Saturday, December 03, 2011
RANDOM NU NEW HOARD
pansypoo was a bad girl, but a BARGAIN. 99¢ bid. and there's more.
RANDOM 341 OBJECTS
2 PAIR Big FRINGED 1880-1910 CURTAIN TIEBACKS, Military Portepee or SWORD KNOTS-$18
Unless you’re a little slow, you’ve already determined from my title I have absolutely no idea what we’re looking at here. The family said they thought they were military from back before the turn of the century. I agree with the approximate date, but they look like curtain tiebacks to me. Regardless: Whatever they are, they’re the best ones I’ve ever seen. As a matter of fact, they’re the ONLY ones I’ve ever seen.
I suppose they were the same length once upon a time, which is 27”. The 1 ½” wide “ribbon” of one has evidently given way in two places and has been knotted back together.
Each of the four big fringed pieces is approximately 11” long – 9” of that being the fringe. The top part (the heavy part) is 3” by 1 ½” oval. And I DO mean heavy. Each portepee, or whatever they are, weighs ½ lb.
Turning them upside-down and moving the fringy tentacles aside like a beached sea creature, you can see the bodies all hand stitched at the bottom.
Metallic thread runs throughout, and whoever did that knotting should get an award for knotsmanship.
Friday, December 02, 2011
RANDOM 341 OBJECT
ANTIQUE Bostwick & Burgess CALLIOPE Pan Pipe WHISTLE, Ohio, FINE Original LABEL-$39
Bostwick & Burgess Co. was the company that manufactured the Queen Carpet Sweeper, the Columbus Clock, wooden Victoria Venetian blinds, fly screens and a small variety of first quality novelty items such as this exquisite Calliope whistle with its inlaid tabs below the ten little mouthpieces. I guess you may find another if you get really lucky, but you’ll not find one in this condition.
It is 6 ¼” by 3 ½” by a full ½” thick. Tell me: How did the label remain is such fine condition? It’s just printed paper.
I love those little inlaid pieces showing the quality craftsmanship that went into even such a lowly item as the whistle. When celluloid and plastic became available the market for handmade toys dwindled to near nothing. That’s too bad, don’t you think?
I found it in a home over in southern Indiana. My guess is that it was given as a gift and never used – just stored away until I could get there, which took right at one hundred years. (I’m always running late, but not THAT late. At least I made it before some dimwit relative tossed it in the trash.)
A young lad is worn out from running alongside his hoop as he prods it with a broken broom handle. All around the dirt streets of his little hometown he runs, his bare feet caked with sweat-dampened dust finally pausing in an alley before heading home to do his chores. After taking a couple puffs from his corncob pipe stuffed with corn silks, he coughs, throws his hoop over one shoulder and blows a tune on his whistle as he slowly marches his way home, pretending he’s the player of the great steam calliope that passed through the summer before.
CALLIOPE
PATENT APPLIED FOR
The Bostwick & Burgess Mfg Co.
Norwalk, Ohio (Norwalk is just south of Sandusky in Huron County, Ohio.)
RANDOM ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
FALCONET, ETIENNE,MAURICE(1716-1791)- a french sculptor. b paris, his parents were poor + he was apprenticed to a carpenter, but some of his clay figures, which he did at liesure, attracted notice of lenoine, he scuptor, + made him his pupil. while diligently studying, he also studied greek + latin, + wrote brosures on art, where he treats ancient + modern art in a remarkably disparaging way. his artistic productions are charcterized by the same the 'same defects' as his writings, tho manifestations of cleaverness + imagination, they display a false + fantastic taste, the result of an excessive striving for origiality. one of his most successful was 'milo of crotona'. many destroyed during the revolution. for catherine the great, went to st peterburg to do a collosal bronze of peter the great.
gee, i think he did nice ones. were the destrored ones more out there?
