Colonial Williamsburg's Annual Antiques Forum

When Colonial Williamsburg presents its 60th annual Antiques Forum, more than 20 of the nation's top antiques experts will share their latest discoveries between Feb. 3-7. Titled "From North to South: Regional Diversity in American Decorative Arts," the program features a comprehensive schedule of illustrated lectures and video-assisted workshops designed to survey the rich and varied heritage of early American regional antique styles before 1830. The talks will explore the period's unique ceramics, silver, textiles and paintings as well as its buildings.
The keynote speaker is cultural historian and educator Barbara Carson, who will present The Chipstone Lecture on "Cultural Diversity in Early America." Other visiting scholars include Carrie Rebora Barrett, curator of American paintings and sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who will discuss "Regional Rules and Provincial Politics: How American Painters Dodged the System." Dean Failey of Christie's New York auction house will explore "Regionalism in American Decorative Arts."The program also will include several presentations by Colonial Williamsburg curators. Ronald Hurst, who is the Carlisle H. Humelsine Chief Curator and vice president of collections and museums, will profile "Regional Traits of Urban American Furniture, 1750-1800" and detail "What's New in the Colonial Williamsburg Collection."
Advance registration and payment is required. The registration fee of $550 includes admission to program presentations, an opening reception, daily continental breakfasts, coffee breaks and afternoon refreshments as well as a closing reception and dinner. For more information, consult the original article by Mark St. John Erickson here.

Time To Organize Holiday Gifts

Hello iTaggit friends,

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! I was very pleased when some of my items from my iTaggit wish list appeared under the tree this year. I especially look forward to setting up my new green iPod mini! I hope all of you comic collectors out there received some great collectible additions, all of you antique and art aficionados acquired new pieces to be displayed in your homes, and of course all of you entertainment enthusiasts added new games, music, and dvds to your shelves, but all of you must be sure and add them to your iTaggit collection and share them with the rest of our community! There's no time like the present to get started on your birthday wish lists, and our Gallery is a great place to find ideas. I look forward to seeing what you all add, ask us if you need your collections valued, and I hope you have a happy new year!

Art And Antiques Dubai

Indian jewelry, boxes, weaponry, textiles, and vintage photography will be featured at the debut of the “Art and Antiques Dubai” show in Madinat Jumeirah. The event will showcase over $200 million worth of art spanning from ancient times to present day, and developing through history according to the religious, political, and cultural emphasis of the times. There has been a rise in demand for 17^th-20^th century Indian jewelry among collectors all over the world due to the scarcity of Mughal jewelry made for the Mughal emperors. The pieces feature priceless stones such as Burmese rubies and Golconda diamonds from the earliest producing diamond mines in the world. Other featured items include an 18^thth century Mughal colombian emerald armbands, an antique fly whisk set with precious stones, jewelled dagger handles, and fighting knives of steel inlaid with gold.

For more information on “Arts and Antiques Dubai”, visit Haughton International Fairs.

The Bag Lady's Collection

They say one person's trash is another's treasure, but check out the level to which this "bag lady" has taken collecting to in THIS VIDEO.

Its going to take me a few times to try to catch all of the things she has compiled in her house. I did not see any memorabilia, antiques, or comics which are usually included in some form or another in an avid collectors keepings, but that's not to say they aren't there. See what all you can spot.

Baseball Memorabilia Showcased In Our Own Gallery

Check out some of the great baseball memorabilia I found in the iTaggit gallery:

iTaggit user kihm8787 has an amazing collection of baseball memorabilia in the community collection. Within the collection are a Limited Edition Ted Williams 50th Anniversary Autographed Plaque, Hank Aaron Autographed Baseball with Certificate of Authenticity, Rod Carew Autographed Baseball with "HOF 91'" Inscription (pictured left), Lou Brock Autographed Baseball with "SB 938" Inscription, all of which can be considered almost antiques these days.

iTaggit user comic_relief added a baseball cards collectors box with over 500 cards in it!!! (pictured right) In the description, the contents consist of over 500 baseball cards from different manufacturers and years, including one original card from the 1950's, two original cards from the 1960's and five original cards from the 1970's. Other interesting cards I've found include Wheezy's autographed Bobby Doerr Baseball Card and itaggitfather's 2003 Upper Deck Sammy Sosa Limited Edition Baseball Card, which is in it's own display case. Lastly, one of the most impressive collections I have found across the board would be the_baseball_guru's The Topps Baseball Cards Complete Set from years 1986-1989, consisting of approximately 3,168 cards collectively.

I love finding new stuff in the iTaggit Gallery on a daily basis, and I hope you do to. If you find something that you feel needs to be shared, blog about it!

Help Others While Helping Yourself

During my morning hunt for good antiques news, I stumbled upon a great article about Shopgoodwill.com. If you are in the market to purchase antique furniture, antique bottles, or anything else that you feel has aged better with time, check out their site. It is the first and only nonprofit Internet auction site and it makes searching through the old bins and clothes racks seem obsolete. They have over 75 categories and subcategories consisting of more than 18,000 items from antiques and toys to one-of-a-kind collectible items, which they have pulled from the billions of pounds of donated goods they collect every year. Shopgoodwill.com also has many popular features including Personal Shopper, which will send bidders e-mail alerts when items they are looking for are posted, which sounds perfect for the busy holiday shopper. If you would like to see more details from within the original article, please click here, and remember to add your new finds into your collection on iTaggit!

Painting Found in Trash Worth $1 Million

This is a great little story about sheer luck and circumstance. I found it originally on AOL.com and you can click here to read the full version, but a recap goes something like this:

One March morning four years ago, Elizabeth Gibson was on her way to get coffee, when she spotted a large and colorful abstract canvas nestled between two big garbage bags in front of the Alexandria, an apartment building on the northwest corner of Broadway and 72nd Street in Manhattan.

“I had a real debate with myself,” said Ms. Gibson, a writer and self-professed Dumpster diver. “I almost left it there because it was so big, and I kept thinking to myself, ‘Why are you taking this back to your crammed apartment?’” But, she said, she felt she simply had to have the 38-by-51-inch painting, because “it had a strange power.”

Art experts would agree with her. As it turns out, the painting was “Three People,” a 1970 canvas by the celebrated 20th-century Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo that was stolen 20 years ago and is the subject of an F.B.I. Investigation.

Experts say the painting — a largely abstract depiction of a man, a woman and an androgynous figure in vibrant purples, oranges and yellows — is in miraculously good condition and worth about $1 million. Ms. Gibson returned the painting to it's original owner and will receive the promised $15,000 reward from the seller, as well as a smaller finder’s fee from Sotheby’s, which the auction house declined to disclose. On Nov. 20 it is to go on the block at Sotheby’s as one of the highlights of a Latin American art auction.

Need help getting through your piles of collectibles? Let iTaggit help! We help manage collections for those who need it most. Organize collections by adding in your item's important information and pictures on iTaggit. Show them off in our Gallery and send them to your friends to check out or add to. Research collections with our Google search tool to learn more about your things. Whatever it is that you seek for your collections, iTaggit will help you!

TIAS Is A Great Site To Find Collectibles

TIAS is a great website for finding collectibles like antiques, comics and baseball cards! Check out some of the great stuff I found there:

This is a beautiful 1908-1912 Dr. Pepper “King of Beverages” Vienna Art Serving Tray. It is 10 1/8” in diameter. Overall, the seller quotes the tray at a C-9. The color is bright and it is difficult to find a Dr. Pepper tray in this good of condition.

This fine vintage advertisement for a 1953 beer is in excellent condition but is slightly yellowed. It measures approximately 10” x 13 ½” and is suitable for framing. The ad itself depicts various scenes of people talking by “Douglas Crockwell” entitled “First Catch Of The Season”.

This is a Mickey Mouse book published in 1939 and is 429 pages long. It is illustrated completely in black and white. It is 3 5/8 inches across by 4 ½ inches tall, the front and back covers show slight wear, and the pages are not flat against the spine, but all in all it is in good condition for being a children's book from 1939!

This 1957 Vintage Ice Capades Program (18^th Edition) is complete and in excellent condition with slight wear and slightly yellowing pages. It measures approximately 9” x 12” and features “Madame Butterfly, Walt Disney's Fantasia, Carmen, Schuhplatters, A Salute To George Gershwin”.

This 1940's Hula Girl, Bathing Beauty Clock is a rare item. It is made of metal and measures 12 ½” at the top of the palm tree and 10” wide at the base. It is in excellent working condition with its original cord still in tact, and has overall retained its original painted colors well. The Carriers US Patent Number is 221402355, which is a 1939 patent date.

TIAS serves approximately 190,000 unique customers a day and about 600 merchants use the TIAS system, listing well over half a million antiques & collectibles for sale online. It has been building e-commerce systems for merchants who sell antiques and collectibles since April of 1995 and is considered to be the Web's oldest and largest online antique mall. Start your search today!

One Of The Greatest Collecting Families Set To Sell A Gauguin

(as originally posted by news-antique.com)

On the evening of November 7, 2007, Sotheby’s in New York will offer for sale Paul Gauguin’s Te Poipoi (The Morning), one of the greatest Tahitian scenes by the artist remaining in private hands. For the past 62 years, this painting was part of one of the most illustrious collections ever formed in America, that of Joan Whitney Payson. Acquired by Mrs. Payson and her husband, Charles, in 1945, this stunning scene of an exotic paradise hung alongside masterpieces by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and others, and has been consigned for sale by her family. Executed in Tahiti in September or October 1892, the painting is estimated to sell for $40/60 million (£20/30 million)*. Prior to auction, the painting will be on view at Sotheby’s London from October 7-12 and in New York from November 2-7, 2007.

David Norman, Executive Vice President, a Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department Worldwide, said, “Sotheby’s is thrilled to have yet another occasion to represent one of the greatest collecting families in America. Joan Whitney Payson and her brother John Hay Whitney were each the very definition of the enlightened, passionate and daring American collector in the 20th century, and their previous sales, whether directly or indirectly, through Sotheby’s – Vincent van Gogh’s Irises, Pierre-August Renoir’s Au Moulin de la Galette, Pablo Picasso’s Au Lapin Agile and Boy with a Pipe, among others -- represent not only many of the world’s greatest works of art, but also landmarks of the modern art market.

“For Paul Gauguin, the towering figure who provided the bridge from Impressionism to 20th century Modernism, the search to represent the ideal in art took him outside the comforts of western tradition toward the great exoticism of remote Tahiti. In the present work, the artist represents a quintessential Tahitian scene – an unspoiled landscape populated by native women going about their daily routines in the midst of a sun drenched, color-rich paradise.” In Te Poipoi, Gauguin presents a highly idealized version of paradise, untouched by western influence. This stunning canvas was painted on the island’s southern coastal region of Mataiea in September or October 1892, about a year into the artist’s first extended stay in French Polynesia. The title of the painting refers to the still and quiet morning hours when the local people began their day. We can imagine Gauguin’s voyeuristic pleasure in watching this intimate scene of women bathing beneath a canopy of banyan and mango trees. Te Poipoi is a refreshingly modern and daring interpretation of the ritual of the bath, one of the most symbolically loaded themes in the history of western art.

Edgar Degas presented one of the best well-known modern interpretations of this theme by focusing exclusively on the bodies of his young models standing over their metal tubs. Gauguin would have been well-acquainted with these images because he had exhibited with Degas in 1887 at the final Impressionist group exhibition in Paris. When Gauguin returned to France in August 1893, he brought back with him over sixty canvases and selected the best among them, including the present work, for a one-man exhibition at Durand-Ruel. After suffering a number of visits with his estranged family in Copenhagen and a broken leg in a street brawl in Pont Aven, Gauguin longed to return to the South Pacific. In order to raise money for the trip back, he sold several canvases at auction at Hôtel Drouot, including the present work, and in June 1895 set sail for Tahiti, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

Ever wonder "How do I value antiques I have?" Gathered several antique collectibles over the years? Upload them onto iTaggit and let us use our antiques value guide to help give you an estimate on your beloved belongings. It's as easy as posting them in our "What's My Item Worth" collection.

The Magna Carta Is On Sale

That's a headline I never thought I'd read, but its true. Sotheby's Auctioneers, who specialize in antique appraisals and auctions in New York, is expected to announce that the historical document will be put up for auction some time in mid-December and they estimate that it will sell for $20 million - $30 million. The owner is none other than former presidential candidate, Ross Perot. His foundation purchased it for $1.5 million in 1984 from the relatives of James Thomas Brudenell, who was the Earl of Cardigan and led the Light Brigade in 1854 during the Crimean War. The auctioneer will be David N. Redden, a Sotheby's vice chairman who has sold several great pieces over his career including a copy of the Declaration of Independence for $7.4 million in 2000 and also items from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's estate in 1996 including a $574,500 humidor from President John F. Kennedy and a $415,000 rocking chair.
Don't remember exactly what the Magna Carta is? In simple terms, the Magna Carta is a historical document which laid down the fundamentals of English law. The literal translation is “Great Paper,” and King John of England agreed to it in 1215 and continued to revise it through the 13^th century. To put it in perspective, some very unhappy colonists complained about King George III violating it before they decided to dump a lot of tea into their harbor. The event and the laws that they demanded equality for both contributed to the creation of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Perot version of the Magna Carta dates to 1297 and was endorsed by King Edward I. It is considered by some experts to be the most important version because it is the one that was entered into the statute books in England. It is the only copy that is privately owned and the only one known to be in the United States, where it has been open to public viewing until last week at the National Archives. Sotheby's says that the 16 others are owned by the British or Australian governments or by ecclesiastical or educational institutions in England.
Looking for antiques or an antiques price guide? Put your stuff on iTaggit and add it into the “What's It Worth To You” collection!

Refinished Antiques Make Great Conversation Pieces

I have recently noticed how popular antiques are becoming, even among the various generations. It is not uncommon for a college student to pick up some old furniture at a garage sale, but all sorts of retailers are throwing back their designs to older styles. Reupholstering older furniture can add value to the piece as well as character to the room. Every collector knows they have at least one major conversation piece in their collection, and the same should be applied to a room of furniture. Estate sales often have great focal point pieces that are reasonably priced, and they may even come with a good story behind them. The more you can find out about a piece from an antique appraisal or antique price guide the better. If the piece is a family heirloom, it would be beneficial to keep and digitally store the records that might have come with the piece. For instance, my family has a chest my grandfather brought over from Sweden when he was small, but there are very little markings on it and it did not come with papers, so it will be difficult to determine all of its history. Moral of the story? The next time a parent or grandparent starts getting rid of their old antiques that have been collecting dust for years, brush them off and give them a second look. They'll be of no value to you once they're gone.