Ephemera

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Full plate ambrotype of a honeymooning couple at Niagara Falls

Full plate ambrotype of a honeymooning couple at Niagara Falls

The only thing better than doing dogged research is profiting from someone else’s.  (Okay, maybe not….)  But this is still what I was thinking last month while my husband was off teaching his morning course at the Chautauqua Institution and Nora and I were enjoying our breakfast while looking out the bay window at Lake Erie.  It was a lovely week and a respite from the heat (not to mention another reason not to complain), and while we were so close, we decided to take Nora to Niagara Falls for the day.  (“Mama, big water!  See BIG water!” was Nora’s oft-repeated account of the visit.)

Tourism is, I’m happy to report, alive and well at the Falls, but that’s really nothing new.  There’s great debate over the first European to see the Falls (various candidates visited the area throughout the 1600s), but generally, Pehr Kalm, a Swedish-Finnish naturalist, is credited with offering the first scientific account of their wonders around 1750.  Sketches and various artist renderings of the Falls region began to appear, and it didn’t take long for Niagara Falls to start appearing on everything from needlework pictures to wallpaper, transferware plates to lithophane lampshades.

Over roughly the next one hundred years, tourism at Niagara blossomed and by 1848, a footbridge was constructed.  (A footbridge.  In 1848.  Who needed to be a Wallenda….)  Fortunately, the 19th century also brought John Roebling (perhaps better known for his work on the Brooklyn Bridge), whose suspension bridge was completed in 1855.  Several years later, as the Civil War ended and the Victorian era hit full swing in the United States, tourism, made especially attractive through rail travel, exploded, and Niagara Falls earned its reputation as a great honeymoon destination.  This boom also ushered in the era of a new kind of Niagara Falls souvenir – the photograph.  Today, there are dozens and dozens, probably hundreds, of large-plate daguerreotypes and ambrotypes of newlyweds, like the one pictured above, or family groups posed in front of the Falls.  The daguerreotypes, particularly full-plate images, can be very valuable.  I’m pretty sure the same will never be said of Nora’s souvenir t-shirt….

-Hollie Davis, Senior Editor, p4A.com

Reference & Further Recommended Reading:


To search the Prices4Antiques antiques reference database for valuation information on hundreds of thousands of antiques and fine art visit our homepage www.prices4antiques.com


A card signed by Liberace with his distinctive signature and grand piano sketch

A card signed by Liberace with his distinctive signature and grand piano sketch

One of the most common questions in the antiques marketplace is, “What’s hot right now?”  At Prices4Antiques, we always see lots of searches in our autograph category, especially for signatures.  We’ve seen searches for John Wayne’s autograph, Buffalo Bill Cody’s signature on a program from his Wild West Show, Hawaii’s King Kalakaua and Queen Kapiolani’s signatures, Liberace’s autograph with a piano sketch, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s signature on a card.  These were the top five items viewed in our autograph category this week, but people searched for thousands of other antiques and collectibles at Prices4Antiques.


To search the Prices4Antiques antiques reference database for valuation information on hundreds of thousands of antiques and fine art visit our homepage www.prices4antiques.com


Flag Day, June 14, commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States. Here’s a look back at some great historical flags that have sold at auction:

34 star American flag carried into the Civil War battle of Shiloh by William Shallenberger

Rare and historic printed silk 34 star American flag carried into the historic Civil War battle of Shiloh by William Shallenberger, Company D, 55th Regiment of the Illinois Volunteer Infantry

A 13 star American Navy flag with hand-sewn stars belong to Anna Rowell Philbrick Decatur wife of Stephen Decatur

A 13 star American Navy flag with hand-sewn stars belong to Anna Rowell Philbrick Decatur wife of Stephen Decatur

American Centennial flag, circa 1876, wool, printed and machine sewn, with "1776 1876" in the canton

American Centennial flag, circa 1876, wool, printed and machine sewn, with "1776 1876" in the canton

Abraham Lincoln & Andrew Johnson 1864 campaign flag. Unusual style with stars in the upper right-hand quadrant

Abraham Lincoln & Andrew Johnson 1864 campaign flag. Unusual style with stars in the upper right-hand quadrant

A circa 1850s 13-Star and Anchor flag

A circa 1850s 13-Star and Anchor flag

Reference & Further Recommended Reading:


To search the Prices4Antiques antiques reference database for valuation information on hundreds of thousands of antiques and fine art visit our homepage www.prices4antiques.com


A Civil War Union regulation artillery shell jacket made by the Cincinnati Depot

A Civil War Union regulation artillery shell jacket made by the Cincinnati Depot

Begun as Decoration Day in the wake of the Civil War, Memorial Day has become a day to remember all who have died in service to their country, but for many collectors, this sacrifice is remembered every day through the artifacts they gather. At Prices4Antiques.com, we see many searches for military- and service-related objects prized by buyers, including amazing things like a Japanese tank crew helmet from World War II, a U.S. one-pound Ketchum hand grenade from the Civil War, a complete set of cast-iron armor for a German machine gunner in World War I, and a Noble Brothers six-pound Confederate cannon from the Civil War. One need only to look at an object like a Civil War lieutenant’s frock coat found next to the body of an officer on the battlefield at Spotsylvania to be reminded of the cost of centuries of protecting freedom.

Howdy Doody marionette with original box

Howdy Doody marionette with original box

Television character collectibles were produced by a variety of manufacturers to help sell everything from the shows themselves to cereal and vitamins. Here are two popular shows from the 1950s and 60s and their nostalgia driven collectibles.

The Howdy Doody Show

First aired as a radio program in 1947, Howdy Doody with Buffalo Bob Smith ran for an astonishing 13 years. When the red-headed, gap-toothed western lad Howdy Doody ran for “President of all Kids” the network received 60,000 requests for his campaign buttons. This number represented one third of all US homes with television sets!

Due to the overwhelming popularity of the show, an almost unlimited number of items were made in the likenesses of Howdy Doody the puppet, and his costars, Dilly Dally, Buffalo Bob, Princess Summerfall Winterspring, and Clarabelle the clown (played by Bob Keeshan, aka, Captain Kangaroo). Howdy Doody themed toys were produced in mass quantities, and included puppets/marionettes, clothing, plush dolls, records, wind-up toys, beanies, a humming lariat, cookie jars, figurines, ear muffs, an electric doodler, a keychain puzzle, stickers, comic books and child sized chairs. Children loved Howdy and played with his toys, so vintage toys in excellent condition are hard to find and can run into fairly high sums.

Popeye the Sailor

Composition Ideal jointed Popeye figure, marked Popeye 1935 King Features Syndicate

Composition Ideal jointed Popeye figure, marked Popeye 1935 King Features Syndicate

Popeye got his start in the comics, but soon after, made a successful leap to the silver screen. Between 1933 and 1957, Popeye appeared in movie cartoons 243 times, and by 1935, he was more popular than Mickey Mouse. In 1941, Popeye the Sailor was drafted by the U.S. Navy to help the war effort, and appeared in several cartoons to that end. In the 1960s he became a syndicated television show, and from then until 2004 appeared on television somewhere or other around the globe.

Vintage Popeye memorabilia is plentiful, but much of it on the market has been made since 1980, so collectors looking for authentic vintage Popeye should check carefully. Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto, Wimpy, and Sweet Pea appeared in a wide variety of forms, including comic books, story books, candy cigarettes, Colorforms, coloring books, ramp walkers, wind-ups, banks, figurines, mugs, decals, crayon sets, jack-in-the-boxes, lunch boxes, noise makers, gumball machines, dolls, plush toys, puppets, pins, Pez dispensers and more. As with most collectibles, toys in mint condition in their original packaging bring the highest prices. In Popeye’s case, since he went both healthy and PC, and no longer endorses smoking, his pipes and cigarettes have gone up in value.

-Reference note by p4A Contributing Editor Susan Cramer.

Reference & Further Recommended Reading:


To search the Prices4Antiques antiques reference database for valuation information on hundreds of thousands of antiques and fine art visit our homepage www.prices4antiques.com


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