Featured Antiquers: Share Your Favorite Purchase Of 2019

Hello Folks,

2019 is nearly in the record books. Please post your favorite purchase (or purchases) of the year and tell us something about it.

Now lets enjoy some eye candy!

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For me item #1 are a pair of Rookwood Bookends. Got this pair fairly recently but have admired these particular style of Rookwood Bookends for years. First saw them about 15 years ago in an antique mall priced at upwards of $600 which was a little high even at the peak of the art pottery market back then before the collapse in prices. Still not cheap but glad to finally have a pair in my collection!



Item #2 is a Antique Spool Cabinet that I won at estate auction early in 2019. These spool cabinets are really cool in my opinion and they are still very desirable to collectors. Saw another similar one to mine in worse condition sell for 2x what I paid so I think I was very lucky.

 

Both beautiful!

 

Your bookends are charming. Can see why they'd be a "gotta have."

Debora

 

Didn't purchase much but did alot of "Garbage Picking" busted up furniture then refurbishing them. One buy stands out for me as I got these 2 small items at a garage sale:
(5 1/2" & 7") - 2$ apiece - had to give them a new home. Don't know if good or bad as I never got around to putting these on the forum!

 

Showed this at the time, but I expect it will be a while before I top it:

Doulton Inkwell Virago Baby


Designed by Leslie Harradine c 1909. Damaged, but otherwise out of my price range.

https://www.antiquers.com/threads/doulton-virago-baby.42637/#post-1029638

 

I recently purchased two signed AAA lithographs for my personal collection. I was able to purchase them at an off-market price but they were by no means inexpensive. A bit of an uncharacteristic splurge on my part. Photos are from the internet but these are the prints.

Grant Wood, Seed Time and Harvest 1937



Thomas Hart Benton, Loading Corn 1945

 

A close second is this large Stickley Brothers 3 handled vase. It unfortunately has been polished but I did get this at a bargain price.

 

I’ve already posted about this but this “U.S. Model 1861 10-pounder Parrott Rifle” registry number 10, was used by the US Army at the Battle Of Bull Run, only about 10 mi. from here, so it is a “Keeper.” It was likely captured during the battle (9 of the 16 Parrott Rifles there, of that size, were captured by the CSA.). I’m still interested in which of the three US batteries that had these guns, had this one, and of course where it went after the battle.

 

We found this lovely Kirk Old Maryland Plain Bowl in a satchel of sterling and silver plate this year that had belonged to my In-Laws. After much deliberation, we gave it to our DS and DIL today as a thank you for all they do for us. Our DS loves sterling and has become quite a hoarder of such! We know it has gone to a good home where it will be appreciated, admired and used.
Patd

 

Brad - those are just gorgeous - I don't blame you!

 

This Hans Christian Andersen 'Ugly Duckling' piece, a 6.75" long, heavy (almost 3 troy ounces) gilt and enameled Danish .830 silver spoon by Peter Hertz, is one I've wanted for probably around 35-40 years, and had never seen other than in a book on spoons, it came in a fitted custom box.





Another piece I've wanted for many years, an uncommon Gorham cast silver bon-bon server with ivory handle, 4.5" long, bearing an 1891 date code - it's pictured on a page from 'Antiques' magazine, below three others of the six designs produced.




~Cheryl

 

I still want that Doulton.

Hm. So many bits, mostly hoard jools.

I think the Clichy scramble on sodden snow wins, on the grounds of age and it being peanuts and all that.

 

After years of searching, I finally found a 'Frisian Feather' with 5 diamonds.
I am part Frisian and always wanted one of these. I already had an all silver feather, but this one with diamonds crossed my path right at the beginning of the year. My first purchase of 2019:

These were once worn with the Dutch Frisian costume as part of a forehead decoration. After WWII many were sold as scrap, but Niekerk, a manufacturer in Schoonhoven (Dutch silver town), managed to save quite a few. Most were turned into brooches. This one is a brooch now, it has a very worn maker's mark, and the Niekerk mark as well.

Difficult to discern on this old photo, but this lady is wearing a forehead decoration with her Frisian costume:

 

Springfield, I showed this to my husband and he was wondering which battle of Bull Run you think it was captured in?

 

I have already been on & on about my most exciting acquisition of the year & roped some of you into my mania.

It's a long way from eye candy, small, dull brown, difficult to make out without good light & strong magnification. Sold as a Georgian glass paste intaglio about 200 years old, I thought I saw something more in it. Its very drabness is one reason experts think it is likely to be about 2,000 years old, Hellenistic Roman.



As if that were not enough fun, it also seems to be a copy of a famous amethyst intaglio, once the property of Louis XIV, & believed to have been signed by the engraver, Pamphilos. Only problem, the paste copy has no sign of a name & fraud was rampant when the craze for collecting engraved gems was in full swing.



Hoping after the holidays to get additional input from museum/academic sources.

 

I don't have anything I really thought was super duper wonderful. I get stocked when I find cookbooks that are vintage. I read them then sell them.

 

I think I have to go with this 14" Heiltsuk model totem pole by Chief Robert Bell (1859-1904), ca. 1880. It features some type of supernatural humanoid on the top and what looks like a Tahltan bear dog on the bottom. The blue paint is a mineral-based pigment made from stibnite (metallic antimony sulphide), the black is lamp black, and the red is mercury-based Chinese vermilion. James Swan collected several similar pieces by Bell for the Smithsonian Institute (NMNH), which were accessioned in 1884. I've never seen another Bell totem on the market, and I was really surprised to be able to purchase this one. I'm also pleased that this pole is not missing any attachments such as the ears and tail of the dog or the horn and fins on the humanoid. For being 135-ish years old, it's in excellent condition!

 

During the first Bull Run, in 1861, there were exactly 16 of this same model present in three batteries. 9 of them were captured. So there’s a 9/16 chance = 56.25% chance it was captured that day. The top of the tube is heavily scarred, probably by being dragged over rough ground at some point, but why is pure speculation. So that’s really all I know. Oh, how do we know it was at that battle? The 16 guns at the battle had registry numbers 1-16. Exactly 18 had been manufactured in time to be present at the battle, and we think they were issued to batteries in numerical order, but apparently #17 and 18 had not yet been issued as of the day of the battle. I have some friends who, through their employment, have very detailed knowledge of the Manassas battles, and they’ve shared some info with me, and informally vetted my few findings so far.

 

Wonderful information! DH and I love when this kind of information is unearthed for artifacts. We both love history

 

The fins look like orca fins in Haida carvings, but I’m not entirely sure. Very interesting totem!