Auctiva Emporium: avamac410

In the early days of the last century, when a huge hat covered with plumes was as conspicuous a consumption symbol as a fine car would be today....ladies spent hours at their dressing table, being dressed for that great social rite: the call. An indispensable item, along with scent bottles, the brush, comb and hair receiver, was the HATPIN HOLDER. Made to hold an assortment of 10 and 12 inch long pins, as elaborate as fine jewelry, and as expensive. This one, in the ephemeral style known as Art Nouveau, stark modern of the period from 1890 to 1912 or so, is made of paper thin lilac colored bisque, unglazed, with just a touch of verdigris wash and a bit of gold trim....miraculously survived these 100-plus years to amaze and delight us today.

Same model famously worn by Vanilla Ice. Offered at eBay auction, together with their ultra rare Gaultier ORIGINAL hard-side fabric case. And see my other auctions for a coordinating signature messenger bag.

Like most 1940s mothers, mine believed perfume was as much part of getting dressed as underwear. One simply didn't go out without it! She reveled in the beautiful bottles, but bought those once...and ever after refilled them from pure perfume bought by the dram max, since a greater quantity might 'turn' or change character. In her prime, scents were seasonal. She bought lilac and lily of the valley in spring--scents as springlike as the frivilous floral hats that ladies loved. Golliwog was her perfume of choice in the winter, and for evening darker scents, Tabu or Chanel No.5. Perfume was the very essence of chic, the cachet of Paris for every woman of her generation. Later, she collected. Some scents were purchased new; some were samples, miniatures or giveaways, some gifts. And when she began to collect antiques, vintage perfumes and beautiful perfume bottles were added to the mix...bought at auction, rummage sales, antique shops and shows. The best of them moved out of her bedroom displays and into china closets in the living room. Proust may have had his madeleine; the scent of Devon Violets or Golliwog instantly conjure my mother...loving, astute, brave, patient, chic. How I miss her.

In the 80s, I bought 3 Tiffany 'bone' cuffs from the private collection of a discriminating high-end antique dealer. These iconic pieces were designed by Elsa Peretti in the 70s, when she first came to Tiffany and were at the time EXTREMELY avante-garde. Tiffany originally offered the biomorphic cuffs in 3 widths--small, about an inch and a half wide, medium at two and a half inches, and the RARE large cuff--wide enough to fit well up the forearm. All three were available for either the right or left arm. The large cuff was very pricey, and a more demanding design than the smaller. It is out of production and impossible to find.

My parents were READERS....not during the day; they were too busy for that; but there was always a stack of books on the nightstand on either side of the bed. Only much later did I realize how liberal, if not positively "Red" some of them were, and how all children did not necessarily read Sinclair Lewis, or the OZ books in the original or The Decameron or Ray Bradbury. One thing they both read was hardboiled detective novels of the 1930s. The famous ones of course, but also the more obscure names of the period. In hardcover because they predate the pocketbook, and often in first edition. In the next few weeks, I'll be listing the collection, starting with the detectives and murder mysteries. My sister is listing the other half of the collection....look for her offerings under 'cobwebb'.

WAS HE REALLY A SUICIDE? To a generation reared on conspiracy theory, the following tale stinks of murder-- A scientist under observation in a sealed room is killed during an experiment in the Howard M. Ward Laboratory where a research team is studying electroencephalography. Shortly thereafter a second murder is committed under circumstances as puzzling as the first. The murders are solved by Inspector Noonan, a "practical" Boston detective. BRAIN-WAVES AND DEATH was published posthumously under the pseudonym "Willard Rich" a few weeks after its author, William T. Richards, took his own life. Richards worked for Alfred Lee Loomis and his novel was a thinly veiled account of a real-life laboratory located about 40 miles north of New York City nicknamed "Tuxedo Park." This "secret palace of science" was founded and funded by Loomis, arguably one of the most significant and uncredited figures in the history of modern military science. Loomis, a world-class tinkerer in his own right, was a visionary who saw that technology would win the looming war-and indeed that an investment in "big science" would be the key to national strength in the future. Loomis went on to establish the MIT Rad Lab and later was instrumental in setting up the Manhattan Project. According to legend, Loomis had all copies of Richards' roman-a-clef bought up and destroyed. Obviously he missed a few copies, but the book is uncommon , especially in jacket. Hubin (1994), p. 678. Adey, Locked Room Mysteries. A RARE COPY OF THE AFOREMENTIONED NOVEL ON EBAY

This little 18K gold brooch is like a miniature gold sculpture, lovingly constructed in myriad finely detailed pieces and assembled into a tiny work of wearable art. Finely modeled in three dimensions, the nude charioteer and his horse are a tour de force worthy or displaying when not wearing.

We LOVE old Mexican silver for its bold, Art Deco design, its utter timeless wearability. Its incredible quality. When I began selling antiques and jewelry in the 60s, Mexican jewelry 'got no respect'...it was so under-appreciated that I actually bought pieces with the price tag carefully affixed to HIDE the Mexican marks. Obviously, this has changed as a new generation of knowledgeable collectors with a taste for good modern design has come into the market. And none too soon, as spot silver and gold prices rise, and once again, as in the '70s, jewelry gets sold off as scrap and goes to the melt.

This artfully carved fly whisk of the Boy Pharoah would have been sold to 1920s aristocratic tourists as they journeyed up the Nile to the Valley of the Kings. David Suchet's POIROT wields a similar one in the BBC series, as he visits an archeological dig.

Arnold Scaasi was THE American designer of the 60s, dressing all of the Beautiful People, as well as most of our modern First Ladies. He went totally against the economics of that time and this, by closing his thriving Ready to Wear Boutique on 7th Avenue and becoming a couturier, when couture was virtually dead. And to complement his clothing, he designed a very few very theatrical costume jewels. I've owned and traded multiple showcases of jewelry, but this brooch is the ONLY piece of Scaasi jewelry that has passed through my hands. ENJOY.