More July 2005 Hotlines

The microphone used by Johnny Carson and discarded by NBC in the early 1980s auctioned for $50,787 at a Heritage Entertainment online auction. It had been rescued from the trash by a savvy collector.

Free: Look for new baseball cards in special packages of Sunkist fresh fruit.

Black, a popular color for minimalist modern houses of the 1980s, is now being used on traditional-style pieces. Look for chandeliers with black glass prisms, glossy black vases, black lacquered furniture, and black leather. Perhaps dealers will stop spraying white paint on all their wicker and “country” furniture and start displaying black pottery, black candlesticks, and dark furniture. New black pieces that resemble old designs are being made by Lalique, Waterford, Haviland, and many wallpaper and textile companies.

Buy any type of vintage bangle bracelet to be stylish. Fashion-show models are wearing stacks of bracelets with skimpy dresses. It’s OK to combine wide with narrow and to mix colors, patterns, wood, plastic, and jeweled, but stop at the elbow. (Financial Times)

Decorators are always getting ideas at collectibles shows. One dealer at a recent show hung botanical prints from small mousetraps. Watch for this in decorating magazines. But we worry that the prints will be damaged if they’re displayed this way for a long time.

Half-gallon Mason jars are available, but only one is known in light golden amber glass. It sold for the high price of $6,720 at Norman Heckler’s February absentee auction. The jar is marked “Masons, Patent Nov. 30th, 1858” and has the “HGW” monogram. The record for any Mason jar, set in 2001, is $21,280 for a quart jar in aquamarine glass with milk glass striations and one olive streak through the center.