But usually there’s plenty of it: costume jewelry, sterling silver jewelry, vintage men’s pocket watches, pearl necklaces and earrings, and loads of rings.  

I did bid on a mother lode of jewelry a couple months ago while visiting an auction house in South Jersey for the first time. I gave up $20 for the contents of a vintage orange Tuppeware pitcher filled with earrings and brooches. The pitcher contained about 100 items, and I gave them away as parting gifts at the We Are Black Women Tech Camp last October. As you can imagine, they were a hit.  

 
At auction recently, a single piece of jewelry forced me to stop and take notice. It was a lovely gold pin of a lady. What really struck me was the beautiful large red-ruby-like stone she was showing off, offering it up like a model trying to make a sale.  

She was wearing what looked like a tutu encased in small clear rhinestones, which were also on her shoes and in her hair. Unfortunately, a few of the stones were missing. Didn’t matter, though, because the pin was stunning.  

In another auction case, I came across two Victorian-style pins that were just as nice. One looked like brass hat pins stuck in a twisted curlicue base. The other was a stone and gold bracelet.  

Later, I realized that the gold lady reminded me of the famous dancer, singer and actress Josephine Baker and her banana skirt. Baker was the toast of Paris in the 1920s when she strutted across stages in flimsy outfits, performing sensual dance routines and offering comic overtures. She was most famous for what became known as her banana costume, which consisted of a string of bananas hung on a skirt. Scandalous, but Parisians apparently loved her. She thought nothing of going topless on stage, either.  

Josephine Baker in her flimsy banana skirt (at left) and elegantly dressed (at right).

She was exotic, daring and without inhibitions. Even she admitted that her performances were extreme: “Since I personified the savage on the stage, I tried to be as civilized as possible in daily life,” she said.  

Here’s what she had to say about performing:  

“… I improvised, crazed by the music. … Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.”  

Baker had gone to Paris for a new show, but like many blacks during that time, she stayed there to escape the racism in this country. She was heralded there, loved there, proposed to there and appreciated there. When she came back to the States to appear in the Ziegfeld’s Follies in 1936, she was treated badly by white audiences. Later, she became very involved with the civil rights movement in this country.  

The lady on the brooch exuded an air of defiance and elegance much like the real Baker. My auction buddy Janet was interested in the brooch but only at the lowest price.  

When it came up for sale, the auctioneer described it as a “retro female pin with a red stone.” He noted that some small stones were missing.  

 
The brooch didn’t produce heated bids, and only two bidders went after it. The lady sold for $18. The two Victorian pins sold as a lot for $11.  

Lovely buy, La Baker.

Related posts:

1. A baker who loves and repairs old phonographs

But that’s not what had attracted this group of women anchored at the booth. They were fingering items lying there on the counter in front of them. As I inched closer, I saw more blue and white shards, misshapen and smaller in size, encased in vintage metal enclosures.

A creative and artistic “someone” had taken artifacts from the earth and made them into pendants. And the pieces were just beautiful. This was not an auction find, but the historical element inherent in each piece is what I find fascinating about auctions.

I’m sure many of the lookers at the booth were Christmas shopping for a unique item. Some – not seeing exactly what they wanted – asked the female vendor if she had others to show. One woman noted that she had bought a piece of jewelry last year and had searched this year for the booth. She and her friend took their time, looking over pendants on the counter and on a board where several hung, finding it difficult to choose between a lilac & cream or a blue & white.

Lying in a group there on the counter were also pendants made from the shards of vintage soda bottles like the ones I come across at auction. These bottles are usually snapped up eagerly by bidders – their thick glass cloudy, their dings and dents a mark of age. The best of them are found bottles, unearthed in somebody’s field, the contents long drank. Each with a story to tell.

Here, the vendor had attached a tag designating exactly where the shards and relics were recovered:

Soup Bowl. 1820s. Canal Street. Bowery. Manhattan.

Dinner Plate. 1820s. Bowery. Manhattan.

Soup Bowl. 1845. Brooklyn.

Dinner Plate. 1890s. Brooklyn.

The woman behind the counter told customers that they dug up these  items from the ground, and were headed out soon to two other sites. It was good to hear that they got their hands dirty searching for their products and didn’t rely on some middleman to supply them. This made the pieces even more special because their history was appreciated.

The company’s business card gave its name as “New York Artifact Art,” which specialized in the “recovery of antique bottles and pottery restoration.” The owner’s name was listed as Scott Jordan. I didn’t get a chance to meet Jordan (He was a man with a gray beard wearing a top hat. as I recall. He appeared intermittently for a few short moments at the booth but seemed busy on other tasks).

According to his website, Jordan has been digging up New York relics since 1969, his first site being Governors Island where he came across pieces from Fort Jay dating from the War of 1812 to the Civil War.

His first artwork were collages made from dolls heads, watches, coins, bottles and pottery shards. He has recovered pieces from privies, cisterns, construction sites, landfills and home renovations from New York’s five boroughs, going as far down as 10 feet into the earth.

The jewelry – or wearable art, as he calls it on his website – is not all that this native New Yorker does. He also paints scenes on discarded bottles, a few of which were for sale at the booth. He recreates the drawings from period artwork in his collection or others he has come across, according to his website. He also has a collection of bottles.

Jordan became a full-time street artist in 1987, according to the website, and sells out of the Green Flea Market on Columbus Avenue and 76^th Street in New York.

At the Christmas market, the pendants were selling for $35 up to $120. Buyers got the choice of a necklace made of antique metal, leather or sterling silver. The woman who had purchased a pendant the year bought another one. Her friend noted that they could also be used as a key chain or a chain pull on a purse.

I hadn’t thought of that. It’s amazing how one artistic endeavor can spark another. That’s the power of the imagination, and you don’t have to be a kid to have it. Just as Scott Jordan.

Related posts:

1. The jewelry of Art Smith
2. David Webb jewelry at auction
3. Jewelry made from human hair

I assumed she was Native American by the look of her clothes with the little red trimmed-in-white designs that gave the impression of tiny beads. The needlepoint seemed different – for me at least, since I do not know needlepoint – because it looked like it was raised above the background, not flat against it. As I looked closer, I realized that I was mistaken.

The colorations on her face were variations of light and dark brown, seeming to reflect light against her skin. She looked so real. I went back to the needlepoint several times to examine it closely. And each time, I was convinced more and more that I’d love to have it hanging on my wall at home. I turned to the back and saw that the paper protecting it – which looked to be vintage – had torn. Inside, the framer had used cardboard against the piece, which is a no-no. You should never use cardboard in framing, so I”ll have it reframed.

The piece was not large. It only measured 8 ½” x 9″ in the frame, which was in good shape. The image itself was 3 ½” x 2″.

This needlepoint got me to thinking about whether Native American designs were common. In Googling, I found that several companies produce them, mostly of chiefs, men, women, buffaloes, wolves, dream catchers, along with ones with messages.

One of the things I found that was most intriguing was needlepoint and petit point jewelry made by the Zunis, a Pueblo tribe that lives in western New Mexico. According to one website, the Zunis are considered the premier jewelry makers of all the  tribes. Their needlepoint stones have pointed ends that are set in straight or curved lines, according to the website, and the petit point stones are shaped like tear drops. Another website said petit points were round, and needlepoint were needle-shaped. (The pieces above are petit points from the Zuni Connection website.)

In some cases, the two terms were used interchangeably. Whatever, they are just gorgeous (click here to see pieces by contemporary Zuni jewelry makers). Just like my little girl, which I got for $5. Fortunately, there were no other bidders. (The necklace below is a needlepoint from the Zuni Connection website.)

Related posts:

1. A floral needlepoint purse
2. Needlepoint samplers – a girl’s work
3. Native American root club

This week, they sold ephemera and Coca Coca memorabilia. They also sold cars. Three of them. Two part of a bankruptcy, another that belonged to a relative of the owner of the auction house. They were also selling a 1992 Dodge Dakota with 68,000 miles, but the truck didn’t interest me.

The three cars were parked inside near the door, so you couldn’t miss them as you entered. And the guys didn’t. The car auction started around noon, and I was one of only about two women crowding the vehicles.

They all looked to be in good clean, cosmetic condition. And these were not antiques like most of the rest of the items in the auction house.  

Here’s what sold:

2002 Jeep Liberty (a Sport 4×4, I believe), maroon, 54,586 miles:

The auctioneer noted that the side-view window was stuck and wouldn’t roll down. (“It’ll cost $600 to replace it,” I heard one man say to another.) The auctioneer asked for a first bid to get started. Someone half-jokingly said $500. We all chuckled. A real first bid of $2,000 came from the crowd. The bidding ended at $6,000. The car was part of a bankruptcy so the highest bidder couldn’t just walk away with it that day. There were court approvals and paperwork needed.

2003 Toyota Corolla (looked like a CE), silver, 43,000 miles:

The auctioneer said that he was selling it for a relative who had moved to Israel. “It was her main car. She took care of it. It’s in very good running condition, well maintained,” he said. Starting bid: $1,000. It sold for $4,200. The auctioneer had the title to this car.

2005 Toyota RAV4, maroon, 53,000 miles:

This one was especially nice, with a wide strip of gray on the side. Starting bid: $4,000. It sold for $8,500. This vehicle was also part of a bankruptcy.

Back at home, I wanted to find out what these cars were actually worth, so I went to edmunds.com. That’s where I had always checked in the past to find out the value of my own cars before trading them in. Back then, I’d go to the library and actually hold a copy of the Edmunds Blue Book in my hands.

I also checked autotrader.com for the prices sought by dealers and private owners. I’m sure these comparisons are off a bit, because of add-ons and other features on these cars. 

Jeep Liberty Sport: Edmunds’ True Market Value (TMV) was $6,400. Autotrader showed the car selling on the open market for $10,000 to $12,000 with 45,000 to 60,000 miles. Remember the auction price? $6,000.

Toyota Corolla CE: Edmunds’ TMV was $6,600 to $6,900. Autotrader was $10,000 to $11,000 with 30,000 to 46,000 miles. Most of the Toyota Corollas had very high mileage, indicating that owners tend to keep them longer. I know that’s true because my auction buddy kept her Toyota Camry way past 100,000 miles. I had to check 100 miles away from my zip code to find ones with lower mileage. The auction price was $4,200.

Toyota RAV4: Edmunds’ TMV was $13,000. Autotrader was $16,000 with 53,000 miles. One with 49,000 miles was selling for nearly $20,000. The auction price was $8,500.

Did the buyers get a bargain at auction? What do you think?

No related posts.

We sat in dumb amazement at one point when the bidding skyrocketed on a 3-carat diamond ring set in a 14-karat yellow gold Florentine band. Bidding started at $3,000. Then it gradually increased as the auctioneer waited patiently for bids via the phone. $4,750. $5,500. $5,750. $6,500. $7,000. $7,250. $7,500. The bidding ended, and the auctioneer moved on.

 
A little later, the owner of the auction house hurried to the auction floor. The buyer of the diamond ring, an absentee phone bidder, had bid on the wrong piece of jewelry. He thought he was bidding on the David Webb 18-karat fur clip with diamonds, coral and onyx. The bidder was very very angry, said the owner. The winning bid was rescinded.

The David Webb clip - total weight of diamonds= about 1-carat, 54.6 pennyweight, with its original suede pouch - had been sold a few minute before. “David Webb, need I say more,” the auctioneer had announced just before the bidding started at $3,000. The clip went for $4,000. The poor phone bidder could have had it for less than the $7,500 he paid for something he didn’t want.

I had never heard of David Webb, which wasn’t unusual since I learned later that his jewelry sells in the high thousands of dollars. I felt sorry for the phone bidder. The fur clip, which looked like an early piece, was a bargain compared to some of the prices for Webb’s jewelry that I found through Google.

David Webb was one of the foremost American jewelry designers of the 20^th century, and is best known for his enameled animal themes. His elegant jewelry is and has been worn by the rich and famous, including Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, Princess Grace, Jackie Kennedy, the Duchess of Windsor and Doris Duke.

Actor Morgan Freeman wore Webb’s diamond and crystal shirt stubs and cufflinks when he accepted his Oscar for Supporting Actor in “Million Dollar Baby” in 2005.

Webb, who was born in North Carolina, died in 1975 of cancer. The company he founded in the late 1940s with Nina Silberstein filed for bankruptcy this year. David Webb Inc. has stores in New York and Beverly Hills.

Webb’s jewelry is highly collectible. Carol Elkins, senior vice president for jewelry at Sotheby, said in Washington Life Magazine earlier this year:

“Savvy U.S. collectors are looking at mid-20th century jewels ‘on trend’ with current tastes for fashions from the 1950’s through the 1970’s. David Webb’s signature enameled animal bangles and textured gold jewelry have re-emerged as the ‘look’ for a new generation of collectors, for example, a coral and diamond elephant bangle bracelet by Webb brought $95,500.”

Sotheby had a sale last week of what it called “important jewels” that included designs by Webb. Here’s a sampling.

Abalone pearl, cultured pearl, diamond and emerald brooch, $41,250.

Ruby, diamond and green enamel frog bangle-bracelet, $23,750.

Pair of gold and diamond earclips, 6,250.

White enamel, emerald and diamond leopard bangle-bracelet, $32,500.

18 karat gold and coral pendant-necklace, $31,250.

Cabochon ruby and diamond ring, $33,750.

18 karat gold platinum and diamond ring, $4,375.

What I found most interesting about the Sotheby auction and the one at my auction house is that the bad economy is not hurting everyone. As I whispered to my auction buddy, “Somebody has money.” Those who do still invest in their collectibles, perhaps knowing that paying a recession price now may bring a big profit in the end. Or maybe the Webb jewelry was purchased to be worn: Some of the pieces are magnificent.

As for my auction buddy and I getting lucky, we didn’t. She had her eye on a set of four 19^th century miniature bronze figures, no more than ½” to 1” tall. They were a Black Americana black boy, a Black Americana dancing couple, a hen on a nest and a devil on a pig. They went for $160. At our regular sales, she probably could have gotten them for $20.

For me, I wanted the 18k Wedgwood abolitionist pin, which sold for $325.

Related posts:

1. The glow of aurora borealis jewelry
2. The jewelry of Art Smith
3. A costume-jewelry necklace hidden away

Within a week, a confluence of events stamped the name Art Smith in my brain.  

Googling him, I learned that the Brooklyn Museum was holding an exhibit of his work called “From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith.” Next, I was at an auction later that same week when the auctioneer announced that Smith’s jewelry would be available at their special sale next month. I was flabbergasted.

Three times in one week? No way. I think I then understood what serendipity meant.

Smith was a leading modernist jewelry designer during the mid-20^th century, opening his first shop in Greenwich Village in 1946. He is said to be the first African American jewelry designer. His works were a fusion of art and jazz, and his pieces have a kind of rhythm to them. In fact, he made cufflinks for Duke Ellington with notes from the musician’s “Mood Indigo.” Smith died in 1982.

The 21 pieces of gold and silver jewelry at the Brooklyn Museum were a gift from his companion and heir, Charles Russell, according to the museum’s website. The exhibit was in a small gallery on the fourth floor. On the walls were large black and white period photos of models wearing Smith’s jewelry, along with photos of the artist himself. The jewelry – from the 1940s to 1970s – was in glass cases about the room, along with Smith’s original sketches, tools and his shop sign. The exhibit runs until March 14, 2010.

Smith made gold, silver and copper necklaces, earrings, bracelets and rings with stones. His pieces were not for the faint-of-heart. Some were oddly shaped, but elegant in their own way. They were more art than jewelry, more display than wearable. My favorite was one called “Autumn Leaves.”

At the auction a month later, seven items were up for sale, some similar to the pieces worn by models in the photos. Here’s how they were described by the auction house, along with the final auction sale prices:

Silver Modern cuff bracelet. 2 ¼” x 2 ½”. Signed, 1948. $5,000.

Silver “Undulation” ring, 1 abalone & 2 agate stones. Size 7 ½ (15.5 dwt). DWT is an abbreviation for pennyweight, used to calculate the weight of gold and other precious metals. Signed. $1,800.

Silver “Biomorphic” ring, grooved Saturn style ring construction supports carnelian & small chrysophrase stones. Size 6 ½ (8.5 dwt). Signed. $675.

Silver Biomorphic” ring w/ ovoid shaped black onyx. Size 6 ¾ (6.5 dwt). Signed. $625.

Silver “Biomorphic” ring w/ carnelian & orange/green agate stones. Size 7 ¼ (7.5 dwt). Signed. $575.

“Patina” earrings, screwback, overall length 2 ¼”. Unsigned. $550.

Art Smith business card, 140 W. Fourth St., NY, NY. $50.

After the auction, I watched as one man hopelessly tried to question the buyer of the $5,000 bracelet. It was obvious that the first man was just being nosy. The buyer deflected his questions and the man soon left him alone.

After a few minutes, I struck up a conversation. I told the buyer that I had just learned about Smith, had seen the exhibit at the museum and was intrigued. He opened up to me, I believe, because I was genuinely interested in Smith rather than the amount of money the buyer had just spent.

He was from New York, and remembered passing Smith’s shop as a child. He had been collecting and buying the artist’s jewelry for the last 20 years, he said, adding that he had bought pieces from this same auction house about two years ago. The current pieces, he said, came from one estate. I asked if he’d seen the exhibit in NY. He had.

He urged me to try to get a copy of the catalog of Smith’s show at the Jamaica Arts Center in Queens, NY, from about 15 to 20 years ago. I checked it out, and found that the exhibit was held in 1990, guest-curated by artist Camille Billops. Sounds good to me, since art catalogs are both collectible and practical.

I also found this 2005 episode of Antiques Roadshow about a woman showing up with an Art Smith necklace that her mother had purchased from the artist in the 1960s.  It was appraised (the original appraisal was actually in 2000) at $5,000 to $10,000.

I couldn’t afford any of Smith’s pieces at my auction, but I was just happy to have found him. Thank you, Cheryl, for introducing him to me. And thank you, Art Smith, for helping me to always remember your name.

Related posts:

1. David Webb jewelry at auction
2. The glow of aurora borealis jewelry
3. A costume-jewelry necklace hidden away

I can do that sometimes. But a talented person with an artist’s eye can do it effortlessly.

I was at a fall arts and crafts show a week or so ago and came across what I consider a wonderful use of vintage items. An artist had taken the items – among them a Kodak folding camera, a Crayola tin box and a miniature sewing machine – and fashioned them into art pieces.

Perched on top of each was a metal bird made from found objects. I was impressed. I love old cameras and this one was similar to several Kodak folding cameras I had gotten at auction. Never would I have thought to use them as the perch for birds (or anything else). But here they were, as lovely as they could be.

I have to admit that when I saw that Crayola tin, I thought to myself, “I’d love to have that.” It looked to be in great shape, with clean bright graphics and no dents that I could see.

The artists are a husband and wife team from Pompano Beach, Fla., with a business called Mullanium Jewelry & Other Fun Stuff.  “Our fascination with birds and antique found objects is what inspired us for this collection” of songbirds, according to their website. Their other collections include mirrors, jewelry and wish boxes. They say their works are in galleries, museums and specialty stores around the world.

Related posts:

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