This and That: A Blog

Giving you a break this week from the ephemera!  Here are some items found a various spots around town. Japanese earthenware from 1955-1965 from St. Vincent de Paul.  Not a big bargain at $5.  (So much glare from the windows...) A cast concrete froggy who looks like he's enrapturedly praying to his froggy god (or he sees his beloved passing by).   He's from the Goodwill Bins. Salt cellar with cobalt blue glass insert and period-appropriate spoon (not original to the cellar) from St. Vincent de Paul for $4.  The garland motif, ball feet, and openwork design were popular around 1880-1910.  The liner is possibly German or Austrian.  Its deep blue protected the silver from corrosion caused by the salt.  The spoon is marked “850 S" which is Continental silver, 85% silver.  Sterling silver is 92.5% and marked 925. The spoon is also most likely German or Austrian from the same date period.   The frame is not marked, it might be s...

There was an estate sale down the street last month.  The photos online didn't show much of interest, so I skipped the first day, a Friday.  Saturday my son and I were driving around to sales and figured we'd stop in.  I'm glad we did.  While he didn't find anything (well, he did, but decided he didn't have room for more cameras!), I did!  Salt and pepper shakers.  It was half-off day so I didn't hold back. My second pair of Kasin Molded Products atomic/space ship shakers with bullet or ball point tips. My other pair is yellow.  1950s-1960s, these were the company's most recognized product.  Bagged together with a boring 1960s aluminum pair I didn't keep, these were just 50¢.  I can't seem to get into the pepper to clean it! Top: Lobsters!  1950s-1960s.  Actually my second set of lobster shakers.  $1.00 Middle: These late 50s to early 60s Japanese made dog and cat were $1.50. Bottom: Souvenirs of Mexico, these are missing the h...

This little bronze figure had been in the locked case at St. Vincent de Paul for a few months.  Finally it moved to an end cap and I could see it was only $1.50.  It's something quite interesting and unexpected!  It's a reptile, a protective amulet from Burkina Faso made in the lost-wax casting tradition in the 1960s-1970s.  Not made specifically for the tourist market, although they do show up as souvenirs, these were sold for local use and regional markets.  They were worn as pendants sewn onto cloths, hung in doorways, or attached to ritual bundles for protection from harm and home protection.  It's quite a bit smaller than in this photo!  I went to a few garage sales a few weekends ago.  When things aren't priced I get concerned they will be over-priced, but in the case of these two prints I was wrong, they were well under-priced! Fragrance in Bloom by  Jean-Baptiste Robie (Belgium 1821-1910)   The publisher information is cut o...

Not an X for a title or subject of the artwork, but for the red X I see across the image.  It may not have been the artist's intent, although it would fit his theme.  This is a print of Franz Marc's Fate of the Animals , painted in 1913, here renamed by the publisher, for an American market, to Animals at Bay .  The artist wrote on the back of the original canvas, " And all being is flaming, suffering ," or " And all being is flaming sorrow ."  Marc had a sense of foreboding, a premonition of society's apocalyptic shattering.  He sensed the coming World War, and his painting depicts the price of human conflict on nature, the animals innocent victims.  The dark portion of the painting was damaged a few years later, after the artist's death, in a warehouse fire.  Using photos, the artist Paul Klee, a friend of Marc's, restored it, but used brown tint to show an obvious difference, although it was never discovered why he did so.  I got this in the ...

  M is the letter of the week for Sunday Stamps .  M andrill  Republic of Burundi 1975 M oustached Guenon  M onkey Federal Republic of Cameroon c. 1962 M ouse, Cactus USA 1999, Nature of America: Sonoran Desert series N ext week it's N stamps.

 Welcome to Day 1, or Day A , of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge !  Each day of April, with Sundays off, I'll be posting artwork from my collection A to Z with a few short lines about the work.  The A to Z is either the artist's title, the title I've given it, or in a few cases the subject matter.  I will be posting the same images on my poetry blog, The Versesmith , with an A to Z poetry form.  It's not too late to join in. So, on with the Challenge! The A rtist painted by my father, Winstead D. Smith, 1962.  I didn't know until I was in my 50s, when my brother told me, that this was me! The A poetry form can be found here .  

 E stamps this week for Sunday Stamps . E lephant, African Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso)  c. 1963 E gret, a Great E gret no less. Fujeira c 1964-1965 (now  Fujairah, part of the UAE)  Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Al Sharqi, Sheikh and Wildlife Series E land  Republic of Burundi 1975 F is up next week. 

 It's C this week for Sunday Stamps .  My C s are Animals. C hameleon Ghana 1965 C himpanzee Liberia 1976 C hamois Romania 1976   Next up for next week is D .

I thrift holiday items throught the year, saving up for special posts.  I'll start out this years' special Christmas thrifts with nativity related items.  I am not religious, but do like interesting nativities, and religious artwork.   Bins - very poorly done Japanese made figures with a giant shepherd and his giant donkey!  I don't know why I hid the angel.  The terra cotta one is Mexican, from Goodwill for a discounted $3.41 (two sheep were headless, I bought some clay and fixed them).  The others are tiny, the top one a 1960s wooden from Italy I found in the Goodwill Bins, the other 71¢ at Goodwill is from Hong Kong. The top are chalkware from Italy, Goodwill Bins.  The blue and white ceramic are also from the Bins.  I bought the sheep at St. Vincent de Paul for $1.00 each. Not a big bargain, but they are nice sheep!   Three angels.  The one on the left is Italian made.  The bottom one on the right is ceramic, by Atlant...

 O stamps this week for Sunday Stamps .  O verprint  Canal Zone 1924 O ak Italy 1950  Allegorical figure of Italia, symbolizing peace after WWII.  The o ak tree is regrowing, representing growth and renewal of Italy. O il Refinery and Sheikh Ahmad bin Ali Thani Qatar 1961  O riole, Eurasian Golden Russia 1979 Come back next Sunday for P stamps. O , in case you missed it, the "Day of..." in my titles this month refer to NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. This is Day 9 of NaBloPoMo .

  H is the letter of the week for Sunday Stamps . H elicopter People's Republic of Cambodia 1987 H elicopter Great Britain 1963 H yena Mauritania 1963 H ibiscus trionum (Venus mallow) New Zealand 1960 What stamps will represent the letter I next week?  Come back next Sunday to find out! 

 Continuing our alphabetical stamps, G is the letter this week for Sunday Stamps .   G eophysical Year  Commemorating the  International G eophysical Year from 1957-1958 (some projects extended into 1959) showing polar lights, icebergs, and penguins in the polar regions.  Hungary 1959  G olf  Ireland 1991 G ate Menin G ate Memorial to the Missing , Ypres, Belgium  Belgium, 1967  The  G olden Spike , a g old foil stamp. USA 2019  Next week is H . 

 To continue the St. Vincent de Paul finds from two weeks ago (the flea market threw off my posts), here are the items other than ephemera.  Locked in the glass case where they keep collectibles, valuables, and little baggies of tiny things, were these three items. c1930s celluloid fox terrier and her two pups. Fox terriers were very popular in the 1930s.  In 1935 the big dog show in the U.S., Westminster, had 170 of them entered!  A wired haired fox terrier played Asta (real name Skippy) in dozens of movies in the '30s. Magnetic Scotties were also popular in the late '30s into the '40s.  Although, a white "Scottie" is really a West Highland White terrier.    Egyptian Cavalry Lancer, part of set no. 115 from the Britains Soldiers: Regiments of All Nations.  Britains is the name of the maker, not Britain and a missing apostrophe, although it was made in England. I'm being careful to wash after handing it, it's lead. I don't collect ashtrays anymo...