Being there two days also gave us lots of time to check out what the other dealers had to sell as well.  When we are selling I get in what I call a “selling mode” which means I’m not much in a “buying mode”.  Nevertheless, I wasn’t about to come home empty handed.

I ended up purchasing this copper lustre pitcher from a fellow dealer for twenty dollars.  It was the second day of the show and he dropped the price from thirty dollars to move it along.  I liked the hand painted decoration on both sides of what appears to be a mother teaching her daughter how to write.  Perhaps it’s supposed to be the Bronte sisters.  I don’t really know but it’s always nice to speculate.

Copper Lustre was made in the Staffordshire district of England from about 1820 to about 1860 when it fell out of fashion.  A lot of it was shipped to the United States at that time so it isn’t unusual to find a piece or two at your local flea market or antique shop.  Unfortunately it seems to have fallen out of fashion with modern collectors as well.  Consequently when you do find it these days it’s really cheap, which is kind of sad.

So why did I buy something that nobody else seems to be buying right now?  First, I like it.  Second, it was cheap.  Third, it can only go up over time.  Fourth, think of the history it represents.

The piece I bought was probably made in a factory at the very earliest stages of the Industrial Revolution.  Perhaps the person who decorated it lived in a cottage with a thatched roof.  Queen Victoria may not have even been Queen when it was made.  It would have been shipped by horse and wagon to a nearby port where it would have been loaded onto a sailing ship and sent to a still young America.  The twenty dollar bill I purchased it with had the picture of Andrew Jackson on it, who could have been our President at the time it was made.  The great westward expansion and Civil War were still to come and slavery had yet to be abolished.

Somehow this little pitcher survived all that in its one hundred and seventy or eighty years without any chips or cracks.  Why wouldn’t I buy it!

There was a saying back in the sixties that went “Do your own thing”.  There is an opportunity out there right now to buy true antiques at affordable prices.  I doubt it will be around forever.

The post Copper Lustre Pitcher – Really Old and Really Cheap appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This morning we drove to Springfield, Illinois, arriving shortly before noon.  We spent a couple of hours in the new Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum.  After a quick lunch, we got on Route 97 and drove for at least two hours through farmland and small towns, arriving in Galesburg, Illinois at 4:30.  That meant we had exactly a half hour to tear through the impressive three-story Galesburg Antiques Mall Co. at 349 E. Main Street.

As you can imagine, we never made it past the first floor.  We did, however, find several things to purchase.  Unfortunately, I can’t report on the things that will become Christmas or birthday presents for Amy.  I can say, however, that I was happy with several 1940’s Metronome magazines for $2 each, and Jim picked out a vintage Coca-Cola cribbage board (pictured below) for $8.

At 5 pm, the store closed and we were back in the car scanning the papers we picked up to see if any of the other local antique shops stayed open later.  Eureka!  There was one that didn’t close until 6 pm.  Over to the Hawthorne Centre Antique Mall at 2188 Veterans Drive we went.  It didn’t look very promising from the outside, but inside, the shopkeeper was friendly and there were a number of open booths with a variety of antiques and collectibles in them.

We decided to purchase a nineteenth century temperance plate (pictured).  It was apparently part of a series because the dealer had about ten of these plates, a couple in damaged condition for $18 each and several in good condition for $75 each.  The one we purchased was in between.  It has an old staple repair on the reverse, but displays well from the front and was priced at $35.  The inscription on it reads:  The Bottle – Plate VII – The husband in a state of furious drunkenness kills his wife with the instrument of all their misery.  The disheveled husband, with one shoe missing, is being restrained by a policeman while a doctor, perhaps, attends to his dead wife whose skirt and one limp hand show on the left of the plate.  A broken bottle lies between them.  This English transfer plate has a few spots of hand-painted color.  The only mark on the back is a number 8.

Considering that we only had an hour and a half to work with, we were quite happy with both stops in Galesburg, Illinois.  There are other shops in the town as well.  We wish we had more time to visit Carl Sandberg’s birthplace and tour the Orpheum Theater.  Such are the frustrations of working with a tight timeline.

Tomorrow, we are heading into Iowa.  Yes, we do plan to visit Antique Archeology, home of the “American Pickers.”  Stay tuned.

The post Travel Log #1: Galesburg, Il 9/6/12: Reported by Carol appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Made of inexpensive ceramic, he measures approximately 4 inches in height when put together.  Anthropomorphic moons are really cool, and we have a few more that you may see on this site in the future.

The post Smile: Moon Man Salt and Pepper Shaker appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This is a Kreiss Psycho Ceramics figure from the late 1950’s or early 1960’s.  This company made all sorts of ceramic giftware, some of it serious in nature but much of it humorous like this.  This little fella originally came with a tag with some clever saying on it to go with his expression.  Many Psycho Ceramics have plastic jewel elements glued onto them that are often missing.  This guy has jewels for pupils that are still intact.  He measures 5″-6″ tall and is in relatively good condition though he has suffered some paint wear on the cold-painted areas.  He is stamped with a Kreiss copyright on the bottom and also has a sticker that says “Japan”.

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A lot of times tiki’s are very brown.

Polynesian themed objects really came into vogue when Hawaii became our 50^th state in 1959, but people have always been attracted to the lures of Hawaii and objects that remind them of tropical places.  Polynesian themed restaurants, though much more prevalent in warmer climate and coastal states, became popular all over the country.

Of course, being from New Jersey means that regional mugs are a little bit hard to come by because, well, there were never really many Polynesian restaurants to choose from. There was, however, one spectacular restaurant present in Cherry Hill, NJ.

It was called the Hawaiian Cottage, and it opened its doors in 1938.  It is important to understand a little bit about Cherry Hill in the 1950’s.  First of all it didn’t become known as Cherry Hill until 1961, before that it was Merchantville, NJ.  Second, it was very different from the chain restaurant and chain store mecca it has become in more recent years.  Cherry Hill was home to The Latin Casino, which didn’t have gambling but hosted some of the biggest music and comedy acts of the day.  It was also home to the Garden State Park horse racing track, hotels, and many high end restaurants including the Hawaiian Cottage.  Outside of the entertainment industry that was so present in Cherry Hill, there was also a building boom of housing developments, which included among more traditional houses some spectacular Mid-Century Modern homes including a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house.  Besides houses, the one aspect of early Cherry Hill that still remains is the Cherry Hill Mall, which is considered the first indoor shopping mall east of the Mississippi.  When it comes to shopping and entertainment, the mall is the only thing that still remains.  Everything else has pretty much been bulldozed to make way for newer shopping and dining.  The site of the Hawaiian Cottage is now home to an Olive Garden.

http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Olive+Garden+near+Cherry+Hill+Mall,+Cherry+Hill,+NJ&hl=en&ll=39.940103,-75.012573&spn=0.000518,0.001321&sll=39.935037,-75.04647&sspn=0.008292,0.021136&oq=Olive+Garden,cherry&t=h&mra=ls&z=20&layer=c&cbll=39.940103,-75.012573&panoid=NjV0iH9o6POPVPi-uECznw&cbp=12,347.89,,0,-3.86

This is a link to the Google Map of the current Olive Garden

No offense to the architect and designer of the Olive Garden, but your building is lacking a giant pineapple on the roof.  I sure wish that my drive down Route 38 still included a giant pineapple roofed building today.  Alas, the only remains of The Hawaiian Cottage are the little bit of memorabilia that resides at flea markets and on eBay including match books, postcards, menus, and tiki mugs.

One of the most interesting things about The Hawaiian Cottage’s mug choices is that they are in no way typical when it comes to tiki mugs.  Most restaurants chose designs based on tiki idols or Easter Island Heads.  These, on the other hand, represent tropical birds and Geisha’s.  They were made by a company called Otagiri, which was a fairly major manufacturer of tiki mugs in the 50’s and 60’s.

The parrot mug was the first Hawaiian Cottage mug I was able to procure, and at first it seemed very hard to find.  I actually paid $15 to get one, which was the most I had ever paid for a mug at that time.  I had to have it though, because it was such a cool mug and the history fascinated me.  Since then, however, I have managed to find about 6 more and have paid as little as $1 to get them.  That being said, I am shopping within a pretty close proximity to the original restaurant.  If you are going to find this mug anywhere, it is most likely to be close to where the restaurant originally stood.    No matter how many parrot mugs I rescue, it is still my favorite mug in my collection because it represents so much more to me than the average tiki mug.  Also, no other restaurant made a parrot mug as far as I am aware, which makes it very unique and special.

There are two variations on this mug that I have been able to find.  I don’t know that one is rarer than the other, but the main differences are in their size and color.  They have about a quarter inch difference between them, and the smaller mug is a more orange red, whereas the taller mug is more fire engine red.  There are modern replicas of this mug on the market as well that also come in other colors such as blue, green and yellow, but the easiest way to tell a genuine Hawaiian Cottage mug is that it has the name around the base.  Newer copies don’t have that.

This Geisha Room mug, however, has been a little bit tougher for me to come by.  I have only been able find this one for my collection.  It isn’t the most obvious tiki mug, but Asian themed mugs are somewhat prevalent in tiki mug design.  A lot of Polynesian restaurants also served Asian cuisine, and some Chinese and Japanese restaurants had Polynesian themes to their decor.  There are two different versions of this mug as well.  The one I have pictured is the larger of the two.  Both mugs are very similar looking just like the parrots, but the smaller one has less writing on the back and is white on the bottom, whereas the larger mug is black on the bottom.

I have also heard rumor, though I haven’t found one myself, that there is a Fu Manchu mug design with the Hawaiian Cottage Name Stamped on the back.  It would most likely look a lot like this fella.  It isn’t quite as unique as the other two mugs, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t want one for my collection.

The Hawaiian Cottage closed its doors sometime in the 1970’s, and burned down later in the decade.  I was born too late to have ever been able to lay my eyes upon its pineapple dome.  Most people today probably don’t know that it ever existed.  The one amazing thing about collecting, though, is that we who are willing to rummage through boxes of junk at flea markets and yard sales end up finding these little relics from the past that remind us of what has come before us.  So, the next time you are driving down Rt.38 in Cherry Hill, NJ and you happen to decide that you are in the mood for some Olive Garden, think of how much cooler it would be to be sitting under a giant concrete pineapple drinking out of a parrot.

The post The Hawaiian Cottage appeared first on The Collector Gene.

The Weakling from The Little Horribles

For my first blog on Collectorgene.com, I wanted to share an observation that I made several years ago when I discovered the amazing pottery of Hagen Renaker.  I guess this story starts on a family trip to Vermont, where I found a small figurine of Lady from Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp” in an antique shop.

Disney’s Lady from “Lady and the Tramp” by Hagen Renaker

I was fascinated by this miniature figure.  It only stands a little over an inch, and the amazing quality in which it was crafted had me immediately researching its origin.  It didn’t take me long to find out that it was made by Hagen Renaker.  Hagen Renaker is best known for making animal miniatures.  These figurines were popular staples in gift shops, but as Japanese potteries started to create cheaper figurines in the 1950’s, Hagen Renaker decided to branch out.  One way they branched out was to get the Disney license and create Disney miniatures.  They also branched out into the Little Horribles, among other fascinating pottery lines.

I am sure in the future on this site I will be mentioning Hagen Renaker fairly often because I think that they made some of the most amazing pottery of the 1950’s and 1960’s.  I am not alone in that sentiment either; Hagen Renaker pottery is very collectible and sought after.  After finding my first Disney Hagen Renaker piece and identifying it, I went on the hunt to find out more about the line.  Lucky for me, and for you, there is an amazing website out there to tell you just about everything you need to know about Hagen Renaker.  The Hagen Renaker Online Museum, http://hagenrenakermuseum.com/, is an amazing resource for Hagen Renaker, and they can tell you more about Hagen Renaker than I will ever be able to.  It was through their site that I learned not only about Hagen Renaker’s Disney figures, but my favorite Hagen Renaker line, The Little Horribles.

These are some examples of Little Horribles from my collection.

The Little Horribles are an amazing line of grotesque figures made in 1958 and 1959.  Designed by Nell Bortells,  they are humorous and colorful and extremely rare.  The second I saw them I fell in love, and I have since accumulated a nice little collection.  Today I want to focus on one figure in particular, though, a figure that was immediately familiar to me because I had seen it once before in a painting.  That figure is known as The Weakling, and the painting is Salvador Dali’s Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War).

Salvador Dali’s painting, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), is a painting that was first made familiar to me in art history class, but I have since visited it on multiple occasions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) was painted in 1936.  Though painted before the start of the Spanish Civil War, Dali claimed that he was a prophet and dreamed about the Spanish Civil War before it began.   Most likely he renamed the piece after the war started, but it is understandable how the somewhat disturbing imagery in the painting could make one think about the effects of war;  it is an image that etches itself into your brain, and when you see it, you never forget it.  Needless to say, when I first saw a picture of Hagen Renaker’s “The Weakling”, I felt like I was seeing a familiar face.  Looking at the two pieces next to each other, there are clear differences, but the similarities are undeniable.

In Dali’s painting the right hand is clenching a breast, where similarly The weakling is grasping more of a shoulder.

Dali gave his figure two right hands, where The Weakling has a right and left.  Both the painting and figurine have similar hand placement though.

The weakling is lacking feet all together, where Dali’s painting has both present.  However, they both share the same composition of the left leg supporting itself on a lower torso… or butt.

Though the faces look very different they still share some compositional elements.  Both have pronounced up-turned noses, long dark hair, and a similar grin.

There are too many similarities to ignore between these two figures.

It is hard for me to believe that two people unaware of each other could both come up with this same bizarre and grotesque figure 22 years apart.  I am sure that Nell Bortells was familiar with Dali’s painting.  Obviously, when Bortells designed her figure, she made it a little more PG, and, dare I say, a little bit cuter.  She also made several changes to the design, which may have been done to avoid copyright infringement.  Why she chose to create a figure based on a Salvador Dali painting, I cannot say, but I doubt it was done maliciously or deceitfully.

Nell Bortells was clearly a gifted designer.  There is no denying it when you look at some of her other creations, and I think that she probably found a lot of influence in Modern art for her Little Horribles, Surrealism and Cubism especially.  I cannot know for sure why she would create a figure directly based on a Salvador Dali painting, but I think it was most likely an homage to Dali.   Bortells may have been a fan of Dali and thought his style would fit in beautifully with her Little Horribles.  I can’t be completely sure; I can only speculate.

No matter why “The Weakling” exists, as a fan of both The Little Horribles and Salvador Dali, I must say I am thrilled that it does.  It is a bit of an anomaly in the collectible figurine market.  Vintage figural representations of famous paintings don’t often exist in mass market forms like this.  It is kind of a special, albeit grotesque and totally weird, figure that I believe deserves some attention for what it represents.  If you are lucky enough to own a Little Horribles “The Weakling” like I am, I hope you will now look at it on your shelf or wherever you display it and see the two brilliant artists who created it for you, Nell Bortells and Salvador Dali.

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