HO HO HO - Happy Holidays from Albuquerque's ANTIQUE MILE

Lots of Christmas specials and discounts on the Antique Mile.
Check out the map on the left and get your Christmas shopping done while walking down memory lane.

Albuquerque ANTIQUE MILE joins 40 other businesses to celebrate the North Fourth Street HOLIDAY STOP and SHOP!

Visit any one of our Antique Mile Shops for savings, refreshments and more.
  Two days of fantastic savings and Holiday Celebration!!

For details visit the North Fourth Holiday Stop and Shop website.

About Roseville Pottery

(From www.JustArtPottery.com)

The Roseville Pottery Company was founded in 1890.  Roseville initially produced simple utilitarian ware such as flower pots, stoneware, umbrella stands, cuspidors, and limited painted ware.  In 1900, Roseville Rozane became the first high quality art pottery line produced by Roseville.  In 1904, Frederick Rhead became art director for Roseville pottery. Rhead was responsible for the production of scarce art pottery lines such as Fudji, Crystalis, Della Rovvia, and Aztec.
In the early teens as demand for the more expensive, handcrafted art pottery declined Roseville pottery shifted production to more commercially produced pottery.  Roseville's ability to nimbly adapt to market conditions was one of the potteries' greatest attributes as Roseville was continually able to produce the most popular patterns and styles compared to their immediate competitors.  

In 1919, Frank Ferrel succeeded Harry Rhead (Frederick's brother) as art director for Roseville pottery. Frank Frerrel and George Krause combined to produce many of today's most popular Roseville pottery patterns including Dahlrose, Rosecraft Hexagon, Ferella, Sunflower, Blackberry, Cherry Blossom, and Wisteria.
Roseville pottery introduced Pinecone in 1935. Pinecone became the most successful and highest volume pattern produced during the existence of Roseville pottery. The pattern includes over 75 different shapes in blue, brown, and green.
World War II necessitated another production change for Roseville pottery. During this time period, Roseville introduced such patterns as Fuchsia, Cosmos,Columbine, White Rose, Bittersweet, and Zephyr Lily. While these patterns were still the best quality art pottery in the market at this time, it was not enough to save the company. Roseville Pottery ceased operations in 1954.
Throughout Roseville's days of production, its versatility and innovativeness served to keep the company at the forefront of the various decorating styles and buying public trends. Even to this day, Roseville pottery still represents the most widely known and most collectible art pottery ever produced.

Welcome to the 40th INTERNATIONAL BALLOON FIESTA!!

Tintype (an excerpt from Wikipedia)

Tintype, also melainotype and ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a sheet of iron metal that is blackened by painting, lacquering or enamelling and is used as a support for a collodion photographic emulsion.

Photographers usually worked outside at fairs, carnivals, etc. and as the support of the tintype (there is no actual tin used) is resilient and does not need drying, photographs can be produced only a few minutes after the picture is taken. An ambrotype uses the same process and methods on a sheet  of glass that is mounted in a case with a black backing so the underexposed negative image appears as a positive. Tintypes did not need mounting in a case and were not as delicate as 

photographs that used glass for the support.

Find more info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintype

2011 Lavender (Festival) WEEKEND, Abq North Valley, July 8th and July 9th!!!

Even though the Village of Los Ranchos will not be able to present the Lavender Festival this year,

The Albuquerque Antique Mile will continue it's sponsorship of
Lavender Weekend Friday & Saturday, 7/8 and 7/9!!

Participating Stores include:

Legacy Antiques

   7809 4^th St. NW …... 265-5827

The Antique Co-Op

   7601 4^th St. NW…….898-7354

Antiques Consortium

   7216 4^th St. NW…….897-7115

Red Rock Rose

   7209 4^th St. NW….... 898-4488

Vintage & More

     7005 4^th St. NW  …...344-7300

Cabin & Cottage

     6855 4^th St. NW …….344-1168

A Few Old Things

     8833 4^th St. NW …….922-1209
Los Ranchos Antique Mall

     7901  4^th St. NW  …...312-7729

What is LUSTREWARE? (Lusterware)

Lusterware

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lusterware or Lustreware (respectively the US and British English spellings) is a type of pottery or porcelain with a metallic glaze that gives the effect of iridescence, produced by metallic oxides in an overglaze finish, which is given a second firing at a lower temperature in a "muffle kiln", reduction kiln, which excludes oxygen.

The first use of lustre decoration was as painting on glass.  While some scholars see this as a purely Islamic invention originating in  Fustat, others place the origins of lustre decoration in Roman and Coptic Egypt during the centuries preceding the rise of Islam.  Staining glass vessels with copper and silver pigments was known from around the 3rd century AD, although true lustre technology probably began sometime between the 4th and 8th centuries AD.  Lustre glazes were applied to pottery in Mesopotamia in the 9th century; the technique soon became popular in Persian and Syria.  Lusterware was later produced in Egypt during the Fatimid caliphate in the 10th-12th centuries. While the production of lusterware continued in the Middle East, it spread to Europe - first to Al-Andalus, at Malaga and other centres of Hispano-Moresque ware, and then to Italy, where it was used to enhance majolica.  In the 16th century lustred majolica was a specialty of Gubbio, noted for a rich ruby red, and at Deruta. 

Metallic lustre of another sort produced English lustreware, which imparts to a piece of pottery the appearance of an object of silver, gold or copper. Silver lustre employed the new metal platinum, whose chemical properties were analyzed towards the end of the 18th century, John Hancock of Hanley invented the application of a platinum technique, and "put it in practice at Mr Spode's manufactory, for Messrs. Daniels and Brown", about 1800. Very dilute amounts of powdered gold or platinum were dissolved in aqua regia and added to spirits of tar for platinum and a mixture of turpentine, flowers of sulfur and linseed oil for gold. The mixture was applied to the glazed ware and fired in an enameling kiln, depositing a thin film of platinum or gold. Platinum produced the appearance of solid silver, and was employed for the middle class in shapes identical to those uses for silver tea services, ca. 1810-1840. Depending on the concentration of gold in the lustring compound and the under slip on which it was applied, a range of colours could be achieved, from pale rose and lavender, to copper and gold. The gold lustre could be painted or stenciled on the ware, or it could be applied in the resist technique, in which the background was solidly lustred, and the design remained in the body color. In the resist technique, similar to batik, the design was painted in glue and size in a glycerin or honey compound, the lustre applied by dipping, and the resist washed off before the piece was fired.

Lustreware became popular in Staffordshire during the 19th century, where it was also used by Josiah Wedgwood, who introduced pink and white lustreware simulating mother o' pearl effects in dishes and bowls cast in the shapes of shells, and silver lustre, introduced at Wedgwood in 1805. In 1810 Peter Warburton of New Hall patented a method of transfer-printing in gold and silver lustre.  Sunderland Lustreware in the North East is renowned for its mottled pink lustreware, and lustreware was also produced in Leeds, Yorkshire, where the technique may have been introduced by Thomas Lakin.  Wedgwood's lusterware made in the 1820s spawned the production of mass quantities of copper and silver lustreware in England and Wales. Cream pitchers with appliqué-detailed spouts and meticulously applied handles were most common, and often featured stylized decorative bands in dark blue, cream yellow, pink, and, most rare, dark green and purple. Raised, multicolored patterns depicting pastoral scenes were also created, and sand was sometimes incorporated into the glaze to add texture. Pitchers were produced in a range of sizes from cream pitchers to large milk pitchers, as well as small coffeepots and teapots. Tea sets came a bit later, usually featuring creamers, sugar bowls, and slop bowls.

Large pitchers with transfer printed commemorative scenes appear to have arrived around the middle of the 19th century. These were purely decorative and today command high prices because of their historical connections. Delicate lustre imitating mother-of-pearl was produced by Wedgwood and at Belleek in the mid-century, derived from bismuth nitrate.
Under the impetus of the Aesthetic Movement, William de Morgan revived lustrewares in a manner more reminiscent of lustred Hispano-Moresque wares.

In the United States, copper lusterware became popular precisely because of its lustrousness. Apparently, as gaslights became available to the rich, the fad was to place groupings of lusterware on mirror platforms to be used as centerpieces for dinner parties. Gaslights accentuated their lustrousness.

Wishing You & Yours a Wonderful EASTER!!

The Antique Mile stores wish you all a blessed Easter weekend!

Milk glass

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Milk glass is an opaque or translucent, milky white or colored glass, blown or pressed into a wide variety of shapes.  First made in Venice in the 16^th century, colors include blue, pink, yellow, brown, black, and the white that led to its popular name.

19th-century glass makers called milky white opaque glass "opal glass". The name milk glass is relatively recent. The white color is achieved through the addition of an opacifier, e.g. tin dioxide or bone ash.

Made into decorative dinnerware, lamps, vases, and costume jewelry, milk glass was highly popular during the end of century.  Pieces made for the wealthy of the Gilded Age are known for their delicacy and beauty in color and design, while Depression glass pieces of the 1930s and '40s are less so.

Milk glass has a considerable following of collectors.  Glass makers continue to produce both original pieces and reproductions of popular collectible pieces and patterns.

Notable manufacturers include: Kanawha Glass Co., Fenton Glass Co., Fostoria Glass Co., Imperial Glass Co., Mosser Glass & Westmoreland Glass Co.

STONEWARE CROCKS (an Excerpt from EHow)

In this day and age, history books note the contributions of women such as Betsy Ross and Martha Washington to the Revolutionary War cause. However, these books greatly underestimate the covert rebel activities of other women frequently overlooked as housewives and relatives of the army leaders. Even their husbands, fathers and brothers did not suspect their contributions. When the men got home after a long day of speechifying or shooting at the British, their dinner was on the table, so they assumed that their wives had been at home preparing their meals. But the wives had a revolutionary weapon of their own, one which allowed them to cook in absentia as they sabotaged bridges in Concord or set fire to ammunition storage buildings in Bunker Hill and still be home in time for the evening meal. The English hardly suspected the colonial wives of such devious behavior, but little did they know...

The secret weapon of these colonial cooks was the crock pot, which allowed them to prepare the ingredients for a feast well ahead of time and cook them while they were gone. Due to the slowing-cooking nature of a crock pot, the stew could simmer for hours and still not be overcooked, just in case rebel activities did not go as planned. If you can track down one of the stoneware crocks which served the Paul Reveres and George Washingtons of this world, you could really make Antiques Roadshow viewers green with envy.

In this series of free antique collecting videos by EHow, their expert will show you just what to look for in New England crocks that makes them valuable. She discusses how damage affects the values of crocks, as well as how to restore and display them. And of course she discusses their historical value.

Read more: How to Collect Antique Stoneware Crocks: Video Series | eHow Videos http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_4672_collect-antique-stoneware-crocks.html#ixzz1EQ2fF3d8

Valentines Gifts on The Albuquerque Antique Mile

Let us help you find the perfect Valentines Gift!

Collecting BAKELITE

Bakelite is the trade name for phenolic resin, an early form of plastic. Today objects made from Bakelite are considered highly collectible, although in its glory days of the 1930s and 1940s, Bakelite was seen as an inexpensive alternative to high-end jewelry materials such as jade and pearl.


Leo Baekeland used his profits from the sale of Velox, a film treatment used by newspapers, to set up an independent lab in Yonkers, New York around the year 1901. Dr. Baekeland spent several years working on a durable coating for the lanes of bowling alleys, similar to today's protective polyurethane floor sealants. He combined carbolic acid and formaldehyde to form phenolic resin. This resin would remain pourable long enough to apply to hardwood flooring, but then become insoluble and impermeable after curing. Dr. Baekeland patented this early form of plastic and started his own Bakelite corporation around 1910 to market it to heavy industry and automobile manufacturers. Bakelite could be used for electric insulators or as an insulating coating for automotive wiring.

After a decade of primarily industrial applications, Bakelite soon entered the consumer market. Thomas Edison used Bakelite as the base for his early commercial phonograph records. It was also used to form billiard balls and as decorative handles for flatware and hand-held mirrors. Bakelite could be melted and poured into lead molds to form the shape of drinking glasses, flower vases, musical instruments and other consumer goods. It replaced an earlier, more flammable form of plastic called celluloid.

Bakelite products were not often mass-produced through an injection mold process. Craftsmen who wanted to create jewelry or other decorative items from Bakelite would order it in the form of cylinders or blocks. Powered hand tools and grinders would allow artisans to carve out individual pieces for resale. Bakelite jewelry became the rage among fashionable consumers, but its relatively low cost also made it popular among the general public during the Depression. In 1927, the original patent for Bakelite expired and the rights to the process were bought by a company called Catalin. Manufacturers learned how to add a full palette of colors to the resin and Bakelite-Catalin continued to be popular until the late 1940s.

Ultimately, Bakelite-Catalin's labor-intensive process proved to be its undoing. After World War II, mass production became the plastic industry's buzzword and Bakelite became a pleasant memory. Collectors today prize it for its patina and its versatility. Unscrupulous dealers, however, have tried to sell other plastic items as authentic Bakelite. One test for authenticity is called the hot pin test. Interested buyers should find an inconspicuous area of the object in question and apply a heated pin. True Bakelite gives off a distinctive odor as it melts, very similar to the scent of burnt human hair. If the pin melts the object but no formaldehyde/burnt hair odor is detected, it is most likely an imitation.

HAPPY 2011 from Albuquerque's ANTIQUE MILE with some of Albuquerque's finest antiques!

Hope to see you this year at THE ANTIQUE MILE!
in Albuquerque's North Valley or

North Fourth Street

between Osuna and Ranchitos

Albuquerque, NM