What to Do With Ivory

What to do with ivory is one of today’s toughest questions. A reader wrote: “My mother’s upright piano is quite old and I’m sure the keys are ivory. What are the laws on ivory? I inherited this piano and don’t know how to handle the problem. She wanted my niece to have it, but the […]

Requesting Care with Price Stickers

Reader C.W. writes with a request: “Please help me persuade the owners or managers of all thrift stores and thrift store chains – Goodwill, Salvation Army, Savers etc. – to instruct their workers that they should NEVER use a price tag to cover the mark on the bottom of a piece of china, glassware, etc. […]

Grave Markers

D.W. of New York wrote us about one of our columns. It was about a Confederate soldier’s grave marker made for the United Daughters of the Confederacy. “You missed a great opportunity to help put a stop to the ‘grave robbing’ that seems to be the thing to do today. When someone wrote to you […]

Storing Vintage Clothing

Kathleen C., a reader who worked in a museum of design, sent a great suggestion to add to our comment about storing vintage clothing. Not only must you leave “breathing room” when hanging things, but you MUST NOT use plastic bags. Dry cleaner bags or zippered plastic garment bags will not let air in or […]

More On Gale Santas

Polly Hacket-Morley, a writer for many antiques magazines, wrote us with more information about the Santa Claus dolls we mentioned in the December 2017 newsletter. The dolls were first made about 1946 and continued until 1987 or 1988. The animated dolls had no identification but a sheet of paper with the Gale name packed with […]

Nippon

J.C.F. wrote to tell us about a mistake in the answer to a question in the December 2017 Collector’s Gallery. We said “Nippon” was the English word for Japan, but it is the Japanese word for Japan. After the passage of the McKinley Tariff Act in 1890, the country of origin had to be marked […]

Fantasy Hatpin

From R.D. (edited): I was happy to see the article on hatpins from the Mike Clum auction in the January 2018 newsletter. The hatpin you featured on the front page, leaves and purple disk, is a newly made Czech fake. I have collected for 35 years, have been a member of both collecting clubs and […]

Chein Roller Coaster Toy

Q:  From E.J. (edited): You wrote in the Sept. 2017 Buyers Price Guide: Toy, Disneyland Roller Coaster….Chein, 1929… It could be a Chein roller coaster, but Disneyland did not exist until 1955. I ordinarily love your newsletter, but a glitch this large I could not pass on. A:  You are right! It was an error. […]

Ceramic Arts Studio Founder’s Name Misspelled

Greetings, folks. The page in your price book with the paragraph about the Ceramic Arts Studio has my grandfather’s last name spelled wrong. It should be Lawrence “Rabbitt” not “Rabbett.”                                                                                     -Thank you! Sean Rabbitt.   Kovels’ Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide lists Lawence Rabbitt and Ruben Sand as founders of the Madison, Wisconsin, pottery […]

Collectors Gallery Mystery

Sometimes we even get stumped when it comes to certain collectibles. In our September 2016 newsletter, we asked our readers if they could identify a mysterious object. Our reader J.E. from Newark, Delaware, was the first to respond with the correct answer. The object is a scoreboard for billiards. We will be sending him an […]