Luxe Jewelry on webblog

Master Sgt. Sheila Couzins purchased a red aluminum bracelet in 1985 outside the base exchange at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, while attending technical school.

The intelligence analyst chose the bracelet engraved with Chief Master Sgt. Harold Mullins’ tiffany jewellery name because he was enlisted and he was from Denver, CoIo. Similarly, Sergeant Couzins’ father was enlisted in the Air Force and had retired from Lowry Air Force Base, CoIo.

Chief MuIIins, a flight engineer assigned to the 4th Air Commando Squadron at Ubon Air Base, Thailand, was aboard an AC-47 Spooky gunship lost on an armed reconnaissance mission over Laos in June 1966.

“Wearing the bracelet started so many conversations. It represented that eventually everyone would be brought home again,” Sergeant Couzins said.

Though the original bracelet broke nearly 10 years after Sergeant Couzins started wearing it, she continued to carry it in her flight gear. In 1994, her husband presented her with a silver replica, which she pledged to wear until Chief Mullins’ remains had been identified and repatriated.

The wreckage of Chief Mullins’ aircraft was discovered in 1994. Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory workers aided in identifying the remains recovered from the crash site. Eventually, all six members of the ill-fated AC-47 were identified. They were buried at Arlington National Cemetery Nov. 5, with full military honors.

Sergeant Couzins sent the bracelet to Chief Mullins’ family upon learning that he had been found. Her bangles eyes filled with tears, “I’m very glad I’m able to send it back to his family and that his family will have closure.”

Morphy Auctions’ remedy for chilly weather is a Dec. 11-13 Winter Sale of 2,900 lots of antique toys, banks, trains and antique advertising, enhanced by the warmth of superior-quality Austrian art-glass lamps and the cheerful colors of vintage Bakelite.

More than 20 Austrian art-glass lamps from the single-owner collection will be auctioned, tiffany including a superb figurai Peacock lamp whose draped bronze base dramatically replicates a peacock’s showy tail feathers with inset jewels. Adding to its magnificence is a Mont Joye enameled-glass shade with quintessential Art Nouveau butterfly-anddragonfly motif. Estimated at $6,000$8,000, the 18-inch stunner is in excellent working order, as are all of the lamps from this collection.

The lamps’ consignor spent 30 years pursuing the Art Nouveau rarities, which are seldom seen on the open market. “These lamps have always flown under the radar,” the consignor said. “Not too many people know what they are. They’re very unusual and of incredible quality. From a design standpoint, they were ahead of their time, and are now rarer than Tiffany lamps – that’s something that attracted me to them.”

From the same consignor comes a collection of more than 150 rare and exquisite Bakelite bracelets, necklaces and brooches. A googly-eyed jack-o’-lantern scarecrow brooch with pumpkin head and painted-wood body trimmed with original “ragged” hemp hands and feet, is described by the owner as “my -* tiffany pendants best piece of Bakelite.” Known to collectors as the “Pumpkin Man,” it is expected to fetch $5,000-$7,000.

Two Bakelite designs by Martha Sleeper are expected to finish near the top of their category. Both a necklace replicating cigarettes, and a necklace of both “cigarettes” and “matchsticks” carry a presale estimate of $l,500-$2,000. Other eyecatchers in the beautifully varied collection include a black and cream “bow tie” bracelet ($2,500-$3,000), and a multicolored “bow tie” bracelet ($750-$l,000).

Bakelite jewelry is far from unappreciated, but few may realize how small the production runs were. “This type of jewelry would be made in a short series for high-end department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue or Bonwit Teller,” the consignor said. “A piece might have cost $5 to $7, which was a lot of money in the mid 1930s. If thetiffany earrings jewelry sold, the store would order more. If it didn’t sell, you never saw it again. It really is American folk art, because no two pieces are exactly alike.

In other categories, more than 400 lots of antique advertising and general store items will be offered in the sale. A top lot is an oval Yuengling Brewery reverse-on-glass sign promoting porter and ale, estimated at $5,000-$7,500. Tobacco pocket tins include a crossover favorite: the Taxi Crimp Cut tin, which could fetch $3,500-$5,000.

The Winter event includes 150 mechanical banks, with a J. & E. Stevens Horse Race bank estimated at $25,000-$35,000. An array of still banks, and more than 100 pieces of figurai cast iron – primarily desirable examples of figurai doorstops – also will be offered.

More than 100 German tin windup toys will be available, including limos and other autos, 15 penny toys, a large Bing ocean liner with original box, a circa-1930 boxed Marx “Red the Ice Man” ($2,000-$4,000), and a fine early Doll et Cie. Ferris wheel ($l,500-$2,500). Among the 100+ tin character toys are many coveted examples of Disney and Popeye animated stars, including a Linemar Juggling Popeye & Olive Oyl tin wind-up estimated at $2,000-$3,000. Morphy’s will also sell 300 graded Star Wars action figures on their original cards, and a colorful selection of antique and vintage marbles.

Morphy’s new Toy Trains division makes its debut with an excellent 35-year single-owner collection of preand postwar toy trains and accessories. Of the 600 train lots, the top entry may be the early 1930s Lionel No. 423E standard-gauge freight set estimated at $14,000-$ 18,000.

Coin-operated machines include two Wurlitzer jukeboxes, a circa-1900 Watling (Palmer Cox) bangles Brownies tabletop nickel slot machine ($15,000-$17,500), and a few well-detailed baseball-theme machines.

A division of Geppi’s Entertainment Auctions & Publications, Morphy Auctions will hold its Winter 2008 sale Dec. 11-13 at the Adamstown Antique Gallery, 2000 N. Reading Rd., Denver, Pa. (on the Adamstown antique strip). All forms of bidding will be available, including live via the Internet through eBay Live Auctions. For additional information, call 717-335-3435 or visit www.morphyauctions.com.