UPDATE 1: Auction find: FANTASTIC old lightolier wall lamp, Fisher stereo

Man it needs a cleaning.

But I just go this fantastic MCM wall lamp!

It mounts on your wall, and both swings left and right and tilts!  I even got the mounting hardware to attach it to the wall.

I think it might be a Thurston design, or at least influenced by him.  And the mounting hardware (the piece I have in my hand) says "Lightolier" and the plug even has the cool scroll-y Lightolier logo...so it's the REAL THING!!

 I can't wait to get this puppy all nice and cleaned up.

Also go this very cool vintage Fisher 250 TX receiver.  It still works great and all it needed was a little cleaning up (OK, it was filthy, but I have to show this piece some of the respect it deserves).

All those buttons and dials on the right?  Well, this may have been one of the first attempts (if not THE first attempt) to add pre-sets to a stereo receiver.  Each of those buttons has their own little tuning dial.  Just tune in the station you want to assign to that button and when you press the white part of the button, the stereo goes to that station!  The main dial remains wherever it was before.  Pretty cool, eh?

It's up for auction now and already have a lot of activity on it within its first few hours of being posted!
(UPDATE:  It's GONE!!! That was mighty fast!)

Hidden deep in a little shed off the garage, this was hanging.

Is this awesome, or what?

This Santa head is HUGE.  In the pic, it's hanging in front of the fridge, so you can get a pretty good idea of its size!

Nice condition, too.  I thinks it's vinylite.  Rather dirty, but I should be able to carefully clean it up.

I tried to find some markings on it to see who made it, but no luck.

But it does have its original price sticker on the back.  This huge Santa originally cost about 4 bucks!












I have a few more neat-o finds to share...and I'll be updating this post when I can!

9/7/11 Auction Finds: Few Items...but really NICE!

First of all, I need to let you all know that it's around 12:15 AM, and I've been up for quite some time.  But I REALLY want to at least get started letting you all know about the cool things I came across.  Hopefully, some will soon be available...as soon as I'm done cleaning them up, testing them, fixing them, and doing whatever else I need to get them ready for sale.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail right now.  There's plenty for me to share with you, but for starters...




...these lamps are AWESOME!  Big, white, frosted glass lamps.  Wide bases swooping upwards into narrow pillars.  These table lamps not only have the standard light at the top, the bodies also light up, too!  I can't wait to see the wonderful glow of the light radiating from the frosted white glass.  But, boy oh boy, are they dirty.

I have lots more to talk about, but for now, this must do...and I REALLY need to get some sleep.

Auction Finds: Delicate, Sensuous, Beautiful - The works of Eva Zeisel

I have never heard of the name "Eva Zeisel".  It was only last Saturday that I learned about who this remarkable woman was.

Oddly enough, I've seen her work dozens of time.  At estate sales, garage sales, auctions, even the occasional Goodwill.  Little did I know how wonderful, how delicate, how beautiful her works really were, until I acquired some of her pieces shown here.

To try to cover her career and timeline here would be futile, though filled with plenty of impressive name-dropping:  Hall China, Rosenthal, Federal Glass, Red Wing, Heisey.  All of these names ring of strong reputation, gorgeous design, and wonderful mid-century form.  Just having "Heisey" on your resume is (at least to me) impressive enough.


The pieces you see here are from some design work she did for Hall China's Hallcraft line in the "Harlequin" pattern.  From what I gather, she was responsible for the "shape" of the pieces; perhaps Hall did the decorative additions.  But that stunning pink and black star-like pattern just screams mid-century.



If you have any interest at all in retro or mid-century ceramics or dinnerware, or even a faint interest in the design work of that period, you owe it to yourself to spend a few moments to read up on this wonderful, talented woman.






Oh, and if you think her work is solely relegated to the past, fear not.  Not only is she still with us today, her work is still being offered at such sites as Crate and Barrel, Design Within Reach, as well as her own site.  Please...take a look.






In my opinion, her designs are as beautiful and timeless as the Nelson Ball Clock or the Eames Lounge Chair...high praise indeed.

For Sale: GORGEOUS Danish Modern Wood/Ceramic Table Lamps - SOLD

Well, I am finally able to start letting all of you know about the great things I recently got!

For starters, how about these fantastic lamps!

Wood base, ceramic body, wood top, creamy white glaze...gorgeous.  Tall, thin, impressive.

Auction starts Monday, September 5th.

UPDATED 2! Auction Finds: odd little table

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this table was "What would the set of 'Star Trek' look like in Danish Modern?"

Personally, I LOVE this table.  Very architectural.  The legs remind me of what I'd imagine the metal frame of an airplane would look like:  thin, arched for stength, perforated for lighter weight.

I was lucky when I got it home (oh, yeah...I got the table after a rather heated bidding war) and found out that it was in really great condition.  It needs a bit of touch-up, but nothing major at all.



I have no idea where the table came from.  I also can't tell if the table was hand-made or a factory item.  I'm like going 60/40 that it's a handmade table. 

The entire piece is made out of 3 pieces of plywood.

The holes were not straight-through cuts, but rather graduated to add a bit of depth as well as to to show off the different levels of plywood used.  The edges were treated and stained the same way.

Pretty neat little added bit of design, especially if it is indeed a handmade piece.





What do YOU think?  Think this might be a great plant stand for Captain Kirk?

OK, this table is UP FOR AUCTION!!  Auction starts Monday night, September 5th!

Auction finds: old MASTERCARD metal store sign

Is this freaking cool or what!?!?

For the few of you out there who have never heard of BankAmericard, I can safely say "yes...you have".

You probably know BankAmericard more by their current name:  VISA.

Yes, good old Visa used to be BankAmericard way back in (hold on to your hats!) 1958!!!  That's when Bank of America decided to pull out all the stops and try to get the US population hooked...er...interested in a real, honest-to-goodness credit card!


BoA created two enduring American traditions when it did a mass credit card mailing in the late 50's (and by "mailings" I mean mailing an actual uncolicited credit card to homes across America, not just an application for one!).  Those two traditions were:

• the US population started buying on credit using a single source for financing, rather than using multiple credit cards for individual stores
• credit card fraud.

Yep, we can thank BoA for ushering in the dawn of unauthorized charges to your card (I don't blame them personally, it was bound to happen no matter who wound up issuing these cards first).

But it wasn't until 1976 that BankAmericard officially became Visa.

Oh, and MasterCard?  They used to be known as...

Auction finds: Panasonic bicycles: Betcha didn't know...

...Panasonic made 10 speed bikes!

Panasonic actually had a serious reputation for decent bikes long before these cycles hit our shores, with the company making it first bike frames in the early 50's.

But it wasn't until 1971 that Panasonic bicycles were available here in the states.  They weren't exactly high-end, but they had good construction, very reliable components, and in general were seen as "high quality for the money" bikes.  Hmmm...sounds like a lot of other Japanese companies I know of.

The yen-to-greenback ratio, though, spelled doom for the line, and by the late 80's they were no longer being imported.

If you really need to get more info on these bikes, you really should take a few moments to visit the Panasonic Bicycle Virtual Museum, from which I was able to get some of this info.

UPDATE 2! Dig this auction find! Encircled nudes

I know I should know the difference between deco and nouveau but I don't.  But check out this beautiful circling nudes piece.

UPDATE:

Well, I did a bit of research on this piece, and it's indeed a Haeger piece.  I managed to find several of them on the web.  But...this one seems to be rather unique.  I've found pink ones, red ones, aqua ones, even black ones.  But this black one is different.

The black ones I've found have been done in a regular, plain black.  This one, though, has some kind of applied iridescent finish, with bits of gold-colored flecks throughout the glaze.  It's quite stunning, and makes the plain black glazed ones look...well...plain.



UPDATE 2:

The statue has been cleaned up and looks gorgeous!!!  I was able to get a look at the glaze...WOW.  No plain black glaze on this piece...just beautiful swirls and ebbs of blacks and coppery golds.  Outstanding.

It will be available for auction the night of August 24th!!

Auction Finds: Not much vintage stuff, but perhaps cool nonetheless

We hit an auction early this morning. The day started out a bit nippy and rainy, so I was thinking I'd be soaked before the auction even started. Thankfully, it cleared up a bit.

Unfortunately, the retro/vintage/mid-century modern/Danish modern pickings were rather lean. But, being the generalist that I am, I still managed to pluck up a few choice findings. Some I'll probably keep, others I'll probably offer for sale.  So even if the pickings were light, I'm still willing to share them with you (yeah, I'm a nice guy...).

Auction find: mmmmm mmmmm good

Latest find: heywood wakefield danish modern end tables

Just picked these up.

Whatcha think?

When bad things happen to good Danish Modern

So...what do YOU think?
I just came across this chair at an auction. Do you think this is the original upholstery?  Or even seat cushions?  Maybe it is original but it looks kind of weird to me.
But for some reason...I'm thinking about maybe taking it home with me.

UPDATE: I had to take a pass on the chair.  Someone else started looking at it and turned it over and I got to see what the bottom underneath the seat cushion looked like.  I think "EEWW!!!" should describe its condition.  Later, I found out that the woman who owned this chair used it all the time...

outside...

next to the pool.

Hence, its weathered, dirty, beat-up appearance.  Shame, though.  The chair could have really been something.  I would have loved to have seen it when it was new.

Just got these great retro nesting tables

Picked these up at an auction. Can't wait to get them cleaned to see how nice they (hopefully) are!!!

My lucky find! An 1845 Liberty half-cent piece!

A few days ago, I got this old cast metal bank. It's the kind that's a cast head of usually someone important. In this case, it was Thomas Edison.

I was planning on trying to sell it, but it turns out that there are dozens available on eBay, and the bank I had might fetch a whopping $6. So...not a great find.

When I went to get the bank, I noticed that there was something inside it (I didn't notice it when I first got the bank, since it was in a box with a lot of other stuff). So, I broke out my trusty cast head bank key (more commonly known as a screwdriver), pried the bottom open, and emptied the bank out.