Innehållsförteckning för October 21, 2020 från Kovels Antique Trader

DENVER, Pa. – After spending decades tucked away in an attic, the rarest of the “Gang of Five” robots, “Machine Man,” has set a new world-record auction price at Morphy. Complete with original box, the ultra rare battery-operated tin-lithographed robot from 1960 sold for $159,900, handily beating its estimate of $60,000-$90,000. Unlike most kids’ toys that spent their days being played with and banged around, this Machine Man lived a much quieter life for 60 years. “It came from an attic, right from the original owner, who had it as a child but didn’t play with it for some reason,” said Tommy Sage, Jr., head of Morphy Auctions’ toy division. The near-mint 15-inch-tall robot is one of few known examples of its type from Masudaya’s revered postwar “Gang of Five”…

CINCINNATI – A beaded tobacco bag related to the Sioux Elk Dreamers’ Society has set an auction record after selling for $131,250. The hide bag set the record at Cowan’s recent American Indian Art auction against a presale estimate of $50,000-$60,000. It was consigned by noted dealer Robert Jerich and contained imagery related to the Elk Dreamers’ Society. Cowan’s dated the bag to the late nineteenth century. Beaded in blues, light green, red, pink, yellow, black and white, one side of the bag depicts a warrior dressed in a feathered bonnet with staff, a horse and rider, and two pipes; the other depicts two pipes, a brightly colored and spotted elk with “power lines,” and the Elk Dancer with hoop and staff. “Among the Lakota and other Plains peoples, to…

Many Halloween traditions have come and gone over the years, but others, like carving pumpkins, spooky costumes, images of black cats and witches, pranks, watching scary movies and eating candy are timeless. Although trick-or-treating has also been a yearly tradition, that will likely change this year in the wake of the pandemic. From costumes to parties and traditions, here is a look back at vintage Halloween celebrations from the 1800s through the 1950s.…

To list your antiques-related event (show, auction, convention, etc.) for free in Antique Trader, send event information (date, location, contact information, times) at least six weeks in advance to: AT Calendars, C/O Antique Trader Editors, 5225 Joerns Dr., Suite 2, Stevens Point, WI 54481 OR email to ATNews@aimmedia.com. Listings will be included on a space available basis. Antique Trader assumes no responsibility for any show not listed. EDITOR’S NOTE: The cancelations or postponements we have received are marked with asterisks. Be sure to check if events you are interested in are still on before you go. We will be updating this calendar and the one online as we receive official notification of any cancelations/postponements. ARIZONA Nov 1 to Dec 27, 2020 Scottsdale. Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market is excited…

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – A notable collection of Eisenberg Originals costume jewelry from the company’s golden years generated a lot of buzz when it recently went up for auction. Seasoned antiques dealer, collector and author Sharon Schwartz, who had collected Eisenberg Originals since the late 1980s, sold her collection through Ripley Auctions. The star of the 284-lot sale was the iconic mermaid brooch popular with collectors that sold for $3,600 — double its high estimate. The mermaid is sterling vermeil with aquamarine crystals. The sale attracted around 150 bidders and generated about $88,000. Other top sellers included a rare one-of-a-kind prototype crystal locket dress clip that sold for $3,400, and a green fruit salad fur clip that sold for $1,400 — soaring way past its high estimate of $350. Schwartz said…

If you were a child in the United States anywhere from around 1950 to 1990 and dreamed of being a princess, Superman, GI Joe, an astronaut, Barbie, a spooky monster or any character you watched on TV, you could make your dream come true each Halloween for less than $5. And for that amount, you’d get what you paid for: cheap vinyl smocks and plastic masks that fit awkwardly over your face and were held on by a single rubber band that was so thin, it could snap if you blinked hard. Those wonderfully kitschy Halloween costumes were uncomfortable, flimsy and barely had a resemblance to the characters they were portraying, but that didn’t matter. They made an indelible impression on all of us who wore them on those October…

THE GREAT ELM TREES lined our street like guardians, their magnificent umbrella-shaped canopies shielding us from summer sun. We took comfort in their shade. But come late October, with their leaves milling about in un-raked lawns, the elms changed. As we moved underfoot into stocking-cap weather, the elms turned sinister, what with their long bare branches gnarled like the fingers of Dorothy’s Wicked Witch. Nights were particularly daunting as those gloomy limbs weaved uneasy shadows into the fertile imagination of my youth. Danger lurked. You could just feel it. So I learned to run everywhere. Fast. But there was no fear on Halloween. Even in the chilled darkness, we found fortitude in numbers and the promise of grocery bags full of trick-or-treat candy. And so we exploded out of neighborhood…

Several years ago while talking with author Noah Fleisher about his Mid-Century Modern furniture book, he pointed out something we should all keep in mind when looking at furniture: “Modernism didn’t just one day emerge, say January 1, 1950, fully realized, from the mind of its remote creators,” Fleisher said. Instead, Fleisher argued, signs of Modernisn could be traced to the mid-1800s post-Empire non-conformity of the Biedermeier Movement; the turn of the 20th century anti-Victorianism of the Vienna Secessionists; the radical reductionism of Frank Lloyd Wright; and the revolutionary post-Depression thinking of Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus school in Germany. The point is, Modernism evolved from many influences. That’s true of all furniture styles. To help understand what defines each overlapping style, here are some of the major design elements…

So, who was Miriam Haskell? Many people refer to her as if a single woman crafted every piece of jewelry with her name on it. No one really knows how many pieces she actually produced with her own hands, but the consensus among jewelry historians is not much. Prior interviews with former employees an old-timers in the industry point to Haskell being a businesswoman based in the bustling city of New York first and foremost. And, she did have the good sense to hire a terrific designer to help her grow her company during its early years. Haskell History through the 1960s Haskell hired Frank Hess as a jewelry designer shortly after opening her first shop in the McAlpin Hotel in in the late 1920s. Hess, who had been working…