What's It Worth?

Posted By whatsitworth on June 17, 2010

Dear Jane,

I’m wondering about a set of 8 1936 Kentucky Derby Glasses. They are from the estate of my husband’s grandfather, a genuine Kentucky Colonel and civic leader of Louisville, KY in the 1920’s through the 60’s. They have lived in the same china cabinet since at least the 1950s, according to my husband.

The Kentucky Derby Museum tells me that they did not issue these glasses until 1938, but they exist nonetheless, in excellent condition. They are smallish, 6-8 ounces, and more like water glasses than mint julep glasses. Please help us determine their value, and any information as to the mystery of their origin.

The Kentucky Derby has been run since at least 1874 and thoroughbred racing in Kentucky goes back a century earlier.  Since its inception it has generated enthusiasm and souvenirs.  Churchill Downs, the current owner of the Kentucky Derby brand was not incorporated until 1938 so indeed, they did not issue these glasses.

Strict lucrative licensing and product placement agreements are a fairly recent phenomenon.  (I just watched “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” the other night and I’m fairly certain neither Tiffany, Cartier or Harry Winston paid for Marilyn Monroe to sing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”.)

I digress.  Your charming set of glasses turn 75 next year.  WIth the right Derby-fever tie-in merchandising I’ll wager that your glasses could bring in the $200-300 range.

Regards,
Jane Alexiadis
Michaan’s Auctions

Dear Jane,

This server is in as-found condition.  There is part of a Craftsman label in a drawer along with a stamped red emblem.  The piece has been painted several times. One  of the small drawers looks to be lined in leather. Is this a Stickley and, if so, what would be the value in this condition?

The stamped red label on the inside of your drawer, together with the fragment of a paper label indicates that this sideboard was made by Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman  Workshop.   What a nice find and I’m glad you were not the one who painted it and at least they did not paint the hardware!

Much of the value of arts and crafts period furniture is in the finish: the more original patina is retained the higher the value it has.  Your sideboard, therefore, has had its finish virtually destroyed as the layers of paint have saturated the grain of the wood.

I spoke to Lee Jester, owner of The Craftsman Home in Oakland, for an expert opinion about your piece (and no, Lee did not pay a placement fee!).  Lee explained to that your  piece could be stripped but that most professional furniture refinishers would not want the job.  The cost of a professional refinishing job could go as high as $700-900; when refinished, your sideboard would have about that as a fair market value. With a good original finish the sideboard could bring $3000-4000.

Regards,
Jane Alexiadis,
Michaans Auctions

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Posted By whatsitworth on June 7, 2010

Attached is a side view and bottom view of an R.LaLique perfume atomizer bottle with nudes. I’m not sure if it works (I didn’t want to test it) but all the pieces are there. This was from my Grandmother who liked fine things. It is about six inches tall.  My parents thought it was a collector’s piece and worth thousands of dollars, which I doubt. Can you tell me any history about this item and potential value?

Your grandmother was right:  this is a fine thing; your parents were partially right: it is a collector’s piece but not worth thousands of dollars.

Rene Lalique was born in France in 1860.  At a very early age he showed artistic promise earning an important design award by the age of twelve.  At his father’s death when Rene was 16, Rene was forced to find paid work and he apprenticed himself to a silversmith and enrolled in the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs.  At 18 he traveled to London and began developing a mastery of his naturalistic style in jewelry and enamel work.  He was one of the most sought after jewelers in Europe for over 20 years and won first prize for his jewelry designs in the Brussels World Fair of 1902.  He was renowned as a jewelry designer, a graphic artist and an architectural collaborator.

At the turn of the 20th century and after his triumph in Brussels, Lalique turned his hand and mind to a more affordable medium of artistic expression and hired a group of glassmakers.  Lalique’s early designs of silver mounted frosted glass perfumes were the first to come out of this workshop.

In 1907 the perfumer Coty commissioned Lalique to design labels for a perfume bottle.  Lalique did one better and designed the entire bottle.  This led to a nearly 40 year collaboration between Lalique’s studios and a number of French perfume companies during which time Lalique produced over a million bottles.

Because the earlier crafted bottles were frequently more expensive than the perfume they contained, Lalique developed a streamlined manufacturing process to mass-produce bottles for perfume companies.  At the same time, his workshop was producing huge numbers of dresser sets and bottles, vases, garnitures and bowls in a variety of art deco and art nouveau patterns.

Lalique was producing opalescent perfumes with seductive nudes early in the 20th century.  We can date your bottle to the 1930s by combining the facts that both the glass and the mounts are is marked in English “Made in France” for export to the United States with the R. Lalique raised relief signature that was used in this decade.

All glass collectors are persnickety about conditions.  If your perfume has any flakes or chips the value will be greatly reduced.  However, if it were in good condition it would sell in the $300-500 range at auction.

Jane Alexiadis
Michaan’s Auctions

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Posted By whatsitworth on June 1, 2010

Dear Jane,

I am downsizing and want to make give away a number of things to friends. None of the things have very high value but I like to give gifts that will have special meaning to the recipient.

I have a little painting by Bertha Stringer Lee.  It’s never been one of my favorites but if I learn more about the artist maybe it will help me decide whom to give the painting to.  I appreciate your help.

Bertha Stringer Lee was a San Francisco native and lifelong resident. Known almost as much for her tea parties as her paintings, she was a generous woman who would have appreciated your giving one of her works as a gift.

Born into a well to do family in 1869, Bertha Stringer studied art from an early age.  She graduated from Cal and continued her art studies with, among others, Arthur Mathews and William Keith.  After her marriage in 1894 she continued to paint, exhibiting and winning prizes at Chicago’s Columbia Exhibition of 1893, Seattle’s Alaska-Yukon Expo, the Golden Gate Park Museum, the San Francisco Art Association, and many other museums and galleries.

Bertha Stinger Lee is best known for her impressionist landscapes including the Monterey coastline and Golden Gate Park.  I thought knowing where your painting was done might help decide which friend will receive
it.  For help determining this I turned to horticultural art historian extraordinaire, my sister Sheila Donnelly.

Here are her thoughts:
My best guess is the tree is Platanus racemosa “California Sycamore” (damn impressionists!) because they have whitish bark, often a multi-trunked form, and the ends of branches have slightly drooping habit.

The painting must have been painted in autumn when foliage starts to turn from light green to yellow.  From the photo the trunk looks really light: while I assume the trunk would appear so light when the artist painted
with the sun at her back shining on the trunk, the shadowing in the painting suggests the noon hour (damn impressionists!)  The path suggests location was a large estate or park or just artistic license (that grass would not be green in the fall unless watered) This tree would like to be in the vicinity of a stream or high water table to survive to maturity.

So, based on Sheila’s opinion about the species, the path, and the health of the grass, my feeling is that this was probably painted in Golden Gate Park rather than the Monterey coast.  In Bertha Stringer Lee’s case, the monetary value of images from the two locations is similar:  in this case it would be $400-600.

Give the painting to the friend who identifies most closely with Golden Gate Park…or sell the painting and take both friends on a trip to the Monterey coast!

Best regards
Jane Alexiadis
Michaan’s Auctions

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Posted By whatsitworth on May 24, 2010

Hello Jane:

I found your auction gallery on the internet and saw that you have successfully sold some Native American baskets, beadwork and rugs.  I was wondering if you sold any art by more contemporary Navajo artists.  I have two that I’m interested in selling but don’t think that upstate New York is the best market.

Attached are images of the two paintings.  Both are by Navajo artist Robert Chee and are from around 1969. Both are 7.5″ x 5.5″ and are from about 1969. Please let me know what you can learn about these two images.

GR
Oneonta, NY

Interestingly, while we have sold decorative arts by Native Americans and portraits of Native Americans by Western artists like Heine Hartwig, we rarely sell paintings done by Native Americans.

Robert (Hashke-Yil-Cale) Chee (1937-1971) was a Navajo artist who practiced the traditional flat style painting of the American Southwest.  His story and that of his teacher, the well-known Apache artist Allan Hauser, illustrate some of the egregious indignities suffered by Native Americans well into the twentieth century.

Born on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, Robert Chee met Allan Hauser in 1955 while Hauser was teaching at the Intermountain Indian School.  The school, housed in a vacant military hospital in Brigham City Utah, was developed with the specific goal of assimilating Native American children into mainstream America by separating them from their tribes and families teaching them English and vocational skills.

(Chee’s teacher and mentor Allan Hauser was born in 1914, just a few months after his Chiricahua Apache parents were released from 27 years as prisoners of the US Government.  Allan’s father had served with Geronimo and after Geronimo’s surrender in 1886 the senior Hauser and about 1200 other Chiricahuas refused to leave their land in New Mexico to be relocated on a reservation in Arizona.  They were shipped by cattle car to Florida.)

After studying at the Intermountain school, Robert Chee continued his assimilation into mainstream life by joining the army.  He served in Germany for about ten months where one of his jobs was painting murals on
the interiors of army buildings.  He left the army in 1960, returned to his Navajo roots in Arizona, and began winning prizes at art fairs and selling images to magazines.

His watercolors and gouaches are of traditional southwest and Navajo scenes and rituals.  They are included in the collections of the Smithsonian and the Southwest Museum.

Chee’s works come up for auction fairly regularly and are still very affordable.  I believe that prices on his work – and of the works of other 20th century Native American artists will continue to increase in the next decades.  That being said, your pair of Robert Chee paintings should sell in the $200-400 range at auction.

Best regards,
Jane Alexiadis
Michaan’s Auctions

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Posted By whatsitworth on May 18, 2010

Q.  My parents met and then married in England during World War ll.  Dad was an officer working as an aide de camp for General Bradley, and mom was an army nurse.  While they were dating they found these silver candlesticks and decided each would purchase one.  Should something happen to one of them, the other would have a treasure to remember them by.  Should they get married they would have the pair!  The writing on one of the candlesticks says, “Presented to the Rev’d Evanson M et as a tribute of respect by a few members of his Bible Class and Junior attendants at Trinity Church upon his removal from the Curacy of that Parish. Christmas 1842″ On the base of the candlestick are the stamped letters TB&S.

A.  Wow!  What drama!  I tried to track down a scandal that happened in the fall of 1842 to a curate of Trinity Church but I had no luck. I sure would have loved to be a fly on the wall during those parish meetings!

The story of the engraving not solved, we’ll move on to the absolutely charming story of your parents each buying a century old candlestick for the other.  Talk about romance!

Let’s get to your marvelous Rococo sterling candlesticks. From the information you’ve given me plus more that I asked for (do they have a small lion shape mark on the base? Yes.  Do you see a letter? Yes, small t.)  I was able to decipher the hallmark and assayers mark to determine that these wonderful sterling candlesticks were produced by Thomas Bradbury & Sons in the city of Sheffield, England in 1839.

The term rococo derives from the French words rocaille et coquille meaning rocks and shells.  This wild, asymmetric and naturalistic style first became popular in France in the 18th century during the hedonistic reign of Louis XV but it was still used in ornamental work, silver and porcelain well into the 19th century.

Your candlesticks have everything going for them:  they’re beautiful in themselves, they are fully marked with the sterling mark, maker, assayer, year and sovereign marks and the inscription is certainly a conversation starter.  If this pair were to come up at auction they’d easily have a pre-sale estimate of $1500-2000.

Q.  My parents also came home with a china set that looks like it would be used for salads.  It has six  6 1/2″ plates made by Mintons.  The  plates are a creamy white with a cobalt blue border and gold trim.   The forks  5 3/4″ and the knives are 6 1/4″ with a stamp on the base of the blade. The silverware is gold with blue cobalt  handle.  The wording on the upper left corner of the case is difficult  to read, except for the bottom word which is Amsterdam.  would love to hear background information and market value.

A.  You have a wonderful example of the whole being more than the sum of its parts.  Six Mintons porcelain fruit plates might sell for $100.  Based on the marks I could read, your sterling fruit forks and knives produced were produced  in Sheffield in 1919 and would probably also bring about $100 at auction. The whole package together, in its original fitted box retailed by a jeweler in Amsterdam, however, could easily sell for $400-600 at auction.

Jane Alexiadis
Michaan’s Auctions

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Posted By whatsitworth on May 10, 2010

Q.  I’m a professional organizer and have recently begun to sort through the possessions of a family storage unit.  I came across this item and I’m hoping you can identify and value it for me.  It is a round wooden box with a lid.  The box has a woman’s face on the front and has some sort of dispenser mechanism.  Could it have been from a diner?

A.  Well, it could have been from a diner but more likely it was in someone’s home.  It is a cigarette dispenser distributed by San Francisco’s very own Kindel and Graham Novelty Company (still in business today as SFParty!)  So, without getting into the health record of the tobacco industry, I can say that cigarettes, advertising and gadgets have a closely entwined history.

Tobacco has been smoked in pipes for thousands of years but it wasn’t until the early 19th century that tobacco rolled into paper tubes became popular. Anecdotally, Egyptian gunners during the Siege of Acre in 1832 improved the speed and accuracy of their fire by rolling gunpowder into paper tubes; for their success, they were paid a pouch of tobacco.  The only pipe that was available was cracked, so the gunners rolled their tobacco into the gunpowder tubes and gave rise to the popularity of cigarettes among soldiers.

It’s a good story but probably apocryphal.  Historians believe that smokers rolled cigarettes as early as the 16th century and Rizla Rolling Paper Company was founded by a French family in 1796.  Smoking, like so many 19th and 20th century habits, involved ritual, chivalry, scandal, advertising and gadgets.

A gentleman always carried a cigarette case; cigarette boxes were on the sidetable in every home. In 1902 the brand Marlboro was invented and marketed specifically to women:  the company tipped Marlboros with red paper to hide lipstick marks!

I’ve always thought that folks who outgrew their mechanical banks were drawn to novelty cigarette dispensers.  Dispensers came in a wide variety of forms including pecking birds, slot machines, elephants, pagodas and more.  Your dispenser, with her turbaned hair and jeweled forehead, is reminiscent of an exotic Turkish or Moorish woman.  The body of the box appears to be mahogany; the lid should fit snugly to act to keep the cigarettes fresh.  The cigarette itself shoots from her pursed lips, thus being amusing and erotic while being sexist and racist at the same time.

That being said, your 1930s era cigarette dispenser has significant crossover collector appeal. It would appeal to tobacco collectors, collectors of whimsical mechanical gadgets and collectors of black Americana.  Even missing one jewel, your little dispenser would bring $100-150 if offered at auction.

Jane Alexiadis
Michaan’s Auctions

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Posted By whatsitworth on May 3, 2010

Dear Ms. Alexiadis:

As you will see from the attached photos, I have a collection of three cocktail glasses and a decanter which I inherited from my great-aunt, whose parents were immigrants from Czechoslovakia.  I searched the Internet and at first I thought they were Bimini Nudes, however, in every picture I found of Bimini Nudes, the women are quite, um, voluptuous.  My nudes are anorexic in comparison.  They are refined and extremely delicate.  They are in perfect condition other than a small chip in the stopper of the decanter.

The glasses are about 4″ tall, and the decanter is a little over 9″ tall.  They have no discernible markings.

I exhausted every possibility I could think of and put the idea of finding anything about this set aside until I started reading your column in the Contra Costa Times. I hope you can help me identify these lovely ladies.

Thank you for your time.

Decanter and Glasses

What a fun project!  I had never thought about the variety of voluptuousness amongst early 20th century stemware bases until your letter. Thanks!

Famed designer Rene Lalique may be to blame for the proliferation of nude women on wine glasses, candlesticks and compotes.  His “Chrysis” car mascot was introduced in 1931 and showed a nude woman kneeling with her long tresses trailing her in the wind.   The motif was very popular and was adopted by a number of different European and American glassworks.

Bayel of France produced a line of glassware with nude women as bases.  These women had one arm tucked coyly behind their backs and one arm raised up.  Venini glass of Murano Italy (founded 1921) also seems to have had a line of nude-stemmed wine glasses.  Their figures hold the bowl aloft with two hands.

The Cambridge Glassworks of Ohio produced nudes in a number of colors and in their famous “Crown Tuscan” glass that was meant to look like porcelain.  Again, the posture and statuesque-ness of these are not on the same delicate scale as yours. (Translation – their nude bases can best be described as “stocky”)

So going back to your slender nudes with their saucy upturned heels I’m tending to believe that your original premise is the correct one. I think if they were not produced by the Bimini workshop then they were deliberately made to look as if they were.

The Bimini Glassworks was founded in 1923 by Vienna-born Fritz Lampl and his glassblowing brother-in-law.  They produced stylized and elongated forms that rippled with movement and intensity:  Lampl described these figures as “frozen poetry.”  Their glasswork was immediately popular (and copied) and they won a prize in the Paris exhibition of 1925.  Pieces had paper labels adhered to them so as your set has no markings this could tell us that it is a Bimini set with a worn off label.

Production of Bimini glassworks halted in 1939 due to the rise of Nazism in Austria.  Craftsmen and designers eventually emigrated to England where they began production again as Orplid glass.

I’m sure your set originally had more pieces.  Even with minor flaws I think your great Deco period cocktail set would bring $200-300 at auction.

Jane Alexiadis
Michaan’s Auctions

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Posted By whatsitworth on April 26, 2010

Greetings!

I enjoy your column in the Daily Review, Hayward, California. You have me wondering about this so-called “obsolete musical instrument” that was left to me by my grandmother.

It is a reed parlor organ in working order.  My grandmother worked as a

housekeeper/babysitter for many years.  One of her clients gave her this organ since she loved it and could really pound out those church hymns on it.  It was a family piece that had been shipped from the east coast many years before.  I’m attaching photos.  What do you think?  I’m hoping to find a historical house that will accept it as a donation.

A.  “Obsolete musical instrument!”  Is that how your grandmother described it?   I’m not sure reed organ enthusiasts would care to hear their beloved behemoths described as such.

You have a nicely smallish reed organ by the Mason & Hamlin Company of Boston.  Started in 1854 by musician Henry Mason and mechanic/inventor Emmons Hamlin, Mason & Hamlin was one of the most successful makers of reed organs; they even won the prestigious first prize in the Paris Exhibition of 1867.

Reed organs are a tough sell in this market:  most auction galleries won’t even accept them on consignment because they tend to cost more to move than they can sell for. But, as I mentioned, yours is a bit more desirable because of its relatively small scale.  I think your plan of finding a historic house to donate the organ to is admirable.

We are lucky to live in the San Francisco Bay Area.  A number of reed organ enthusiasts and musicians live here and there is a locally active group of members of the Reed Organ Society.  Visit their website at www.reedsoc.org to find email addresses of their newsletter editor and their musical consultant.  They might be able to give you some insight as to how to rehome your heirloom.  Your grandmother would be pleased.

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Posted By whatsitworth on April 26, 2010

Jane
This pottery jug or vase belonged to my mother and has been in her possession for at least 50 years.  It is 7.5 inches high and has no markings.  I’d like to know what it is, from what era and the value if possible.

Roger,

Goodness, how did you find us from Australia?  Your pitcher is very good looking!  At first I thought it must be by one of the hundreds of mid-century US potteries like Homer Laughlin or Bauer.  I was not, however, able to match the emphatic quarter cut out shape of your pitcher with any examples of pitchers from those two companies.

I then just started searching through a variety of American potteries trying to find your combination of shape and dramatic toned coloration.  I searched Hull, Hall, Muncie, Red Wing, Hagen, Gladding McBean and other candidates that were producing pottery in the 1930s through 1950s but came up at a loss.

I don’t know who made your pitcher but it was probably produced either in southern California or the Ohio area of the US.  I would hypothesize that the monetary value is $50 or less. What’s It Worth Community: Can any of you help Roger from Western Australia identify his pitcher?  I’m happy to forward his photographs onto you if you think you can help!

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Posted By whatsitworth on April 19, 2010

Q.  We inherited this unique wardrobe which is truly far traveled. My grandfather and grandmother bought it in Hagen Germany in 1961 – right after they, refugees from East Germany, had started a new life in the West. When we started a new life in the US, the wardrobe traveled with us through the Panama Canal. The wardrobe is 71 inches tall, 81 inches wide and 25 inches deep.  Half of it was for her clothes, half of it for his.  It is made from solid wood and has beautiful veneers.  How much is it worth today?

A.  If your lovely wardrobe (or Schrank as it would have been called in German) had been made in the 1930s I would think that it may have started out as part of a bedroom suite.  I was able to zoom in on the hardware on your cabinet, however, and I think it was produced close to when it was purchased – in the late 1950s or 1960s.

Pretty figured maple like yours always brings a premium price but unfortunately the furniture market is very depressed right now.  (And the large size of your lovely piece is also a count against it – most folks are trying to downsize.)

The family story is marvelous and I’m so happy you were able to bring the cabinet with you to California!  The monetary value, however, is $300-400.

Jane Alexiadis
Michaan’s Auctions

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