Viewing the Best of 20th Century
Be careful when you hear this definition: “It’s an antique because it was made in the past century.”
Why? Because pieces made in 1999 would be from the past century.
Deco and other rather streamlined designs started in the 1920s. The Depression in the 1930s and the worldwide conflicts of the 1940s gave the public a somber mood.
Possibly the most popular collectibles today were made in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s in the style known to most people as “modern.” The furniture of the period took on a new look. It is so popular today it is being reissued.
It was after the war in the 1950s that this new, modern look became popular. Designers from Italy, Scandinavia, England, France, Germany and the United States produced innovative furniture using new products such as plywood and plastic.
Many of these designers were architects who needed smaller, less ornate furnishings for their steel-and-glass houses. This was the era of curved plywood chairs, amoeba-shaped tables, walls lined with storage units with aluminum poles, and doors covered with colored plastic. Look for the best of the furniture from the past century. It is becoming valuable again.
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Question: A friend of mine collects “fire marks,” and she’s trying to get me interested. She is having a hard time explaining to me what they are and why they’re collectible. Can you help?
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Answer: A “fire mark” or “fire plate” is a small, cast-iron plaque, usually about 6 inches across. They were cast and painted with the name and symbol of a property-insurance company.
Insurance companies gave plaques to their customers to hang on the outside of insured buildings. A plaque proved to volunteer firefighters arriving at a fire that the building was insured and that they would get a financial reward for putting out the flames.
The plaques were used from the mid-1700s until the mid-1800s. They are part of American history, and that’s why your friend collects them.
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Q I have a black rubber baby doll marked “Amosandra, designed by Ruth Newton, Columbia Broadcasting System.” There are some more words I can’t read. The doll is in her original box, which includes a bottle, teething ring, water bottle and birth certificate. My in-laws tell me she was made during the radio days of the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” show.
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A Your Amosandra baby doll was indeed based on the radio and CBS-TV series “Amos ‘n’ Andy.” She was made by the Sun Rubber Co. of Barberton, Ohio, which must be the illegible words in the mark. The doll was sold from 1949 through the early ‘50s.
The radio show, introduced in 1928, was probably the most successful radio series of all time. It moved to television from 1951 to 1953. Your doll is worth at least $150.
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Q I read an article you wrote about the American illustrator Maxfield Parrish. I wonder whether you have any information on W. Haskell Coffin. He did the cover of the Nov. 5, 1927, issue of the Saturday Evening Post. My family has a large (4 by 5 feet) oil painting signed by him, picturing a girl toddler in a round walker.
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A William Haskell Coffin (1878-1941) was born in Charleston, S.C. He studied painting in Paris and at the Corcoran Art School in Washington, D.C. By the 1920s, he was living in New York City.
Coffin was an oil painter and a member of the Society of Illustrators. His paintings come up for auction regularly. The prices we have seen range from $500 to $3,500.
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Q My great-grandfather and his three brothers had a pottery factory in Newark, N.J., sometime around 1850. Their last name was Krumeich, and they were originally from Alsace. Do you have any information about their factory?
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A Baltazar J. Krumeich was a stoneware maker in Newark from about 1845 to 1860. The wares were impressed with, “B.J. Krumeich, Newark, N.J.”
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Q I cleaned my mother’s garage and found an old iron with a tank at one end and an asbestos shield on the handle to keep it cool. The iron is marked “The Monitor, Pat. April 14, 1903” and “Manf’d by the Monitor Sad Iron Co., Big Prairie, Ohio.” Is it valuable?
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A Your iron was patented by John Lake and his son, Bertus, who founded the Monitor Sad Iron Co. It was a leading maker of liquid-fuel irons in the 1900s and kept making irons until 1954.
The gasoline-powered iron was a great improvement over the earlier sad irons that had to be heated on a kitchen stove. The ads said it made it possible to iron “away from the hot kitchen stove, even on a porch or under a tree.”
Some of the irons were made to also be used for heating coffee. Irons used a variety of fuels, including alcohol, gasoline, kerosene or naptha. The fuel had to be handled with care, and it often exploded.
Electric irons were not widely used until the 1930s.
All unusual old irons are collectible. They can be worth hundreds of dollars.
For a listing of helpful books and publications, include a self-addressed, stamped (55 cents) envelope to Kovels, Los Angeles Times, King Features Syndicate, 235 E. 45th St., New York, NY 10017.
