Trader Vics' legacy.

Here sits the polished skull of my vanquished enemy says one Chief Executive Officer. Where the disagreeable end up. What's that you were saying? As he reaches across the desk for a sharpened #2 pencil from the bone white skull. Now, are we being part of the solution or part of the problem?

These Tiki Mugs held wildly intoxicating rum drinks like Navy Grog and Scorpions. Many heralded from that old rum house, Trader Vic's. Be there but one good reason Not to vote for Trump, it would be that evil Ivana Trump. She dispensed with the Trader Vic's at the Plaza Hotel in NYC. It resided for years on 59th Street while she and The Donald were busy plundering trophy properties all over New York City.

Just keep Ol' Dry Bones out to set the proper tone. Ponder ye, the fate of the last quarrelsome soul to trod the well-worn Persian rug leading to this Captains well oiled desk!

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Tales of the Sea by Crutch

This is the first in a series of recollections and stories by a gentleman named Crutch. He was kind enough to sell us an illustrated man.

It looks like it might have been used in the window of a tattoo shop in the 1920's. It's a circus carving though.

"I am an older fellow. I bought it from a Circus fellow who had it from another circus fellow who had passed away. It's a powerful figure...I use to collect real tribal oceanic items and the real ones just had that same sort of aura about them."

He told us old stories about diving and living in the South Pacific and Malaysia for years. Knew all about the hand poke tattoo method from the old days.Told us about "drown-proofing" tattoos of a pig and rooster as they are the only animals that can't swim. On sailors feet they bring reverse good luck like the theater greeting of  "Break a leg."

"....there was an old merchant marine engineer i knew as a kid around the docks here he was too old then to sail deepsea ,but he was handy and the dock owner kept him around, he always still wore khaki shirt and trousers like his seagoing officer days but saturated with so much oil on them you could hardly tell the color..his wife an elderly immaculatey clean lady would in the evenings walk down to dock with her spotless little miniature white poodle ..she was opposite ends of the poles in that respect...i use to always wonder about that match....well he was known alot to talk too HIMSELF    ...the dock owner one day caught him doing this as he was working on some piece of equip. and he said "Hey, why do you talk to yourself"  ,  he looked up and replied " Mr. T, sometimes I just have to have an intelligent conversation " then he went back to his conversation and what he was working on...    on those cellphones...i grew up in the days ,when we had, where i lived,= no tv ,no ac, and my house no hot water inside ...my grandmother would heat water in winter on her woodburning stove and put water in a big zinc washtub to bathe in...1st real running hotwater i got was the usn ...i though that pretty darn good...here see how she goes= i am rambling off on another tangent ...i stop for now....."

Here's some of Crutch's other wonderful items we admired.

"i like old sailor carved coconuts and scrimmed seashells ,the 1 small nuts were part of the sailing ship Peruvians cargo that went aground 1880s in a storm off England beach...the nuts were to make buttons from, well to try and lighten ship to refloat they tossed this cargo overside and a local artist gathered and did ship silhoettes of the event...the coco is dated 1878 i think it is cant remember ether 1876 or 8."

Treasure Hunt

Are antique shows dead? Not if Frank Gaglio has anything to say about them. A respected dealer and promoter for over 30 years he created BarnStar Productions. He has his work cut out for him.

If you haven't been out to an antique show lately, you might be in for a shock. Long lines are long gone. Times where 200 people would wait for the gates to open like the Great Oklahoma Land Rush are a thing of the past.  The NY Triple Pier Antique Expo is down to one sad pier filled with clothes that look like somebody emptied a Salvation Army. At the last Wilton show in the high school auditorium there were 5 people in line, three thought there was a basketball game.

But wait, in all fairness the booths inside had lots of great merchandise, fairly priced. Like this excellent United Cigar sign from Michael Friedman and Donna Vita. 

Times have changed.  Collector tastes have changed. The pewter, quilt, clock and glassware market is over.

"Let's go to Jason’s and hang out, he just got an antique colonial blunderbuss to die for." Said nobody, ever. 

What do collectors want these days? The interest is certainly there. The most popular shows on TV are American Pickers and Pawn Stars. 

It might help to remember the 40 year rule. You want stuff you grew up seeing, had at one time, or was just out of reach 40 years ago.  Popular culture helps. Early Sony TPSL-2 Walkmans took off as the main character used one in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. They shot up from roughly $6 to $400 overnight.

Crazy looking, great folk art and colorful fun signs. Think a Tilt-a-Whirl carnival sign as opposed to a Prudential Insurance plaque.

Road Runners, GTO's and muscle cars just keep rising in value. Until the day they don't.  We have all seen the estimates on items from Antiques Roadshow in 1999 compared to 2015. Everything cratered by 50% in valuation.

So here is what Mr. Gaglio has in mind at Rhinebeck . No early buying, just get a ticket and get in. He has completely filled the three huge agricultural buildings with dealers. He is advertising the event in newspapers and buying billboard space. 

New energy. And It sounds really promising.   The treasure hunt is back!

Rhinebeck Antique Show at the Duchess County Fairgrounds, May 23 and 24th.

http://www.barnstar.com/    

No Tattoo Flash at WAS

Are you a man (or woman) of wealth and taste? If so, the Winter Antiques Show at the 67th Armory is a nice place to go. 

Highbrow. Not rat rod, hot rod, industrial artifacts, lowbrow, carnival or 60's underground items here.  Asking about tattoo art would surely get you whisked away by security and sidewalked. This is the big time and the big dollar. 

Weathervanes are probably the closest things to just stuff. We like weathervanes. Picasso said about rooster weathervanes, "...cocks have always been seen but never as well as in American weather vanes."  

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and her friends started this collecting trend back in the 1940's or sometime. They were probably bored with Chippendale furniture and pewter and wanted something fun to collect. Looked on upon as barnyard junk back then, a horse and rider weathervane sold for over a million a few years ago. Then the market crashed. At many shows we would see the same figures with the same worse-for-wear price tags year after year. 

All the dealers say the market's coming back, but what are they going to say? When asked what to look for in these items, Patrick Bell at Olde Hope Antiques, said the surface of the figure is key. Hopefully it has turned a vertigreed green like the Statue of Liberty. Is it beautiful and weathered from 100 years of the elements? Jeffrey Tillou of Litchfield, CT said no way, the form comes first. The rarity and beauty of the general shape is what is important. Both these guys had great vanes, pleasant to talk with and knowledgeable.

They all believe the market is good for first time or the impulse buyer. They say there will always be die hards filling in gaps in a collection with something like a squirrel vane. This is a very rare shape. Farmers hated the varmints who would wreck havoc on crops. Very few would gold plate and celebrate them by putting them up to swing with breeze above the barn.  

Mr. Bell has one at $180,000. It looks right. He's been dealing for 35 years so it probably is correct. This form has always been suspect though. Somebody found the original carved hardwood form and pounded out a few sheets of copper around it, doused 'em with chemicals and let them cure for a few years in the rain and snow. People try everything from urine to buttermilk. But if you sit and look at any antique for awhile you can kind of tell. Something is not right. Even though you want it to be right. According to the WAS press release "Every object exhibited at the Show is vetted for quality and authenticity." Fakes are tossed out before the public's invited in. Which is good as even Sotheby's can get burned. They sold a squirrel a few years ago that turned out to be a clever fake.

Some pigs in David Schorsch's booth. 

Here's Mr. Tillou holding a Punch cigar store figure. It's really cool.  Back in the day it was hooked up to a steam making apparatus so it would blow a bunch of smoke-steam out of the cigar. It's worth over $100k now. 

This is a great show and should be seen. Even if you don't have tens of thousands to spend.  Here you can go to school to see what's the best of it's kind. Learn what to look for in case something pops up at the local flea market. Grab it, then try and figure out if it's fake or not. 

As in the case of Ms. Rockefeller and her folk art discovery of weathervanes back in the day, it's even more fun is trying to figure out what's next and new in the collecting field.   

And you will be left with the bus fare home.

The Winter Antiques Show runs through Feb. 1 at the Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street; www.winterantiquesshow.com

True or False

This is from the book  "Pierced hearts and True Love.  A Century of Drawing for Tattoos" The Drawing Center, 1995. They label it as "Unidentified tattooer, c. 1950" A most excellent book.

There are lots of 3d tattooed arms supposed to be old and supposed to have been employed in tattoo shops.

Here's a pair that sold on eBay. 

We have seen these pop up at local swap meets for about $200. That's okey as maybe a decoration for those stupid "man caves." Rooms which, like a New Year's Eve party, reek of false promise.  

Here's an arm sign currently on eBay. The lady looks sceptical but the listing swears it is genuine. http://ebay.to/15Phu9x

Can't tell from the photos but as one collector said " After looking  again, something about the paint doesn't look right.  It has that distressed painting technique look. That's a red flag." 

You be the judge. For us there is nothing more dispiriting than, down the road, realizing your item is a phony.  

Fake, We Cry!

A reader sent us this e-Bay listing, http://ebay.to/1tf0Kwt, asking our opinion. Just like on the popular tv shows!

It looks like an itinerant tattoo artist case. These are rare and quite beautiful. Let's look at this one.

The box is indeed quite old. The dry white paint is great, the wood, clasp and hinges are turn of century or older. Unfortunately we don't believe it was ever employed by a tattoo artist. 

The interior shot gives it away.  Where are the partitions to separate drawings from the tattoo machines? There would be partitions to separate the tattoo flash, notebooks and stencils from the business end of tattooing. The inside of the box is just way too clean. Where are all the spilled ink blobs, splatters, drips and circle spots where the bottles would sit, the smudges from black chalk or graphite? We don't see any of the scrapes or nicks from the assorted crap flying around as stuff would when riding the rails, jumping from tramp steamers to port or just traveling from town to town on the carnival circuit.  Working the small town county fairs would rattle the insides of a tattoo artists box. 

Now, let's look at the lettering.  The word "Electric" in script looks like it's borrowed from a 1950's Eletrolux vacuum cleaner. An era at least 50 years newer than the actual box. The eagle is horribly drawn with a fat mutant bird head. It has no relation at all to the way a tattooist would render this traditional symbol.  The wear and distress marks on the lettering are clearly bogus. For example why is it worn somewhat in the center of the lettering and not over the eagle? Why are the wing tips not showing any wear from handling?

Where there is money, fakes will follow and the folk art field is boiling over with reproductions.  Tattoo art is now in the forgers cross hairs especially with high dollar ($28k) auction records like Coleman's Battleship Kate at Skinner's. Which was clearly the real McCoy. 

Looking at other listings from this dealer it turns out he's the same guy who scissored up a full sheet of Oklahoma Bob's tattoo flash into 10 small sheets framed up in a heartless money grab. More items equal more profit goes the thinking here. 

In the spirit of equal time and fairness we tried reaching the "olegolfguy" (eBay moniker) for his view.  His eBay listings are blocked and do not allow any questions.  We'd probably want to lay low also.

Ink and Skinner

Record setting price was set at auction for tattooed figure. Hammer price for this two and 1/2 foot tall composition figure was $23,000. Add the 25% buy in commission, tax and other official sounding crap and you're up around $30,000! 

One famous Folk art dealer went as high as $2,500. "Well I guess I did not get it." he said, adding that  "... very little sculpture exists in that area from the 19th century."

Battleship Kate probably stood well protected, set back on a countertop. Not a sunburned window display as the condition is pretty good.We still don't know if she is chalk or paper mache statue, the catalog description of the item was awful.

The bids came quick and furious.  24k was retracted at the last second as 23k drove it home. 

This record sale makes it clear it's smart to get the best pieces available. We were stunned at prices the Wm Grant & Sons distillery layed out on their Sailor Jerry buying spree a few years ago. Stunned to see a $18,000.00 price tag on a Darpel at the Outsider Art Fair. Great piece, but 18k? Kind of leaves a few of us out. Like the entire tattoo collecting community. 

Tatooists, collectors and historians are not concerned. Most of us buy when we can and sell when we have to. 

But in the end what does this tell us? Perhaps the deep pocket collectors, the Wm. Edmondson and Bill Traylor folk art crowd have finally arrived at the tattoo parlor. Making room on the folk art high pedestal for tattoo flash.

It will be interesting to watch the next auctions. Also to see what pieces come out when word circulates about the high dollar numbers.   We will probably start to see more doctored items. Caveat Emptor. Where there is money, bogus items will follow. 

My Idea of Fun: 2014 March Pier Show

Great show with lots of interesting stuff in a walk about giant time capsule. The promoters, U.S. Antiques Shows, have hosted an excellent revival of mostly the 1960's era artifacts. Great escape from the stressed and crumbling world outside.

The Good: One stand was completely filled with lighters of all shapes like military tanks, cameras, baseballs, girls in pools, really cool items that crossed over with collectors from die hard Zippo fanatics to kids to the impulse buyer catagory's like baseball collectors and others like an elephant collector. Or owls. "Look, there's a lot of zany collectors out there."  said the proprietor Ira Pilossof. "I love them all."

A lot of "millenials" like ashtrays and lighters, not because they smoke, they don't much anymore, they just inhale those hookah-pipe mist tubes called e-cigs. But they like the total retro "Mad Men" look. A well placed lighter or ashtray will retro-cool a flat faster than Dwell magazine or a James Bond martini shaker.

Ira also sells at the Garage flea market on 26th street every week. But this is his big uptown outing. Booth was packed. In fact the entire show was elbow to elbow.

The Bad: Yep, stuffed bull frogs playing musical instruments.  They actually are kind of interesting in a morbid way but even Mexico said enough and banned this evil taxidermy in the 1950's.

Here was a whole jazz band of the guys nailed down to a board.  "I feel for them."  said the nice lady running the booth.  "I didn't do it." 

The Ugly: The Port of NY charging thirty five dollars to park at a pier on a Saturday.

Winning the Fat Lady

Here's Dotty, the tattoo artist. We have always been fascinated with the smiling big woman in the old photos.  One of her designs depicted a woman with butterfly wings floating as if in liberation.  She also had her day with the classic "Put her ol' foot through me heart, matey"  tattoo image.  Could this have been in sympathy for Major Mite? In 1942, Dainty Dotty, who would be Owen Jensen's future wife, worked with Major Mite (world's smallest man) at the Ringling Brothers Circus. Although they were on the circuit together, "America's Greatest Individual Attraction" apparently never won over the big lady. Major Mite was still with Ringling throughout the 1940's until dejected, he slumped back to Portland Oregon to be near his family.

More of this story has to yet be uncovered. Its hard to say if Dainty Dotty knew Owen Jensen in 1942. He was in traveling back and forth between Norfolk, VA and Michigan, were she she met him. By 1944, she was working at the Palace of Wonders in Detroit as a "fat gal." She probably grew tired of folks pointing at her and laughing. Rightly so. This would seem to be a tough road to go down. She might have watched the dapper tattooist and thought this looked a little more genteel than her current employment. In 1945, Dot and Owen married, loaded up the black, five window Ford coupe and joined the great migration for the sunshine state, California. 

Major Mite letterhead with tattoo eagle drawing on back.  

Keep tuned for more on Dotty. Thanks to Carmen Nyssen for her research.

Bowery Folk Art Sign

The Bowery (where this piece is from), is definitely a place where people could use some good old fashioned salvation from Jesus. Just take a look at our new favorite book, “Flophouse, Life on the Bowery”, a collection of short stories about the people living in skid row, written by David Isay and Stacey Abramson. You probably don’t know what a flophouse is, because they barely exist anymore. It’s a hotel, but not your typical Four Seasons or Marriot. These places will charge $5-10 a night and have mostly long-term stays. This metal piece stayed lit in the hallway of a flophouse, to provide some sort of salvation for the customers.

These two documentarians went to the flophouses and interviewed some of the fine connoisseurs of these establishments. Take a look at what these gentlemen had to say:

“I started sniffing glue when I was ten. There were these kids from Brooklyn that I was hanging out with, and they got me into it. I’m pretty sure it gave me brain damage”

“Now I have a little bit of a weight problem. It would never seem like I’m 425 pounds, but I am. Sometimes I knock off a 26-ounce can of Chef Boyardee ravioli. That’s for five people in the family!”

The stories go on and on. Sadly, these flophouses are closing, and will soon be a part of history, along with this cross.  

The Irritable Shoeshine Man

The most interesting part of a shoe-shine box isn’t the actual box, but the wild story that is behind it. Shoe shiners where a diverse group, but they always had one thing in common; a crazy attitude that was needed to be a shiner.

Take for example this 1920’s piece. At a first glance, it might just seem like a very simple box. A closer look however shows the story of a man who shouldn’t be in customer service. Above the shoe rest is written “look at your shoe”, meaning the customer has to stare at the floor the whole time and not make any eye contact. Below that on the hatch he has written “mind your own damn business”, as if the customer is going to be nosy while staring at the floor.

Even the actual red lettering seems angry. He originally had the price written at 5 cents, but wrote 10 cents on top without covering up the original price. It’s like the discount stores that show the manufacturer’s price and then their cheaper price, but the exact opposite. He wants double his money, and doesn’t care who knows.

Who knows if this actually worked, maybe the customers thought the attitude was funny, or appreciated his no-b.s. approach. Or his shines where just so good that he could take the “Soup Nazi” tactic. Either way it’s clear you needed to stick out to make it in the business.

A Shoeshine Box with a Story

This bright red painted shoebox was featured in the now sadly defunct, Ike Turner (of Ike and Tina Turner fame) Museum of Afro-American History. Another interesting aspect of this piece is the smiley face. At a quick glance it just seems like another attention-grabber, but upon a closer look you can see that it is made out of Louisiana welfare coins. Considering how welfare is associated with being poor and unhappy, this smiley face was making something positive out of the negative. It could have also been a way to draw customers in by showing how badly the shiner needed money.

There is also a strange discrepancy in the piece. While the front side has a 15 cent price displayed, the back says 10. Could it be the shine guy used this to his advantage by turning the box around when he saw well heeled customers who could swing the extra nickel? Early advertising at it's best

 

I need a dolla!!!

                                             

Both the boxes are far from what one considers a traditional work of art. I mean, someone who can’t write the four-letter word shine in a straight line didn’t make these boxes for aesthetic purposes. These follow the tradition of folk art as everyday beauty from utility and need. These emerged in the 30′s and 40′s during the depression; when everything collapsed in a fell swoop and the world became much more dark. It’s an interesting parallel to the financial crisis of today; because instead of wining about their home foreclosing and how banks are to blame people back then actually got off their ass and did something. No job? Fine, we will go shine shoes; anything to get a buck. Although crudely painted, these boxes represent the optimism and struggle of an era. One says “no credit”, as if someone would actually get their shoe cleaned and be dirtbag enough to say, “hey I’ll pay you back tomorrow when I see you on the street (thanks though)!!”. One is in plain white writing, on pure black wood, and says “shin” (shine was too hard to fit apparently), and looks like the work of a kindergardener. It still has the amazing construction to hold together after all these years from one cheap piece of wood, and looks so out of place in today’s world.  They still can be admired today at Lift Trucks, and hey maybe those whining unemployed college kids will come in and get an inspiration.