Shiny Brite Christmas Ornaments

Some believe the true magic of the holiday season is found in the family Christmas tree, which can create as many memories as the gifts found underneath it.

Shiny Brite ornaments and tree toppers. Photo courtesy Getty Images.

Ornaments that decorated yesterday’s trees continue to create holiday traditions today, and for many, this tradition includes glass orbs hanging from branches in bright, shiny colors and sparkly patterns. Chances are, the ones used in your family for years are by Shiny Brite, a brand created by German-American immigrant Max Eckardt in 1937.

A market long dominated by German companies, Shiny Brite produced the most popular Christmas tree ornaments in the United States throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Eckardt established Shiny Brite ornaments in New York City, working with Corning Glass Works to mass-produce glass Christmas ornaments. By 1940, Corning was producing about 300,000 unadorned ornaments per day, sending the clear glass balls to outside artists, including those at Eckardt’s factories, for hand decoration. The ornaments were lined with silver nitrate, run through a lacquer bath, decorated by Eckardt’s employees, and then packaged in brown cardboard boxes. The inspiration for the Shiny Brite name came from the fact that the insides of the ornaments were coated with silver nitrate so they would stay shiny and “brite” season after season.

According to a December 1940 LIFE magazine article, Corning expected to produce 40 million ornaments by the end of that year and supply 100 percent of the domestic market for ornaments.

Originally, Shiny Brite ornaments were a simple silver, but eventually, Eckardt produced them in a large variety of colors: classic red (the most popular ornament color in the 1940s), green, gold, pink, and blue, both in solids and stripes. They were also offered in a variety of shapes besides balls, including Christmas tree tops, bells, icicles, teardrops, trees, finials, pinecones, and Japanese lanterns and reflectors. Some were also decorated with mica “snow.”

Eckardt died in late 1961, and shortly thereafter, Shiny Brite’s popularity began to fade, largely because of the emergence of plastic ornaments. In the late 1990s, designer Christopher Radko revived the Shiny Brite name and, in 2001, began selling reproductions of the originals.

Coated with a wistful affection for the past, vintage Shiny Brite ornaments remain popular with collectors and mid-century design fans.

Titanic first-class menu makes waves at U.K. auction, selling for $102,000.

An artist’s impression of the Titanic sinking in the early hours of April 15, 1912.
Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images

She was unsinkable. That was the boast when the RMS Titanic, the largest passenger ship in service, set sail on April 10, 1912, from Southampton, England, en route to New York City. Four days into her maiden voyage, the unthinkable happened: the luxury ocean liner struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank.

Of the approximately 2,200 people on board, more than 1,500 lost their lives in the tragedy. The Titanic became the most famous shipwreck in history.

The catastrophe still haunts and intrigues historians and collectors alike. A first-class dinner menu from onboard the Titanic dated the night of April 11, 1912—just one day after the ill-fated ship set sail—sold at a U.K. auction house for a staggering $102,000 recently. It is the only known menu to exist from that day of the voyage. Most menus salvaged were dated from the evening of April 14, before the ship sank.

First Class menu from the Titanic
Photo courtesy of Henry Aldridge & Son.

The menu sold on Nov. 11 at Henry Aldridge & Son, an auction house specializing in Titanic artifacts and memorabilia.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge holding the first-class menu from the Titanic.
Photo courtesy of Henry Aldridge & Son.

The sale also included a first-class tartan deck blanket recovered from one of the lifeboats, a pocket watch recovered from second-class passenger and shipwreck victim Sinai Kantor, a Russian immigrant traveling to the United States, and other historic items. The blanket sold for $117,000, and the watch sold for $119,000.

A first-class tartan deck blanket from the Titanic sold for $117,000 at auction.
Photo courtesy of Henry Aldridge & Son.

“The prices reflect the ongoing interest in the most famous liner of all time and the stories behind her passengers and crew,” Andrew A. Aldridge, the managing director of the auction house, said. “The menu offered a tangible link to the food that first-class passengers ate on April 11, 1912, and as a consequence is a unique piece of social history.”

A pocket watch recovered from a second-class passenger and victim in the Titanic disaster
sold for $119,000 at auction. Photo courtesy of Henry Aldridge & Son.

Heavily water-stained, with some of the lettering partly erased, the menu likely ended up in the North Atlantic for a time when the Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912.

The salvaged menu details the first dinner on board after the Titanic set sail from Queenstown, Belfast, and reveals the dining opulence the ship’s first-class passengers would have experienced. Dinner options included oysters, sirloin of beef with horseradish cream, and pureed parsnips, with desserts including apricot Bordaloue — a type of tart — and Victoria pudding.

Most expensive bottle of whisky leaves us tipsy, selling for $2.7 million.

Jonny Fowle, Sotheby’s global head of whisky, holds a bottle of The Macallan 1926,
which sold Saturday for $2.7 million. Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s

Forget chardonnay with turkey this Thanksgiving. One adventurous and deep-pocketed enthusiast could well be serving the most valuable bottle of whisky in the world at their holiday feast. Although that might be a bit of a stretch, what with the bottle costing $2.7 million.

Known as “the most sought-after Scotch whisky” in the world, The Macallan 1926, one of only 40 bottles drawn after aging in sherry casks for 60 years, sold at auction Saturday at Sotheby’s in London, becoming the most expensive bottle of spirit or wine sold at auction.

The previous record was set in 2019 when Sotheby’s sold a bottle of The Macallan 1926 for $1.9 million. The Macallan distillery is a single malt Scotch whisky distillery in Craigellachie, Moray, Scotland.

The 700 ml bottle contains about 45 pours of 15 ml each, breaking down to about $60,000 a pour for its lucky new owner and friends.

Ahead of the sale, Sotheby’s head of whisky, Jonny Fowle, told AFP news agency that he had tried a small sample. “I tasted a tiny drop—a tiny drop—of this. It’s very rich, it’s got a lot of dried fruit as you would expect, a lot of spice, a lot of wood,” he said, calling it an “incredible” whisky that should not be taken lightly.

At $2.7 million a bottle, that’s not very likely.

Ivory Netsuke Figure

Q: Greetings! My father inherited this Asian figure carved in ivory from his parents. It measures 2 inches tall and has Asian language markings on the back. I believe they got it on a trip to Asia in the 1940s or 1950s. Do you know what it might be worth or where I should go to sell it?

A: The figure’s size and the holes in its back suggest that it might be a netsuke, which were used as toggles to fasten inro, wooden, or lacquer pouches in Japan. They have been used since the 16th century. They can be made of ivory, wood, stone, metal, or porcelain and are usually carved or molded into shapes like human figures, animals, or mythological creatures. Ivory netsuke can be worth hundreds, even thousands of dollars, depending on the material, quality, and rarity of the design. The character mark on the back of yours looks like the signature of Masatomo, a netsuke artist from the 19th century. His pieces often sell for about $500 to $600. An appraiser or dealer who specializes in Asian art may be able to authenticate it. Check your state and the federal Department of Fish and Wildlife for laws about selling ivory. You may need proof of the item’s age, like a document or a dated photo, and the species the ivory came from.

Do you have a question for Collector’s Gallery? Send your question and attached photos via e-mail to ATNews@aimmedia.com. Photographs must be 300 dpi. Please include as much information about your item as possible: size, condition, where it came from, or anything else helpful. The values given are estimates and are not intended for legal or personal dealings.

American Airlines Aviation Memorabilia

Choisy-le-Roi Majolica Vase

Q: I have a tall vase or urn. It is pottery, as best I can tell, and the stamp on the bottom says “Choisy I Roi” … H B CHOISY. The numbers 333 and 320 are stamped on the bottom. It stands 24 1/2 inches tall and is 39 inches around, and the opening on the top is 8 1/2 inches. It’s very beautiful, as you can tell from the photo. It was purchased at an auction many years ago for approximately $25. I’ve tried to research the piece and have found the company but not the vase. Any help you can give me would be appreciated. And, of course, we would love to know its value.

A: Several types of ceramics were made in Choisy-le-Roi, France, including porcelain, semiporcelain, and majolica. Your vase looks like majolica, a type of pottery with a thick, usually brightly colored tin glaze that conceals the clay. It is also called faience. It has been made since the 14th century and was especially popular in the late 19th century. The letters in your mark, “H B & Cie,” stand for “Hippolyte Boulenger & Sons.” Hippolyte Boulanger inherited the factory from his father in 1863. Buying it for $25 is a bargain—at recent auctions, Choisy-le-Roi majolica has sold from about $100 to thousands of dollars! The highest prices go to artist-signed pieces with elaborate, lifelike molded figures of birds and animals. Smaller, simpler pieces, like a bowl with painted flowers and no three-dimensional decorations, sell for about $100. Majolica vases like yours by other makers have sold for about $100 to $500.

Do you have a question for Collector’s Gallery? Send your question and attached photos via e-mail to ATNews@aimmedia.com. Photographs must be 300 dpi. Please include as much information about your item as possible: size, condition, where it came from, or anything else helpful. The values given are estimates and are not intended for legal or personal dealings.

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