What exactly is it about letters, type, font that is so fascinating?  I can’t quite put my finger on it – the pull I feel towards typography. It’s not about words, although I love words.  It applies equally to characters printed on a page, painted on a sign, created out of wood or metal as another form of signage, or worked into beautiful digital design on my computer screen.  It also applies to numbers, by the way.

I wrote about my relationship with vintage sign letters last year, here.  But I am feeling the tug, the love, pretty strongly these days.  I’m considering a series of short posts exploring this phenomenon more fully, sharing with you a wide variety of alpha and numeric expression.

LOVE LETTERS

Love letters.  That’s what I’ll call them.  Take it any way you want – my love for letters, or my love letters to letters, or my love letters for you.   (”Love numbers” sounds weird, but we’ll include them too.  No discrimination here!)

YOU TELL ME

In the meantime, I want to hear your thoughts on this subject.  I know at least some of you are feeling this.  Why?  Can you put a name to the pull in you when you see old metal sign letters, or well-designed typography, or a letterpress-printed font?  Come on, leave a comment.  Let’s figure this out together.

As we prepare for the Schoharie Antique show, and the kick-off of our 2010 show season, I want to rerun a post from a year ago.  Following are my tips for enjoying an antique show, whether you are a seasoned antiquer or a newbie to the game .

1.  Bring cash.

Many antique show dealers do not accept credit cards.  You can also write a check, so bring those too, but it is wise to have cash in your pocket.  You can complete transactions quickly (and get on to the next booth!) and dealers appreciate it.  It is also a fine way to budget yourself - just bring what you can spend.

2.  Move through the show once quickly.

Get a sense of what is there, stop and look at the absolute standout booths, make mental notes of booths you want to come back to, perhaps buy that one great thing.  Then you can go back through the show at a more leisurely pace, considering larger purchases and taking time at the booths full of smaller things like jewelry or postcards.

3.  If you love it, buy it.

Not without a second thought, but if an item (as my friend Mary puts it) “tugs” at you and is within your budget – buy it.  Chances are it will be gone when you come back.  There is a woman I see every year at shows, and she always mentions a doll she did not buy from me 5 or 6 years ago.  She walked away from it and it sold to someone else, and she regrets it still.

4.  Ask questions.

We dealers love to talk, to share our knowledge and stories.  So ask what something is, or how old it is, or what it is made of, or why it has such a high price tag.  (As long as it’s asked tactfully, I don’t ever mind explaining why I believe something has value.  Please don’t say, “What makes you think this piece of junk is worth $100?”)

5.  Go ahead, ask if they can do better on the price.

But then, respect the dealer’s answer.  If he says that is the best he can do, or offers you a lower price, then it is your decision to buy at that price or not.  If you feel you have a rapport with a dealer, a little friendly bargaining can be fine.  But please don’t offer me $50 for something I have marked $95.  It’s rude.  Yes, we are in a challenging economy, but that does not mean all sellers are desperate and willing to take any deal offered.

6.  Have fun!

Bring a friend, talk and laugh, try on silly hats (there is always a booth with hats!)  Stop at some point and have lunch, or coffee and pie.  If you know some of the dealers from past years or other shows, stop and chat.  Even if you don’t fill your trunk, fill your eye with things you find beautiful.

I have finally gotten the lot of vintage CathrineHolm enamel kitchenware listed on ebay.  I promised to do so when I blogged about it here, and I can’t believe it has taken me this long.  But at any rate, it’s up and you can find it here.  Get on over there and bid, and get some of these tasty mid-century goodies for yourself (or someone else — Mother’s Day approaches, you know.)

Did you know that the days of the month in 1915 and 2010 are the same?  See – today is Sunday Feb. 28, and the 28^th of Feb. in 1915 was Sunday too.  It’s the little things that make me happy.

Last year Steven’s dad bought a bunch of great old paper (early automobile advertising, catalogs, some wonderful old children’s books) out of a house.  And while the intention was to sell the stuff, he held this charming antique calendar aside for me.  Because everybody knows how I feel about dog stuff – especially anything related to pit bulls and bully breeds.

So this lovely fellow, sweetly slobbering on his master’s mail, came to live in our collection.  A hearkening back to when the bully dog was the quintessential family pet, and a fine mascot to place on your business advertising.

The vast majority of dogs in our collection are old – vintage, antique, aging, gracefully or not.  This little guy is an exception.  I bought this print on etsy a couple of years ago because I just loved his face.  His name is Bandit.

The artist is Pey Lu and you can check out her etsy shop here.  She paints on a surface of clay, giving her work an interesting earthy quality and underlying texture that I really like.  I see that she has recently done a neat series of furniture paintings with some cool mid-century designer forms, like this one:

Does anyone else feel this way, or is it just me?

I love lamps and lighting of all kinds.  I understand the impact that the right shade can have, and the damage that can be done to good design with the wrong shade.  I get all that.

Often, when I see a lamp with a shade on it I can discern whether the shade is a good or bad match for that particular lamp.  Sometimes, when I see a lamp without a shade I have an idea about what kind of shade would be the right choice.  But not always.  Not even close.

That is why, when you walk into our antique shop in Hudson NY and see the veritable forest of lamps that we offer for sale, none of them have lampshades on them.  We have decided to let the customer, the decorator, the end-user make the painstaking decision from the many choices out there.  But you know, secretly, I would like to learn, and feel confident choosing a shade before I offer a lamp for sale.  I hate not knowing how to do something.

Nary a lamp shade in sight.

I have googled How to Choose a Lampshade and there are lots of articles out there.  But truthfully the ones I glanced at are pretty dry.  Numbered instructions to follow (”Three Easy Steps…”, etc.), the first of which is to find a tape measure.  And, amazingly, not many pictures.  Maybe I’m too impatient to read all the rules.  I like to think that I’m just visual and work better with pictures.

(an aside: Google just suggested that I click on a link to How to Decorate a Lamp Shade with Silk Roses.  Ugh, I think not.)

One of my twitter-buddies wrote an article for Design Trade Magazine’s blog about lampshades, and it’s a helpful start regarding both shapes and styles as well as sources.  And it has pictures.

I feel certain that there are folks out there doing some cool, modern stuff with shades, but I am having a hard time finding them.  There are artists on etsy making some innovative shades, but for the most part they are selling the lamps with them, not shades alone.  One exception is illuminatingdesignsK, which showcases handmade modern shades in great fabrics:

I also found some gorgeous shades at Melin Tregwynt, a Welsh company that puts out to-die-for woven goods for wearing and decorating.

Lovely, aren’t they?  Too bad I don’t know what kind of lamp to put them on.  I’ll learn.  Or I won’t, and we’ll continue to sell naked lamps that someone else will have to dress.

This little guy used to be part of a lovely, fancy, high end collection.  Now he lives in our house, but if he considers it a come-down he doesn’t make a fuss about it.  Several years ago there was an on-site auction just a mile or so from Steven’s family home.  This is noteworthy because it is a very rural area – there aren’t that many houses, period, much less on-site estate auctions.

The array of items in the house was pretty amazing, although not all our style.  Very fancy Victorian and Eastlake furniture, lamps and decorative items.  A fabulous collection of folk-art toys (we liked those!)  Glassware and china and draperies.

Steven spotted this charming tiny Staffordshire dog figure during preview, and he liked it a lot.  We were not able to buy much as the prices went very high, but something happened when this little guy came up for sale.  No one bid, everyone was paying attention to other things and he just slipped by for a song, right into our collection.  Not that he is worth a ton of money, but the way things were selling that day he might have brought too much.

I was thinking he might be the smallest dog in our house (he’s only about 2″ tall) but then I remembered the teeny tiny carved bone bulldog I have.  I wonder where he is …  If I can find him, maybe he’ll be our featured fellow next week.

Steven spent yesterday in the shop, and remembered to take the camera with him!  Yay!  As always, this is in no way meant to represent our entire inventory.  Its just the things that took his fancy as he walked around.  Some of these items are ours and some belong to our partners in the shop.  All are for sale, and inquiries are welcome!

Incredibly cool giant scales.

Industrial metal barrister-style bookcase in green.

Unusual chairs with leather, made in Denmark.

Campy paint sign, great old oak table and killer ceramic lamps.

Mid-century shelving unit with lots of goodies.

Great Warren McArthur chair.

Interesting old laboratory instrument, and more.

Rattan set with pretty lines.

Antler mounts and other decorative items.

Oil painting of dogs.

Laurel floor lamp.  (Please buy things from us – our shop needs a paint job!)

Educational cow advertising. (Perhaps more than we needed to know?)

Industrial love.

Industrial rotating parts bin.  Just think of the possibilities!

Everything looks better hung on a white wall.

Unusual bent wood hanging shelf.  Reminds me of a snowshoe.

And that concludes our tour for today.  Please return the headphones to the desk on your way out, and move toward the exits in an orderly manner.  Ha ha.  But really, I hope you enjoy these photo collections and I’ll be thrilled if they inspire you to visit our shop the next time you are in Hudson.

I’ve alluded before to the fact that we love dog things – paintings, figures, folk art.  So I’m thinking it would be fun to feature one of our dogs here on the blog each week.  (A blog dog — say that 3 times fast!) It will be interesting to see how many weeks it will take until I run out of dogs – I’ve never counted them all.

First up is a funny little painting we bought at an antique show probably 10 years ago.  It never fails to make me smile.

There is a definite story being told here, but I’ve never decided exactly what I think it is.  You tell me – who is the man?  Why is he wearing those pants?  Is the dog chasing him or following him?  Comments are welcome!

None of the dog items I’m going to feature here are for sale – I’m absurdly attached to my dog collection.  However if we get any good cat paintings, chicken figures or bunny art – they will be fair game (so to speak.)

This is a story about a pitcher, a vase, and how Steven and I learn new things.

Years ago – 7 or 8 I think – we picked up this funky blue ceramic pitcher.  We thought it was kind of cool, and kind of gross, and probably damaged (had it been in a fire? we wondered)  So instead of going into stock for shows, it just sat around our house.  When our older son was really small, and learned the word “antique” (which our children do at a very young age, as in “Don’t touch that, it’s an antique!”) he decided he liked the ugly blue pitcher and asked if it could be his antique.  We said sure.  And it’s been on the shelf in his room ever since.

Then sometime last fall we came across the orange vase.  We said, “Hey, it’s like that blue pitcher!”  And so began its career of sitting around our house.  Until one day shortly before the holidays when Steve was at our shop in Hudson.  He called me to ask what the mark on the bottom of the orange vase looks like.  It turned out that one of our partners had a charger with similar glaze, which he  identified as Bouck White.

After Steve’s call, I spent some time reading up on this eccentric potter and his work, and brought the blue pitcher downstairs so I could photograph them together.  Like this:

White had quite a colorful life, and I encourage you to google him and read more.  These are just some highlights, complete with the striking ironies in his story.

Born in 1874 in upstate NY (not far from where we live.)  Graduated from Harvard and Boston Theological  Seminary.  He held a number of pastoral positions, ending up at Holy Trinity Episcopal in Brooklyn.  While there, he wrote several books with distinctly socialist views, including The Call of the Carpenter which portrayed Jesus as an agitator and social revolutionary.  Holy Trinity let him go, and he started his own church.  White was a member of the American Socialist Party, but they removed him because of his religious beliefs.  Irony:  he got fired from church for being a socialist, and then fired from the socialists for being religious.  Rich!

Later he spent time in Europe, and brought back a 19-year-old girl to marry.  He mistreated her, however, and the townspeople where they lived had him tarred and feathered.  The marriage was annulled.  He settled in New Scotland, near Albany NY, and built a primitive castle out of local limestone.  He made a living selling “Bouckware” pottery, with a new glazing technique that did not require heat.  In 1940 a fire destroyed the living quarters of his castle (catch the irony there?)  He later suffered a stroke, and died in an old folks home in 1951.

His adult life is brilliantly summarized by Paul H. Friesen

“Bouck White drifted through the Methodist Episcopal ministry, the Congregational ministry, and a stint as an Episcopalian lay youth worker, before founding the Church of the Social Revolution and exasperating all socialist and ecclesiastical organizations he encountered, before descending into notorious eccentricities in the mountains outside Albany, New York.”

Here is a close-up of his innovative, if strange, glazing technique:

This whole experience has pointed out to us so clearly how we operate.  We find something, like it, buy it, and then learn about it (unless we sell it quickly, in which case we learn about it after the fact.  Not always good.)  And we have acquired a lot of knowledge in our 12 years in the business.  But often it is just the look, the feel, and our intuition guiding our buying, and then the knowledge follows.  I am not necessarily recommending this as a business model, but it works for us.

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After I had written the first part of this post, we discovered that another of our partners in Warren Street Antiques has some nice examples of White’s pottery, as well as some interesting paperwork.  Andy and Laurie Geller of New Scotland Antiques were kind enough to send me some pictures to share with you.  They also currently have a few pieces of Bouck White pottery for sale on ebay, here.  Andy was telling me a little more about White’s heatless glazing technique, and mentioned that it has asbestos in it!  So we agreed — don’t feed the children off of it.

These are a couple of photo postcards, one of the potter and one of his “castle.”

Here is a sales brochure of Bouck White pottery:

And here are a several of the pieces that Andy and Laurie own:

And I did find a couple of pieces on 1st Dibs, including this gorgeous lamp: