Antiques & Collecting: This toy could scoot

Children have always liked toys that can move and make noise and look like something from the adult world. Victor Bonnet was a French toymaker working after 1919 who specialized in tin and later steel, toy trucks, motorcycles, carts, buggies, as well as clowns, birds, women doing housework and musicians playing instruments.

His toys were often copied, but can be dated by the mark, his company name. The company started as F. Martin in 1878 and changed its name three times until it was called Victor Bonnet from 1919 to 1937, when the firm closed.

A recent auction sold an 8 1/2-inch tin boy-on-a-scooter toy. It was key-wound so it could “scoot” or roll across the floor. It was made in the 1920s and sold for $1,560.

I have a large collection of lady head vases I want to sell. How should I go about it?

Lady head vases are figural vases showing a pretty woman from the shoulders up. Most were made in Japan or the United States and were used by florists in the 1950s and ‘60s. They were a popular collectible in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but interest has waned.

Today, they sell from $25 or less to over $100. Vases portraying Jacqueline Kennedy or those with imitation jewelry or other accessories usually sell for the highest prices.

You can check prices online, but expect to get half of what they are selling for. If you want to sell the whole collection, you might be able to find someone at a flea market or mall booth who will buy them.

I have some of my mother’s and grandmother’s copper cooking pots that are either all copper or have copper bottoms. I have been told if I want the darkened copper to be shiny and copper-colored again, I can clean them with ketchup. Is that a good idea?

Ketchup can be used as an emergency cleaner, but a commercial metal polish probably will do a better, faster job. There is some risk to using unlined copper pans. Bits of the copper may leach into the heated food.

“Long term exposure” is listed as a danger to your health, but limited use of unlined copper pans is OK. Lined pans, the tin-lined antiques and the newer copper clad steel pans sold today, are safe. But it is not safe to store any food in unlined copper containers.

Current Prices

Candlestick, cut glass, hollow body, intaglio flower, strawberry diamond, ray cut base, rolled rim, 14 inches, $95.

Blenko, vase, orbit, blown-smoke glass, 1950s, 7 inches, $150.

Parker fountain pen, marbleized white resin, 18-karat gold nib, 5 1/2 inches, $240.

Quilt, appliqué, red, green, yellow, flowers, vine, 1850, 92 x 100 inches, $740.

Tip: Don't hang a poster directly opposite a window; it will fade. Also avoid fluorescent light. The ink used on posters in the 1940s quickly turns blue.