There have been many types of furniture styles over the years. When a style would make it’s entrance into the market it was almost immediately reproduced. There are many fake antiques out there and your best line of defense against them is to know the product you are buying and to do your research or to ask someone that does, to help you. In this article I have explained the different styles of furniture from 1700’s-present.

Cookie jars like cookbooks offer endless variety. The plain 1930s era stoneware jars were ultimately replaced by figures of every type like fruits including a pineapple, hippos, lions, cartoon characters,  bears, windmills, houses, clowns, angels, leprechauns, barns, shapes and just about anything else you could picture.
The initial figural cookie jars were decorated over their glaze with a cold paint, but by the 1940s an under glaze decorating technique was developed that produced bright, permanent colors.

There has been a debate over what an antique is for years. Some say an Antique is:
An object of considerable age valued for its aesthetic or historical significance. In the antiques trade, the term refers to objects more than 100 years old.

Hupfeld’s ‘violin player’ was one of the marvels at the World’s Exhibition of 1910 in Brussels.
The Hupfeld Phonoliszt Violina was made in Germany by Ludwig Hupfeld.
Hupfeld was the world’s leading manufacturer of automatic pianos and orchestrions, 1892-1930. They also made rolls circa 1934. Founded in 1892 when Ludwig Hupfeld took over J.M Grob & CO. ultimately employed over 2500 people in several factories, the largest including about 1 million square feet of floor space.

In the ten years since the introduction of the Victrola , the company executives has noted with delight the gradual shift in public preference towards the more expensive offerings in their product line. Since the demise of the Victrola XX in 1909, the Victrola XVI, which sold for $200.00 (except for the special order instruments), was the top-of-the-line. In June of 1915 Victor recognized the apparent demand for expensive phonographs by introducing the Victrola XVIII.

To people around the world “Regina” is synonymous with the term “music box”. With 80% to 90% of the American market for disc-type music boxes. Regina enjoyed the golden age of the disc instruments-an era which for Regina lasted from about 1894 to World War I although instruments were shipped as late as 1921.
There are various Regina automatic musical instruments. I will cover just a few types of Regina music boxes in this article.

In 1635, Richard Graves opened the first recorded American pewter store in Salem, Mass. He supplied the homes, taverns, and churches in the colonies with ladles, mugs, plates, bowls and spoons.
Clergymen offered communion from his pewter chalices. Housewives served stew in his containers, and taverns sold beer in his tankards.

The Yale Wonder Clock is rare. Talk about gimmicks and options.
This unusual oak clock is about 7 feet tall. It’s a marriage of clock, music box, coin collecting, and arcade machine.
When you insert a nickel-size, stamped aluminum coin lights flash, music plays, and a token drops into a reward cup potentially worth 5¢, 10¢, 15¢, or 25¢.
While all this is happening within the case, three numbered tiny reels spin, generating a random number between 000 and 999.

Some of the most desirable bottles were made between 1810 and 1910. Before 1810, few bottles were produced in this country. After 1910, most were machine made. The bottle-making world experienced a revolution in 1903 when the automatic bottle-machine appeared. Within 10-years, the glassblower’s touch became a thing of the past in glass houses.
The artistry also disappeared, and that’s why later bottles are of less significance to collectors now (unless they have unusual characteristics like some of the poison bottles).

Trying to figure out who invented the mechanical clock is like trying to decide who invented the bicycle. There are many possibilities but no one really knows for sure.
The first clocks were public tower or turret clocks. They were meant to be heard and not seen, so they didn’t have dials or hands. They were basically automatic bell sounders.
Until the first decade of the 19th century, both European and American clocks were products of the craftsman’s shop. Many people were required to produce these clocks. Turners, metalworkers, and joiners were …