November 2002 Hotlines

We think of Victorian times as very prudish, but an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art features English Victorian art with sex appeal. Although government schools in the 1840s couldn’t teach painting using nude models, Victorian-era statues, paintings, figurines, and painted decorations on plates and bronzes did show the nude human form.

The coat General Custer wore at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, together with a war shirt that belonged to Chief Rain in Face, auctioned online for $105,000. Although there is some difference of opinion about what Custer was wearing when he was killed, his ownership of the coat was well-documented.

We’ve all heard the story that eBay was developed to help the founder’s wife buy Pez candy containers. But the story isn’t true, according to The Perfect Store, a new book about the company by Adam Cohen. EBay went online in 1995. The story was created in 1997 to interest reporters. The company has continued to promote the story by mentioning it in interviews and displaying Pez dispensers in its lobby.

We were amused to hear of a collectible we will never own. A gold bar nicknamed Eureka, about the size of a loaf of bread and weighing 80 troy pounds, just sold for $8 million. It’s from California Gold Rush days. We wonder how the new owner plans to display it. By the way, we figure investing in this bar costs more than $250,000 a year in lost interest.

A reporter called this week to ask if we think people are using collections as decorations more than usual. We said yes. The “shelter” magazines, like House and Garden, are showing collections in many rooms. But the most convincing proof is in mail order catalogs. “Instant collections” of assorted candlesticks or blue and white plates or even silverware are being offered. The Neiman Marcus catalog offers seven-piece place settings of stainless steel in seven different flatware patterns copied from 19th-century English silverware. The catalog says that English hotels mixed patterns in the early 1900s to get a “dramatic, eclectic, refreshing” look. We suspect the hotels were trying to economize. You can economize, too. Why not just go to the antiques shows and assemble your own set?

Religious items, including icons, small statues, and rosaries, are selling well at shows, according to a Midwestern dealer.