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???

A WEEKLY (sometimes) WHATISIT.... Post by BumblePuppySales

We encounter a variety of oddball and one of a kind items in our estate sale adventures.  We've created a weekly (someties) WHATISIT blog post to explore some of our interesting or reminiscent treasures!

We held our last flea market for the year this weekend and had over 40 vendor booths filled with unique items.  One vendor, a 25 year flea market veteran, Ron Liszewski, had a treasure from the 1920's.  We've posted some pictures of this item below.  We'd love to hear your theories about this unique antique.  What could it be???

We'll post "the answer" later this week!

9-16 Featured Item 1: Heddon Stockwell Type Meteorite Detector

We've got a meteorite detector for sale this week.  Its not your average detector!  This one was built in the 1950's by a Lawrence University professor (Appleton, WI) and was the first ever patented detector.  Unfortunately, it doesn't come with a manual or its power cord so we are unable to test it.  There is also the tiny matter of us not having any meteorites to detect (yes, Josh is "acting" in the picture).  The detector we have for sale consists of a round, wrapped copper tube which is to be worn over the shoulders via canvas straps.  The unit weighs about 50 pounds.  One side has a place in which to plug a cord and the other has a small "read out" area and white button.  This is truly one of the most unique pieces we've had walk through our doors. 

This precursor to the Heddon Stockwell-type Meteorite Detector was invented by Lawrence University professor William F. Read.  Most information published about the detector actually comes from the second model built by Read which was wheelbarrow mounted (he was trying to perfect the Heddon Stockwell wheelbarrow mounted detector.  This first model was worn over the shoulders as you can see in the above picture.  You can read more about how the wheelbarrow model works in this article (which is also where I pulled the information in this paragraph from):  http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1965Metic...2..369R





Additional information written about and by William F. Read can be found at these links as well as information about meteorites found in and around the Fox Cities:

• http://www.jstor.org/pss/3627173
• http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1969Metic...4..244R
• http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=div&did=WI.WT1960.WFRead&isize=text
• http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=b68533dd-054d-4624-a2b0-18a65e5bc85d