Maine Antique Digest The Americana Chronicles

Maine Antique Digest The Americana Chronicles PDF Author: Lita Solis-Cohen
Publisher: Running Press
ISBN: 9780762418961
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
30 Years of Stories, Sales, Personalities, and Scandals

Maine Antique Digest The Americana Chronicles

Maine Antique Digest The Americana Chronicles PDF Author: Lita Solis-Cohen
Publisher: Running Press
ISBN: 9780762418961
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
30 Years of Stories, Sales, Personalities, and Scandals

Killer Stuff and Tons of Money

Killer Stuff and Tons of Money PDF Author: Maureen Stanton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101516054
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
One dealer's journey from the populist mayhem of flea markets to the rarefied realm of auctions reveals the rich, often outrageous subculture of antiques and collectibles. Millions of Americans are drawn to antiques and flea-market culture, whether as participants or as viewers of the perennially popular Antiques Roadshow or the recent hit American Pickers. This world has the air of a lottery: a $20 purchase might net you four, five, or six figures. Master dealer Curt Avery, the unlikely star of Killer Stuff and Tons of Money, plays that lottery every day, and he wins it more than most. Occasionally he gets lucky, but more often, he draws on a deep knowledge of America's past and the odd, fascinating, and beautiful objects that have survived it. Week in, week out, Avery trawls the flea and antiques circuit-buying, selling, and advising other dealers in his many areas of expertise, from furniture to glass to stoneware, and more. On the surface, he's an improbable candidate for an antiques dealer. He wrestled in high school and still retains the pugilistic build; he is gruff, funny, and profane; he favors shorts and sneakers, even in November; and he is remarkably generous toward both competitors and customers who want a break. But as he struggles for a spot in a high-end Boston show, he must step up his game and, perhaps more challenging, fit in with a white-shoe crowd. Through his ascent, we see the flea-osphere for what it truly is-less a lottery than a contact sport with few rules and many pitfalls. This rich and sometimes hilarious subculture rewards peculiar interests and outright obsessions-one dealer specializes in shrunken heads; another wants all the postal memorabilia he can get. So Avery must be a guerrilla historian and use his hard-earned knowledge of America's past to live by and off his wits. Only the smartest survive in one of America's most ruthless meritocracies. Killer Stuff and Tons of Money is many things: an insider's look at a subculture replete with arcane traditions and high drama, an inspiring account of a self-made man making his way in a cutthroat field, a treasure trove of tips for those who seek out old things themselves, and a thoroughly fresh, vibrant view of history as blood sport.

The Road to Happy Days

The Road to Happy Days PDF Author: Stephanie Sadagursky
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9781440104541
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In 1971, my family of four left the bustle of the city for the suburbs of Long Island where we discovered the world of garage sales and flea markets. Before long we were a part of the action, creating "Happy Days," a 30-year family business entailing the buying and selling of antique and collectible toys. We never thought that our middle class suburban family would traverse the United States and the globe encountering humorous and surprising situations wherever we went. After all, who would suspect that something as innocent as selling children's playthings would lead to dealing with mobsters, actors, dreamers, schemers and at least one murderer?!

Fakes, Forgeries, and Frauds

Fakes, Forgeries, and Frauds PDF Author: Nancy Moses
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442274441
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
A fascinating read about fakes, forgeries, and frauds. What’s real? What’s fake? Why do we care? In this time of false news and fake science, these questions are more important than ever. Fakes, Forgeries, and Frauds goes beyond the headlines, tweets, and blogs to explore the true nature of authenticity and why it means so much today. This book delivers nine fascinating true stories that introduce the fakers, forgers, art authenticators, and others that populate this dark world. Examples include: Shakespeare—How an enterprising teenager in the 1790s faked Shakespeare and duped Literary London. Rembrandt—How art history, connoisseurship, and science are re-shaping our view of what Rembrandt painted and how the canvas changed over time. Relics—Was Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, a real Roman teenager who was martyred 1,800 years ago in the same place where her church stands today? Jackson Pollock—How do experts pick out the real Pollocks from the thousands of fakes? Nuremberg—How repeated reconstructions of medieval Nuremburg—including one by Adolf Hitler—show how historic preservation became a tool for propaganda. Fakes, Forgeries, and Frauds also raises provocative questions about the meaning of reality. What happens when spiritual truth conflicts with historic fact? Can an object retain its essence when most of it was replaced? Why did some art patrons value an excellent copy more than the original? Why do we find fakes so eternally fascinating, and forgers such appealing con artists? Fakes, Forgeries, and Frauds is a full-color book with 30 color photos. It shows that reality, exemplified by discrete physical objects, is actually mutable, unsettling, and plainly weird. Readers discover things that are less than meets the eye—and might even reconsider what’s real, what’s fake, and why they should care.

Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers

Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers PDF Author: Tamara Plakins Thornton
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469626942
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
In this engagingly written biography, Tamara Plakins Thornton delves into the life and work of Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838), a man Thomas Jefferson once called a "meteor in the hemisphere." Bowditch was a mathematician, astronomer, navigator, seafarer, and business executive whose Enlightenment-inspired perspectives shaped nineteenth-century capitalism while transforming American life more broadly. Enthralled with the precision and certainty of numbers and the unerring regularity of the physical universe, Bowditch operated and represented some of New England's most powerful institutions—from financial corporations to Harvard College—as clockwork mechanisms. By examining Bowditch's pathbreaking approaches to institutions, as well as the political and social controversies they provoked, Thornton's biography sheds new light on the rise of capitalism, American science, and social elites in the early republic. Fleshing out the multiple careers of Nathaniel Bowditch, this book is at once a lively biography, a window into the birth of bureaucracy, and a portrait of patrician life, giving us a broader, more-nuanced understanding of how powerful capitalists operated during this era and how the emerging quantitative sciences shaped the modern experience.

The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc

The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc PDF Author: Early American Industries Association
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Implements, utensils, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description


Down East

Down East PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Maine
Languages : en
Pages : 704

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Book Description


Art for the Middle Classes

Art for the Middle Classes PDF Author: Cynthia Lee Patterson
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1604737379
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
How did the average American learn about art in the mid-nineteenth century? With public art museums still in their infancy, and few cities and towns large enough to support art galleries or print shops, Americans relied on mass-circulated illustrated magazines. One group of magazines in particular, known collectively as the Philadelphia pictorials, circulated fine art engravings of paintings, some produced exclusively for circulation in these monthlies, to an eager middle-class reading audience. These magazines achieved print circulations far exceeding those of other print media (such as illustrated gift books or catalogs from art-union membership organizations). Godey's, Graham's, Peterson's, Miss Leslie's, and Sartain's Union Magazine included two to three fine art engravings monthly, “tipped in” to the fronts of the magazines, and designed for pull-out and display. Featuring the work of a fledgling group of American artists who chose American rather than European themes for their paintings, these magazines were crucial to the distribution of American art beyond the purview of the East Coast elite to a widespread middle-class audience. Contributions to these magazines enabled many American artists and engravers to earn, for the first time in the young nation's history, a modest living through art. Author Cynthia Lee Patterson examines the economics of artistic production, innovative engraving techniques, regional imitators, the textual “illustrations” accompanying engravings, and the principal artists and engravers contributing to these magazines.

Chesapeake Legends and Lore from the War of 1812

Chesapeake Legends and Lore from the War of 1812 PDF Author: Ralph E Eshelman
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1625845243
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
In the two hundred years following the War of 1812, the Chesapeake Campaign became romanticized in tall tales and local legends. St. Michael's on the Eastern Shore of Maryland was famously cast as the town that fooled the British, and in Baltimore, the defenders of Fort McHenry were reputably rallied by a remarkably patriotic pet rooster. In Virginia, the only casualty in a raid on Cape Henry was reportedly the lighthouse keeper's smokehouse larder, while Admiral Cockburn was said to have supped by the light of the burning Federal buildings in Washington, D.C. Newspaper stories, ordinary citizens and even military personnel embellished events, and two hundred years later, those embellishments have become regional lore. Join historians Ralph E. Eshelman and Scott S. Sheads as they search for the history behind the legends of the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake.

Art & Industry in Early America

Art & Industry in Early America PDF Author: Patricia E. Kane
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300217846
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 509

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Book Description
This book presents new information on the export trade, patronage, artistic collaboration, and the small-scale shop traditions that defined early Rhode Island craftsmanship. This stunning volume features more than 200 illustrations of beautifully constructed and carved objects—including chairs, high chests, bureau tables, and clocks—that demonstrate the superb workmanship and artistic skill of the state’s furniture makers.