2026: Year of the Western Belt

RM owns a six-hundred piece, fifty-years-in-the-making cowboy clothing collection with vintage leather jackets and tooled western belts. She’s seventy now, so it’s time to sell these objects. She’s in luck! …

Museum of Broken Relationships

JE owns a vintage Vaughn Claw hammer, a “California Framer,” circa 1940. She used it this January for a very specific reason. This Christmas she received a handmade wooden birdhouse …

A Collector Of All Things Scarves

A collector of authentic Hermes Carre Foulard silk twill hand-colored scarves frames them for her wall. Others she keeps in their distinctive slim orange boxes. By 1937 Hermes designed for …

2026 Art Market Prediction

Where is the art and decorative art market heading in 2026? Straight to the 1970s. High profile sales this past weeks show collectors aggressively returning to sexy trophy objects. The …

Joe Camel King of Swag

TT sent me a piece of 1980s-1990s swag, a Joe Camel Pup Tent. She wonders how a tent became associated with Camel cigarettes. As an advertising campaign, RJ Reynolds, in …

Art Nouveau Lamp Period or Not?

JP sent me a fabulous Art Nouveau style figural table lamp, a nude woman supported by a peacock. The woman’s outstretched arm holds the light fixture, a globe shape, encrusted …

Picasso Worthy Ceramic Fish Plate

Let me tell you a story of a theme and technique championed by none other than Pablo Picasso adopted in the Hinterland of Australia. Check out FT’s ceramic fish plate. …

Cuban Tile With Islam Influence

FF sent me a ceramic tile, framed, with a delicate pastel decoration of stylized flowing foliage in a vase. This Persian symbol for the Tree of Life offers connections between …

Framer’s Label Tells a Great Story

AC got lucky on a late 19th century watercolor landscape featuring a meandering Midwestern river and a skiff tied to the underbrush. A framer’s label on the back of the …