Spanish Ship Bookends

Q: Would you please tell me about my bookends? I am 89 years old and I have had them for many years. They are metal ships with sails. The backs are marked with a C inside a triangle inside a circle and the words “Spanish Galleon, COPR 1928” with a C inside a triangle inside a circle. Age and worth if you can, please?

A: Your bookends depict Galleons—heavy square-rigged Spanish sailing ships of the 15th to early 18th centuries. The mark indicates the bookends were made by the Connecticut Foundry in Rocky Hill, Conn., on the banks of the Connecticut River. The company was started by two brothers, Anthony and Franklin Enquist, in 1919 on the site of a foundry that had burned down the year before. Little is known about the company, but it made a line of distinctive sand-cast metal bookends from the late 1920s to early 1930s. It stopped production between the Great Depression and World War II. The foundry operated until 1983, when it closed because of labor problems, pollution, and lack of demand for foundry products. The 10-acre riverfront property is being redeveloped for residential, office and retail use. Your bookends were made between 1928 and about 1930. They sell for $100 to $125.