We picked this up at Buchanan’s Flea Market last year. We paid $200.00 for it. I’d never seen anything like it. I saw this listed in an antiques price guide for $350.00.

I don’t know about my piece, though. It runs well enough when you wind it up, but the horn doesn’t work. Did I make an OK purchase?

Terry (Seminole, OK)

Dear Terry:

Well, good news and bad news. The good news is that you purchased a vintage Marx tin litho toy – this one is from the late Forties or early Fifties. Marx made the best and the most tin litho toys in the mid-twentieth century.

The bad news is that, a) your Marx toy isn’t an exceptionally rare piece, b) price guides are to be taken with a grain of salt, as their different sections are often written by collectors and dealers with a vested interest in seeing the value of their own collections go up in value (or at least maintain their value) and, c) the non-working siren really hurts the value of your piece. Furthermore, cannot be repaired thanks to the nature of mass produced, tin litho toys of the period.
At most, your piece might be worth $95 to $110. So, in other words, you paid roughly double what it’s really worth on the open market. Wish I had better news for you, Terry. Better luck next time.

The best way to learn is to spend your own money and learn from your mistakes.

Best regards,
Matt McNeil

Matt,

OK — I need your help. We’re furnishing a new (well, really an old) home in the Paseo, and we really want Mission-style furniture for it.
We found this bookcase at an antiques shop over the border in Perryton, Texas. We paid $275.00 for it. (Well, plus tax.)
Did we pay too much? We really can’t afford to throw money around right now.

Brynn – Oklahoma City

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Brynn,

Take heart — all is well. The good news is that you purchased an oak veneer stacking bookcase (also popularly known as a lawyer’s bookcase, or a barrister’s bookcase) ca. 1910-25.

It was likely made in the upper Midwest, and (for all intents and purposes) is an example of a type of furniture that can best be described as the nation’s first modular furniture. (These pieces’ shelves and bases are interchangeable — as I’m sure you’ve already found out.)
Now, lawyer’s bookcases have been reproduced; however, I can tell from your pic that yours is a vintage piece. (The bad news, though, is that I can’t tell if it has an original finish or has been stripped. Sorry, but that’s what happens when you send in a black and white photo. I’d need to see the piece in person to be certain one way or the other.)

Your piece doesn’t appear to have been made by Globe-Wernicke, nor by Atlas. (These two firms made the lion’s share of such cases when the form was at its height of popularity.)

Let’s assume all things to be equal and say that you have a piece that HASN’T been refinished. In this case, in the Oklahoma City market, we’d be talking about somewhere between $600 and $900 for a comparable piece in very good condition.

So, to answer your question, Brynn, you did very, very well for $275.00! Your bookcase should blend really, really well into an Arts & Crafts/Mission-style bungalow in the Paseo!

Best regards,
Matt

Matt,

We just found this really old trick-or-treat basket in a box in our guest room closet the other day. My girlfriend and I paid $5 for this at a garage sale probably 20 years ago. A friend of ours who’s a dealer told us it could be worth a hundred bucks or more. I hope it is.

Traci
Oklahoma City

Traci,

I wish your letter and pic had gotten here before Hallowe’en — that would have been really cool!

OK, good news and bad news . . . good news first.
The good news is that you do indeed have a vintage papier-mâché Hallowe’en basket. Bad news is that, well, it’s not worth what it once was (your friend must be dealing with an out-of-date idea of what the market’s really like).

These baskets (most of which were in a Jack O’Lantern form and mass produced in Germany and the U.S. in the Twenties and early Thirties) were once — say, in the mid-Nineties — worth $50.00 to $125.00 apiece, yes. I remember selling them like hotcakes fifteen years ago.

Today, though? A piece comparable to yours would be more likely to sell in the $40.00 (low end) to $60.00 (high end) range – tops.
First off, the Jack O’Lantern is the most common form, especially with the fairly plain face like you see on your piece. The witches and devils bring more (they were always rarer), but even they are currently in a real market slump. Also, your piece’s bale handle appears to have been replaced with a shiny new aluminum handle over the years (the old bale handles simply don’t look that good). That said, many collectibles are really down in price compared to where they were ten to 20 years ago (contrary to popular belief, not everything goes up in value. Some markets fluctuate and others, well, others don’t ever return to where they once were).

The BIGGEST part of the problem here is that the Chinese have since reproduced these papier-mâché Hallowe’en baskets, and in a big way. Millions upon millions were made in the Twenties and Thirties, too, but most were thrown away over the years, and the rest rotted in chicken coops, garages and barns across the country. The prices of the vintage pieces have gone “wayyyyy” down since the Chinese started reproducing these things ten to twelve years ago (welcome to the wonderful world of supply and demand, Traci). You couple this reality with the current slump that many collectibles are now experiencing and, well, there ya’ have it.

Your piece is still fun and somewhat valuable, though. It’s important that you keep it away from household moisture (e.g., damp sills, bathrooms, kitchens etc.). Pieces such as yours are seriously prone to rot and mildew. Also, keep it out of direct sunlight and (obviously!) away from any flame source. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Best regards,
Matt McNeil
Gayly Antiques Columnist