Tag archives: vintage
Coops sends me a fantastic piece of ancient history – that is, an ashtray (classy looking in silver) with little cradles for cigarettes. This object occupies a vintage category called Tobacciana, and hails from that epoch when most of us smoked. This ashtray features a revolving roll top for discrete dispensing of ashes (if one […]
Young family guy RT writes that he likes 1940s lithographs in a realist style. He picked up two nudes online by Emil Weddige, Michigan, (1907-2001). RT wants to know why it has a fraction by Weddige’s name of “5/30,” and if he has purchased at a fair price for $500. The piece is large at […]
In my Lake Arrowhead shed on John Muir Street lurks a beast: a 400-pound vintage butcher block table, originally 31x33x33”. However, now it is legless. During one of its many laborious moves, it lost 4 legs and now only the massive top remains at 16x30x30” (picture shows the legless block on its side in the […]
Spurred on by the other week’s article about the scorned lover who broke up a birdhouse with a claw hammer, and her successful donation of the hammer to the Zagreb Museum of Broken Relationships, GG has a miniature haunted spirit house that he wants to donate. But where? I suggested the Museum of Jurassic Technology […]
The year was 1973 when my father had the bad taste to buy my mother a makeover session at Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door, located at 919 N. Michigan Ave on the Magnificent Mile. Not only was Elinor secretly insulted, but she was set to be disappointed, and boy howdy was she ever. Formerly a light […]
JE has a vintage Vaughan claw hammer, a “California Framer,” circa 1940, and she has used it this January for a very specific reason. This Christmas, she was given a handmade wooden birdhouse from her husband, who has begun the New Year with another woman. The hammer was responsible for knocking down the birdhouse (no […]
RM has a 600 piece, 50-years-in-the-making cowboy clothing collection with vintage leather jackets and tooled western belts. She’s 70 now, and it’s time to sell these objects. She’s in luck: 2026 is the Year of the Cowgirl, especially in the American West at California’s music festivals. Classic Western boots, hats, denim, and endless fringe work […]
My client, a collector of authentic Hermès Carré Foulard 90 cm silk twill, hand-colored scarves, frames many of them on her walls. Those not on display are kept in their distinctive slim orange boxes. By the mid-20th century, Hermès scarves were favored by figures such as Queen Elizabeth II, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, and Grace Kelly. […]
Where is the art and decorative art market heading in 2026? Straight to the 1970s. Some recent high profile sales this past few weeks show that collectors are aggressively returning to sexy trophy objects, the more culturally evocative, the better; take for example a recent sale by the private boutique auction from Fair Warning on […]
TT sends me a piece of 1980s-1990s swag, a Joe Camel Pup Tent, and wonders how a tent was associated with Camel cigarettes. An RJ Reynolds Tobacco advertising campaign of that period leveraged their hip, branded cartoon character, Joe Camel, placing into each pack of Camel cigarettes one note of “Camel Cash,” redeemable for a host […]
JP sends me a fabulous art nouveau style figural lamp for the table, a nude woman supported by a peacock. The outstretched arm of the woman holds the light fixture: a globe shape, encrusted with jewel-like crystals, that glows when lit. JP is wondering if this is “something.” In the history of lighting design, well, […]
A great find at our Goodwill Thrift shop on Carrillo Street in downtown Santa Barbara, FF sends me a shot of a ceramic tile, framed, with a delicate pastel decoration of stylized flowing foliage in a vase. This flowering tree is the Persian symbol for the Tree of Life, which offers connections between earth, heaven, and […]
FT snatched up this ceramic fish plate at Destined for Grace in Goleta because she thought it was a Pablo Picasso creation. She was almost right. Picasso did a series of fish related ceramics, riffing off an ancient Greek tradition from Southern Italy and Attica: the ancient Greeks had terracotta red and black serving plates […]
A picker with a good eye, AC got lucky and found a small late 19th century watercolor landscape featuring a meandering Midwestern (to my Illinois-bred Midwestern eye) river and a skiff tied to the underbrush. A framer’s label on the back of the simple oak frame tells a great story, almost better than the generic […]
B and JD send me a beautiful bronze sculpture of two horses facing each other, one smaller and one larger, the head of one on the shoulder of the other. B and J wonder if this is an original by Pierre-Jules Mêne (French 1810-1879), a great sculptor of animal figures, who was called an animalier, […]
As I am in quite a few houses each week appraising contents and collections, in almost every home there’s a “knock off” Phillippe Starck Lucite see-through “Louis Ghost” chair. Made of Lucite or acrylic resin, the faux-starck has that round or oval back rest, arms, and tapered legs, and today they cost as little as […]
JC, who has sent her family’s objects and memories, now sends me her mom’s pair of pearl collars, faux pearls on silk that used to grace a common cardigan or blouse in the 1940s. These were produced by Glentex in Japan and, in Brooklyn, by an industry with the curious name of Baar & Beards, […]
CS sends me a vintage cape with rabbit trimmed fur on cashmere. She wonders if the tiny moth holes suggest that it is NOT worth the price tag of $120. Does the historical value trump the rarity value? The answer is NO – late 19th century capes are not rare! The cape has been part […]
Art Deco clocks are special to me. As I write this, my mom has just passed “out of human time” and into the next realm at the age of 96. She was a great collector of clocks, especially those that reminded her of the city in which we were born: Chicago – acknowledged cradle of […]
PS is curious about a pair of silver stirrups necessary for riding a horse. We can all imagine a time when cars were not in our world yet, and we rode horses – or were pulled by them. And for thousands of years stirrups have been a ubiquitous and recognizable equine accoutrement. PS is wondering […]
