Table of contents for March 1, 2023 in Kovels Antique Trader

IRVINE, Calif. - Who says a penny won’t buy much these days? A 1958-dated Lincoln cent mistakenly made with doubling in some letters of the design has sold for a record $1,136,250. It was owned by a New York City collector who died soon after consigning his pristine condition coins to be sold at auction. “The million-dollar penny is known as a ‘doubled die’ and it is the finest of only three known 1958 U.S. cents that have severe doubling of letters in the motto IN GOD WE TRUST and the word LIBERTY on the front of the coin,” explained Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections of Irvine, California. The coin was owned by numismatist and sculptor Stewart Blay of New York who died at age 71 in November. His set…

The steamer trunk, if packed carefully and practically, holds all that any woman need require for the voyage to Europe. Since crossing to the other side has become an everyday affair, the question of what to take on the voyage has become a practical science - not a guesswork proposition. — VOGUE, New York, 1911 Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as more people began to travel, women’s magazines like Vogue advised on selecting and preparing steamer trunks for ocean voyages, what to take, and how to efficiently pack it all. Not packing properly and neatly and just tossing items into a trunk would mean “a hopeless jumble of hats, wraps, bodices, laces, and what not,” Good Housekeeping warned in 1898. Essential considerations for travelers, besides being advised to…

CALIFORNIA Every first Sunday of the month, Alameda. Alameda Point Antiques Faire, 3900 Maine St., Alameda, CA. The Alameda Point Antiques Faire is the largest antiques show in Northern California, boasting 800 dealer booths. All items 20 years old or older. For more info, visit alamedapointantiquesfaire.com Every first Sunday of the month through May, Palm Springs. Palm Springs Vintage Market, PS Cultural Center at the Camelot Theater, 2300 E Baristo Rd, Palm Springs. For more info, visit palmspringsvintagemarket.com. Every second Sunday of the month, Pasadena. World’s largest flea market at the Rose Bowl, Pasadena. More than over 2 million items offered for sale by more than 2,500 vendors. Shop for rare and unusual, vintage collectibles, antiques, new items, arts and crafts and second-hand items. SH: early birds, 5-9am; regular admission:…

from the edítor There are two types of people in the world: those who love everything about cars and those who go through life without ever using Lava bar soap to remove grease from their hands. And while I love the name - a lot - I have never used a bar of Lava. But even a non-car guy like me took notice recently when Bugatti, a French luxury hyper-sports car manufacturer, sold its last purely gas-powered supercar for $10.7 million at auction in Paris. That sounds like an excessive amount of money, but in all fairness, the car did come with a full tank of gas. So there’s that. The one-of-a-kind Bugatti Chiron Profilée - great name! - went for about $5 million more than its pre-auction estimate at…

CHICAGO - Potter & Potter Auctions is excited to announce that Aron Packer has joined the company as a Director and Specialist for the company’s Fine and Outsider Art department. With Packer’s appointment, the company plans to grow its art offering into several premier events per year. Packer has more than thirty years of experience in the art world. He previously served as a specialist in Contemporary and Outsider Art at Toomey & Co. Auctioneer, Oak Park, Illinois, and worked at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers of Chicago to create its Outsider Art Auction. In 2015, Packer launched his own consultancy, Aron Packer Projects, which managed pop up shows and events in various spaces across Chicago. “Adding a professional like Aron to our team is the perfect way to start the new…

The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately 190 million Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year in the U.S., with Hallmark alone making 1,400 different valentines. But in the 1800s, valentines were far different. Then they were usually a cheaply made token of love, a few lines of rhyme on a slip of paper, often selected and printed and sold by shopkeepers. That changed thanks to Esther Howland, a 20-year-old graduate of Mount Holyoke College living in Worcester, Massachusetts, who ushered in what is now a $20 billion holiday. Howland is credited with the commercial mass-production of valentines in the mid-1800s. Howland’s father owned a large bookstore in Worcester that stocked richly designed and lace-covered cards from England. Overseas, the holiday was much more popular and commercialized. Howland copied…

Grueby is a name synonymous with the American Arts & Crafts Movement and a maker of exceptional quality. Grueby Faience Company was established in 1894 by William Flenry Grueby in Revere, Massachusetts. A great admirer of the matte glazes of French pottery and the refined simplicity of Japanese ceramics, Grueby founded his company with the intent of creating works of ceramic art that folded these two influences into a singular design philosophy that was wholly American. The bulk of Grueby’s creations were works of art pottery, though the company was also highly regarded for its production of some of the best architectural tiles in America. The aesthetic of Grueby pottery has been described as “organic naturalism” and identified by two defining characteristics: form and glaze. Most Grueby pottery features vegetal…

Much has been written about Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, particularly their vagabond lifestyle during the Jazz Age and tumultuous relationship, marred by F. Scott’s alcoholism and Zelda’s little understood battle with mental illness. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of the 1925 classic The Great Gatsby, obviously cast a large shadow, while Zelda was viewed as the original “Flapper” (and sometimes party girl). Yet she was also an aspiring ballerina, devoted mother, writer and yearned to be taken seriously as an artist. For the first time, her colorful, playful paper dolls have been assembled into a new book: The Paper Dolls of Zelda Fitzgerald. The book came to fruition through the efforts of Zelda’s granddaughter, Eleanor Lanahan — more than eighty years after Zelda first pitched the idea to her late…