Historical reenactment , the whole "hardcore vs farb" debate

There are people out there who wear out dated clothes, they don obsolete even antique uniforms or fashion to recreate earlier times.  They spend a great deal of time trying to be accurate, getting the right accessories and to have the right "persona" for their "impression".  Historical reenactment can recreate the middle ages, the renaissance as well as the Victorian era and the American Civil War.  It covers many ages and many countries, but it always has an interest and reverence for the past.

Sometimes squabbles break out as to who is more correct to the era and egos can be inflated or bruised by a few comments.  Each and every reenactor spends time and money to make their impression as good as they can.  Sometimes even reeneactors lose touch with what they are doing.  I recently turned up a comment on line that really brought home what it is truly all about:

Cody Allen Dillman made this really excellent comment on Facebook Yesterday.
My 2 cents on the whole "hardcore vs farb*" debate, I imagine a group of Civil War veterans coming to a modern reenactment. They wouldn't go "This stitch is wrong" or "You're using the wrong cut jacket". They would come up with tears in their old weary eyes saying "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Thank you for remembering us and what we did." Feel free to disagree.

That my friend, sums it up as far as I am concerned.  Reenactment is a way to honor and remember the past.


*farb is a term of derision about less-than-correct or slipshod costumes, equipment or deportment in an impression.  It gets tossed around a lot.

Rare Vietnamese Silver Dolphin Tea Strainer at South Coast Antiques

Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer at South Coast Antiques

 This is a very interesting piece we got in the shop a while back.  It is a silver tea strainer.  There are several unusual features about this item, a few of which are apparent and a few which take a little time to unravel.  First of all it is a coin silver piece made in what is now Vietnam.  That alone makes it somewhat uncommon as few of them were made and fewer still made it to the U.S.  More unusual yet is the route it took to get here, but that is for later.

Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer at South Coast Antiques

Vietnam has always had a number of silver smiths, although they generally made works for wealthy locals and for items for export to British India.  This piece was made during the French colonial period of southeast Asia, which ran from the 1880s to the mid 1950s.  This piece is marked “MY NGHE VM, HANOI, HTX.TINH HOA A.S.X., 0.900” and weighs just over two and a half ounces.  What we now know as Vietnam was broken into two areas called Annan in the south and Tonkin in the north.  The French made Hanoi the capital of Tonkin in 1902.

I date this piece to being from around 1910 to 1930 or so based on the fact that French Indo China (and later Vietnam) was involved in a series of civil wars, rebellions, invasions, communist states and the like from the 1930s to circa 1975.  During this period I don’t expect that occupying Japanese and later the communists would have allowed a western export luxury good trade in Hanoi.

The quality of work shows great expertise in engraving and chasing on this piece that does not appear in later pieces from Vietnam, so I think it must be from the middle colonial period.  This piece is a highly orientalized baroque style dolphin with a swinging silver basket above the dolphin’s mouth.  The dolphin is held by the tail with the body to the side and the tea is poured from the tea pot with the tea passing through the strainer before the tea make it to the cup.  Any tea debris is caught by the sieve.  When you are done pouring the dolphin body is swung under the strainer, catching any spare drops before they can fall onto your fine linen tablecloth.

Detail Showing Location Soviet Mark Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer

at South Coast Antiques

Now comes “the rest of the story” …  There is one small additional mark found on the edge which is a tiny lozenge which bears closer scrutiny.  The mark has a capital M followed by a star with a hammer and sickle inside and after the star is the number 875.  This mark is a from the Soviet Union era and was used starting first around 1959.  Now the question comes as to why this piece was marked decades after it was made with a Soviet assay mark. 

Detail Showing Marks on Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer at South Coast Antiques

 The answer might lie with Soviet – Vietnamese relations since WWII.  The USSR has been infiltrating China and Southeast Asia since the 1930s and after the Second World War, provided support for rebellious parties chafing under colonial administrations.  When Vietnam was officially partitioned in the mid 1950s, the north became a communist state with Hanoi as its capital.  I won’t go into the whole story of Soviet Cold War in Vietnam, but at least that amount of back ground is necessary to understand why there would be a later stamp from another country on a Vietnamese silver item.

Detail Showing Soviet Mark on Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer at South Coast Antiques

The Soviet assay stamp would only be applied if it were sent to the USSR with the intention of resale or later export.  All Soviet silver goods are marked with a distinctive stamp indicating the place assayed and the purity of the silver.  Now this piece is already marked as being 900 silver, but the Moscow assay mark shows a purity of only 875.  The reason behind this must be the fact that the Soviets still used the fractional value system left over from the Czarist era and hence no stamp for 900, only for the next lower value of 875.  The next higher stamp is 914 under the Russian system, hence the difference in valuation.

Why did the Soviets have a vintage Vietnamese tea strainer in Moscow?  Perhaps it was part payment for the material and weapons provided by the Soviets to North Vietnam for decades.  It also might have been an item that would be been sold in elite party-only stores in Moscow.

So this is a lot of text for such a little piece of silver, but that is the charm of collecting.  You learn a little geography, a little history, a little politics, and a little bit about the manufacturing process.  This is why collecting is so contagious – there is something there for everybody.

Ben Shute Clown Oil Painting at South Coast Antiques-SOLD

A few years ago we purchased three clown paintings. Two of them were what I thought to be fairly good images. They were happy smiling clown that were well painted and had good bright lively colors.  The third was a kind of creepy looking clown that was in rather muted colors and actually a bit scary looking. Well, the two nice ones were by an artist that we could not find out any information. When we looked up the one creepy one we found out that the artist Ben Shute (1905-1986) was a fairly well known artist and that this was a rather desirable work of art.


 Ben Shute 
was known for his landscapes, portraits, and circus themed paintings. also he was Co-Founder of the Atlanta College of Art. We have this painting in it;s original frame, available at South Coast Antiques & Gallery.

Ben Shute

Our Day Out at the 2011 Keesler Air Show, Biloxi, MS

We went on Sunday the 19th of March to the 2011 Keesler Air Show, at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Had a great time.  The Army Golden Knights and the Navy Blue Angels.performed.

AGE Ranger Moses

Check out the album of images that I posted on Photobucket.

Carte de visite of Rev John Chester Backus. Edgar Allen Poe's pastor. Circa 1860's by the Bendann Brothers.

This is a great image that came into our possession a while back. This image is identified on the back as being The Rev Backus and that he was Edgar Allen Poe's pastor at the  First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore.

 This original Carte de visite image of Rev John Chester Backus, Circa 1860's, was taken by the Bendann Brothers, Photographers at 205 West Baltimore Street. Baltimore, Maryland.
 

 The Bendann Brothers, Daniel and David Bendann , were situated not to far from Rev. Backus' church, Westminster on 519 W. Fayette Street, to his home, and to Amity Street where Edgar Allen Poe lived. Besides being a beloved pastor, he also wrote a memoir about Poe and several interesting historical books about Baltimore city itself. The Rev John Chester Backus is buried at
Westminster Burial Ground not far from where Edgar Allen Poe is interred.

This is one of Rev Backus' scholarly writings that is available online.
First Presbyterian church, Baltimore, Md: Rise and progress by Baltimore. First Presbyterian church, John Chester Backus, Patrick Allison

Huge Ethiopian Coptic Processional Cross at South Coast Antiques & Gallery, Ocean Springs, MS

Today  we are featuring an absolutely gorgeous Ethiopian Coptic processional cross. The Copts were a very early Christian group that still survive to this very day.

It’s a huge processional cross, over 25 inches tall and designed to set atop a six-foot plus staff.  This is the biggest Coptic processional cross I or my business partner have ever seen outside of a museum.  It is presently sitting on a base rather than on a staff and is an impressive work of devotional art.

Huge Coptic Processional Cross

Detail of Huge Coptic Processional Cross

 The triple cross iconography recalls the Trinity, but the most interesting feature is the Holy Grail depiction, which is figured as a cauldron.  The Copts today, insist that they are the inheritors of the Holy Grail and that it is hidden in one of their temples.  The say that the Grail is in the shape of what we today would call a cauldron, as opposed to the more Western chalice shape that we are all familiar with from literature and movies.  When carried in procession, a white sort of scarf is looped through the grail and drapes down dramatically.   The cross is depicted as springing up from the Holy Grail.  This particular piece probably dates to around the 1920s and not much earlier.  It is superbly cast in white bronze, although some early processional crosses were fashioned in silver.  I’ve always liked the exuberant pierce work in both Coptic and Celtic items. 

 This stunning collectors work of art is currantly available at South Coast Antiques & Gallery, Ocean Springs, MS. 

Please contact us for further information.

Harrach Alabaster Glass vase @ South Coast Antiques & Gallery, Ocean Springs, MS

..........A few years back I purchased a small vase that I thought was 1880's British Bristol glass.
I had it out in the shop priced as such.

I was doing some online research on a totally unrelated item and was surprised to discover that it was more than likely a very scarce Harrach Alabaster Glass piece from Bohemia.

I put it under black light and it fluoresces nicely and it has a grouping of numbers on the bottom consistent with other Harrach  pieces that I have seen online. I have also noticed that a number of Harrach pieces were decorated in the same gilt and with similar designs.

This vase is a truly a great find for anyone that is collecting Victorian era Bohemian glass.