December 2002 Hotlines

New tin containers picturing Raggedy Ann are available. They hold lemonade, pink hot chocolate, or candy cane, butterscotch, chocolate, or vanilla cocoa. (McSteven’s, PO Box 820100, Vancouver, WA

There are TV infomercials promising to teach you how to make a fortune in real estate. Now there are e-mails that offer to teach you how to make thousands of dollars in 30 days selling on eBay. Both companies make their money by selling you lessons.

Remember the photo-booth pictures of the past? The machine was patented in 1925. The strip of four black and white pictures was the “instant” photo of the day. A few collectors are searching for these photo strips at flea markets. Young teens today like the modern version of the photos, available on machines that make sticker-strip pictures. There is even a new book, Photobooth, by Babbette Hines (Princeton Architectural Press). Originally eight for a quarter, they now bring from $1 to $100.

A cracked stoneware crock picturing a flag and an eagle with the letters USA on its breast sold on eBay for a surprising $37,877, even though it had an early staple restoration on the bottom and one side. The seller thought the crock was made about 1876, but knowledgeable bidders realized the mark on the

We don’t understand the newest football card promotion by Topps. The cards can be purchased, then kept in an etopps.com account so they can then be bought or sold on the etopps “trading floor” hosted by eBay. If, instead, the cards are delivered to the buyer, they cannot be traded on etopps. Is this collecting-or is it speculating that the price will go up? Why buy a card as part of your collection if you never see it?

We went to an outdoor antiques show near Cleveland a few weeks ago. The show is known for its top-quality country items. It rained the first morning and was 90 degrees the next day. Dealers told us they were worried about the weather’s effect on sales, but by the end of the show most had done very well. Furniture, rugs, and mid-19th-century ceramics and tools did especially well.

The most “in-demand” clocks today are statue clocks, porcelain-cased clocks, calendar clocks, and swingers (shelf clocks with long pendulums that swing). But statue clocks and swingers are both being reproduced, and that may lower their values.

Affordable clocks that seem to be a good buy now are early battery clocks, animated clocks with eyes or other parts that move, and novelty clocks.

Hawaiian memorabilia prices went up with the release of the summer surfing movie, Blue Crush. But the abundance of souvenir hula dolls and Hawaiian shirts that appeared at shows and sales means that prices seem to be due for a fall. Japanese collectors bought many of the wild printed shirts in the 1990s, but they aren’t interested anymore.