Family heirloom from Latvia. This was my grandfather's pipe when he was the postmaster in Odessa Latvia. I believe the timeperiod is approximately 100-200 years old. I have been told it was old when he had the pipe.
I bought this bird from an oddities collector about a year ago. Even within the realm of his collection, it was a bit strange. He told me he bought it from an (antique?) shop in San Rafel, CA in the 1980s but even the owner had no clue about it's history.
A photo of the bird was casually passed along to a dealer in American Native arts, he confirmed it was not work of a US/Canadian/Arctic circle tribe. A relative of mine remarked that one of the bird's decorative motifs reminded her of Maori work, so I sent photos off to several NZ museums. I recieved a response from a member of the Auckland War Memorial Museum about a week ago- "Although the carving references a koru/fern frond motif, it is not of Maori origin, and not recognisable to Museum Collection staff as any kind of ‘traditional’ Polynesian style of carving."
Of course, it would be nice to know how much the bird is worth for bare insurance purposes but the bis question for me is... what *is* it?
This pitcher was bought in an antique shop in Ontario, Canada. It's a tall pitcher with an accordian pleated surface and a sharply angled handle. The colours are turquoise, black and white. I'm not sure if the item is china or porcelain (I'm thinking china). I have searched all over the internet for anything resembling this item and found nothing. The closest was a deep pleated white bowl. Nothing with the unique painted finish...nothing even close. There is a stamp under the glaze on the bottom that simply reads "Germany" with the "G" being fancier and appearing doubled although that may simply be the font they used. Another forum suggested that the pitcher might be from the 1950's and have been manufactured for export, although that would lead me to assume that there were many made and yet I can find nothing similar on the internet. Hopefully someone will recognize the item and be able to tell me something about it and perhaps the value of it.
