Syndicated columnists
Furniture made in America during its early days sometimes used expensive imported material like mahogany with hardware from Europe. But local woods, like pine, oak, walnut and cedar, iron and even paint were available and inexpensive. The use of a local wood helps identify furniture made in New Mexico, Louisiana and parts of Pennsylvania.
An early 19th-century ladderback chair from Louisiana was sold at a recent Neal auction. It was made of cypress wood, which is rot-resistant, hard and durable, has few knots, a light golden color, and, best of all, found near the furniture maker. The chair could also be dated from the shape of the stiles, rungs and its corn husk seat. Modern copies of this type of chair to be used outdoors are made of cypress because it lasts longer than other woods.
Terry and Kim Kovel
King Features Syndicate
Furniture made in America during its early days sometimes used expensive imported material such as mahogany with hardware from Europe. But local woods, such as pine, oak, walnut and cedar, iron and even paint were available and inexpensive. The use of a local wood helps identify furniture made in New Mexico, Louisiana and parts of Pennsylvania.
An early 19th-century ladderback chair from Louisiana was sold at a recent Neal auction. It was made of cypress wood, which is rot-resistant, hard and durable, has few knots, a light golden color, and, best of all, found near the furniture maker. The chair could also be dated from the shape of the stiles, rungs and its corn husk seat. Modern copies of this type of chair to be used outdoors are made of cypress because it lasts longer than other woods.
Syndicated columnists
Glass bottles were expensive packages for alcoholic drinks and other liquids, including many beauty products, by the late 1700s. But makers liked to give products a permanent label, not just a pasted, handwritten or printed paper label. So bottles were made with a thin layer of glass that was heated to cover the label and adhere it to the bottle permanently. Other less decorative bottles were made with the product name captured in the mold.
A label under glass couldn’t fall off, get damaged or become illegible, so they were favored by apothecaries, the drug stores of the past. Many of these glass-covered labels were handwritten with the Latin names of medicines using fancy style gold-leafed letters. Glass Works Auctions featured milk glass barber bottles in an auction that included an American circa 1880-1900 barber bottle. It has a shaker top and a label under glass with the name “W.L. Doremus, Bay Rum” surrounding the head of a girl in a colorful bonn
George Washington has had at least three official birthdays. He was born Feb. 11, 1731. But that was according to the Julian calendar used at the time. When the Gregorian