What’s Around to Buy? :-)

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There are a couple of things on ebay, which haven’t ended yet, so I can’t put them on, but I will soon. However, I searched around and found some nice things. Here is a nice collection of Victorian combs, which is being sold individually by Antiques and Common Treasures on Ruby Lane.

I like the three tortoiseshell hairpins.



This is a totally gorgeous French Empire seed-pearl diadem on tortoiseshell, which you will notice is a bit curved up, so you can wear it as a tiara in the front of a bun on top of your head. It is in perfect condition, and selling for $695.



Something else I loved was a diadem comb top also from the French Empire period, which sold on ebay for $1027.50 on Dec. 29, 2008.



This Chinese-made ivory comb for the Victorian market is only selling for $145 on Ruby Lane. The decoration is three birds perched on a flower, and it’s 6 1/2″ high and 3 1/4″ wide. I’d say this is a good buy.



Finally, Christies is selling a set of two beautiful Belle Epoque shell hair pins with 212 diamonds between them, on platinum, c 1900. They will be sold on Feb. 9, est: $5,000 – $7,000.



This Greek Ivory comb, c. 350 B.C., with a letter of authenticity, and a fabulously carved woman’s face sold for $813 on Jan 20, 2009.

French 15th Century Boxwood Comb

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First, I’d like to thank the ebay community, especially 0o–seamstress–o0, qmbridges, bengaltiger55, igmato, kynana33, mypinkmimosa, dorothy4284, and pelliott4dz0 for their prayers and comments. They touched my heart and were most appreciated.

Today, I’d like to go back to a subject I talked about earlier in the blog, 15th-century French ivory- and boxwood-carved H combs. First used as religious objects, their designs went secular just about the time madrigals left the church and started being about love.

This comb, being sold at Sothebys, est. $12,000, has multiple panels, and a pierced heart on one side, a Romanesque motif on the other. It might be part of that tradition of ideas, but it is in perfect condition, and I think magnificent. To think that the French made H combs at all, given what they did to comb making 400 years later is amazing to me.



 

Willow Wands

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Made with .925-silver, agate, jade, and moonstone, this barrette is German, c. 1930. What makes it special is that in the literature highlights  of the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Fritz Falk, 2004, page 76, there is an illustration ofa Rene Lalique brooch that looks just like it, called Willow Wands. It is on sale at the Tadema Gallery in the $2500 – $5000 range.



In addition, at Christies, a suite of early 19th Century gold and turquoise English jewelry is being sold, bearing an estimate of 5000 UKP. The suite includes a necklace, earrings, a bracelet, brooch, and this gorgeous tiara.



Yes,every day my hairdresser comes to outfit me in the tiaras and dresses and hairstyles that go with them *cough*, but this painting by Louis-Marie Autissier (1772-1830) shows a lady in a blue satin dress with a Renaissance collar and a pearl-set gold tiara in her perfectly curled brown hair.

Some Combs (and a blue diamond) at Sothebys

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Here are two beautiful, signed Tiffany & Co. combs in diamonds and tortoiseshell. The first one is a platinum, seed pearl, and European-cut diamond hair comb c. 1910, sold for $11,875 on Dec 9.



The second is a set of two-pronged shell and diamond combs, set in platinum. c. 1910, sold for $25,000.



However, in every magnificent jewel auction, there is one breathtaking product of nature created before the beginning of time. Here, it is a rare, fancy, deep blue 10.48-carat diamond — flawless. There are no secondary colors. When a diamond is blue, carbon atoms have been replaced by boron, which is how the diamond absorbs its color. How you can put a price on such an object is beyond me, but it is estimated at $5 million. This is the drug, the dream, the Maltese Falcon. Who knows what the addicts who can buy this sort of thing will give up for it.



Italian Tiara

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I wanted this. This absolutely one of the most beautiful tiaras I’ve ever seen. Superb coral cameos, gilt bronze, black flowers, French, 1840, Empire style, gorgeous, even though a few pieces are missing. It sold for $787 on Nov. 9. It had a tortoiseshell comb attached. The vision on this one is beautiful.



Poilies

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Just because I didn’t think we needed to see the swastika comb forever as the blog’s first post, I’m putting up a picture of me in Susan Maxwell Schmidt’s pearl geisha hair sticks she made just for me! That’s because I send her lots of exclamation points in my emails every time I receive one of her creations. LMAO. She’s going to kill me for saying that. Anyway, they are gorgeous, and I love them. Soon, a “some lovely things on ebay” post. Cheers!

God Bless America

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On Nov 1, this swastika celluloid comb sold on ebay for $85. You may refer to auction #270296247509. Someone made this is the late 30s or early 40s. A woman bought it and wore it. She must have valued it highly, as it was not worn very much. A dealer bought it at an estate sale.



I kept this photo a long time. Under ebay’s Judaica section, this was listed as a comb for the dead. It was used by Jews in concentration camps to comb the lice out of dead people’s hair. The dealer wanted $275 for it.  I couldn’t bear to buy it.



This is part of a page from “Memorial to the Jews Deported from France, 1942-1944” by Serge Klarsfeld. He won a Nobel Prize for this. The list of names takes up 645 “8.5×11” pages. When both my grandfathers escaped the Czar’s Cossacks in 1906, they chose to get on a boat to the United States, and when they arrived, they saw the Statue of Liberty. If my family had chosen another boat, I would have never been born.



Two diamond and pearl tiaras

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c. 1900, this pearl and diamond tiara was designed with garlands of open-work floral and foliate motifs. Est price: $176,000. The tiara may be detached in five parts and used as a diadem, a smaller tiara or as a pendant on a fine chain.

By family tradition this necklace was previously part of a tiara made by Fabergé in the 1860s and later redesigned as a neckalce by Buccellati in the early 1990s. It was owned by Countess Orloff Davidoff is the only daughter of Baron de Staal, late Russian ambassador to England, and was worn at her wedding. c. 1860. The necklace, pictured here, sold for $121,381 on 12 November 2008.

A Styrobot with Hair Combs

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RobotGrrl Etsy Store: When you’re an online community professional, the capitalism of venture investors,  programming automation, networks, design, animation, AI, business planning, and staff is vital to the ever bigger member-numbers needed to make a profit and create fabulous virtual worlds. The original dream of one soul touching another has changed, but sometimes you find it anyway.

Such a treasure became real for me, when RobotGrrl, a teen I nurtured at Habbo and HabboHut Radio, used her science genius to make me a custom styrobot. She went to an elite three-week program at Stanford University specializing in robotics, and I am convinced she will work at NASA, Pixar, or maybe even become a toymaker. Her possibilities are endless, and I have been thrilled to mentor her over the 4 1/2 years I’ve been at Habbo.

She made me a dancing robot toy, decorated with Myrna’s enamel combs, and my favorite Robert Frost poem that she wrote herself on the back. Then she put green fluffy hair on it, and a hair comb bow. I then tried it out with different combs, and put my small red Bonaz in it, and it sits on my desk, a reminder that communities emerged on the Internet without a marketing person in sight. A reminder that my theory of souls touching across wires still lives, no matter what life brings.

I urge everyone to go to RobotGrrl’s Etsy Store and ask for a custom piece out of your own imagination. You will meet a great artist, roboticist, scientist, and GIRL!

Here is the video of how it dances.





And here are the images I took of my custom bot.

















Some Beautiful Combs

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A tortoiseshell comb with intricate scrollwork and garnets by British arts-and-crafts movement master-jeweler Child & Child, with makers mark on the back and fitted case, sold for $691 in London.



This beautiful English 18K-gold carnelian cameo demi-parure, c. 1830, comes with a ring and earrings.



These late Edo Japanese combs sold for $1026. I love the flock of gold-maki-e flock of birds.



This art deco tortoiseshell Cartier comb bordered with enamel and diamonds, with case, has an estimated value of $4000 and will go on sale in Geneva on Nov 20.



When the Shah ruled Iran, his Empress Farah wore this tiara to her wedding, and it remained her favorite throughout her life.



This absolutely exquisite sapphire and diamond tiara is part of a demi-parure with a necklace and pin, c. 1830. The sapphires accent a floral-spray design. Lot estimate $500,000. This just takes my breath away.