The Vintage Finds That Keep Surprising Me

Nobody shoots nobody, because when that gun is set that way, it won't fire at all. Jimmy eyed the gun ruefully. Who says it won't? This is reliable at 35 yards. You wouldn't have a chance. I read a book once where a cat who was hip to rifles fixed one, so it looked all right, but the firing pin was broken, so nothing would happen. So all we have to do is break off the firing pin and put it back in Hortense Clinton's purse. Nothing doing. There's too many McGillicuddies here. I'm going to take it back and put it in the Belize. Just part of the gripping story of Plant Me Now and Dig Me Later. And hello everybody. It's around Halloween time as I'm filming this, so it seemed appropriate that the first listing we're doing in eBay this time is a pair of books, two of the three books written by Miriam Ann Hagen. She was the sister of another famous author who did mysteries, a gentleman by the name of Aaron Mark Stein, and she came out with Clamp Me Now first in 1947. And this is the This is the first edition, and this one is Dig Me Later. Hortense Clinton lay across the door sill of her kitchen door as though dead and her empty milk bottles lay scattered beside her. The milkman thought she was dead. He told the story many times before the police came and many times after. And there is a whole story about this. Yes, Hortense Clinton is a middle-aged woman who lives in Manhattan. And in the tradition of Mary Roberts Rinehart and other great whodunit kind of mystery writers of the early and mid-20th century, well, she is accidentally swept into a world of crime and she solves the mystery. These were both done by Doubleday in the Crime Club edition. Miriam Ann Hagen only wrote one other book than these, and these two were the two companion pieces, so you're getting them both together. Condition overall is good. Dig Me Later is particularly solid, intact. It just has normal yellowing. It has the dust jacket in reasonable condition. This one, originally from the Arnold Bookshop and Lending Library, and so their dust jacket is on it, and they taped it with nice electrical tape, as was often done by lending libraries in that time, so the dust jacket wouldn't come off. And this one does have a crack in the binding that I should show, but it is solid and intact as well. I sold a great number of murdering mysteries from my mother's collection of this era, and these were two that I kept aside to read first. I think they're fun, they're interesting, I don't know how serious they are, but if you love mid-century mystery, the prose of the time, the jargon of the time, it will definitely take you back. To what was cool in Manhattan amongst the crime club set back around 1950. And we are putting them up now at $9.99 for the pair. And we'll see who gets some whom-done-its to read during the long cold winter ahead. And in fact, we are doing a deep dive on 20 different items that are listing on eBay right now. We have so much fun finding different things to talk to you about, and we'd love to bring you a big variety of things that are seasonal like that, or things that are really hot in the marketplace like this next item. And that next item is this. This is a really green, really beautiful mushroom. And it's a big one. And it is hand-blown. But it is not Blanco glass. So many people listing these call these Blanco glass. These are not Blanco. These are Rainbow glass. Rainbow glass was a competitor to Blanco, of course, because they were the hand-blown subsidiary of Viking glass. And that's why you see these really deep colors. But unlike Blanco, Viking was more controlled about the The speckles on the top, so they actually have more distinction. are clear between them as opposed to a big sort of swirl like Blanco did. Rainbow was also known for finishing off their pontil marks. Blancos are usually very rough and broken looking and this is kind of smooth because they would fire polish it a little bit so that everything sat flat. Different than blanco, just as collectible, really desirable actually. So many people are paying big money now for the pressed glass mushrooms that Viking Glass made, but the hand-blown mushrooms were more expensive when they were new and were less plentiful and are scarcer today And this one is just a really pretty green color. This forest green color seems to come back into decorating in the early 70s, around 1972, 73, you see it in the catalogs. And it didn't last for a very long time. So this is a fairly hard color combination and a really nice size. you. This is about five inches by four inches. So it's substantial. It would be really great in your mushroom garden. I just think these things are so cool. 25 years ago, I started picking up mushrooms, figuring that by this time, well, they'd be very popular, and this is literally the only one I have in stock. So I guess that turned out to be true. Rainbow glass before 1959 was not part of Viking glass, and they simply decorated other people's glass, including Blanco. But once Viking got hold of them, they did all the hand-blown pieces in the Viking glass colors. But under the rainbow glass label, you will see this occasionally with the rainbow glass sticker on it. But definitely look for this shape and you will know the difference. Should you care about that difference? It really just depends why you're collecting glass. If you're collecting for a particular company, then yes, you'll want to know the difference. If you're just collecting groovy glass mushrooms from around 1970, this definitely fits the bill. And we are going to start this one off at $59. Because they typically sell for about twice that if people identify them correctly. And we're going to see. Whether a knowledgeable collector picks this up right now. Our next piece is also seasonal in a sense. We just passed the period of the zodiac for Libra. This is the Libra figure by Yadro designed by Salvador Dalí and these came out in 1995 6 and 7 only. And it was a series of zodiac signs called the Zodiac Horoscope Collection based on children figures. It's all done to fit a certain color scheme but also have contrast and because it's the zodiac she's standing on top of the globe. Here we see the Yadro mark and this one has something that Yadro collectors really seem to prize. The box with the original stuffing and packaging in it. Yadro collectors in particular always ask me if we have the box because shipping and transport is much easier with the original box because she has various features that were applied. Each one of these is a different piece that has to be put together and fired during the porcelain making process. Salvador Dalí was known for creating Yadro's ballerinas, also the wonderful exquisite looking delicate heron figures and some other really large and complex pieces with lots of parts that had to be joined. It's pretty complicated and that's why Yadro is considered very high quality and definitely a little better quality than even the now company that The brothers of Yadro spun off from the main company and definitely better than a whole lot of fake things made to sort of vaguely look like this about the same time. You'll see a lot of Taiwanese imports that from a distance have some of the colors, but when you look up close, the detail just is not there as it is on this figure. Yadro definitely collectible for a good reason, and this is actually the scarcest and tallest of the Zodiac Horoscope figures in the line. The Libra is the hardest to get. So for all of you Libras out there, she is ready to help you balance your life. And she's starting at $49. We have a buy it now of $200 because they often sell for that price or higher. Well, I'm recording this in the morning, and I would sure love a spot of Earl Grey to put in this right now, but this little cup and saucer is empty because I have to show it to you. It is Shelley China, and I really enjoy their chintz. Chintz is any all-over floral transfer pattern like this, and look how bright and happy this is. This pattern is known as Rock Garden. And you can see the two back stamps there for Shelley and then the rock garden. When you see the rock garden and the little cartouche, this is earlier. This pattern came out originally in 1939, and this should be a late 30s into the 1940s piece. The mark does change a little bit in the 1950s, and by the 1950s this became very, very popular. It was introduced right before the Second World War, and then there were all sorts of restrictions on the production of Dinnerware in China, in England. Because they needed the chemicals and the materials for war purposes, and so not a lot of this pattern was made until after the war. Then it becomes very popular, as does chintz in general. And why? Well, the war years were very wearying for people, and in England in particular, you mainly could only get plain white, and so people really wanted something with color and design. And then it became very popular in the United States as well, because Shelley is just really well made. And this pattern and other chintz patterns actually... Saved the English China makers from extinction after the Second World War. They had a really hard time getting their footing again. But by the 1950s, they were rolling along and it really was such a huge part of the British economy that it was a major, major feat that they were able to reconstruct and keep going. For all those reasons, Shelley is very well regarded. By 1966, the company had been purchased by Royal Albert, and all of the Shelley marks were discontinued. So we don't see anything made by Shelley in the last 60 years. And that's a shame, because it was really beautiful stuff. But of course, Royal Albert cups and saucers are very nice as well. And part of the reason that they really expanded their lines is because they took the business that Shelley had. So Shelley, very regarded. Rock garden is a really great pattern and there are a lot of collectors. We're going to start this at $9.99. We have a buy it now of $30 on it, which is a typical selling price for their cups and saucers of these patterns. Shelly China definitely knew how to put lots of pieces together into sets but a generation later kitchenware had really changed because kitchenware companies started to do entire sets of accessories to go along as opposed to just the dinnerware and that's when we see this pattern come along. This is called bird in hand and these are actually a pair of towel bar holders. And this is a pretty popular pattern in its time. This is from 1983, and it was done by this company. Sigma the Taste Setter, and you notice that they give credit to Andrea West. Andrea West was one of their designers, and Bird in Hand and some of these other country patterns were what she was best known for with Sigma. And they did very, very well when they came out, because they were part of a complete coordinated kitchen set. So you could get the towel bar holders, you could get the canisters, you could get everything to go with. And the entire kitchen would have a theme, including linens and other things. And that was a concept in the 1980s that came back that had originally been done in the 1930s with dinnerware sets and lots of matching accessories. So everything comes around again, and this pattern is really, really sweet. And it goes with a lot of other patterns, too. It matches some Johnson Brothers and some Fallsgraf patterns fairly well, so you can mix and match. But they are the original pair. It appears they were never used. They still have the Sigma the Taste Setter mark on the bottom. Now, Sigma the Taste Setter itself is an interesting line that is becoming collectible. It didn't last as long as some of the other Japanese import lines. It only was around from 1975 to 1985. It was part of Toll International. And they started by importing. from Italy under the Sigma name and then realized that the Japanese ceramics were as well made and actually less expensive. And so they shifted over to Japan in the 1980s. And their big production was actually Star Wars and Muppet related figures and cookie jars and canisters because they got the contract for those when they merged with Toll. It was a brief heyday. A few years later, the trademark was retired and there was no more Sigma, the taste setter. So they made really cool stuff for a brief period of time. But we're seeing a lot of it coming to the market now because so much of it was made 40 to 50 years ago and has been sitting in homes and is now coming back on the market. So we are seeing people starting to collect this brand. And that was part of the reason I wanted to show these as well. We are starting them at just $9.99, but we have a buy it now of $49 for the pair. It's actually kind of hard to find these because most of them were put up on a wall and have stayed there ever since. I've been selling off a huge collection of model trains in my Centralia, Washington location, right across from the big train depot where all the rail fans come, and it's gone really well so far. But I've been putting a few pieces online, especially things that are a little obscure that people outside the Northwest may not have seen, and this is definitely one of them. This is a box for a USRA steam engine. This is Northwest Shortline. Northwest Shortline originated in Seattle in the late 1950s, and at first they just imported metal train models from Japan. But then they realized that they wanted more precision, and so they started making their own trains and their own carts, and they are still in business today. They moved to Montana about 20 years ago and are produced there to this day. This one is the Chicago Burlington and Quincy, the Burlington Route steam engine, and it's replicating a train that would have been made in the 1920s or 30s, but of course this ...particular model was done in the 1970s or 80s. Model railroaders really like metal steam engines with precise parts. They pay a lot of money for these types of things, but they're usually done on brass. And then paint it over or left clean and then you paint them yourself to do the detail. But look how much detail there is in there. On a plastic piece, this would all be molded and you wouldn't have separate rails and separate wires and separate hoses and all of the things that you see here. So this is for a pretty sophisticated. collector of model railroad items, and a lot of people are really sophisticated. Model railroading has been going on for decades. I was into it when I was a kid, but I know guys who are still into it who started back then and now have a 40 or 50 year collection, and some of the train layouts are really incredible. When you go to the Louisville Flea Market and Antique Show over New Year's weekend, for example, you will see an entire setup that the local train Outfit runs for everyone to watch. It's really neat. So this appears to have never been used. Now, the box was in a place where there was some soot, and so the box is not pretty, but it's there. And we even have the original foam liner. And the original cellophane. So this is all complete and original and is neat because it's an American company that defied the move towards Asian imports and said we can do that as well here and be competitive and they still are. So thank you to Fred and Cheryl Martin, who started this way back in the late 50s. All of us train enthusiasts are very glad to have them. And this one, believe it or not, we're going to start at $9.99 and let it just run to where it should, because there's not a lot of Northwest short line stuff produced, and there's not a lot that sells online. I don't really have a sense of where the market should be on this piece, because we just don't see them very often. Well, we all know I love to wear a hat. And there's one for you right there. Since we're out west, I figured we'd take a look at one more western item because this thing is really neat. I took this to the show in Spokane and got picked up a bunch of times and I thought, you know, it really is something special and I'm going to put it online where people who understand the Pendleton Roundup can find it. Because you see on the top it says the Roundup, you have the Bucking Bronco and Letterbuck. And this is done on a cowboy hat made of a very high quality cafare wear. When I've seen these in the past, they've been marked Medicine Hat Potteries from Alberta, Canada, or sometimes High Crop, the company that took over Medicine Hat Potteries later. But I believe that this is likely to be from Medicine Hat because They started in 1938, not long after this iconic figure of the bucking bronco was created by a gentleman named Wallace Smith. Wallace Smith was a Hearst reporter and a Hollywood columnist, but he was also an artist and he loved. to get involved with things that created controversy. So in 1925, he illustrated a book called Fantasius Millar. And Fantasius Millar was about a man's descent into madness. And it had some very stark images and imagery and was declared obscene. by the San Francisco court. And so Mr. Smith was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. That was a lot of money in 1925, especially when the book that you published gets pulled from the shelves and isn't selling. He needed money, and he decided to enter a competition to design a logo for the Pendleton Roundup, and he won. And this is the logo. And it is famous to this day. They use it on the posters. You see it all over Pendleton. Anyone who's in the rodeo circuit or has gone to the Pendleton Roundup has definitely seen this image and it is highly collectible now. He got $250 for creating this logo. So it's a really cool piece that hints at its origin. I feel pretty confident based on my experience that that I know where this came from. But the real attraction is the logo and the fact that it's all hand-painted. So these were done in a very, very small number as souvenirs at some point in the 1930s. And there can't be very many of them around. I've had success selling the later ones that had the Mark of the Potter on it. So we're going to start it out now at $19.99 and just see where it goes. This next piece of glass comes in two sizes, and yet I've never had it before. I've seen it a few times, but you don't see them often because these McKee jadeite pieces have been very popular with collectors ever since jadeite glass started to be popular collectible about 40 years ago. And then we all discovered something really interesting about McKee's jadeite, which is that they use custard glass as their base, which is why it lights up like this. Or maybe I should say like this under a black light. It is so vivid and so strong and such a great color. McKee's jadeite is so vibrant and if you could see it with the hot studio lights behind like I can you would see that it has a very strong opalescent fire as well. Almost like a piece of Sabino glass would. McKee's formula for jadeite was just really, really great in terms of what people are interested in collecting now, with the opalescent fire, the uranium content to give it the glow. And that's what makes it a slightly different shade of green, but also... Very different in terms of its effects from Fire King's Jadeite, which does not have custard glass as the base and thus has no uranium. It does not glow under a blacklight. So there's a lot of people who are catching on to this amongst the blacklight glass crowd because it's a great look and a little more unexpected. Sunflower was a pattern that was very popular in the mid-1930s. People wanted all-over patterns, and McKee was one of the first companies to do these sort of press designs. They came out with the press cut that looked like cut glass, but was actually pressed in a mold around 1920, 20 and and became very famous for that, and their rock crystal, which was also pressed but looked like a rock crystal cutting. By the 30s, they were doing molded pieces like this, similar to depression glass, but a little finer quality. McKee was in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, along with other glass companies, and they actually lasted a long time as subsidiaries of other companies they were producing into the 1980s, particularly with their glass-baked kitchenware. It's a sweet little piece. They did make it in a larger size. In the larger size, these sell for three figures. I'm not sure what to expect on the smaller size. So we're just going to put it out at $9.99 and let it run and find out together. One of the things I really enjoy about doing these deeper dives and finding cool stuff to put out there for you all to see is that I get a big variety of stuff. So I can have a pretty glass piece, a piece of jewelry, a print, and then the next thing is a fishing reel. But this is not an ordinary fishing reel. This is a fly fishing reel. It became very popular starting in the 1930s and through the 50s to make fishing poles of the first bamboo, then composition, then aluminum, and the idea was more strength, more rigidity, and less weight. And so when this came out in 1946 as a patent, this particular Kaufman Benson reel became briefly very popular with fly fishers. Part of the appeal was that this was all cast as a single item, so there weren't lots of little knuckles and attachments to break or rust or to catch your hands when you were casting and that sort of thing. Now, a Benson reel is this particular type of fly casting reel, and Benson reels were invented first in Indiana in the 19-teens, and then various companies got various patents for advancements from there. This particular one was an advancement by the Kaufman Company out of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. It is still considered an Indiana reel for purposes of classification. This one was scarcely ever used. You can see the cork is still in really good shape. There's not a lot I think that somebody got this as a gift in all likelihood, said that's nice and it wasn't their favorite, so they didn't use it because a lot of people who fish, even though they love to have lots of different tackle and gear when you talk to them and they almost always have a favorite that they use all the time. So this one was not the favorite, but it's going to be the favorite of some collector now because to find these in this kind of condition is really not so easy. And. They actually sell pretty well. They typically sell in the $135 range. We're going to put it out there at less than half that and just see where it goes. I'm really encouraged to see that new collectors and younger people are getting interested in true antiques and Victorian items. A lot of true antiques are selling for rather low prices right now. Because people have forgotten them, or think that they can't find them, or don't understand that they're really old. And that's why I was able to get this for a very inexpensive price, because somebody didn't realize that this was a beautiful 1880s bohemian enameled piece of cranberry glass. And so they sold it for the price of a 1990s Egyptian cranberry glass bottle. And I was happy to get it and bring it to you. It has the stopper in really good condition, and the nice thing with the stopper, of course, is we're looking to make sure this isn't a stain. Well, you can see that the cranberry is in the middle of the stem, so that is not a stain on the outside of the glass. It is in the glass. So we know that this is cranberry glass rather than with a stain. You can also tell that looking at the bottom because the bottom also has the color all the way through. You'll see that the pontil is nicely finished and that the only marks are some painted marks and that has to do with the decoration. Oftentimes I'll have people send me pictures of things like this and say, oh, tell me what this code number means. And the truth is, It doesn't mean anything to us today because it just was a factory control mark. And unless we can go back to the 1880s when this was made and know who decorator number eight was, we can't really tell you much about it. But we can tell you that it was made in Bohemia, which is now part of Czechoslovakia in the area around Prague. It will date to about the 1880s. The enamel, of course, is a... Paint suspended in glass so when you fire it on you get the color on the surface and it's raised and you feel the texture. It's just a really sweet very pretty little piece. Now in Europe where this was made you would have heard this referred to as gold ruby glass rather than cranberry. Cranberry is an American term for this. They call it gold ruby in Europe because it took gold chloride to make this color. Even today, to make cranberry glass, you still have to use a little bit of gold chloride, and it costs about $100 to $150 for that trace of gold for one tank of cranberry glass. So each piece of cranberry glass does indeed have a little bit of gold in it. Now, it's not gold that you can get out and sell, but it is there. And that's why you get this color. It's a chemical effect that was discovered by glassblowers originally in Rome. And the Lycurgus Cup made around 400 AD was one of the first examples of dichroic glass where it actually changes color depending on the light. The secret was basically lost then until the Renaissance, and then by the late 1800s it is very, very desirable. Then in the 1980s and 90s it becomes highly collectible, and we start seeing companies like Pilgrim Glass and Fenton making lots of new cranberry glass, new at that time, and now that is also collectible because all of it is made using gold. Using handmade processes, cranberry isn't typically something that you see done molded because it's just more expensive, and so it's limited to handmade glass. Great color. I see it coming back into style now. I think people are getting interested in jewel tones again, and it's a great time to be collecting. We are starting this at only $9.99. Our buy it now is $49, which is a pretty fair price for a Victorian cranberry piece this size. Well, cheers, everyone. It's been 40 years since Expo 86 took place in Vancouver, and like most World's Fairs, 40 years starts to be the point at which we see people collecting things from the World's Fair again. I love that World's Fair. It's the only one I've ever been to. I was in college. It was fantastically interesting and I learned so much. And it was all about transportation, which is why the Czech pavilion made this their logo. This is supposed to be the intersection of various roads and freeways tied up in a knot. So apparently they have the same problem with traffic in the Soviet era as they do today. This is hard to find, believe it or not, because these came from the Czech Pavilion's restaurant. They weren't something you just walked up and bought as a souvenir. The Czech Pavilion restaurant ended up being one of the great surprises of the 1986 World's Fair. They decided to prepare ethnic Czech and Slovak foods in a fine dining setting, and it was at the edge of the fair. They didn't think they'd get that much traffic. They They only built a 45-seat cafe. Lines were two and a half hours long, the entire 150-day run of the fair. It was considered the best fine dining on the fairgrounds, and if you had the pleasure to go and you got champagne, then you got to keep these glasses and take them with you. So as far as Expo 86 collectibles go, these are actually a little bit hard to find, and this is Again, from the 80s when people have switched from saucer champagnes to flutes. Now we're in an era where a lot of people are giving up champagne flutes for wider glasses because while these keep the bubbles longer, you don't get as much of the effect in your face as you did with the old saucer champagnes. Trends and styles change but these were definitely very chic for the 1980s. It was a wonderful fair and so much fun and people are remembering it nostalgically and starting to collect. So we're going to put these out at $9.99 and just see what the collector market is today. I have a feeling in the future we'll look back on whatever these sell for and say wow that was a deal. And no, I never got to eat there because they didn't have cell phones then, so if you wanted to eat, you had to stand in line for two hours a night. Just, there were too many cool things to see. Now we're going to step back in time and show you a drinking souvenir from a century earlier. This came from Lead, South Dakota. And no, it is not pronounced lead. It is actually pronounced lead. And you see on here, this is the Miners Union Hall. Lead at the time of statehood around 1889 was a mining boomtown and the biggest city in the state of South Dakota with about 5,000 people. It would eventually grow to 8,000. Today it has 3,000. Because the mine finally played out. But the Home State Mine was the largest, deepest gold mine in North America for decades. And it is the reason the city was there. And the reason a lot of Wild West history was made in the area. In Deadwood, the next town, is the bar still standing today where Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back. A very famous piece of Western history. But you can see all the interesting sites from the area around its heyday. This is made out of spelter and gilded. It's still pretty much in the round. These tended to get beaten up pretty badly so this one's in reasonable shape and especially the coloration. I sold a whiskey jug from Lead a couple of years ago here and it went for big money, surprisingly big. There is a lot of interest in this town and the Pieces that came from it back in the pioneer days. So I'm curious to see how this will do. We're putting it out at just $9.99, but we don't have a buy it now on it because, again, we haven't seen anything like this from that town sell in a really long time. So we'll find out together what the collector market is today. One thing I find personally fascinating about people who are glassblowers and pottery producers and these skilled craft things is the way that they are able to take ancient methods and techniques and bring them into the modern era. And this next guy, well, when you see this piece, first you might think it was 300 years old because it is so similar to American redware of the colonial era. In terms of its overall appearance and the way it's done, when we flip the back, we realize that this is actually a piece by J.D. Huntley, and you see the signature there. J.D. Huntley Decorative Pottery was done in Columbus, Wisconsin from the 1980s until 2015, and I love how even on the bottom where you're not going to see it, there's a wonderful Expression. Long may you live, happy may you be, blessed with contentment and from misfortunes free. So many of the techniques, when you look at this bowl closely, really harken back hundreds of years. If you look up there, that is not just a regular glaze. This is clay slip of different colors used as decoration. So they keep painting other layers of clay on and then they would go back with a feather. And make all of the incisions and the lines in it to give it the detail. So there's a ton of handwork in J.D. Hudley pottery as there was in traditional early American pottery. When J.D. Hudley went to the Chicago School of Art, he became interested in old techniques and old styles rather than modernism. He took his combination of interest in early American folk pottery. And combine that with methods that he had learned from Eastern and Asian pottery and combine them into the lines that he did. All of his pots were wheel thrown. Everything done here is done by hand. And that's what's pretty remarkable about these. So these were not terribly inexpensive new either because they were handmade work. After he retired from the production studio, he now does custom work and everything he does is one of a kind. So he is a really talented and well-regarded Midwest potter doing things in the old manner. And that's why these have a lot of appeal to people who collect early American style redware, because it has all of the hallmarks and was made in the same manner. I got this at a store in Indiana that was having an 80% off sale. It was a pile in a hoard, and this was down at the bottom, and somehow it remained intact for us to enjoy. And so I saved it, and I'm ready to send it on to a new home. We're starting this at $9.99, but these really typically sell in about a $50 to $100 range, depending on the piece, and it's rather substantial. And it would look great on a Thanksgiving table. It's been very popular over the last 30 years to talk about self-help, self-determination, affirmations, things that help cast your mind in a positive light and can overpower things like illness or disease or discontent. This is a quotation and a plaque from Mary Baker Eddy, and Mary Baker Eddy was the originator of the Christian science movement. Mary Baker Eddy faced chronic illness the first 45 years of her life and went through a lot. And after one particularly bad episode, she rediscovered her faith and began to blend what we now call metaphysics with Christian teachings. And this plaque is a good indication of how that Her belief, as it says here, is there is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite mind and its infinite manifestation. For man is not material, he is spiritual because he is created in God's image. The idea was to take the tenets of Christianity and focus on the spiritual world as a way of healing and progressing in the material world because the idea was that the material world is what is temporary. And that your problems are temporary because we are all part of one greater thing. Around the same time the Fillmores were starting the Unitarian Principles in a very similar manner with the notion that all of the terrible things we experience in this life are illusion and that we can rise above them. There are millions of people now who are Christian scientists, and there is a collector market for these earlier pieces with quotes by Mary Baker Eddy and others regarding Christian science. This one was printed in 1931, as you can see, and it does have its original frame from that time. Whenever you see these frames, the little bit of Art Deco design in the edge there. These all typically date to about this era. It was actually given as a gift from June Young to Mrs. Schmidt back in 1931. And yes, they were using these little metal tabs and not just nails at this time. And if it jives with your worldview, then it could be something really inspirational to look at every day. And that's the reason we're putting this up now. We're starting it at $9.99. Our next item is not as serious as inspirational teachings from the church. It is actually a box with contents. The contents in the box don't match, but you'll see why I thought they worked together as soon as I opened it, because the box is from the 1970s for Jockey Underwear, and apparently someone was coming at 9 a.m. to see them. I actually think that was just a note they wrote to themselves about something else, but it made me laugh. The other thing that made me laugh is that when you open it up it has this little clicker. You devil! So these underpants were supposed to be a Valentine's present, but since it didn't have the original underpants I found another pair to put in that I think are really fun. So this is kind of a twofer. These are California Raisins underpants, and no I'm not going to model even though it would be easier if I could just stand up. California Raisins, well... They are really collectible. They were very popular right from the get-go when they came out in 1987 and 88. The California Raisin Board wanted something to make raisins seem exciting, so making them into musicians and having them sing along to Marvin Gaye's Heard It Through the Grapevine seemed like a very clever idea, and it really did take off. I have to admit when it came out I remember feeling a little uncomfortable with the imagery, but it doesn't seem to have bothered anyone else. So 40 years later we see a lot of people collecting California raisins and these are in perfect thank goodness condition. Okay. They appear to have never been used, and I would say that they are about a 28-inch waist because they don't quite fit me, and so they are going on the market as the surprise presentation with the jockey underwear box. So this could be a fun and inappropriate present for Christmas morning to open in front of the relatives. I just think that there's potential for this, so we're putting it out at $9.99, and I hope someone has as much fun as I did putting it together. Now, our next item is more for day wear, particularly if you are selling appliances, but I loved that this Whirlpool set of cufflinks and tie bar for someone who is selling is in perfect condition. in its original box. It does not have the lid, but I don't think these were ever worn by whoever got this in the first place. Whirlpool is the company I really support because they are the last of the American appliance makers to actually maintain and run factories in this country. And yes, they are really suffering under tariffs, so I hope that they make it through this. They are out of Benton Harbor, Michigan with 15,000 employees. They started in 1911 when a couple of brothers saw the potential for electric washing machines and made their first one a big square wooden affair with an electric motor. They sold 100 to Commonwealth Edison and immediately got a bad reputation for quality. So they went and they fixed all of them at their cost, improved the product. And Commonwealth Edison ordered a bunch more, and then everybody else said, oh, well, if they're good enough for Commonwealth Edison. And so they took a bad product, turned it into a good product, learned a very valuable lesson, and have emphasized quality ever since. And that is why Whirlpool is still in business. In 1916, they got the contract from Sears to make Kenmore appliances, and that was huge for them and huge for Sears. And Kenmore has had a really great quality reputation while all that stuff was made by Whirlpool. So if you're looking for the Kenmore quality in this day and age where Sears is no more, well, Whirlpool is where it came from. I just think the logo is really cool. They used this logo from the mid-60s until 2011, and then they changed to a more modern logo. For their 100th anniversary. So this logo is the old school logo now. I know there are people collecting cufflinks. I know there are people who are collecting industrial related things. And if Zeno can collect vacuum cleaners, then I'm sure somebody must collect washing machines. I know a guy who collects refrigerators. So all things are possible. So there is a customer for this somewhere. We're going to start it at $9.99. They usually sell for about double that. This next piece is really fun and I have never had a piece by this company before. I wasn't even really aware of them and I'm kind of surprised after getting this and learning more about them how great their stuff is and how did I miss them because this is another Spanish pottery. This is Alferez pottery and this particular giraffe from about 1970 is a fairly scarce ...scarce figure to find in stoneware. Here is the Alferez mark on the bottom. This is Spain's contribution to mid-century ceramic design. Miguel Duran Lorigas started this company outside of Madrid in 1952. He was a well-known architect at the time and took an architectural design approach to ceramics. You can tell that his main influence was Picasso in terms of design, but he really believed that you could not be a a successful industrial designer if you were not a craftsperson first. Meaning you had to understand how things were made and what went into doing the item in order to do it successfully as a designer. You couldn't just come with a design and impose it on something without understanding how the piece was formed in the first place. And that really set Alferez apart. In terms of their design, he won two design awards in the 1970s, so he definitely started with the craft, and that's why you see this piece, even though it is an industrial pottery piece, looking somewhat hand-formed, definitely trying to show the craft of making this piece in the design. And I think it came out really well, and it's very cute and whimsical. Duran Lorigas was actually very progressive in a number of ways. When he learned what he had to learn from pottery, he started making architectural tiles and installations and doing very well with those, to the point where he became more interested in that and the architecture than running the pottery company. So he... Took the pottery company and formed it into a cooperative guild similar to Bennington Potteries and certain glass co-ops. It seems that people in the crafts find ways to work communally in guilds that still allow the individual expression and individual finances. And so that's what he did with his pottery very ahead of his time. And because of that, his staff got to continue making these pieces for many, many more years. And I'm always a big fan of people who treat their employees well and recognize that they are the key to their success. So I have become a fan of Alferez Pottery and of Miguel Duran-Lorica. Part of what I love about this business is you find something you've never seen before, you find out about the people behind it, and suddenly you have a newfound respect for something that you didn't know existed a week earlier. And that's been happening to me for 35 years, and that's why I keep doing this. We're starting this piece really cheaply too at $9.99 but we have a buy it now of $100 on it because the figures typically do sell in that price range. In ancient time little finger lamps made of ceramic or ultimately brass and other metals were made that looked a lot like this. This one actually tells us that it's from 1937 and we will show you on the inside where it has The name of the foundry marked in the bottom as well, RCS Foundry. But these were made largely as novelties and fundraisers in the 20th century, and oftentimes, because this design heralded back to the Middle East, they were done for various organizations supporting Palestinian or Israeli development. This particular one has an inscription on the top, A-H-E-A 1937. And as best as I can tell, A-H-E-A stood for a Hebrew Educational Association. That was selling these as a fundraiser at the time. This started to be done again about 40 years ago, and they became very popular. And you saw lots of ceramic and little metal ones like these in antique malls from that period of time. I would love to know more about this organization. If there is anybody out there who can give us more confirmation from what I can tell, this organization did not exist. in later years and I haven't been able to find more information about it. But the lamp itself is really neat and we are starting it again at $9.99, but I think this is a pretty good piece. When they were selling 80s reproductions, they were selling for $35 and $40 new. I would be surprised if this one wasn't worth somewhere in the $59 range, which is where we have the buy it now. I was traveling through South Dakota, hit a small garage sale on the whim, and picked this up, and I was really glad I did. The gentleman said that this had belonged to, I believe, his grandmother, and that she was one of the people who signed the inside of the book, because she apparently... was a Rosie the Riveter. And this is the book about the Flying Fortress, the Boeing bomber that was so instrumental in the war. And it is signed by a number of the people who worked on the line at that time. And that is a major appeal to people buying this book. They were done in 1943, primarily to boost morale for the people working on the lines, building these things, as well for for people on the home front, but most of these were distributed just. Amongst the Boeing personnel themselves, so you don't see a lot of these. This is the first edition by Scribner's. You see the information there. It shows them in flight. It shows the conditions in which they're being used. It's a really fascinating book, and a lot of World War II buffs are really interested in this publication. And you notice one of these planes has nose art where they would paint a design on the front of the plane. Sometimes it would be a tough-looking critter. Sometimes it would be a voluptuous woman. And then in the back are... Dozens and dozens more signatures from the people who worked there at the time. It's in good condition overall. We are starting it at $9.99. They typically sell for around $100 when they have this much information about the people who actually worked with them, so I'm curious to see where this will go. And the last item was a nose art inspiration that is perfect for Halloween, and she is here. Because a lot of the nose art was done based on the work of George Petty. And this is a George Petty centerfold from True Magazine. Now, we talk a lot about Vargas prints and Antonio Vargas and the other pinup illustrators, but George Petty actually was the originator of this style. He started working for Esquire in 1933, and in the depths of the Depression, he started creating a new ideal of female pulchritude and beauty. voluptuous Form-fitting. It was definitely a new ideal, very different from the cold, aloof, and very pretty Gibson girls of the 1910s. And you can see the Petty signature up in the corner with his trademark Y. That extends above and below the plane of the surface. This one's been shrink-wrapped for years, and I'm leaving it in the shrink-wrap. I just thought she was so fun and certainly appropriate for today. George Petty also gets credit for introducing the concept of the centerfold, because some of his drawings were just too large or too involved to be kept to one page. And Esquire sales took off. In a very difficult economic time as a result. This Bewitching Beauty can fly to your house starting at $9.99. We have a buy it now of $29. And since it's Halloween, I'll give you one last good scare by revealing the clown in the painting. Everybody has loved this painting when they've seen it in the background before because I've always sat in front of the clown. So what do you think now? I love the look on the woman's face. That is actually my friend's aunt. It was painted of her in the 1940s when she was working in a circus sideshow. So from Plant Me Now to Creepy Clowns, we've had some fun showing you some really cool stuff. Check the listings under the Antique Nomad. If things are still up, you are welcome to bid. And if they've already sold, well, it might have gone by it now to one of our members because level two and three members do get first dibs on these things. So if you're interested in that in the future, check out the membership links under the dash line in the description of this video. And we'll be back soon to tell you where these great collectibles are going to live and how they did in the market. If you enjoyed this video, check out this one. Also, click thumbs up to like this video and check the description for information about our Patreon, our memberships. We've got a lot of different levels with different perks and bonus videos and early content. Also, please do check out our website theantiquenomad.com for appraisal help. And we'll see you again for more adventures in the antique and vintage community soon. Bye for now!