Another Somewhat Weekly WhatIsIt Blog Posting... Who are these people?

This week we are featuring three autographed photos from our Hewitt St. Neenah Sale this week.  There are quite a pile of autographs at this sale.  One of the sons of the woman who used to live in the house, with the stage name Jeff Dean, was an actor.  We were told he was in a movie called the Rabbit Test (IMDb listing:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078133/fullcredits).  However, he is not listed in the credits.  While acting, he collected a variety of autographed pictures including Peter Falk, Mae West, Zsa Zsa Gabor and many others.  Most are signed to him.  We were unable to identify the people in three pictures.  However, two pictures are of the same woman (pictures one and two).  The first pictures depict a woman with three names.  The first appears to be Patrice or Patricia and the last name seems to be similar to Shiels.   The first name of the woman in the last photo has the first name Dorothy. This week's Weekly WhatIsIt wants to know who these two ladies are.  We will post the answer if and when we find out who is in the pictures!

Weekly WhatIsIt: Ada Schwetz Lehman Doll Bust

The answer to our last somewhat weekly whatisit is that the doll bust in the picture is cast from a mold made by artist Ada Schwetz Lehman of Germany.  The bust was made in the 1930's in a popular ceramic manufacturing plant.  This is a relatively rare piece (though others are available).  Before and during World War II, Nazi soldiers took over the ceramics factory.  Many busts were destroyed during this time.  Production continued at the factory, however, the nazi regime dictated that all casts be stamped with a swastika.  The doll bust that we have does not have a swastika.  A link to more pictures of the doll bust can be found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/bumblepuppysales/sets/72157633421446352/


There is not a lot more information that I can find on Ada and her work other than that she was married to an Austrian artist.  If anyone else has additional information to share, we would love to hear it!

Another WEEKLY WHATISIT...

This weekend at our Neenah estate sale, we found this unique treasure.  Initially we did some pricing research on this piece and while it was priced appropriately, we did not truly understand the significance of what we had.  Now we know thanks to the keen knowledge of our estate sale regular shopper Darrell.  We'll share what we learned from Darrell and some additional research next week, but we'd love to hear from you...  What is this and what is its significance???