Questions and Answers
 

QUESTION: I was wondering what the age and value is of a child’s oak roll-top desk that I own.  It is stamped on the back “PARIS MFG. CO. / South Paris, ME U.S.A. / No 636.”  The desk stands 32in high.  The desk was painted.  I removed the paint and refinished it.  Also, did the desk come with a chair?  Thanks for any information.  --  DP, Breinigsville, PA

ANSWER: Sleds are the first thing I think about when I hear Paris Manufacturing Company.  However, sled sales are seasonal.  Sled manufacturers had to make other products for the spring, summer, and fall in order to stay in business.  Furniture for use in homes and schools was the first choice of most sled companies.

Joan Palicia’s Flexible Flyer and other Great Sleds for Collectors (Schiffer Publishing, 1997; 160 pages, $29.95) contains the following information about the Paris Manufacturing Company which operated between 1862 and 1989: “The Paris Manufacturing Company had modest beginnings.  In 1861 a man named Henry Franklin Morton, starting with a hobby, began what would become the largest and longest operating sled company in American history…Early on he was plagued with a serious eye condition…Living in West Sumner, Maine with his wife Lucilla in 1861, he started making rakes and non-steerable sleds as a hobby to make extra money.  He assembled fifty sleds that his wife Lucilla hand painted in the family kitchen and they were successful in selling them.  The following year, Mr. Morton formed a stock company and hired four employees….he was invited to move his company to Paris Hill where he set up production under the name of Paris Hill Manufacturing Company.  As business grew, so did the line of products.  Go-carts, wagons, wheelbarrows, step ladders, ironing boards, children’s desks, furniture and more were added to keep the factory running all year long.”  Eventually the company moved to South Paris, Maine, to be closer to the local railroad freight depot and was renamed the Paris Manufacturing Company.

Collectors and designers eagerly seek roll-top desks, whether child or adult models.  When I first read that you removed the paint, I was concerned that you removed period decoration.  Paris sleds are known for their wonderful hand painted floral and other designs.  However, after reviewing the pictures that accompanied your letter, it is clear that your oak desk started out life with stain rather than paint.

“636” is a stock number.  If one had access to Paris Manufacturing Company catalogs, alas I do not, one could determine the exact age of your desk based on the year the catalogs picturing it were printed.  Again, in looking at the photographs of your desk, my suspicion is that you would find that the desk was in production for an extended period of time, most likely several decades.  I date it from the first third of the twentieth century, i.e., 1900-1930.

A chair did accompany the desk.  Recently an example nearly identical to your desk with the exceptions that it was made of maple and was accompanied by a matching chair sold on eBay for $350.00.  The listing illustrates a picture of the chair that accompanied the desk.

It is important to note that the desk attracted only one bid and that from a buyer with a four feedback record.  Normally, this would indicate that the buyer was a novice and most likely over paid.  However, in checking antiques and collectibles oak furniture reference books, desks such as the one you own list between $300.00 and $500.00.  In this instance, use the lower number to determine the value of your desk.

QUESTION: As you know by now Johnny Carson has passed away at the age of 79.  I have a few Johnny Carson collectibles, one being a 1960s hardcover book entitled Happiness is a Dry Martini and the second a long playing two-record set entitled “Here’s Johnny / Magic Moments from The Tonight Show.”  I did a search on eBay and found there were lots of both items.  My gut feeling is they will not go up much in value.  What are your thoughts on Tonight Show and Johnny Carson memorabilia?  --  BMcG, E-mail Question

ANSWER: I had no doubt whatsoever that a question about Johnny Carson and/or Tonight Show memorabilia would show up in my “in-box” within days of his death.  In fact, it took less than twenty-four hours.

Several years ago, I put forward the concept of “celebrity bounce,” a rapid increase in the value of items associated with a specific individual when something major happens in his or her career.  In the case of Princess Diana and Johnny Carson, it was death.  With Mark McGwire, it was his pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home run record.

Just a moment ago, I did a completed listings search for Johnny Carson on eBay.  The thirty-day count was 3,315 items.  You were correct in your assertion that there were plenty of Carson authored books and compilation record and DVD sets of Tonight show programs.

Actually, I found prices for objects that sold on the strong side.  Obviously a slight bounce has occurred.  I found several copies of your record set that failed to attract opening bids ranging between $10.00 and $20.00.  However, an unopened set that still had the poster of Johnny accompanying it did sell just above $50.00.

Since The Tonight Show is adult focused, the amount of licensed memorabilia is limited.  Further, most collectibles are two-dimensional with the bulk being magazines that picture the show’s host on the cover or have a feature story about the show inside.  A matted and framed copy of an early TV Guide featuring Johnny on the cover sold on eBay for around $45.00.  Much of the value was in the mat and frame.

Johnny did endorse a line of clothing.  Dozens of examples were offered on eBay.  Since Carson was a stylish dresser, his clothing is of interest to vintage clothing collectors.  Overall the prices realized on EBay for the clothing seemed modest, albeit this is generally true for men’s clothing.

In the case of The Tonight Show and Johnny Carson memorabilia, value is more memory than monetary.  In pondering your question, I thought of one exception—Carson’s classic props, e.g., his Carnac the Magnificent hat.  If examples of these classic props did appear, they most likely would sell in the middle to high hundreds and even into the low thousands.

Here is a little The Tonight Show trivia.  When asked to name the hosts of The Tonight Show, most individuals quickly name Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno.  However, there was a fifth host.  Who was he?  The answer appears at the end of the column.

QUESTION: I have an album of twenty photographs, a combination of black and white and color, of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson signing a guest registry in Virginia about two weeks before JFK was assassinated.  My father took them while he was in the Navy and was standing about three feet from them.  Some of the pictures show JFK and LBJ near a car.  I live in Mississippi and am having trouble finding an appraiser.  Any idea what they might be worth?  -- RB, Philadelphia, MS

ANSWER: “Where are the negatives?” is the first question I ask individuals who approach me concerning the value of photographs of famous persons.  More often than not, the prints they own are copies of standard news photographs and not the one-of-a-kind print they believe they have.  For argument’s sake, I will assume your pictures are informal photographs taken by your father.

Value for informal photographs of famous people depends entirely on what can and cannot be done with them.  Selling or publishing copies of photographs of famous individuals, presidents certainly fall within this category, cannot be done without permission and in most cases a license from their estate.  Recently, the Presley estate sold the licensing rights for his images to a private concern for over ten million dollars.

If the only value your photographs have is the ability of the owner to look at them, their secondary market value is seriously affected.  What is certainly a great family treasure to you, most likely has a value in the low hundreds of dollars, i.e., $250.00 to $350.00, tops to a Kennedy or Johnson collector.  This assumes the two presidents are the primary image(s) in the photographs.

QUESTION: I have two prints which my father bought when he served in Japan fifty years ago following World War II.  They have painted backgrounds with bark applied over them to give them a three-dimensional effect.  One print is a coastal scene with a large mountain in the background.  The second is a mountain scene featuring a stream with a bridge across it.  They have been hanging on my wall for over thirty years.  What are they worth?  -- BH, Lehigh Valley, E-mail.

ANSWER: I see these combination painting and bark Japanese prints several times a year at the appraisal clinics I do across the country.  They almost always appear in pairs.

These prints are not at the top of the list of things GIs brought home after serving in Japan in the 1950s.  Dinnerware and tea sets are.  However, sellers of these prints obviously did a brisk business based on the quantity that does cross my path.

There is little to no secondary collector market for these prints.  Their primary value is decorative.  In your case their value is family, an emotion and sentimental value rather than a monetary one.

Your set of two prints has a decorator value between $25.00 and $30.00.

Home & Garden Television (HGTV) currently lists COLLECTOR INSPECTOR as on hiatus from January 1 through March 30, 2005.  Whether or not it returns as reruns in April depends entirely on HGTV.
 

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