New Ceramic Artist Madeline Nolan at South Coast Antiques & Gallery

Ceramic Artist 
Madeline Nolan

We would like to welcome a new artist at South Coast Antiques & Gallery. Our new Artist is Madeline Nolan. She is a well known local artist, born, raised, and a life long resident of the Gulf Coast. Madeline has been doing art for about fifty years. Much of her past work has been in the field of painting and watercolors. Her ceramic art pottery works, showcase her painterly background and gives her pottery a truly beautiful hand crafted feeling.

She chooses Coastal themes and the bright sun drenched local colors of the area to embellish here gem like pieces. Many of her works draw upon the impressionist movement and specifically the works of Vincent Van Gogh. One of her most popular series is her "Starry Night" pieces that have the blazing Van Gogh Starry skies mixed with the liveliness of Gulf Coast imagery. We are pleased to now be carrying her latest pieces here in Ocean Springs. So, come on down and give them a look the next time you are in the area!

SOLD!

Collecting Cut Out Coins and Cut Out Coin Jewelry

 Lately we have been picking up a type of jewelry that doesn’t turn up often.  It is coins that have had the background meticulously cut out leaving the highlights and words intact.  Older version of this type of work generally have a fancy decorative bezel soldered to the coin and a jewelry quality pin attached to the back.  When you wear the coin jewelry, your clothing shows through from the back, enhancing the jewelry.  Cut out coins began to be popular in the late 1890s as charms and sweetheart pins.

A Fine Example of Cut Out Coin Jewelry. A Pin Crafted from a 1862 Swiss Silver Coin

Fine saw blades for cut out work on sheet silver had been around for centuries, but generally unavailable outside of craftsman and silversmith shops.  They don’t appear for use by casual or itinerant craftsmen until the early 1900s.  The invention of an inexpensive, super fine saw blade made it possible for craftsmen to risk breaking a blade to make an inexpensive piece of coin jewelry

These cut out coins are also collected by some coin collectors of exonuma, along with sweetheart tokens, which are in the same category.  Modern cut outs can be enhanced with gold plated accents  

Cutting coins is difficult due to the thickness of the material, compared to cutting thinner sheet silver and the additional harness of the alloyed silver also increases the chance of the very fine blade of the saw snapping.  Coin fineness can vary from 90% pure down to 72% pure.  The more alloy, the harder the material and the more difficult it is to cut as you increase thickness. 

An experienced eye and a skilled craftsman is required for this difficult work.  The craftsman must plan where the cuts will be made and plan out where relief holes will be drilled for each set of cuts.  He must decide not only where to cut, but how the overall removal will enhance the beauty of the final work.

The holes drilled must be only slightly larger than the saw blade because the blade must be threaded through the hole before being reattached to the saw frame.  The blade is also about the size of a thick hair and very prone to snapping if even the slightest twisting or uneven pressure is made.  One source indicated that 20 to 40 holes must be drilled and the same number of blade inserts and connections to the frame are made.  The most intricate pieces may take over 100 to 150 cuts to complete the work.  Each piece takes hours to finish and the most complex might take up to 15 hours from start to finish, in cases where full legends and date are cut out..  The coin is then polished. Then any soldering for a pin or bail done and a final clean up and polish to complete the work. 

We are more familiar with pieces cut out in the late 1960s and early 1970s from craft fairs and made sometimes by itinerant hippies.  Although they produced some good work, they were not always masterpieces of advanced craftsmen.  In fact, they often didn’t have an aded pin or bail soldered on and a simple cord was used for wear.

Look for pieces with intricate cut outs. For example, there are a lot of letters and numbers are cut out, and soldered on decorative border and a good quality pin or bail for wearing.  It’s not always about age and some new pieces are so intricate and involved, they are more expensive than a vintage item.  Newer pieces may also have gold plating in areas for accents.  Watch out for cast copies of good pieces masquerading as originals.  You will see a line around the rim that shows it was cast and not a coin as well as a blurriness deep within the cutouts around the letters.  Generally these inexpensive copies are made of pewter or lead.

Remember, attention to detail will save you a lot of money and disappointment no matter what you collect.  Buy what you like and don’t worry too much about buying for investment.  The great thing about cut out coins is that you can wear them and they make a great fashion statement about your collecting.

EXAMPLES Available at South Coast Antiques & Gallery 

U.S. silver dollar die cut by machine note lack of soldering (see comments section)

Cut Out 1920's U.S. Morgan Silver Dollar

1920's U.S. Morgan Silver Dollar
Fashioned into a Necklace with Sterling Beads and Light Blue Dragon Skin Agate.

A Dutch sweetheart pin, probably made for American military members in WWII, circa late war.

Crafted From Dutch Silver Coins

Guatemala coin bracelet made up of alternate cut out coins from the late 1800's.  

This work probably dates in the 1920's or 30's.

Tiny Silver 1 Real Coins From Guatemala

UPDATE 1 May 1014:  Buyers beware of laser cut coins being sold as hand cut coins in the past few years.  The coin is scanned and then a computer guided laser cuts out designated areas.  They are pretty and they started life as a coin, but don't fit the definition of hand-made by any means.  Also read the comment section below about a discussion about die-cut coins.  Also note our previous photos below of a base metal cast pseudo coin.  The lead ones are soft and easily bent.  The fact that they are silver plated can lead the unwary to believe they are coin silver.

Fake Bahamas cut out coin made of cast lead.of no actual value.

Happy 4th of July from M W. Moses and South Coast Antiques in Ocean Springs, MS

 Wishing You a Very Happy 

4th of July from M W Moses

and 

South Coast Antiques 

in 

Ocean Springs, MS

Meissen Putto Figurine Stolen from South Coast Antiques, Ocean Springs, MS

Today when I went into the shop I had a surprise waiting for me. I was opening up and I noticed a small aesthetic movement bowl that I had sitting out on a counter toward the back of the shop was missing. I called my business partner  and asked him if he had moved it somewhere and he said that he had not. He said that he would be in straight away. I looked around the shop to see if some one had maybe picked it up and sit it some where else in the shop. I was absolutely stunned to find out that the person that apparently took the dish had also opened one of our cases that was not locked and taken my little Meissen Putto making chocolate figurine. I have had this little Meissen treasure for a number of years now and it was one of my all time favorite figurines. I have frequently used it as a teaching aid to show people what a high quality porcelain figurine is supposed to look like. Every so often someone will bring in some type of imitation figurine stating that their grand mother received it from their grand mother and that it is Meissen. I was able to show them this piece and they could easily see what I was talking about. I just can not imagine what kind of person would do such a thing. I could go into a rant and rave session at this point, but there is no real reason to do so. It is gone and I will never see it again. If by any chance anyone out there looking at this blog knows its whereabouts please contact us.

Billy the Kid $2.3 million a New Picture Sells for $3,890,500!

As I posted on my May 21, 2011 post, The world renowned Tintype image of Billy the Kid (William Bonney)was auctioned off at Brian Lebel's 22nd Annual Old West Show & Auction in Colorado. It was originally estimated to sale for between $300,000 to $400,000.
Well, it sold on Saturday 25, 2011 for $2.3 million! The good news is that it will be staying here in the United States. There were from my understanding a number of bidders form other countries that were interested also. One would think that this would be the worlds most expensive photograph, but it is far from being so. It is a bit difficult to believe, but there are three other photographic images that have sold for more.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #96 (1981), $3,890,500, May 2011, Christie's New York

 

Andreas Gursky, 99 Cent II Diptychon (2001), $3,346,456, February 2007

 

Edward Steichen, The Pond-Moonlight (1904),$2,928,000, February 2006, Sotheby's New York auction.

 The Billy the Kid image may be the most expensive tintype ever sold though.

Here is a List of the 16 most expensive photographs.

Please note that none of these images are currently available for viewing at South Coast Antiques & Gallery.

A 78rpm Recording of Vernon Dalhart, The First Million Selling Country Music Artist

A couple of months ago we had a guy come in with a bunch of old 78rpm records. I was not real thrilled with them. I had went through and looked at a few of them and what I saw was fairly unimpressive. We finally decided to go ahead and get them.  I tossed them into the back room and they sat on top of my pottery work area for about a month or so.  Last Sunday I decided I was going to work on a new piece of pottery and so I had to clean off the work area. I looked through the 78's and found that there were a number of early thick two sided Edison records that were rather interesting. two of them were by Vernon Dalhart. I was rather surprised. I have loved Vernon Dalhart's music since I was a kid. To explain, when I was about 10 years old I started picking up 78's for between twenty five cents and a dollar at local junk shops and flea markets in Maryland and Virginia. By the time was sixteen or so, I had a pretty big collection of everything from Vernon Dalhart To Spike Jones. I spent a good portion of my youth listening to a lot of pre 1950's music. I went online to look and see if there was any information available about Vernon Dalhart. I was shocked to see that there was a ton of information on line about Vernon Dalhart! 

A Rare Image of Marion Try Slaughter aka Vernon Dalhart
1883-1948

Vernon Dalhart was born in 1883 in Jefferson, Texas. his birth name was Marion Try Slaughter.
Vernon Dalhart is considered the first superstar of country music. Before he recorded country music he worked as a cowboy, did opera in New York City, and did all types of popular music. He recorded over 1600 songs from 1916 to 1939. he also recorded a vast number of songs using different aliases. His lifetime recording sales are estimated at 70 million copies! Dalhart recorded many legendary country songs that have been listened to and loved by millions for over seventy five years now!
Here are a few of his songs that are available on YouTube.
I was totally shocked to see how many of his songs are on Youtube!

The Prisoner's Song 1925
Wreck of the Old 97 1924
The Runaway Train 1931
This is one of the recordings that we have at South Coast Antiques. Our 78rpm record is circa early 1920's or a bit before.
The Little Rosewood Casket

Vernon Dalhart passed from this world on September. 14, 1948.
One can virtually visit Vernon Dalhart's grave site in Mountain Grove Cemetery,
Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA.

If you would like to hear an outstanding collection of original Edison cylinder recordings of Vernon Dalhart (that can be downloaded in Mp3 format) and a vast number of other early recording artist go to University of California, Santa Barbara Library's Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project.

For more info on 78rpm records in general go to 78rpmrecord.com

As an ending note. Most 78rpm records and even a fair number of the early wax cylinders are very inexpensive and are  moderately easy to obtain.  They can be found at antique shops, flea markets, thrift shops and even on line. Always look for the ones in the very best condition. Do not let people tell you that these old records are supposed to be all scratchy and sound bad. Most of these recordings sounded just beautiful when they were new and in better condition and with proper play back will still sound great.

Tintypes, Ferrotypes Part Two – how to spot fakes, hopefully.

Most “fakes” are simply honest photographs of reenactors made as a souvenir of a gathering.  The fake part is misrepresentation of age and additional enhancement by placing the photo in a Civil War period case or sticking an original period revenue stamp on the back.

The lowest grade of fake is simply a copied image printed on a computer printer, glued down on a tintype and then lacquered.  These are easy to spot, due to the fact that the thick edge of the paper will be easy to spot and be felt.  This kind of fake is generally used on CDVs, but it does occur on occasion with tintypes.

Poorest type of fake.
Just a piece of thick paper with a laser printed image!
This was sold on eBay.

More sophisticated fakes are made by making a 35 mm slide of an original photo and then via a photographic enlarger exposing the blank tintype with the old image, transferring a unique image onto the plate.  The giveaway is that the image is no longer unique and probably gleaned from a website, eBay, or other photos, or even a book.  Also original processed tintypes will be slightly vignetted and the image will not run right to the edge.

Of course, recasing is another typical way to increase value.  Some dealers may take a good, original photo and place it into a rarer type case to increase the value of both.  Detecting that deceit is much more difficult to prove. Cases can hide clues to a fake as well.  Keep an eye out for modern reproductions of CW period cases.  They can be paired with an original image also.  Just as a note, most tintypes are caseless or have a paper frame, since the cost of a thermoplastic case was generally more expensive than the cost of the tintype when it was new.

An Original Civil War era thermoplastic case

Get familiar with what age and patina on an original tintype might have.  I have seen the gamut from absolutely pristine to bent, worn, emulsion damage, and even rust on both originals and fakes.  Some people paid extra to have brass buttons painted in, blushes added and even backgrounds washed in and uniforms tinted as well.  These areas may often have a raised feeling when touched, although a light wash might not be raised enough to feel.

There are many good dealers and a number of good, modern photographers who are honest and forthright.  Keep an eye out for modern marks and stamps of a contemporary maker.  If you buy, always deal with a known seller of authentic photos who has a verifiable reputation if you want to buy an expensive photo.  There are many good deals out there at flea markets, garage sales and in junk shops, but let your knowledge steer you clear of items that are too good to be true:  tintypes with images of Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, confederate soldier with dagger, pistol, flag and motto.

Also take into consideration that there were people making tintypes from the late 1850's upuntil well into the 1930's and a few even later.

A circa 1910 swimsuit tintype
with an old fashioned paper frame.

A tintype cameraman in San Antonio, Texas,
Photo by Russell Lee, March, 1939

Use the internet as your tool for research.  There are a number of forums and blogs that talk about original vs fake photography as well as those photographers who make modern photos using 19th century technology who are happy to share their wisdom.  Seek them out.

Here are a few web resources dealing with antique photography.
Photo-sleuth
The Daguerreian Society