Featured Polar bear bookends

I won these wooden polar bear bookends tonight at auction, for the princely sum of $6. They look very art deco to me, so I’m thinking they could date to the 1920’s. Does thus seem correct? I’ve searched with Google Lens and have done a lot of browsing online but haven’t found anything really similar.

 

They look Art Deco to me too.

Debora

 

What are they made of ? plaster ? Metal ? Can we see the bottoms ? I think art deco as well,but I am wondering about the color on this .

 

They look carved.

Debora

 

As I mentioned, they are wood. Here is a photo of the bottoms:

 

They could be homemade. Not necessarily production pieces. I think they look great.

 

Thanks. I’ve always loved the Art Deco style, so was very happy to find these!

 

Really lovely-ducky lookin' deco.

 

SO you did ! Sorry !

 

Nothing like them in the one book on bookends I can put my hands on right now. I also think they have a hand-made look about them, and very handsome, too. Boy Scout, maybe, late '30s or early '40s? It took a while for the Deco style to filter into popular culture.

Happy to double your money on them, should you ever decide to sell....

 

Thanks for checking your book for these. I’ve not seen anything like them. Polar bears - such an unusual subject!

 

So, thanks to the remains of a paper label on one of the bookends, I was able to identify them as a product of the Grenfell Mission in Labrador, Canada!

Here is the label on my bookends:



And here is a label on a known pair of Grenfell bookends:


Close enough for me!

Anyone interested in the mission can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Mission

 

Very interesting indeed!. That should up the value considerably in the Canadian market.

 

That's awesome,good eye David.
Did you win this in an online or smaller regional auction.
Seem to recall somebody here won a Daum sterling overlay bowl at a church raffle a year or so ago.
I wonder who donated that as a prize ?

 

Kind of both, actually. It was a small local auction company that held live auctions for years, but switched to online auctions during Covid and never switched back. This time round I won the bookends, a pair of WW2 aviator sunglasses, and a birch bark basket that I believe was made by Cree people in Alberta.

 

Grenfell had a wicked sense of humor, too - here's his inscription in a copy of Northern Neighbors I have, 1928: "A Christmas Dinner in Labrador" it reads, with a drawing of a polar bear encountering a man fallen through the ice....

 

Love it!