This unusual wicker chair is likely Heywood-Wakefield 

Shirley asks:

AW says: That's a 1910s -20s Wicker Chair. It could very well be made by the predominant Wicker furniture manufacturer of the time, Heywood-Wakefield of Gardner MA. It certainly has the style and lines of a H-W piece. Originally it would have had a paper label underneath, but most of these labels peeled away over the years. That appears to be the original paint, so points for that. There is a renewed interest in

wicker, it's especially a favorite among people that have a passion for gardening and landscaping.

Date range: 1910s-20s

Retail value: $175-$225

(top price)

Wholesale value:$100-$125

(The midrange price you could expect to achieve at a well advertised live auction. The price that is most often realized)

Quick sale value:$50-$75

The price your likely to get if you have to sell your item immediately and your prospective customer is aware of this.

Common trade terminology: Wicker Chair,

Heywood- Wakefield, Heywood brothers furniture,

Care and storage tips:

Although lightweight, wicker is very strong and if kept from moisture and long periods of direct sunlight it should last many more years. 

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   Gatsby-esque flapper statue

Background: Given as wedding gift by friend who purchased it from an estate sale and says it overlooked the pool at a Gatsby-esque mansion for over 100 years. I had it appraised at a local road show, and the guy thought at first that it was probably a reproduction, since it was 2 pieces molded together instead of one piece, and because it doesn't carry a stamp or artist signature. However, he also said that he's very familiar with this type of statue, and if it WAS a reproduction, he probably would have seen a copy before--but our statue is unique. So his appraisal ranged from $300-$1500...not too helpful to us. Hope you can help more!

AW says: I have to respectfully disagree with the first opinion on this statue for the following reasons: brass or bronze statues, unlike wood, are not carved, rather they are cast in a mold. So there would be a mold mark on an original statue made of either of these metals. This alone of course does not make it authentic.

Also, some artists, simply did not sign their work but if and original was signed, then a reproduced piece would be signed as well. Again, this offers nothing either way,.. so far. It would be impossible for this to have stood in a mansion yard for over 100 years, as it clearly depicts a "flapper". The heyday of the flapper was in the 1920s, so the math doesn't work. In my opinion, this is too late of a period to be a reproduction. What I mean by that is, reproductions are usually copied from well known, time tested works of art. The resurgence of interest in the flapper era did not come about until the mid-1970s. So there would have been no reason to reproduce the statue BEFORE then. It just wouldn't have been economically feasible. And clearly, with the wear, patina and background story, this is not later than the mid 1970s, so I'd say your statue is original.

I also think your original appraiser was wrong on the value.

What I do agree with your original appraiser is that I too have never seen a copy of this statue, giving weight to it being an original.

Date range: 1920s

Retail value: $3000-$3,500. If you were to find out somehow that is artist signed by an important sculptor, then all bets are off and this price goes out the window, you statue would be worth more. Artist's signatures can be VERY hard to find, especially with oxidation discoloration, there is a good chance you missed it, check it thoroughly with a magnifying glass in good lighting.
(top price)

Wholesale value: $2500-$3000
(The midrange price you could expect to achieve at a well advertised live auction. The price that is most often realized)


Quick sale value: $1500 ( I would not suggest a quick sale of such an item.)
The price your likely to get if you have to sell your item immediately and your prospective customer is aware of this.

Common trade terminology:  Flapper bronze statue , 1920s era, Gatsby,

Care and storage tips: Don't polish! Leave it just as is.

 Earle asks:

Here are the pictures I have for the two items to be appraised. Both appear to be Stickley chairs. Unfortunately, I do not have photos of the underside of either chair and as the chairs reside at a cabin several hundred miles away and I took these pictures before I had seen your website. The photos labeled "chair" are simply those of the chair and those labeled "rocker" are of the rocking chair. Both have been at the cabin as long as I can remember (the mid 1960's) and were gifted to our family by some friends from Glendale, CA who had had them for some time. The fabric pads and seat cushions have been on both chairs since we received them, however I suspect the seats were recovered before we got them and the pads on the back were added for comfort. Please let me know if you have any further question or need additional information. Sincerely, Earle

AW says: (Note to readers, the rocker shown is identical to the armchair referenced,  except of course the other chair is an arm chair without rockers.) Your two chairs are first: a Gustav Stickley deep seated arm chair model number 324. It's mission oak in a quarter sawn grain. It has the Gustav Stickley brand. It would measure 42" tall x 29" wide x 30" deep.

And second: Gustav a Stickley deep seated rocker model number 323. It has the branded Gustav Stickley mark and measures 40" tall x 29" wide x 30" deep.

Both are desirable chairs as Stickley furniture is very hot right now. Yours won't be in the top price range because of finish wear, but let's evaluate.

Date range: of both: 1910s Retail value: Arm Chair = $1,200-$1400 / Rocker: $1350-$1500 (You'll find these priced higher in better condition. I'd consider your chairs to be in good condition, but a premium is paid for original finish in fine condition. (top price)

Wholesale value: Arm Chair = $600-$800 / Rocker: $700-$850 (The midrange price you could expect to achieve at a well advertised live auction. The price that is most often realized)

Quick sale value: $300-$500 each. (No piece of Gustav Stickley furniture should suffer quick sale pricing at this point, unless it's ruined.) The price your likely to get if you have to sell your item immediately and your prospective customer is aware of this.

Common trade terminology: Mission Oak, Arts and Crafts, Stickely Furniture, Stickley Chairs #323 Rocker and #324 Arm Chair,

 In most cases, I believe it would be beneficial for your to give the prospective buyer a link to this page, and to bookmark it via your favorite bookmarking service.

Care and storage tips: I would not refinish these but leave them as is. Keep out of direct sun for long periods as much of the finish is worn and further fading will ensue.

For more info go to: Auctionwally.com

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      Click to listen to The Auctionwally Show

These days everyone is weighing in on gas saving tips. I believe that each business has it's own particular best way(s) to save gas and the world of antiques dealers is no exception.

There is no worst gas guzzler than a wasted trip on a wild goose chase. So when your answering a house call, make sure to qualify it with a set of questions designed by you to uniquely fit your wants as a buyer. We in the biz, know that the folks on the other end of the phone often either don't know what they have, or sometimes will pretend that they don't know in order to bait you.  Sit down, write out a list of questions to keep by the phone when you get a reponse to your "antiques wanted" ad.

To find out if they really don't know what they have, (which can result in trash or great treasures) or whether they are faking it, listen for key dealer terminology. If they use "trade" words in an experienced way, it's a safe bet they are saavy about what they have.

If they use words and phrases that show  they really don't know much about what they have, you'll need that list of questions  I mentioned earlier to discern whether its an antique Carnival glass lot, or later rerpoductions made by Indiana Glass co. You can't always tell for sure what's in the attic, but you can elimiate a lot of wasted calls with a good set qualifying questions as part of your housecall strategy. Avoiding a wasted trip is a 100% gas savings!

Now, those of you with a few years in the biz, know about the "bee back". You may call it a different name, but a bee back is a person who  wastes your time by saying, "I'll get back to you", 99 out of 100 times they never do!  This is especially true of people whom you visit on house calls. It's human nature to shop around for a better deal. If your the first one to go to the home and you bid on a great lot of antique furniture, and they say, I'd like to talk it over with my wife, husband or other, you've wasted your time. What they really mean is they have another dealer coming, they will almost always confide to said dealer the amount of your offer, since any good dealer will recognise a great deal, he/she outbids you by a small amount and you lose.

Now you have a new weapon in your arsenal to close the deal with. Throw out the high gas price scenario in creative ways that work for you. I like to say something like this, "Time is money, gas is money, I don't like to play hardball, but my offer is good for this moment. I'm not interested in coming back. I came prepared and willing to offer fair money and I feel that's what I've done, but this is not an open ended offer. Would you be interested in accepting it?"  You've got nothing to lose by doing this and everything to gain because "bee backs" don't work.

Always remember to be as fair as possible with your offer, and word of mouth will have your phone ringing off the wall!

In episode 21 of my online radio show I cover other gas saving tips for antiques dealers. 

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  Due to the content of this article there will be no picture

Do you sell on eBay? Great, now get yourself a website that's easy to use, even a blog is great, and learn to market your items on your own. I'm always recommending Google's platform, Blogger for this venue because it's easy to set up right out of the box. You  get up and running literally in 5 minutes. In another  5  you can have a PayPal button and accept payments for a basic product or service.

This of course is not likely to come close to matching your eBay sales but the well learned lesson is to how to do it yourself, in the event eBay becomes too difficult to deal with, or you just don't want to pay the fees anymore.  What your most likely to find if you have your own site, is that it can be a great companion to your eBay presence. There's no need to get rid of one when you can have both. Besides that  example  there are thousands of ways to become more independent with your marketing online. BUT, be extremely careful when you rely on other sites for a service or product that is crucial to your web existence, especially free services and products.

It's OK  to use them, and there are a lot of great  free products out there, but when your rely to heavily on them, things can go bad, very bad.

 What does that have to do with the disappearing buttons referenced in the title? I'll get to that right now. A few months ago I decided that I liked the way those convenient "click here" type of buttons looked.  I found a great site where I could make them for ...free. Yay!  They were nice and clean and just what I wanted, so I made them for hundreds of links on my pages. No problem, so far. Now of course you need a place to host the images, and the site even offered that for free! Yippee, this was too easy...until the site crashed today and now all I have in the places where the buttons should be are blank spots! All of those links are INVISIBLE!.

There is a fix of course, there always is, but it's a lot of work. Guess what I'll be doing for the next few days?

I didn't write this article to scare you off of free web tools, rather to demonstrate how, this type of thing doesn't have to happen to you. You see, I should have went with my gut insticnt to have the images hosted on a server that I have more control over or is more stable, such as a Google image hosting service.  It would have been easy to send the images of the buttons anywhere else once they were made, but I didn't do that. I had already made the buttons, it was an easy back-up step and I would have had access to them forever. If there was a crash, (very unlikely in this scenario) it would have been much easier to fix instead of the mess I have now.

It is very possible to become the master of your own web presence without having to learn a lot of code or become a geek. Take the prudent precautions, back up what you have, and you won't find yourself looking for disappearing buttons!

By the way, I'm launching a new feature today at Auctionwally.com, it's called Ask Auctionwally Anything. It's a live chat consultation session that starts at 12pm and runs to 4pm EST. Simply pop in the room to ask me anything you want about antiques & collectibles. I hope to see you there. In the future the service will have posted hours so you'll know when I'm there, and I'll be available on a "by chance" basis as well.  Oh, and the chat client service is hosted by Google, so I'm sure it will be up and running ;)  

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         A firkin like this was a staple of everyday chores.

SEO or search engine optimization as most of you reading this probably know, relies in large part on keywords. It's here that knowing the antiques lingo is so important. For example, let's say you want to auction off a 1921 US silver dollar on eBay. Well if you knew the common lingo, you'd know that this is referred to as a Peace dollar. If you knew enough to put the keywords Peace dollar in your title, you'd have likely increased your page hits by at least 50%. That's a significant amount.

What about a 1920s era sequinned hat that women used to wear? You'd better put the term "Flapper" in there somewhere if you want to reach a large amount of serious buyers for collectibles from that era.

This keyword/lingo philosophy is so important that it's one  of the main pillars of my online appraisal business. It's why I can do an appraisal in 3 days or less and gurantee the results to 100% satisfaction. You see, with more than 25 years of trading in antiques and collectibles, I've become well versed in the lingo. What tihis means is that I can either reference an item from memory, or I know the common name the item goes by and can access information to it much quicker than the client who refers to it as an "old chest of drawers" or a similar vague description. Of course I require good photos to be able to identify the item.

Here are just a few important antiques definitions:

Case furniture: an inclusive term for furniture which sections or drawers are enclosed in a box or a case. IE: desks, bookcases, cabinets.

Cabriole Leg: French, meaning leap. The cabriole leg a very common style was used as early as the 15th century in China, it's a reversed-curved leg style with a convex knee. The Highboy chest below is an example of case furniture with cabriole legs.

Sad Iron: This is a heavy clothes iron usuallly oval or arrow shaped with a fixed or detachable handle. They are actually very close in design to today's modern clothes iron, sans the electric plug. Sad irons have become very collectible selling form about $15-$35 each retail. You'll often see them used as doorstops.

Firkin: a round wooden bucket with a bail type handle, made of wooden slats or staves. A staple in the early days and very collectible. See picture above right.

So to sum things up, the point of this article is to demonstrate that finding out what something is commonly referred to is just as important as anything else when it comes to determining value, age and provenance. 

Thanks for reading,

AW

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                  Very early temple bell?

I purchased it in an antique store in a small town and it said temple bell on the tag, that is it.  It looks really old, has symbols on each side and it looks like it is made of different metals, maybe painted at one time.   Inside is dirty and has buildup of dirt and corrosion.  The actual bell ringer had been replaced with a wire and nut though.

 To me it appears to be European. Does anyone out there have specific information on it?  If so, leave a message in the comments section or email me at: auctionwally@auctionwally.com

If you have a source please cite a link to it.

Thanks for reading.

AW

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Greek or Roman goddess concrete
statue, $2,900

Do you have Weird collectible or antique? Please leave a comment about it or email me at auctionwally@auctionwally.com

Thanks for reading,

AW

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  Westinghouse Coca-Cola cooler in just the right size. $2,395

• If your a serious buyer, it's a great show to shop, sales are slow and sellers are eager to unload something, anything. Strangely enough, there are always  just about the same amount of vendors and offerings in July as the other two shows, so you'll have plenty to pick from!
• Furniture is still the slowest of all the areas of collecting, so it's a bargain shoppers paradise if you're looking for antique furniture. On a pan-fry day like today the last thing a dealer wants to do is re-load his/her vehicle with un-sold furniture, so they'll be eager to sell. Be bold with your offers, but be fair, you don't want to get someone that is miserable from the heat much madder than they may already be. You could find yourself stuffed in a blanket chest before you can ask, "Is that the best you'll do?"
• Hot items: smalls and lemonade!
• Best advice: see you in September.

    Looking for swimming hole!

Wooden cigar store Indian, vintage
but not an antique, still it was a
steal at $1,095.

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   What is this? It's stamped I J co. for Iver Johnson

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