Related Posts

• The amazing truth about hoarders

  

  August 26, 2011 The popular new television shows on extreme hoarding have recently made more people aware of the problem. Because of this awareness, I’ve begun to hear comments such as, ”can you imagine seeing a place like that?” or “have you ever seen one of those houses?” The sad fact is, I have. Many times. It’s a lot more common than you might think. Between my work for various Boston area auctioneers in my youth and the years that I spent as an estate liquidator, I estimate that I’ve been involved in the dismantling of between 15 and 20 extreme hoarder’s homes. The difference is, I was usually dealing with the homes of hoarders who had either died or had gone to a nursing home. It would be unusual for a hoarder to part with their possessions, so antiques dealers are rarely called until after the occupant is gone. I used to attempt to explain the conditions of these houses, describing rooms piled with debris, sometimes up to the ceiling and only isles to walk through. Now people can see these ...

• Blogging about antiques

  

  June 24, 2011 My antiques blog is a new adventure and I’m really enjoying it. I hope you are as well. The new website, and particularly the blog are still largely undiscovered, so please tell your friends to visit the site and check it out. There don’t seem to be too many antique furniture blogs, particularly not with a slant toward the Early American furniture and clocks that we handle, so I think there is a need. Please give us feedback in the form of email or by posting comments on the individual blogs. Tell us what you like to read and what you don’t. That’s the only way I can determine what type of blogs to write. Do you like short, casual blogs, day-to-day antiques business discussions, or more in depth scholarship. Thanks for reading, I look forward to hearing from you.

• 2014 recap blog

  

  January 16, 2015 I looked at our last blog over the weekend and I was embarrassed to see that it was posted over a year ago. Well that is certainly not due to lack of effort. 2014 was the busiest year I can remember. Now we are headed into 2015, which will be my 40th year in the antiques business. It seems fitting that I start by recapping 2014 and highlighting some of those things which have kept Matt and I too busy to blog. Then I promise to keep up with events and maybe sprinkle in some “best of” stories from the past 40 years. The last blog was prior to the opening of an exhibit of Early American Musical clock that I curated at the Willard House and Clock Museum. The exhibit was a massive success. The clocks all played their music beautifully and it was impressive to see all these masterpieces together in one space. Thank you to all who participated. The catalogs are still available at the Willard House. You can take a video tour of the exhibit here. The ...

• Terrific Chippendale “roundabout” chair turns up.

  

  August 11, 2011 I had some friends come by and visit during the Antiques Roadshow appraisal event in Atlanta. They snapped this photo as I was preparing to appraise a 19th century Dutch hooded clock. People always enjoy seeing the set and how the process works. The lights, cameras and buzz of the crowd make it an exciting place to be. Atlanta was a great city for antiques. My fellow appraiser J. Michael Flanagan was taped with a pretty special mid 18th century Chippendale corner chair (or roundabout chair). It was made in New York and survived in exceptional condition. Formal Chippendale corner chairs often have a single cabriole leg in the front, while the other three are more simple turned legs. This chair was rare and desirable for having three cabriole legs with ball and claw feet, rather than one. Not surprisingly, Michael placed a six figure value on it.

• Today’s random unrelated thoughts for the antiques blog

  

  July 8, 2011 We recently bought an interesting Federal chest on chest from the Salem, MA school of cabinetmakers and wood carvers. We have just begun doing a little research on it. Matt was pretty excited to find that the carved rosettes are a nearly identical match to some attributed to the McIntire workshop by Dean Lahikainan in his book entitled, Samuel McIntire, Carving an American Style. It’s nice when the research supports our initial impressions. The carvings still show remnants of original gilding on the berries. It must have looked amazing when the surface was bright gold leaf. I made a visit to Nantucket last weekend. Walking on Main Street there is like stepping back into the 18th century. It’s always a pleasure to walk around, taking in the architecture. Stopped into the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) and checked out the new Exhibit of objects from their collection. Wish I had time to see the new Rick Burns film on the history of Nantucket. It just opened at the NHA on July 1st. Have to go back soon to see it. We’ve had ...

• Unearthing artifacts from a revolting repository

  

  November 25, 2011 As a 12 year old interested in all things historic, I devoted a great deal of time to searching for the objects of my passion, antique bottles. I would scour antiques and junk shops and occasionally buy the interesting ones that I could afford. Those being under about two dollars. Being on a limited budget as I was, I preferred the free ones. Free because I would dig them at dump sites. Not the nasty land-fill kind of dump sites we have today, but abandoned 19th and early 20th century trash piles. They were a lot easier to find in the late 1960s than they are today, but they’re still out there. In times past, people often disposed of their trash on their own land. The rear corner of an old property, where two stone walls converge was an out of the way location that often became a dump site. Spending portions of my summers in Maine, I found several old dump sites by following stone walls through the woods in rural areas. The tell-tale shards of broken glass and ...