Welcome to Yankee Attics

A brief view of a typical weekend day:

I did not get up at exactly 6:10 when my alarm went off. I slept until the smaller, less-intelligent dog insisted to be let-out-or-else. I managed to stumble through the shower and left the house by 7:09 with my hair still wet and a cup of coffee in my hand. List in hand, we debated which sales will have the best offerings while Dad is driving towards town. Estate sales are always our first pick but large book sales now top the priority list as well. We drive. We get out of the car. We socialize. We bargain. We often ask if there is more to be seen. I lost three pens and found two different ones. We made it home in one piece.

I like to watch American Pickers while I work. I love to watch the stuff they find and wish I had the guts to go cold calling on a country road. I have the feeling that if we knocked on a stranger's door and asked to look through their barn, we would likely be shot at. The show provides a romantic view of what people like us do. Unfortunately for us, we can not afford a camera crew. Even if we could my father would cringe at the the extra expense of being backlit - I could not face a camera without being properly backlit (you know - like a girl in any John Hughes movie coming downstairs to meet her prom date with new contact lenses and her braces finally off)...

Today was an awesome day for picking (at least in MY mind it was). Unfortunately, we did not find many items that turned Dad's head. So he got some nice Blenko glass and some very pretty crystal - and the rest of his morning was spent watching me shop. As always, I managed to find one piece at the first estate sale that I will not part with: a gavel with a gift inscription dated 1935.

I did find a lot of great books today. I get excited when I see good reading material. As always, a few of these will find a place in my personal library. Although I occasionally come across a collectible book to sell, the vast majority of the books I offer for sale are commodities ranging from college textbooks, literature and other required reading to popular novels, self-help and DIY project books.

I subscribe to the theory that you have to spend money to make money (whenever it suits my purpose to think it out loud). Behind any woman who think she knows how to shop for a broad audience, there is a man clutching his wallet and rolling his eyes. No matter how much I spend in a day the sun still rises at the start of it and sets when it ends. So if you have a moment, take a look around our store. We love what we do. We learn and see new things every day. What could be better (besides being backlit, of course)?

As far as new discoveries, we have a few things I can point to today. We stumbled a very ornate silver plate teapot, creamer and open sugar bowl that were NOT produced in Southern New England. This is not a great set, but from a company seldom seen. It is from the Van Burgh Silverplate Company of Rochester, NY. The condition of these pieces leaves something to be desired and this will be marketed as an inexpensive set, but it will have some interest to someone who is interested in repairing one significant dent and another small crease and to polish these pieces back to their original beauty. Did I mention that we found another wonderful piece of Nippon with excellent moriage work. I will list it momentarily. It bears the mark of the Morimura family (founders of the ceramic trade empire from Noritake). I predict little interest, despite the quality and increasing scarcity of these pieces.

It's time to be a bit more specific on glass subjects. Today I thought I would start a series of blogs on Early American Pattern Glass, called EAPG by collectors. You wil someimes see these pieces referred to as Early American Pressed Glass which is technically correct, (the glass was pressed), but not a generally accepted term.  EAPG is hard to define, and there is a huge amount of it made by many companies.  To keep the term useful, there have to be some arbitrary limits.  EAPG is generally considered to be the glass produced between about 1830 to 1915.  It is machine-made glass produced with molds.  The decorative patterns are meant to appear similar to cut crystal, and the body of the glass was therefore much thicker than other forms of glassware of the period.  Although machine made, EAPG was typically done one piece at a time with extensive handwork to remove mold marks, clean up minor surface defects made by the molds themselves and to hand-shape features that were not amenable to mold forms.  Some pieces were complex and made in multiple molds requiring hand assembly to create the final product.  It can be said to be the ancestor of both the production-line depression glass and the hand-worked elegant glass of the depression era, but it is distinquished from both.  Much more EAPG was done in clear glass than later types of glass, but colored pieces are not really rare, simply outnumbered by clear glass pieces.  There are a few pieces made by the marriage of clear glass with colored glass to create very interesting patterns.  There are a very large, but probably finite number of patterns in the EAPG realm, and many are composed of various permutations of a few dozen common design elements.  Names of patterns can be confusing because the manufactrers were often prosaic (#76 round), so collectors stepped in with their own more descriptive, if inconsistent names (Eyewinker, Cut Log, Reverse Torpedo).  The common design elements were also assigned names such a hobstar, cane, bull's eye, paneled jewel).  One other defining characteristic of EAPG is the prevalence of pieces that did not continue into later eras.  A spooner or a celery vases, lemon squeezers and straw holders are not found in depression era glassware, but are well represented in EAPG.

If you have or think you have EAPG pieces and want to identify them, it is essential to turn to the standard references and do some serious research.  For beginners, any edition of Warman's Pattern Glass will provide a fair introduction.  There are many more speciaized works, most concentrating on a single manufacturer's items.  There is also an otstanding website that will help you get your feet wet.  It was create dby long-time collector and dealer, Phyllis Petcoff.  Every collector should stop here and look, study and learn.  As of today, her website can be found at: www.petcoff.com/ .  Tomorrow I'll try to get some pictures from my archive to illustrate a few of these points.

AS for eBay and Auctiva news, we are runnibg our first 3-day auctions, (ending tomorrow).  Normally I cannot recommend this to sellers, but in this case we were asked to try to market tickets to a music festival in Northern New York less than a week before the concert date.  I'll keep you posted on whether I still think this is not a great idea in my next blog.  Someday soon we;ll also delve into packaging, the Postal Service, photography and ethical photo editing.  See you then.

AS usual we'll try to keep this blog structured into three parts, news about our inventory, discussions of the things we like to sell and news and views about the eBay and Auctiva experience.

This weekend was not a great weekend, but we did find a few interesting things here and there. We found a group of those ever-popular bar mirrors that may have no moral or redeeming value, but they are popular and they do sell well. some Nippon, a small Wheaton iridescent bottle in the original box, a fabulous California Studio pottery vase and a group of Royal Doulton dinnerware. Cara found a few books. Nothing earth-moving, but it will keep us busy.

As far as our specialties, I'd like to consider with the list of glass categories we like to find and offer. We left off last time with Depression Glass and Elegant Glass of the same era. To complete the classification of that rich era, we should note that Kitchen Glassware as a separate collecting category is a very popular specialty. After the Depression era ended, we entered the mod-century era with great innovations in form and designs, especially during the exciting 1950's and 60's. This period produced both the new art of the modernist era and the resurrection of many forms from the late 1800's right up through the pre-World War II era. Art nouveau reappeared, art-deco was extended, carnival glass came back in new forms; Depression era machine made pressed glass was given a second lease on life and a number of elegant glass companies created or re-created the most beautiful glass yet seen in America. Later we will visit some of the most important and influential innovations of the 1950's and 60's, many of which are only now being recognized. The late 20th century period, from 1970 to 2000 was the beginning of the end. Few real innovations in major companies were seen, more and more derivative works were based on old molds and old ideas from the rapidly disintegrating industry. The only breath of life in American glass at the end of the century was the revitalization of the studio art glass enclaves where artists began to thrive and create individual masterpieces not meant for the mass market. Later we will visit and profile some of the most brilliant artists, including a few who worked in Vermont. Soon I will slow down to apply a little meat to this lean skeleton of categories and get specific in each era and school of glass production. This should last us through the end of the year, and we will tackle European glass perhaps after the Holidays. I will try to illustrate some of the classic periods with pieces we have sold or are selling, not so much as an advertisement, but more as a homage to both the producers and collectors of these wonderful glass items.

Closing today, I have bad news with our discussions of the eBay and Auctiva worlds, we were devastated yesterday by an accusation that we have violated a valid copyright holder's intellectual property and have been threatened with having our eBay account suspended. Cara had found and listed a college textbook which had a "not for resale" advisory on the text. Cara is exceptionally well education in many fields, including the law, and we both knew that the Courts had established and consistently held that once a specific physical object is sold (a book for instance), the copyright owner still retails the full protection if their legal rights under copyright law, but the object (book in this case) can be freely marketed under a doctrine called "first sale" This concept holds that the physical object produced under protection of copyright can be sold, resold and resold indefinitely without violation of the underlying copyright. Almost a century ago, it was clearly held that the owner of the copyright could not limit this right by any provision such as "not for resale" disclaimers. There are a few firms that thrive by charging eBay merchants with copyright infringement on any pretext and threatening to have their eBay accounts closed down. In these case eBay always shuts down the sale complained against without any investigation. The assumption is that this bullying technique will prevent individual sellers from competing against the current publishers for fear of retribution from "deep pocket" professional complainers. We are not sure what we will do. Should we accept the bullying as a price of doing business or call the bluff of these professional whiners? As an aside, I want to make clear that much more of their effort is directed to software (computer programs) and media (electronic copies of music and movies). The application of decades old principles to new technology is far less clear-cut. Our position is that the application of the first sale doctrine to books is fully litigated and settled, the application of that same principles to the products of modern technology is still being worked out. We have opinions and can cite appellant Court dicta, but we understand that the final rules to live by in that arena are not yet in place. Comments based on relevant case law and statutory language is welcome. Opinions regarding what the law SHOULD BE are also welcome but will be considered as such.

We are is the midst of yard sale season.  Even though we have a healthy backlog of items from last year, we have continued to shop furiously, if more selectively than in the past.  We have focused our efforts somewhat.  Cara has returned to her specialization in books, especially text books and costume jewelry,  Be looking for more of these items.  The jewelry will ususally pass through our auctions and the books nore often will first appear directly in our store.  I have begun to focus on glass and ceramics.  Sadly, this is a slow market.  Rare and beautiful pieces and sets are more often available at very reasonable prices, and likewise sell at modest prices.

Among our most recent finds which should appear in our listings relatively soon, is a great amber Kings-Crown glass from the Indiana Glass Company in the 1960's and 70's.  It includes some great serving pieces.  At the same estate sale we got rwo different milk-glass snack sets.  One is from the Lancaster Colony incarnation of Ohio glass and pottery firms.  It is probably from the 1970's and is in the original box, with labels from the Sperry and Hutchinson (S & H) Green Stamp company.  I have also stumbled on a large group of cassette tapes.  When I looked through the lot, I found it was material I had never heard of before.   It appears to be New Age dance and music with a strong aspect of nature worship.  I have no idea what to do with this.  We also found a huge lot of hundreds of CD's with concert recordings of the Greatful Dead with a number apparently containing solo work Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia, and a few recordings of a culturally-related Vermont band called Phish.  I have even less idea what to do with these.  Ponder, ponder, ponder............

I think we will start our collector discussions with American glass.  The market, especially the market of high-quality early and mid 20th-century pieces, is quite soft.  If someone is interested in starting a meaningful, beautiful and potentially profitable personal collection, there are literally hundreds of opportunities in American Glass.  I should start with a littel vocabulary.  Among the terms we will use in blogs the following are a few generally accepted descriptions of major segments of the field (more categories and details and examples will follow later):

EAPG is an acronym for Early American Pattern Glass.  Pattern glass is made in molds.  During the last half of the 19th-century and up to about 1917, American companies excelled at this popular and affordable alternative to fancy cut glass.  In most cases it was thick, very heavy and ornately designed with various combinations of about two dozen common design elements.  Much of this was done in clear glass, but colored glass, although less common than in later periods, is still a significant part of this type.

American Cut Glass is not a simple term but is used generally to describe at least two significantly different products.  The expensive and elegant cut glass made between the 1880's and up to about 1917 is more properly called American Brialliant Period (ABP) glass.  There is also an unrelated collecting area for early to mid 20th century wheel-cut patterns on American elegant glass (below).

Depression Glass is generally limited to a type of machine made, very inexpensive but often ornate patterns of glass made very roughly during the period of the American Great Depression.  Later we will go into the rampant abuse of this term in the current marketplace.

Elegant Glass of the Depression Era is a special term to refer to a range of  exceptional hand-made glass which was produced at about the same time as the machine-made depression glass.  This is one of my favorite areas and we will discuss this more in futire blogs.

On our third general subject of selling on eBay, we cannot help but consider eBay's most recent announcement regarding plans to revise the way shipping options appear in listings.  Their effort is intended to simplify the experience for buyers.  I believe I can charitably say that they appear to have missed the mark; by a mile.  But, no harm, no foul.  We intend to study this some more, but we are not too worried.  We generally use USPS only.  In this rural area, there is no place in our own to drop off UPS or Fed-Ex packages.  There are third-party shipping centers in nearby communities, but if we add the time it takes  us to travel there to the limited schedule of pickups by the carriers, there is often a one-day delay just getting the package into the hands of the carrier.  At least with the Post Office, I can walk there (or drive in really bad weather) and get the packages into the delivery stream almost immediately.  We have also read the Fed-Ex apologia regading metroplitan and rural delivery surcharges and we are under-whelmed.

More tomorrow

We have begun the migration of our eBay listings to the Auctiva format. We believe that this will allow us to improve both the quality of our listings, our administration of our store and improve our communications with our customers. We hope that our daily blogs will provide an opportunity to share with our customers and hear their reactions. Cara and I will both contribute. Our blogs will very generally cover three aspects of our business:

• Our inventory, especially news about new finds and upcoming listings
• Randoms notes about the types of things we sell including such things as our research tools, some of our interesting findings, and things we are still trying to figure out.
• Other random notes regarding the entire eBay and Auctiva experience including occasional rants, tips for fellow sellers and related commentaries.

We will start today, with a few notes. Please feel free to comment on anythng we have to say.  Best wishes from the Green Mountains of Vermont; Tom White and Cara Ziegler.