because of World War II, are highly sought after by collectors.

In 1968, the Mexico City games featured the first butterfly-clutch pin fastener, which  became the standard for Olympic pins. But it wasn’t until the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, California, that trading pins became a tradition. Sponsoring companies, such as Coca-Cola, set up official trading stations to market their own pins. Because the pins were small and affordable, fans quickly seized the opportunity to bring home keepsakes for themselves. At the 1984 Los Angeles Games, some 17 million pins circulated among fans, participants, media representatives, and officials.

Pins began as a pre-social media form of communication that gave fans a reason to start a conversation with each other. The individual country Olympic committees, sponsors, bid cities, media outlets, and many others issue these colorful enameled pins today. Hundreds of thousands appear at each of the Games.

Pins are generally manufactured in limited numbered editions, and collectors seek out those produced in the smallest quantities or from the earliest Games. These also include pins issued by the various cities competing for a chance to host the Olympics.

Some of the most popular ones to collect are those from the smaller countries, such as Jamaica, the Seychelles, and Afghanistan. At the games, fans pin those they’ve collected onto a hat or the strap holding their Olympic credentials. As one fan walks by another, they look at each others’ pins and often one will ask where the other got a particular pin. From there, it’s onto trading and acquiring more pins. As the Games continue, fans try to either gather as many pins as possible or become selective as to the type of pins they want to collect.

The unwritten rule is to trade like pins for like pins. Of course, rules are meant to be broken and that’s the fun of it all. At the last Olympic Summer Games, fans were on the lookout for pins from Rio de Janeiro, the city to host the next Summer Games. At this Olympics, they’ll be on the lookout for pins from the next host city.

Somewhere in the host city, pin collectors representing pin collecting clubs from all over the world congregate to trade pins and stories. It won’t be any different in Rio. Also, hundreds of vendors set up tables to sell pins of every design and origin. Most of these cost about $5 each, so amassing a lot of them can cost a small fortune. The majority of people, however, acquire their pins by trading ones they have for ones they want.

Some collectors have over 30,000 pins in their collections. They’re always on the lookout for pins from the 1936 Berlin Games, a hot commodity in the pin collecting realm.

While it may seem that the only people trading pins are fans and athletes, everyone involved with the Olympics, from the members of the IOC to newspaper reporters, volunteers, judges, and coaches, all get involved.

It used to be that all you needed to do to begin collecting pins was to show up at the Olympics, find some pins and start trading. But today, beginning collectors can find thousands of pins online and while the fun of trading may not be there, the ability to collect just about any pin, even the important ones, is there—for a price.

Pin collecting is affordable and the little darlings don’t take up much room, so they’re ideal for anyone just starting out in collectibles. Searching the Internet for  “Olympic collectibles” will undoubtedly result in links for collecting pins.

An Israeli Olympic pin in the shape of a guitar from the Atlanta Games is today selling for $18 online. And while that same pin sells for a variety of prices, that’s not a bad return on investment. So let the pin games begin!

Star Trek Keeps on Beaming

QUESTION: I was digging around in my attic the other day and found a box with some old toys belonging to my son who now has his own family. In the box were two Star Trek action figures—one of Captain Kirk and the other of Spock. Both are about a foot tall and in good condition. I realize these are collectible, especially with the release of the new Star Trek movie, but I have no idea what they’re worth. Can you tell me more about them and perhaps tell me their value?

ANSWER: It sounds like you have two of the original action figures produced by the Mego Corporation. Before discussing their value, let’s see how they came into being.

More than 30 years after it was canceled due to poor ratings, Star Trek has become a cultural phenomenon. The television show that only completed three years of its five-year mission has spawned 10 full-length films, four spin-off television series, five on-going book lines, a Las Vegas casino attraction, and a seemingly infinite series of collectibles.

Star Trek's remarkable transformation from ratings loser to one of  the world's most marketable properties began with its creator, Gene Roddenberry, a Hollywood writer and producer who had the foresight to go where no man had gone before in T.V. sci-fi dramas.

He drafted a premise for Star Trek and after being turned down by CBS, which was working on show, “Lost in Space,” Roddenberry sold the concept to NBC in 1964 as a “Wagon Train to the stars.” Star Trek featured a regular cast of characters aboard an interplanetary vessel, exploring the far reaches of space for the United Federation of Planets in the 23rd century. The original television pilot, "The Cage," bears little resemblance to the series. The Captain was Christopher Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter, not William Shatner's familiar Captain Kirk. His first officer was a woman, a concept way ahead of its time, and Doctor McCoy, Engineer Scotty, Lieutenants Sulu and Uhura or Ensign Chekov were nowhere to be seen. In fact, the only regular cast member to appear was Leonard Nimoy as the alien science officer, Mr. Spock.

But after producing the pilot, NBC rejected it, saying that it was too intellectual and lacked sufficient action to keep viewers satisfied. NBC executives also felt that it bore little resemblance to the promised “Wagon Train to the stars” concept. That pilot cost $636,000 to produce.

Network executives also showed concerns about the Star Trek’s characters. Test screenings of the pilot indicated that both men and women disliked having a female first officer on the Enterprise. The network was also worried about Spock’s satanic appearance and wanted him removed from the show.

Cutting the budget in half, NBC gave Roddenberry the go ahead to produce the first episode of the series, essentially a second pilot entitled, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” in early 1966. After approving of this pilot, they gave Roddenberry the green light for the series, and he added the other regular characters.

Star Trek was T.V.’s first interracial show, where people of diverse backgrounds played non-stereotypical characters.

From a collecting standpoint, the production of Star Trek's ostensibly infinite "galaxy" of merchandise can be divided into the pre and post 1991 periods. This year is significant because it was the 25th anniversary of the original series and the year that Gene Roddenberry died. Roddenbery kept a tight reign on product licensing. After his death, however, Paramount granted licenses more liberally.

The Mego Corporation originally had the exclusive rights to produce Star Trek action figures. Given the beautiful sculpting on the crew action figures and the accuracy of their costuming, it’s no wonder they became an instant hit with Star Trek fans. 



While other companies released many other Star Trek products during the mid-1970s, including official blueprints, a set of Topps Trading Cards, a Hasbro board game, glasses and toys –it was the unexpected success of George Lucas' Star Wars that led Paramount to reconsider its on again off again plans for Star Trek, so it decided to produce the first full-length Star Trek motion picture.

Star Trek the Motion Picture was the most expensive movie ever made until that time. A commercial success earning more than $175 million, it brought forth a bounty of licensed products. Mego released both 12-inch and 3 3/4-inch action figures based on the movie. Neither was as successful as Star Wars figures, and the 12-inch figures' head vinyl tends to turn gray with time, producing a zombie effect.

Hollywood success, of course, breeds sequels and Star Trek has seen its share of them. Star Trek, the television show that NBC canceled due to poor ratings, has become a franchise property for Paramount, and the characters have become American television icons. Star Trek's concept of a hopeful future is still compelling in the 21st century, and its movies and spin-off series have produced a universe of collectibles, boldly going where no collectible has gone before.

Today, the original action figures of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock from 1974 sell for $130 sealed in their original packaging while other character figures go for $20 or so. A playset from the first series sells for $120 to $150. Those produced to coincide with Star Trek the Motion Picture sell for about $100 in their original packaging. As with most toy collectibles, these need to be in their original boxes. Just ask the guys from CBS’s hit show “Big Bang Theory.”

Whatever Happened to Elsie the Cow?

QUESTION: When I was a kid, I remember seeing Elsie the Cow all over the place. She appeared on all Borden dairy products, billboards, and magazine ads. I even had some Elsie toys. Whatever happened to Elsie the Cow?

ANSWER: Elsie the Cow was the hottest advertising personality in the country in the 1940s and 1950s. Borden Company produced thousands of items bearing her likeness to promote its products.

In 1852, Gail Borden, Jr. received a patent for his condensed milk process, and in 1857 he founded the Gail Borden Jr. and Company. He reorganized his company in 1858 as the New York Condensed Milk Company, which ultimately became the Borden Co.

During the early 1860s, Borden sold his condensed, sugar sweetened milk from push carts on the streets of New York. His product was always pure and safe, and in 1864 when Louis Pasteur showed the world a real live germ, Gail Borden finally learned exactly why his heat process was so successful. The demand for Borden’s condensed milk grew during the Civil War and his business boomed. Though Borden died in 1874 at the age of 72, he lives on as the "father of the modern dairy industry."
   
During the 1920s and 1930s the commercial dairy business was growing. Borden's bought hundreds of area dairies, out marketing, underselling, and forcing them to sell their milk direct to the large processors at smaller profits. The public sided with the struggling farmers.

In 1936, Borden's, to create a more wholesome public image, placed a new kind of advertising in some medical journals to attract the attention of pediatricians. These ads featured several cartoon cows, one of which was named Elsie. The ads promoted Borden's high standards of quality.

In 1938 a radio copywriter intrigued by the magazine ads wrote a sample Elsie commercial and gave it to a network news commentator whose show Borden  sponsored. He read it over the air and his listeners loved it. Fan mail began arriving addressed to Elsie the Borden Cow.

Borden prepared national magazine ads and local dairies put Elsie's picture on their bottle caps.

Borden reacted quickly by choosing the most attractive of the 150 cows---a Jersey from Massachusetts whose name the company changed from You'll Do Lobelia to Elsie.

The public's response to Elsie was unprecedented. A survey done in the late 1940s showed that Elsie was a more known and recognized figure than the president of the United States.

After being a featured attraction at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and 1940, and starring in a movie. Elsie became a highly recognizable personality. Borden began to show her wearing the popular ruffled shoulder apron and in 1941 she stood up and became an American housewife.
       
All through the 1940s Elsie collectible advertising items and toys were hot. At one point, Borden's had over 100 licensed vendors producing everything from puzzles and games to handkerchiefs and lamps. Everyone loved Elsie.

The 1950s also brought the creation of the "Good Food Line" train which featured Elsie’s entire family, her husband, Elmer, and her two children, Beulah and Baby Beauregard, promoting Borden’s milk, ice cream, and cheese. In 1958 Borden's commissioned Ringling Brothers to build a parade model of the famous train. It had a special car for the live Elsie to ride on and was used in thousands of parades until the early 1990s. After that, Elsie had faded into history. She spent her last days on a farm in Texas.

English Folk Art at its Best

QUESTION: I’ve long admired 19th-century Staffordshire figures, but don’t know much about them. Recently, I saw one that I can afford in a local antique shop. But before I get hooked on collecting these folk art pieces, I’d like to know more about them. Can you help me?

ANSWER:  Staffordshire figures have always been very popular with collectors. You can find some pieces, such as cow creamers and pen holders modeled in the shape of a bird's nests, as well as greyhounds, foxes, and hares, selling for less than $100. Sometimes, you can find an early 19th-century figure for sale at a reasonable price. But beware of fakes.

A handful of pottery families made Staffordshire figures. With their simple modeling and vivid coloring, they depict the changing social history of the 19th century, both pre-Victorian and later. Today, portrait figures of famous historical persons grace both Queen Elizabeth’s collection at Buckingham Palace as well as the reception rooms of the Prime Minister's residence at Number 10 Downing Street.

A good example is a late-18th-century Wood type creamware figure of St. George and the dragon. The Wood family of Staffordshire potters worked between 1754 and 1846. They typically modeled and painted this figure with colored glazes of brown, ochre, and green.

Another excellent example is a Pearlware figure of St. Paul modeled seated and holding the Gospel. Pearlware is a white, harder, more durable form of pottery, believed to contain a higher proportion of pipeclay and flint. The glaze on this piece is  blue with a touch of cobalt. Potters painted it in blue overglaze enamels, with lesser areas in puce and green. Made between 1820 and 1830, it bears the impression of the word "Paul."

The popularity of Staffordshire figures received a boost in the UK after the last war. Rising prosperity meant that wealthier members of the population could afford to buy a country cottage as a weekend retreat. People were looking for suitable rustic ornaments for their newly acquired country cottages and Staffordshire pieces filled the need nicely.

Cow creamers in typical primitive Staffordshire modeling, can be expensive. A typical one on a rectangular mound base can sell for nearly $200. However, an unique item such as a Pearlware candlestick modeled as a Cupid, standing wearing loose drapes and holding a bow and quiver can sell for nearly $400.

But the cream of the crop are the identifiable historical figures such as a figure of John Liston as "Paul Pry" the comedian, modeled standing and wearing a top hat, stock, striped waistcoat, breeches, and Hessian boots which can sell for nearly $800.

With the coming of the Victorian period there was a definite change in the modeling of Staffordshire figures. Pottery manufacturers realized that what people wanted were portrait figures, as well as figures commemorating special events. They often modeled these figures standing or leaning on a marbled plinth.

Up until about 1860, deep cobalt blue was the favorite color used on figures, particularly for uniform coats. Around 1880, pottery makers began using a new liquid gilding or "bright gold" in the firing process.

They increasingly used child labor to paint the pieces in order to meet the demand and keep costs down. These later figures tend to lack to the precision of the earlier ones. Also, potteries molded the later 19th century figures with "flat backs" with the shaping concentrated at the front and sides to make them easy to place on fireplace mantels.

Popular Victorian heroes depicted in brightly colored Staffordshire pottery were so well known in their day to those who bought them that the potters didn’t always bother to add names to them. Because of this, you may find you’ll have to do a little research in order to identify some pieces.

You should be careful if you plan to begin collecting Staffordshire figures because many of the ones for sale today have been made from 19th-century molds. Many of these came from William Kent Porcelains Limited, up until 1962. These reproductions of Victorian figures, usually referred to as "Kent copies," are usually lighter in weight than the originals made from the same molds.

Art on a Plate

QUESTION: Recently, I purchased a beautiful large plate with what looks like a hand-painted picture on it. The mark on the back says “Limoges, France.” I don’t know how old the plate is or anything about this company. Can you help me?

ANSWER: What you purchased is called a charger. It’s actually the large plate used as the base plate for elegant French dining service. In this type of service, the space in front of each person is never supposed to be without a plate. In the beginning and in between courses, a servant would place a charger—a large ornately decorated plate—in front of each guest. Factories in the town of Limoges, France made chargers like the one you bought, marked as yours is, from 1891 to 1914.

Limoges is the center of hard paste porcelain. It is to France as Stoke-on-Trent is to England—the center of the ceramic industry. The town of Limoges is about 200 miles southwest of Paris and owes its prominence in the field of hard paste porcelain production to the abundance of natural resources. The soil in the area is rich in deposits of kaolin and feldspar, the essential ingredients for hard paste porcelain. The region also has forests to supply necessary fuel for the kilns and rivers to provide transportation for the finished goods.

Limoges’ golden age extended from the mid to the late 19th century. Production became industrialized, and manufacturers introduced mass-production techniques and new methods of decoration. Makers exported about 75 percent of their wares, the largest percentage to the U.S. In 1900, 10,000 barrels of decorated and blank porcelain were shipped from the Limoges factories to the U.S. The number of companies making it increased from 32 in the late 19th century to 48 in the 1920s.

Paintings on porcelains have been popular from the middle of the 18th century to the present. Chargers present an excellent background for ceramic painters to off their skills. Porcelain is more difficult to work on than canvas with oils because ceramic paints, which are basically oxides of various metals, don’t attain their final color until they’re fired at the correct temperature. Many ceramic colors have to be fired at different temperatures and will fuse out if heated above that temperature. It’s necessary for ceramic artists to apply and then fire the high-temperature colors first and then work down in stages to the low-fire ones.

The advantages of painting on a porcelain charger is the surface is so flat and smooth that artists can achieve extremely detailed results. Once fired, the colors are permanent. A porcelain charger painted in 1854 will look exactly the same today. Oil painting tends to darken with age, and watercolors fade.

While exquisite examples of paintings on porcelain have been made by top European porcelain companies, such as Berlin, Vienna, Meissen and Sevres, and many are quite expensive, Limoges chargers are affordable and readily available.

With the tremendous amount of porcelain produced, the market couldn't absorb all the wares. World War I and the economic depressions of the 1920s and 1930s forced many older companies out of business. With revitalization after World War II, many of the factories in Limoges continued to produce decorated chargers and do so even today.

Figural themes, both portrait and allegorical, as well as scenic decor are less common subjects on Limoges porcelain and are favorites of collectors. Portrait ware was popular during the mid 19"' century. Male subjects included important historical figures, such as Napoleons and Louis KW. Most portraits featured beautiful women, however, ranging from the French Empress Josephine to unknown Victorian women. Some of the most highly prized Limoges decorated chargers` are those having Art Nouveau-style ladies with grape clusters in their flowing heir and elaborate gowns. Sometimes a sleek tiger or greyhound dog completed the portrait. Each one was truly a work of art.

A Limoges charger that carries a decorator's mark and additionally an artist's signature is the most desirable. Next in demand are those hand painted but without an artist’s signature.

NOTE: I'm taking a week off from my blog for July 4. Have a patriotic Fourth of July! My blog will be back the week after next.

Batter Up!

QUESTION: My grandfather loved baseball. Somewhere—no one seems to know where or how—my grandfather obtained a special bat on which is the image of Mickey Mantle, as well as his signature. I’m not really into baseball and have no idea if this bat is worth anything. I’m not sure the signature is real. Can you help me?

ANSWER: From the photo you sent, it looks as if you have what’s known as a decal bat. These were specially made bats onto which the manufacturer affixed a decal of a famous player. There are also lots of other varieties.

A decal bat is a bat in which a bat manufacturer has applied a decal showing the image of a famous player and perhaps his signature. They come in large and small sizes, with vibrant colors and model names appearing on both the barrels as well as in the center of the bat. Hillerich & Bradsby, (H&B) Stahl & Dean, Spalding, and A.J. Reach were some of the top makers.

H&B came out with a player series of decal bats in 1905 after signing Pirates slugger star Holm Wagner as a Louisville endorsee. The beautiful images on the barrels of these bats resemble the portraits on early baseball cards. Manufacturers offered them  on several full-size player bats as well as on smaller souvenir varieties.

The most desirable of these bats pre-date World War I. The likenesses of players such as Hank Gowdy, Ty Cobb, Joe Jackson, Rogers Hornsby, and Harry Davis adorn these bats. But finding one is another story—and finding one that’s in good condition is very hard indeed. A Joe Jackson bat from that time period is currently up for auction at $3,750.

With decal bats, as with many collectibles, condition is everything. A full-size Joe Jackson in 90 percent or better condition sold in the past for $3,500. Any Wagner, Cobb, or Lajoie in top condition should be worth about as much. Near-mint examples of the other Hall of Famers would be in the $2,000 range. Non-Hall-of-Famers, although rarer than their Hail of Fame counterparts, would sell in the $1,200-$1,800 range.

In addition to these early decal bats, H&B revived the decal player model bats in the mid-1950s with a series of bats that included Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Ferris Fain, Jackie Robinson, and Joe DiMaggio. The Mantle and Fain have turned up in lengths of 34 inches while the others have all  been Little League bats 'at least to date. Each has a head portrait of the player set against a contrasting background. The Robinson, Ruth, DiMaggio, and Mantle bats are all very desirable if in like-new condition with prices in the $400 range; Others might sell in the $200 range.

Values for full-size bats are always greater than their small souvenir counterparts or bats shorter than 32 inches, the shortest offered as a full-size decal bat. Generally, the smaller souvenir bats sell for anywhere between 30 percent to 50 percent of their full-size counterparts in like condition. Decal bats picturing Hall of Fame players are worth a premium over their non-Hall of Fame competition, but not as much because the decal bats of these players are sometimes scarcer than the Hall of Famers. And while Joe Jackson is still not a member of the Hall of Fame, his bat will bring as much or more than any other.

Restoring an old decal bat may add to its value, but it could also subtract from it, depending on the quality of the work done. Cleaning an old decal bat isn’t classified as restoration. If an artist restores missing portions of a decal by painting them in, that’s restoration.

Is a Man Without a Mustache Truly a Man

QUESTION: I’ve seen several mustache cups at recent antiques shows. I’d like to start collecting them, but the ones I saw were a little pricey. Before I invest in any, I’d like to know more about them. Can you help me?

ANSWER: That’s only understandable. Too many people start collections on impulse and then things get out of hand. Before they know it, they’ve spent way more money than they had expected.

Mustache cups, which featured a raised guard attached to a cup’s rim to prevent the mustache from touching the liquid, resulted from a need of mustache wearers to protect their mustaches. During Victorian times, mustaches became a form of male pride, with some men going to extreme lengths to grow a perfect one. Some curled, waxed, and touched up their mustaches with dye while others used rollers and nets to hold the curl at night. To maintain and shape these manly growths, men had to use a special wax.

The wax created a problem for men wearing mustaches because any cup of hot tea or coffee melted the wax and dripped it right into the cup and leaving the mustache a drooping mess, and the drink far from tasty. The solution was the invention of the mustache cup by Harvey Adams in 1830 at a pottery in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, England.

Victorians began referring to mustaches as "Napoleons," named after the French soldiers who wore small beards and mustaches called "Napoleons" after the Franco-Prussian War. Among the aristocracy, each gentleman had his own china maker, whose identity was carefully shielded. The guard across the top was designed from a mold in the exact shape and size of the nobleman's mustache.

During the early years, manufacturers sold mustache cups and matching saucers as individual items, but as the 19th century progressed, makers included them in complete sets of porcelain dinnerware, such as Haviland. Those belonging to the sets were usually small and dainty while those for everyday use were large and heavy. Men used them to drink coffee, tea, and even hot chocolate.

Mustache cups became popular in the U.S. during the mid 19th century. German potters produced vast quantities of mustache cups for export to the U.S. By the 1880s and well into the 1890s, potteries all over the world had begun producing elaborately decorated sets.

Potters used their imagination to create unique and fascinating mustache cups and saucers from earthenware; porcelain, and stoneware in many shapes and sizes, ranging from tiny demitasse cups to large farmer's cups holding up to a quart of liquid. Tinsmiths and silversmiths also made them.

Early cups were bowl-shaped, cylindrical, six or eight-sided, ribbed, melon-shaped and kettle-shaped. Handles came in many different forms, ranging from snakes, insects, birds, twisted ropes, fans, and cherubs. The saucers matched or harmonized with the cups in both shape and decoration. Early saucers were deep, while later examples became shallower, like regular saucers.

German manufacturers used luster grounds, which were Victorian favorites, on their mustache cups. Pink luster was the most popular. Other ground colors frequently used included pale green, yellow, sky blue, lavender, coral, cobalt and gold. In addition, German potters encrusted their cups with ornate forms of applied decoration.

Mustache cups can be found decorated with landscapes, hunting scenes, animals and birds, flowers and interesting geometric designs. Portrait mustache cups are rare and therefore highly sought after by collectors.

During in the late 19th century, mottoes or expressions on mustache cups, written in enamel, gold, or molded in relief, became a fad. Some examples include “Remember Me,” “Love the Giver,” “Forget Me Not,” “A Present,” and “Birthday Greetings.” Others had the words “Father” or “Papa” written on them.Victorians loved to travel, so the mustache cup came a favorite  souvenir. Cups, often with a pink luster ground, could be found in shops near tourist spots. Manufacturers also made mustache cups to commemorate historical events and royal coronations.

Potteries in Staffordshire, England, decorated some of these souvenir mustache cups  with transfer printed designs, but today, these are scarce and command high prices. Matched cups and saucers made by Limoges, Rosenthal, Royal Worcester and Royal Bayreuth are also becoming hard to find. Silver-plated mustache cups and saucers in good condition are also rare. Prices for these rarer cups can reach as high as $400 to $500.