My goal is to publish new posts twice a week — Mondays and Thursdays. However, if you don’t see a new post on Thursday, it’s because I was too busy, so please look for a new one the following Monday.
Sam plays As Time Goes By to Rick and Ilsa
The two weeks from the end of November to the middle of December were good for fans of the classic 1942 film, Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. First Heritage Auctions sold a 1942 Casablanca poster for $191,200 on November 29, 2012 and then Sotheby’s offered the famous original piano from the movie on December 14, 2012. You remember the flashback scene in the French café La Belle Aurore, where Sam (Dooley Wilson) serenaded Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) with “As Time Goes By”? It doesn’t get more romantic than that.
The piano and bench on display at Sotheby’s
The piano came to the auction block with a pre-sale estimate of $800,000 – $1,200,000. Apparently there weren’t that many multi-millionaires willing to pay the big bucks, so the piano sold for only $602,500 — probably disappointing to the consignor, but maybe not. He (a Japanese man) paid $154,000 for it at auction in 1988 and brought it to Japan. Now it’s back (but the buyer has not been named). I’d like to think it was Steven Spielberg, but that’s wild speculation on my part.
The Miami shows are almost upon us. The first one, the Miami National Antiques Show (The Airport Show), begins in one week, on Friday, January 25, 2013, at noon and ends on Sunday, January 27, at 5 PM. It’s a very fine quality show with top exhibitors. If you come just a little early to Miami, you can visit the Airport Show and get first crack at the very same antiques that will be exhibited the following week at the huge, important, eagerly awaited Original Miami Beach Antiques Show. You can see two shows for the travel price of one, in warm, sunny Miami and legitimately write the whole thing off as a business expense (well, only if you’re a dealer).
I will be posting videos on YouTube of my lecture on French Cameo Glass to the Metropolitan Glass Club. I need some time to edit the videos. When they’re ready, I’ll put the link on my website and here in my blog.
Incredible Tiffany Favrile red decorated paperweight vase, just in
Click this link to view some of the new objects I recently purchased and listed. Tiffany glass for sale. We always strive to offer the finest objects for sale on our website and at every show.
Fine Gallé clematis blownout vase, recently acquired
Look around my website. There are many items for sale, sold items with prices and free lessons about glass and lamps. I regularly add Tiffany vases, lamps and desk accessories, as well as French cameo glass by Galle and Daum Nancy and etchings by Louis Icart. Here’s the link. Philip Chasen Antiques.
