Articles for category Curiosities
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I recently came across this article by Daniel Grant on AFA News. It examines the controversial California resale royalties law. According to the law, contemporary art collectors, auctioneers, galleries and dealers are required to pay a 5% royalty to original artists upon resale of that artist’s work. Amazingly, they are required to pay royalties to the artist’s heirs if that artist has died within the last 70 years..Several recent law suits have brought attention to the California law which
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Categories:
Current Events
Interesting Auction Sales
Curiosities
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As a 12 year old interested in all things historic, I devoted a great deal of time to searching for the objects of my passion, antique bottles. I would scour antiques and junk shops and occasionally buy the interesting ones that I could afford. Those being under about two dollars. Being on a limited budget as I was, I preferred the free ones. Free because I would dig them at dump sites. Not the nasty land-fill kind of dump sites we have today, but abandoned 19th and early 20th century
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Categories:
Curiosities
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If you have not yet heard of the art-form called steampunk, please permit me to enlighten you. I’m a big fan of steampunk sculpture and I’m in fact a steampunk artist. By way of a definition, steampunk art asks the following question: What would objects look like if modern technology had existed in the Victorian, stem-powered era? Jules Vern’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, and the contraptions featured in the movie Wild, Wild West (1999, with Will Smith) are perfect examples of the
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Categories:
Current Events
Curiosities
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The keno Brothers revealed a remarkable discovery on Anderson Cooper’s show today. They unearthed a fantastically early chest, made in 1685, which makes it one of the oldest surviving chests made in America. It descended in the family of the woman who currently owns it. She had some inkling that it was valuable because of it’s age, but was blown away when they gave it a value of a half million dollars on National television! So called “pilgrim century” furniture such as this was made in the
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Categories:
Current Events
Historically Significant
Curiosities
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Matt Buckley here this time. I have always held that one of the prerequisites to being an antique enthusiast, is an appreciation for the tidbits of information that accumulate along the way. This minutia is prized in an equal measure to the objects. They become exquisite little nuggets of information that help to color the image of our history and enrich our understanding of our culture. As so often is the case, the origins of our customs can be rooted in absurd nuanced behavior from our
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Categories:
Scholarship
Curiosities
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Discoveries...This is what keeps us going - the thrill of the hunt! As dealers we are always dreaming of making that big discovery, the sleeper that will make a difference. It still happens, as evidenced by the story below. I have made a few through the years, but I’m still waiting for the “big one”.We did make a nice discovery in an auction box lot last year, maybe not as spectacular as the one in the story, but it was pretty special for us. While previewing a sale at a small auction house,
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Categories:
Acquisitions
Interesting Auction Sales
Curiosities
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What ever happened to the good old days when you could buy a toaster and use it for say, 25 years? I just found this web site devoted to wonderful old toasters. Vintage toasters are very popular and there are lots of people who collect them. Some of them are such great retro forms! We had The rounded corner Toastmaster in the kitchen for my entire childhood. It was used every day and is probably still working somewhere. I think we have now gone through 3 toasters in the last 5 years, with only
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Categories:
Curiosities
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Okay, it’s time for a tongue-in-cheek blog. If you lack a sense of humor, please stop reading here.I came across a website today that gave me a chuckle. It is an air sickness bag virtual museum. That’s right, a virtual museum devoted to the “barf bag”. No joke, it’s legitimate. Take a look, but I hope you can stomach it! They have cataloged and illustrated over 2,000 of these bags from all over the world. In the antiques and arts industry we have always said that people will collect anything,
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Categories:
Curiosities
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The popular new television shows on extreme hoarding have recently made more people aware of the problem. Because of this awareness, I’ve begun to hear comments such as, ”can you imagine seeing a place like that?” or “have you ever seen one of those houses?” The sad fact is, I have. Many times. It’s a lot more common than you might think. Between my work for various Boston area auctioneers in my youth and the years that I spent as an estate liquidator, I estimate that I’ve been involved in the
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Categories:
Curiosities