Tag archives: appraisal
Few illustrious tourist attractions in Ohio rank higher than the Reverend Paul Johnson’s Pencil Sharpener Museum located in the middle of the State, a menagerie donated by the Reverend’s wife after he collected approximately 4,000 sharpeners from 1989-2010. He left her holding the collection when he died in 2010. She had no one to blame […]
SB sends me photos of a 19th c. ceramic figure; a relief-painted scullery maid holding a gold-gilded metal cookpot, and seated on a gold-gilded metal chair. Such an interesting combination of materials here: a pottery figure, glazed and painted, seated on a gilded metal chair. To produce such a piece in the 19th c. took […]
RH sends me a tin children’s ride-on rocking horse that has been living in his garage for years; he THINKS it belonged to his mom but he is not sure. I believe this horse was his mother’s mom’s or her dad’s, as I think this toy dates from the late 19th early 20th c. These […]
JS has a small painting on canvas purchased from a booth at the Earl Warren Flea Market. Those two figures are saints, but what else can I say about the work? She writes she has never before seen such an unfortunate looking canine and had to have this work!! First, congratulations JS; you scored. This […]
Years ago, RR inherited a tall pottery umbrella stand which was shattered in a recent wildfire; she had discovered two shards that, when put together like pieces of a puzzle, read RN 288102 and RN 284106. A trace of a word is above these marks, “Melbou-” possibly for Melbourne, more than likely the pattern name. […]
OS asked for a dollar estimate for her Barnaby Conrad signed lithograph. When an artist is a huge personality with a legendary past, “comparable sales” (prices paid of past works) will NOT accurately reflect the stature of the artist’s oeuvre. Artist, author, portraitist, cabaret owner, bar room pianist, bullfighter, friend to writers, one-time Vice Consul […]
GG sends me a beautiful leather-bound book, The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400), The William Caxton Facsimile Edition; of which only 500 were published by Cambridge University Press in 1973. She has #248, signed by Cambridge University scholar Walter Hamilton of Magdelene College. On the last page of this huge volume is a wonderful […]
LM sends me a photo of a terra cotta bust (at 30” tall) of a gorgeous young French female of the late 18th century. Her beauty is classic even today: flowing hair, effortless smile, full cheeks, upturned almond shaped eyes, a heart-shaped face. Madame Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) was not only one of […]
In 1960, the MET held its famous museum show of industrial design called “Ideas for Living.” A designer’s showcase of streamlined ways to simplify life, repercussions are still being felt today in post-post modernism. TT owns a stove and range combination that was built into a Santa Barbara condominium in 1962 and has stayed in […]
HG scored this flea market book: Daisetz Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture – a classic printed in hundreds of languages. This 1959 edition was published by the Bollingen Foundation, known for publishing books of significant impact since 1940. This title has always been of value in the market since its first printing in 1938. In […]
DD sends me a seafront shot of what she thinks is a view of a church and a bathhouse (note both sections of the photo). I searched for a similar vintage photo, so that I could identify the seaside church with two spires and a Roman-style boathouse close to the shore. Come to find out, […]
Straight from Butterfly Lane, I have a question from a reader about a pair of candlesticks: PJ says he wants to sell the sticks you see in his photo, as they are not his wife’s taste, and have been inherited by him from someone to whom he had little connection. They are of significant weight […]
An artist in Montecito was gifted a unique ceramic charger plate found at a thrift store in Goleta, signed ‘M Arntz’; she writes that the blue glaze has a delicate shading of beige on a textured surface, a work of art. Indeed, it is. The work is by Michael Arntz, a local hero in the […]
Apologies: the photo is not so good, but FK, an older resident of Montecito, sent me a Kodak photo of her Temple Lion in the U.S. Post, asking me if her Chinese ceramic was in fact late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) as told by relatives, and, what is a temple lion, and why a lion? I […]
SR sends me a photo of a pink and blue gold gilded porcelain bottle with an ornate gold stopper and interesting “scoop” or funnel to the top in gilded metal. SR calls it a MOURNING BOTTLE, and says it was a gift of Sir Benjamin Rycroft (1902-1967), a pioneer in corneal surgery, and one of […]
A reader’s Great Uncle Len lived, for almost 95 years, in a large house close to the Mission in Santa Barbara. Our reader has inherited the contents of Len’s precious steamer trunk, and is asking “WHAT do I do with a trunkful of photos, clippings, photos, schoolbooks, school report cards, ledgers from the family business, […]
When an object or a collection is welcomed into a museum, values are raised for objects with similar provenance; a MJ reader’s Bob Dylan collectible vinyl album is a great example of this phenomena, albeit on a celebrity scale. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, there is now a museum dedicated to the life and works of Bob […]
