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, blinded by the dollar signs in their eyes. 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.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 24,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about antique clocks in the Fall 2019 Edition, "It's That Time Again," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

An Iconic Toy That’s Lasted Over a Century

QUESTION: When I was a kid back in the 1950s, one of my favorite toys was my set of Lincoln Logs. I have a little grandson now and was doing some Christmas shopping the other day when I noticed a set of Lincoln Logs on the shelf. I didn’t know they still made them. So I bought him a set. I hope he gets as much enjoyment from them as I did. Can you tell me anything about this classic building toy? How did it get its start?


ANSWER: Lincoln Logs have long been a favorite toy of little boys. And they didn’t just appear in the 1950s. In fact, they appeared in stores sometime between 1916 and 1918 when John Lloyd Wright was working with his famous architect father, Frank Lloyd Wright. He based the model for the toy on the foundation structure of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, designed by his father, consisted of interlocking wooden beams.

When he returned to the U.S., John Wright organized The Red Square Toy Company, named after his father's famous symbol, and began marketing the toy in 1918. He obtained a U.S. patent for it on August 31, 1920, for a "Toy-Cabin Construction". Soon after, he changed the name of his company to J. L. Wright Manufacturing. The original Lincoln Log set came with instructions on how to build Uncle Tom's Cabin as well as Abraham Lincoln's cabin. Subsequent sets were larger and more elaborate. The toy was a hit, following as it did Tinker Toys and Erector Sets introduced a few years before.



This all-American building set consisted of square-notched miniature logs used to build small forts and buildings. The logs measure three quarters of an inch in diameter. Analogous to real logs used in a log cabin, Lincoln Logs come notched so that they may be laid at right angles to each other to form rectangles resembling buildings. Additional parts of the toy set included roofs, chimneys, windows and doors, which bring a realistic appearance to the final creation. Later sets, packaged to build specific theme buildings in which the number of pieces ranged from 120 to 240 pieces, included animals and human figures the same scale as the buildings.

And though the early sets contained pieces made entirely of wood, the company unsuccessfully introduced sets made entirely of plastic in the 1970s, but soon went back to using real wood.

The original Lincoln Log toy set included a set of instructions on how to build the cabin from the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as well as instructions for building Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood cabin. The Lincoln Logs became popular quickly, and the basic initial set was soon expanded to include more logs of a greater variety of sizes. With the increased number and sizes of logs, children were able to build much more types of buildings and could exercise their creativity to a much greater extent when playing with the logs.

There’s a disagreement over the origin of the name “Lincoln Logs.” The current distributor of Lincoln Logs, Basic Fun, Inc., claims they were named after former U.S. president Abraham Lincoln because he was born in an old-fashioned log cabin, plus the name invoked patriotism during World War I when Wright invented it. But those friendly with John Lloyd Wright or those who knew people who knew John said the name came from Frank Lloyd Wright’s original name of Frank Lincoln Wright, or even that the name was a play on the term “linking logs,” which is what the logs did.

The toy’s packaging featured a simple drawing of a log cabin, a small portrait of Lincoln and the slogan “Interesting playthings typifying the spirit of America.” Capitalizing on both a nostalgia for the frontier at a time when the United States was becoming increasingly urbanized and a wave of patriotism in the wake of World War I, Lincoln Logs became an instant success.

Originally carved from redwood, the notched building logs are now manufactured from stained pine. Lincoln Logs peaked in popularity during the 1950s when it was among the first toys mass-marketed on television. The toy’s rustic brand tied in perfectly with popular children’s shows such as “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” that were watched by tens of thousands of young “baby boomers” on their black-and-white televisions.

John Lloyd Wright sold his company to Playskool in 1943 for only $800. The copyright for Lincoln Logs eventually passed to toy companies Milton Bradley and Hasbro. Since 1991, the rights to produce Lincoln Logs have been licensed by K’NEX, which announced in 2014 that the stackable wooden construction sets would again be manufactured in the United States after years of being produced in China. In late 2017, Basic Fun, Inc., of Florida, bought out K'NEX, when it filed for bankruptcy. Pride Manufacturing, of Burnham, Maine, manufactures Lincoln Logs for Basic Fun. Over 100 million sets have been sold worldwide since the first ones appeared in 1918.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 24,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about antique clocks in the Fall 2019 Edition, "It's That Time Again," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

Onions Galore

QUESTION: I have several plates by Meissen with what I believe is called the Blue Onion pattern. Can you tell me more about it?


ANSWER: The Blue Onion pattern is the Meissen company’s most popular and has been for over 250 years.  Because Meissen never copyrighted it, more companies have copied it than any other ceramic pattern. But the pieces made by Meissen, itself, stand above the others because of the way its workers meticulously hand painted the design on each piece.


After Marco Polo introduced Chinese blue and white porcelains to Europe, the demand rose until by the beginning of the 18th century, Europeans clammered for more and more of the finely painted pieces. To satisfy this demand, the East India Company established trade with China and brought to Europe as much of the blue and white porcelain as it could.

But try as it might, the East India Company couldn’t keep up with the demand, so in 1710 Augustus the Strong formed a new porcelain company to produce blue underglaze decorations like those of the Chinese. Johann Gregor Höroldt, a talented porcelain painter who had worked for the Du Paquier Porcelain Company, a competitor of Meissen’s, perfected the blue underglaze paint, which the Meissen Company used to decorate its wares with the Blue Onion pattern, in 1739.

The model for this unique pattern most likely came from a flax bowl from the Chinese K'ang Hsi period, dating from 1662-1722. Originally, Meissen called it the “bulb” pattern. However, since Europeans were unfamiliar with the fruits and flowers shown on the original Chinese pieces, the Meissen artists created hybrids that were more familiar to the company’s customers. The so-called "onions" really aren’t onions at all, but stylized peaches and pomegranates modeled after the original Chinese pattern. They made the flower in the design a cross between a chrysanthemum and a peony and wove the stems of both the fruits and the flower around a stalk of bamboo.

As production continued, Meissen changed the pattern slightly. Originally, the fruits on the border pointed inward with the stem on the edge. But they altered this design by pointing the fruits alternatively inward and outward.

Not only did the Blue Onion pattern become Meissen’s most popular, but it also was its least expensive to produce. The company made money by using lower-paid “blue painters” as well as   apprentices to do the decorating. In addition, the pieces decorated with the pattern didn’t need a third firing which was necessary to fix the enamel decoration on Meissen’s other wares, plus the company decided not to add gilding to the standard pattern.

The Blue Onion pattern achieved popularity again during Victorian times when home furnishings became darker and heavier. It complemented the more elaborate Victorian furniture styles preferred by the new wealthy middle class. Immediately after the Civil War, the pattern took off. Everything from napkins to tablecloths, utensil handles to enameled cooking pots featured it. By the 1870s, the Meissen Company had adapted it to fit nearly every shape of porcelain ware it produced. To distinguish its Blue Onion pattern from those of its competitors, the company put its now famous emblem of Blue Crossed Swords at the foot of the design’s bamboo trunk in 1888.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 24,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about antique clocks in the Fall 2019 Edition, "It's That Time Again," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.