Kovels Antique Trader Vol. 67 No. 10 – August 2023

Fruit Salad Jewelry … Thrift Shop Royalty… John Dillinger Collectibles … Archival Fashion … Lamps & Lighting … Catalin Radios … ’70s & ’80s Toys … Magic Memorabilia … Collector’s Gallery … Prices    

Kovels Antique Trader Debut Issue – August 2023

Thrifty Threads…Archival Fashion…Lamps and Lighting…Catalin Radios…’70s and ’80s Toys…Magic Memorabilia…John Dillinger & Gangster Memorabilia…Fruit Salad Jewelry…Thrift Shop Tourism…Ceramics Marks…Collector’s Gallery      

Sculptural Chandelier is a Work of Art

Giacometti chandelier lights up auction. In the 1960s, painter John Craxton saw an interesting-looking bronze chandelier at an antiques store in London. Its six arms were paired like long, straight branches with spiked ends, and a hollow sphere with large, round cutouts dangled underneath. Craxton immediately recognized it as a piece commissioned in the 1940s […]

Nicola Tesla Letter

A Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) letter discussing his place among America’s greatest inventors sold for $341,295 at RR Auction of Boston. Tesla was an inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system. The four-page letter on monogrammed letterhead is signed “N. […]

Colorful and Minimalist Scandinavian Lighting

Scandinavian lighting devices are functional and have minimalist, clean designs. A recent Wright auction in Chicago featured Scandinavian designed furniture and furnishings, including nearly 40 lots of lamps and other lighting. Top price was a set of six brass-plated aluminum and plastic ceiling lamps designed by Hans-Agne Jakobsson of Sweden in 1965 that sold for […]

Lighting Mid-1920s to the 1960s

From about 1925 through much of the 1930s, art deco designers created lamps that softened the light cast by electric bulbs. They replaced colored-glass shades with frosted, opaque, and smoked glass and designed uplights, indirect lighting with bulbs that shone upward. Stained glass went out of favor, and bronze, painted metal, alabaster, marble, lacquer, chrome, […]