Nashville Arts Magazine

Antiques | Appraise It

Black, Starr & Frost Travel Clock

This antique, chased and engraved decorated silver clock is identified as Black, Starr & Frost on its sterling case and on the branded clock face of the Swiss-made movement. The clock movement marks date the movement to 1895–1905, as does the overall Edwardian Art Nouveau-style decoration of this diminutive travel clock.

One of America’s oldest fine jewelers, the New York City-based Black, Starr & Frost was formed in 1874 as purveyors of fine silver objects and jewelry. Like Tiffany & Company, some of their inventory was imported from Europe, some produced in-house. They catered to the social elite and the most prominent families of the time, including the Carnegies and Vanderbilts.

Despite never being credited as being innovators in the realm of jewelry design, Black, Starr & Frost was as favored as Tiffany & Company. In 1876, Black, Starr & Frost was invited to exhibit at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia along with the renowned firms Tiffany & Company, Whiting, and Gorham. In 1939, the firm was one of five American jewelers invited to exhibit at New York’s World’s Fair. In 1929, it merged with Gorham to become Black, Starr & Frost–Gorham Inc.

In the years since, the firm continued to merge with others. Though its flagship store in New York is now closed, the firm still has a location in Costa Mesa, California, primarily as a purveyor of fine jewelry.

Considering this lovely clock is representative of the period that was the heyday of Black, Starr & Frost, you may wish to check the social registers of the time for the engraved initials “EEB.” Without significant provenance, this lovely object would have a modest retail value of $200 to $300.

Terms of the month:

Art Nouveau

A style period exemplified by flowing design elements consisting of fluid lines, sinuous curves and foliate and floral themes, with its stress on the expressive qualities of form, line, and color.

Popular from the late Victorian period through the Edwardian period, about 1880 to 1905, it was an international movement of architecture and decorative arts. Noted designers of the movement include Charles Rennie Mackintosh, René Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Alphonse Mucha and Antoni Gaudi.

Folk Art

Works and objects in a variety of mediums created by self-taught artists and craftsmen.

Tramp Art Frame

Tramp art, a style of woodcarving, is misleadingly named. Although some itinerant people practiced this decorative skill, it is more a sedentary folk art tradition handed down from father to son.

It is said many people believe that nothing good ever comes from taxes, but a now-obscure tax act may have contributed to the development of this American art form.

Among the provisions of the Tax Act of 1865 was one that required cigars to be packaged in non-reusable wooden boxes. These cedar, mahogany or pine cigar boxes, along with their plywood shipping crates, became the raw materials of this form of woodworking called tramp art.

These boxes, frames, clock cases, wardrobes, desks, china cupboards, chests and many other useful yet fanciful forms are defined by their construction, layers of primarily discarded wood whittled into layers of geometric shapes having the outside edges of each layer notched or chip carved.

While the art form flourished in the United States from the 1870s up to the 1940s, tracing its origins and the people who created it was not easy. After folk art began to be collected as an art form in the early twentieth century, collectors were charmed by the romantic notion that these whimsical creations were the vision and craft of the wandering, self-taught, itinerant artists “tramps/hoboes,” trading their art for a room or a meal.

Because of these impassioned collectors, the history of tramp art continues to be unraveled. More fact than fantasy is being revealed. With its beginnings in poorhouses and jails, many makers are being identified as having had jobs and families, and although the term tramp suggests a nomadic and non-sedentary tradition, tramp art is appearing to be more related to home-based crafts like scrimshaw and quilting than to a craft of the open road.

Though it was once believed that Germany was the source of this art form, research is now placing tramp art’s origin in the United States.

This extremely nice, old tramp-art frame, with good form, layering, and old paint would retail for $500 to $700.

Popeye Dime Bank, circa. 1929

A lithographed tin “POPEYE DIME REGISTER BANK, COPR. KING FEAT. SYND.1929” itself retailed for a dime in the mid 1930s. Such large inventories of these Popeye banks were manufactured and sold that they remain common today. Manufactured by the Behrend & Rothchild Company of New York City, the bank automatically locks with the deposit of the first dime and opens at five dollars.

In the 1930s, a King Features syndicate license to use Popeye’s image on a product often meant profits for many struggling manufacturers in the cash-tight Depression, and if the product was successful manufacturing continued for years.

With the following evaluation one could almost imagine the iconic “I Yam what I Yam” Popeye muttering his trademark asides under his breath. A “Popeye Dime” bank, in fine condition without scratches or dents would have a modest value of $30 to $40 on an Internet marketplace. Nevertheless, this bank would be a great addition to a character toy collection.

Native American Bracelet, circa 1930

Long before the arrival of Europeans, Native American people used a variety of materials found in nature (stone, shell, hide, sinew, wood, bone, etc.) to create culturally significant adornments. In the mid 1800s Mexican metalsmiths in the Southwest introduced silver and the techniques to work with it to the Native American population. The resulting silver and turquoise jewelry has become identified with the American Southwest specifically and with Native American art in general. Over the years, Native American jewelry has gone through periods of change and surges of popularity. Between the 1880s and the 1920s, tourists came through the Southwest by train and by automobile; this convergence of visitors played a vital role in the development of the Native American art market. Tourists wanted souvenirs, and the silver adornments—plain or set with turquoise or shell or jet or coral—quickly became a symbol of American Indian culture.

Anglo-owned trading posts throughout the Southwest played an important role in the development of the art and the market. Trader C. G. Wallace, for over a half century, lived and worked among the natives on the Zuni reservation in northwestern New Mexico. He is credited with being responsible for the fineness of Zuni adornments. Wallace’s career began in 1918, and he spent it respectfully mentoring the village of Zuni while still allowing these native artisans their complete individuality, both creatively and in the marketplace.

This circa-1930, six-row silver bracelet set with square-cut natural turquoise stones is the work of one such Zuni artisan, possibly Juanita Wilbeethe. Like 98 percent of the finest historically important examples of work by the Native American silversmiths of the American Southwest, the Zuni, Hopi and Navajo, this piece bears no maker’s marks, just a trading-post price code. In a retail setting, this beauty would be priced for $1600 to $1800.

Word of Caution:

Today’s historically high value of gold and silver is sending great works of art such as the piece above to the melt pots. Please be aware that a desirable example of antique or period jewelry can still be worth many times the value of the scrap metal it contains.

Linda Dyer serves as an appraiser, broker, and consultant in the field of antiques and fine art. She has appeared on the PBS production Antiques Roadshow since season one, which aired in 1997, as an appraiser of Tribal Arts.

If you would like Linda toappraise one of your antiques, please send a clear, detailed image to antiques@nashvilleartsmagazine.com. Or send photographs to Antiques, Nashville Arts Magazine, 644 West Iris Dr.,

Nashville, TN 37204.