More March 2005 Hotlines

If you want a very limited-edition commemorative can, look for the Spam can (filled) promoting the Broadway play, Monty Python’s Spamalot. The can is available only in a few New York stores.

Vintage compotes-glass, ceramic, or metal-are of renewed interest this year. The number of listings for antique compotes offered for sale on eBay has gone up about 35 percent since 2003. Compotes can be used for flower arrangements or to serve food, to exhibit collections of small objects like buttons, or to hold soap.

Fenton Art Glass Company is making new pieces of chocolate glass to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The original formula was developed about 1901 by Jacob Rosenthal at the Indiana Tumbler and Goblet Company of Greentown, Indiana. Rosenthal joined Fenton in 1906 and started producing chocolate glass there. The recipe was lost after 1910. Fenton developed a new chocolate glass formula to make some U.S. bicentennial pieces in 1976, and is using the same formula for its centennial pieces.

Fifties-era rotary-dial telephones from Argentina are selling here. The restored phones, with new cords that plug into modern jacks, cost $145.

Sponge-cake breakers-silver serving pieces with several prongs to cut cake-are selling as combs for afros and other curly hairdos, according to a Midwest dealer.

We checked on some prices for a magazine reporter who wondered if collectibles have gone up in value since 1999. Our price books show that a four-sided coral and brown Roseville Futura vase went from $660 then to $4,600 today. A framed Harris Strong set of 12 blue and green tiles that form a cubist head, 12 by 36 inches, was $715; it’s now $1,000. But not all prices we researched went up.