Not just for men!

We’re putting together a new booth for the shop.  It will be filled with toys for boy – trains, rifles, swords, tools, clocks, Americana, militaria, maps, coins, cufflinks – all the stuff that men (and, let’s face it, mostly men) appreciate.  It should be very, very cool.

Certainly it will be a popular new addition to the shop, especially with the fellas that aren’t really shopping.  There are antiques for everyone, even people that don’t think they like antiquing.  The trick is matching the right pieces to the right people.

The only problem we have is what to call it.  We want to keep it simple since we intend to rotate pieces in and out of the booth as we acquire things.  Calling it “The Men’s Room” clearly has drawbacks, but that’s leagues better than “Gentlemen’s Club“.  “Boy’s Room” and “Boy’s Club” are better, although we may have to start donating more to a certain charitable organization just to be fair.  Perhaps “The Lodge” or simply “The Club“?

It is a conundrum.

The next time you come by the shop please let us know your suggestions.  Don’t be shy! We always like to hear suggestions and feedback!

The Keeper's Daughter

This is the beginning of preparations for our first big sale in our Gordonsville shop. We’re going to put a few hundred pieces online for you to browse through. Don’t worry, though. We’ll break them up into small groups that have some association with one another. That should make it easier to browse by category.

First up? Fine art prints!

There will be more later, of course. In the meantime, why not go visit us on eBay? Just click the link to your right.

These plates are a mild, minty green color, clear (aside from the green of course) without bubbles or scratches.  Each plate measures 8 inches diameter.  The facets of the octagonal shapes are on the back (or bottom) of the plate, leaving the eating surface smooth and clean.  There are no visible hallmarks on the plates.

green depression glass

I personally think that these plates are Heisey, but I cannot prove it. If they are not Heisey, then they are most likely from the Tiffin/U.S. Glass Company out of San Francisco.

The Heisey company produced elegant glassware for practical usage from 1896 to 1957 in Newark, Ohio.  The glass they created was not cheap when it was made, and it showed up in many a bride’s registry.  They began producing press-molded glass from older “Early American Pattern Glass” molds, and moved on to make the beautiful, delicate glass that people often term “crystal” today.  While some of the colors the company produced resemble so-called “Depression glass”, and they did produce glass in the Depression, Heisey glass could not be more different from the dimestore giveaway stuff that collectors now search out and term Depression glass.  Heisey is “Elegant glass”, stuff that wasn’t cheap when it was made and had considerable hand finishing that went into its production, from blown portions to fire polishing, making its quality inherent.  Unmelted ‘seeds’ of sand are unusual, and bubbles are rare.  It is true that not every Heisey piece was marked, and there are no other markings on the plates to indicate the origin of manufacture.

For all these reasons, I believe that these plates were in fact produced by Heisey, and not by the the Tiffin/U.S. Glass Company.  Nevertheless, there are no hallmarks, and the plates have the heft and (apparrent) durability of depression glass.

Moongleam is a relatively common color; a light mint green mostly, though it does vary in intensity.  These plates are a particularly good example of the balanced, glowing color that most Moongleam pieces have.  They are a mild green, and wouldn’t look out of place on the dining room table surrounded by clear glass or white china.

Of course, these are also available for purchase at our e-bay storefront.  Just follow the link to your right!

This is going to be fun!

Main Street, Gordonsville, VA

Anyone that has spent time browsing along Main Street can tell you that Gordonsville is truly a hidden gem.  We’re located at the end of a row of gift shops, fine dining, and antique dealers that are the heart of this wonderful little town.  You could spend all day perusing and still not find all the treasures this picturesque town has to offer.  Our location is just to the left, off the edge of the picture above, beside the post office.

The Gordonsville Shop

We have 6,500 square feet of fine art and antiques, and more pieces arrive every day.  Some of our dealers specialize in oil paintings, watercolors, and prints, while others focus more on fine furniture.  We have sizable collections of crystal, cut glass, china, ceramics, and other objet d’art.  Beautiful old clocks (all working!) and books come our way regularly.  Our stock naturally changes as some pieces leave and recent acquisitions arrive, so we encourage you all  to visit us again and again.  You never know what you might find.

One of our booths - the art gallery

If you are a collector of something, or if you are searching for something specific, we are more than happy to help.  We probably have what you’re looking for either in the shop or at the warehouse.  If not, we can use our network of dealers and buyers to locate the item for you, whatever it is, be it Seth Thomas mantle clock or a Hepplewhite tea table.

As we still get settled into our new home, our hours are limited to the weekends, Friday through Sunday, from 10am to 5pm.  Please visit, browse, or just drop in to say hello!

Painstakingly hand-tinted Piranesi urn on black gouache background

Born in 18th century Rome, Piranesi was awash in living antiquity.  He devoted his professional life to more than just depicting what he saw.  He used his keen artist’s eye and his creativity to depict recreations of fine architecture as he imagined it to be.  He created new pieces as well, imagined alongside the the thousand year old relics as if they were of the same world.

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between his etchings of what was real and his etchings of fantastic musings on what might have been.  He was a fantastic draftsman, both realistic and romantic, using detail to bring his etchings to life.  See here a small selection of his prints, of urns that, while extraordinarily ornate and realistic,  may exist only in the mind of the artist.

Piranesi’s son, Francesco, collected his plates, in which the freer lines of the etching-needle largely supplemented the severity of burin work. Twenty nine folio volumes containing about 2,000 prints were produced between 1835 and 1837.

The late Baroque works of Claude Lorrain, Salvatore Rosa, and others had featured romantic and fantastic depictions of ruins; in part as a memento mori or as a reminiscence of a golden age of construction. Piranesi’s reproductions of real and recreated Roman ruins were a strong influence on Neoclassicism.

If you are interested in these or any other of our fine antique prints, please contact us directly or visit our e-bay storefront.

From this vantage point it’s easy to see how the Mighty Gamera’s armored shell helps him defend Tokyo against giant, radiaoactive monsters. Clearly, the battle against Guiron would have gone quite differently if not for Gamara’s defensive advantage. 

Imagine  a set of objects or images, perhaps Gamera and an array of half a dozen Japanese monsters. There will be a gallery of images to see.  Each image will have the full details of the object, but one image will be singled out.  It will be presented larger than the others and will be accompanied by character text.  This could simply be a more in-depth description of the object, the history of the piece, its pedegree (owners, locations, etc), or possible a critique of the quality of the piece itself. 

We need not limit ourselves to mere description.  I suggest that we could also talk about tangental information.  In this case, we might discuss the origins of Gamera or the history surrounding the films.  We could also discuss the manufacturing process of this particular piece and what that means to the object.  Or we could even tell the story of how we found and acquired the piece.  All of these things are interesting to customers.  They serve to help customers better appreciate the item for what it is. 

To see more of Gamera, look below. 

There will typically be much more in the way of description of featured pieces.  Different kinds of art and antiques will have their own categories, as will the various genres and styles once we have a large enough album available to see online.  We’ll be leaving very detailed descriptions with everything we post so you will know exactly what you’re looking at.

We eventually want to set it up so that you don’t get sent to another page when you click on an image. That takes this plugin. It helps keep you on the same page, keeping things user-friendly and relatively simple. We’ll see. 

Also, we’re probably going to set up an online storefront through e-bay. They are trustworthy, secure, and people are are so familiar with e-bay that it seems natural to use their services to help our customers.

– Charlie