Tricia’s Treasure Trove

02/15/2021

Redecorate or not? With many treasures I am faced with this question. This is an example. This vase was produced between 1920-1930 by Tiffin Glass and was decorated using a Coralene technique. This technique adds crushed coral and/or glass to paint and refired onto the glass object. Around the 1970's, a glass house in CT. developed a similar process they named "Fabrikon" that they used for decorating on original antique or vintage blanks. Refiring old glass is tricky business since the glass can shatter so Fabrikon tended to flake off more readily than the original Coralene process used due to the lower temperatures they used to set the paint.
Fast forward to the future and today's collectors are faced with the question "Is the decoration Coralene or Fabrikon?" SOMETIMES the degree of flaking will give you a clue but not really a definitive answer so you need to decide where to go from there..

This particular vase is probably the best example of quality satin glass I have ever held in my hands. The glass literally looks like satin material so I have no doubt this is a quality Tiffin glass blank. The paint is deteriorated and really does an injustice to the vase at this point. Collectors will tell you DO NOT TOUCH it so it remains authentic but in my experience the value of the piece is harshly affected by the condition of deteriorated paint. Restoring Coralene puts the piece at risk of destruction when refired so authentic restoration is probably not a good idea. Cold application paints do not last either so my choice was to use gilding (many because it holds up so much better than regular paint when you are not refiring the glass).

Historically, it was common practice for glass houses to send blanks to outside decorating houses. Some glass houses had their own decorators (think Fenton). These pieces were mostly (but not always) sold by and attributed to the glass house that produced the blank. Sometimes the decorating artist would sign the piece and sometimes not. Because of this, I decided to carefully remove all the deteriorated paint and use gilding to create a OOAK Tiffin Vase signed by the artist. Personally I believe this was the right choice but it's up to you to decide.

02/04/2021

Rehabbing old barber bottles is fun

12/11/2020

This week’s restoration projects is almost finished. 1880s milk glass vanity tray. Replacing gilding can be a very tricky process but I love the results especially in intricate patterned glass.

01/22/2020

Many treasure hunters shy away from damaged treasures and much of the time I do as well if the damage is significant but if the piece is workable, it becomes an addition to my “other”passion.....upcycle and repurposed fun! Such is the case with this Waterford Crystal Bowl. It has a significant flake on the rim which renders it unsafe for food use and worthless to collectors so I added a lace and rhinestone rim, glass heart anchors, a few floral accents and a weird orb I made into an oil lamp a while back and now the bowl can live as a sparkling canter piece 🙂 Best of all, it’s not in the trash!

09/14/2019

My latest “fix what ails me” project. This one was a real challenge as she is a chalkware who had turned completely orange from her previous cigarette smoker’s home and had a few dings from being dropped. Chalkware art was very popular especially during the 1950’s right up through the end of that century because it is an inexpensive medium. IMO nobody did it better than Bosson’s in England. The detail of their moulds were amazing and each piece was hand painted in exquisite detail which literally makes them very life like. Unfortunately chalkware doesn’t tend to age as well as some other mediums so many of the older ones suffer from environmental changes and accidents. This can make restoration challenging since I’m pretty sure just the word “flesh tones” make most everybody short of a master artist (and I am WAY short of that skill level) sweat. It’s hard enough for a good realism artist to develop enough flesh tones to keep things 3 dimensional but it’s worse when you are trying to match the work of another artist. I mix up about 8 different shades and just try not to get it too flat. That’s about the best I can handle. 😂 I think the old girl looks okay and definitely a far cry better from the ni****ne orange mess I started with but I don’t see a company like Bosson’s knocking on my door with a job offer.

09/06/2019

Before you consider collecting oriental porcelain, there are a couple of things you need to know (well actually a lot of things but I can’t cover them all here). First being that marks are your best friend and your worst enemy all at the same time. Oriental pottery marks are notoriously inaccurate but once you learn the basics of how to read them, they can give you great insights. Take this vase for example. The mark is a Yongzheng Dynasty mark (1723-1735) but this particular vase screams reproduction in feel of porcelain, quality of glaze and style of art. The dead give away tho is not so obvious. It’s in the mark itself. Imperial potteries generally only allowed certain Master artists to mark pieces. Each stroke of the character and framing was precise and accurate. Not so in this example. So how does the novice collector tell a real genuine antique porcelain from a more modern one? Well, you don’t. It takes years and years of study to become an expert in this most complicated genre. For us common collectors, we understand that it is extremely rare if not almost impossible to stumble across such an authentic piece but very common to see them sold as authentic. Does that mean the rest is worthless? Not really. Much like every other genre of collectibles and art, it depends on what a person values. There is a ton of interesting history about China in general and art is even more so. There are some very nice vintage pieces and some even nicer pieces being produced today that will some day be vintage. So if you enjoy oriental art- you should collect what you enjoy but never ever buy a piece for hundreds of dollars unless you can get an expert to authenticate and appraise it for you first. This particular vase will be for sale for $14.99 plus shipping on my Etsy site and as you can see, it makes a lovely decor piece. Enjoy! For more information on Oriental porcelains ,I highly recommend Gotheborg.com as a starting point.

07/20/2019

A common question that gets asked is when should you or should you not repair or restore a collectible piece. My answer has always been “it depends”. Totally unsatisfactory answer I know. In the majority of situations I recommend nothing except a very careful cleaning. However, there are those instances where a piece has been significantly damaged or a repair has been done which drastically reduces the collectible value of a piece AND the piece is just screaming at you to be restored to it’s once original beauty or something similar. Collecting is a very personal experience and people do it for many reasons. For me, it is all about the history, the beauty and the uniqueness of each individual piece. This lovely decanter is made of milk glass from the late 1800’s or so. I have seen this design attributed to the Mt. Washington Glass Company but I have not definitely verified that to be true yet. This decanter has a significant repair done to the lip. There was very little gilding left and it was really dirty. I carefully cleaned it and found no cracks or chips-just an old repair. I set it aside for a couple weeks wondering what to do with and I kept imagining it with all its gilding so I made the decision to restore it. I do not know if this now resembles it’s original decoration or not. You RARELY ever see glass this old with all it’s gilding intact. I have plenty of them with virtually nothing left so by just following the embossing of the mold, this is the end result. I think it has regained some grandeur. What do you think?

04/08/2019

04/08/2019

Excited to share the latest addition to my shop: Vintage Luminarc Glass Egg Cups - Just in time for Easter https://etsy.me/2VCfzzL

03/27/2019

I find it so interesting that even water tastes better in vintage glass. I always knew milk is better in glass bottles but water was kind of unexpected. For many years, I have needed to add some kind of favoring to my water until I started drinking it from vintage glass. Now I need no extra flavoring at all. Maybe it is psychosomatic but that doesn’t really matter. Now every day this lovely carnival glass pitcher is filled with fresh ice water and it is usually pretty empty at the end of the day. 🙂 This water set was made by Indiana Glass Co. in the 1970’s.

01/03/2019

Look for the upcoming Valentine's Day event- It's time to get Romantic!

Just a lovely piece of art work from Porzellanfabrik Wilhelm Rittirsch. This is design 456A and is marked. These exquisite pieces are getting hard to come by in this good condition. It is extremely rare to find one without significant damage to the lace and this one has very minor

10/19/2018

What is this???. It’s a Katchina doll. Katchina dolls are made by Pueblo Indians (Hopi indian work is the most accessible) not as toys or decorations but as religious educational tools for children. Every year from Winter Solstice to July, the Hopi hold religious dances dressing up as Katsinas. Katsinas are spirits of deities,natural elements, animals or deceased ancestors. Celebrating these spirits is most important because they are thought to bring rain( the most necessary element to any desert tribe). The dolls are made and given to children from infancy forward so they become familiar with each of the deities. There are several different forms and types of dolls and characters which I won’t go into at the moment so this post doesn’t get too long but it is important to know the 4 major time periods. The oldest known Katchina was made during the 18th century but given that these are religious in nature, not all tribes allowed trading of such items so dating accuracy is difficult. Each doll is categorized as being from one of these 4 period.
EarlyTraditional (1850-1910)
Late Traditional(1910-1930)
Early Action( 1930-1945) Action refers to the figure denoting movement.
Late Action( 1945- present day).

Katchinas can be worth thousands of dollars with the top auction price recorded at $250,000.00. Because they are so valued by collectors, the market is flooded with fakes so it really pays to do your research before stepping into this collectible genre. Authenticity can be pretty easily established if you know what to look for. This particular Katchina is from the late 20th century so falls into the Late Action period. He also appears to be in the warrior/guardian category of Katsina and his ropes are most likely meant to denote snakes. He is made from the traditional cottonwood root and has authentic regalia. He is approximately 20” tall which is taller than most but Kachina come in many sizes. You can find much more in-depth information online these days and it’s fascinating reading so I urge anyone interested to look them up.