Antiques & Collecting: Automata displays

It’s difficult to escape holiday shopping, whether you’re buying gifts, stocking up for dinner parties or just taking advantage of a sale. And stores make sure to entice you with flashy, tempting displays.

Even if you’re not a fan of the commercialization of the holidays, store displays can be works of art. But collectors of antique advertising have known this for a long time.

Window displays often have the most interesting images, the cleverest ideas and the latest technical effects.

Look at this automaton, which sold for $1,560 at Potter & Potter Auctions. It originally stood in the window of O.E. Day Jeweler and Optometrist, as written on its mirrored base.

Dressed as a harlequin and holding a trumpet, the automaton resembles a medieval herald. When plugged in, it would have bowed to potential customers, offering a royal welcome to the store.

I want to check the value of my vase. It is shaped like an urn with two handles on the sides and raised pictures of people and trees. There is a cupid flying above them. It is marked “F. & A. G.” on the base.

It sounds like your vase is based on the Portland vase, a famous ancient Roman vase. Many potteries made copies of it in the 18th and 19th centuries. The most famous and most valuable copies are made by Wedgwood.

The mark on your vase was used by the Austrian pottery company of Gerbing & Stephan, located in the present-day Czech Republic, from about 1900 to 1903. The initials stand for brothers Friedrich and Alexander Gerbing, who were running their family’s company at the time.

The company made majolica, a tin-glazed earthenware pottery, in styles inspired by ancient history, often with historical or mythological scenes. Today, their vases sell for about $150 to $200.

Tip: The general rule about dovetailing: The fewer the number of joints, the older the piece. A drawer made in the early 17th century was either joined with one huge dovetail or was pegged together.

Current Prices

Bank, ice cream freezer, barrel shape, crank handle, raised lettering, Save Your Money, And Freeze It, painted, cast iron, 4 inches, $35.

Fishbowl stand, art nouveau, figural, frog, dancing, suit and top hat, pierced grass, cast metal, 8 x 9 inches, $90.

Clothing, moccasins, leather, multicolor beading, stylized beaver and flowers on toe, black velvet cuff, blue trim, cotton lining, Iroquois, c. 1915, 10 inches, $125.

Textile, panel, embroidered, gold thread, multicolor accents, two peacocks, leaves, flowers, cream Southeast Asian style, frame, 20th century, 24 1/2 x 82 inches, $500.

Lamp, kerosene, Rubina glass, threaded texture, flared ruffled shade, round base, applied ribbed handle and petal feet, 8 1/2 inches, $1,440.