I had never heard of Champ Clark, and you probably haven’t either. Clark was the front-running candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1912, but Woodrow Wilson snatched it away from him. His given name…
Category: Figurines
One person’s love affair with WhimsiClay Cats
Posted in Animals, collectibles, and Figurines
The ceramic cats were the cutest things in their whimsical poses, colorful straight-pin whiskers and human clothes. I see a lot of porcelain and ceramic cats and kitties at auction, and I find most of…
Sale items symbolize Saint Katharine’s calling
Posted in African American women, Auction, Figurines, and Religion
The auction at the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament’s building started at 9 a.m., and I sat through a long tedious online sale and five rooms of an on-site sale. That’s how bad I wanted…
A collection of Lefton porcelain angels
Posted in collectibles, Figurines, and Music
The porcelain angels and other figurines in the box at auction were actually quite cute. There were so many of them that someone was obviously giving up a collection – or the pieces were being…
Years ago, whenever my friend Elaine encountered a small Buddha statue, she’d rub its belly for good luck. It was a round pot-belly, smooth and exposed, likely touched too many times by too many people with…
George Washington Carver on a whisky decanter
Posted in Advertising, Black history, collectibles, Figurines, and history
The figure looked like many of the other ceramic sculptures of African Americans that I’d seen in discount stores. This was an image of George Washington Carver, the man who experimented with peanuts at Tuskegee back in…
The lowly mouse as a cutesy collectible figurine
Posted in Animals, collectibles, and Figurines
I enjoyed the movie “Ratatouille” about the mouse (or maybe it was a rat) named Remy that was a Michelin-star chef, but if I see one of the little rodents in my house, I won’t invite…
Roswell spaceship as mysterious as ever
Posted in collectibles, and Figurines
The small model looked too modern to be a replica of the spaceship that many believed crash-landed in Roswell, NM, in 1947. It had sleek aluminum wings that folded over onto itself at the back…
A seeming lifetime of fox hunting & horse shows
Posted in Animals, collectibles, and Figurines
The tables were an amalgan of fox hunting and horse-show paraphernalia, signs of a life lived among horses and stables and hounds. In one room, trophies told of equestrian shows, riders and winners, along with…
Turning a corner inside the auction house, I walked right smack dab into the presence of a black and white menagerie. In front of me were tables lined with figurines of a dog I recognized…