The Muehlbauer Collection: Red Is for Christmas!

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Finding Hidden Treasures
Brian and I weren’t quite sure what to name this article. We thought of "Little Things Mean a Lot," "Hidden Treasures," "Twins and Triplets" (after the number of pieces grouped together), or what? Our intent was to share some of the beautiful pieces that didn’t quite fit into the categories for the first seven articles. As in every auction, the ‘biggies’ get most of the attention, while pieces that don’t normally sell for thousands, or even hundreds of dollars, are often overlooked. Hopefully, we’ll incentivize you to take a look at some of these pieces that you hadn’t thought about before now. As I mentioned before, it has always been my intent to collect the best examples, color-wise, of each piece that I could afford (and some that I couldn’t!) We hope that you pick up each piece during the auction preview (Mickey used to!) and find some hidden treasures that you had not thought about when you read the sales brochure.

Let’s start with two aqua opal pieces that could be the definitive examples of the two basic variations of this most popular color -- "pastel" and "butterscotch." I’ve owned many AO Beaded Cable rosebowls, but this one is the best example of ‘pastel’ aqua opal that I’ve been able to buy. It’s one of the few pieces in the collection that came from eBay and I’ve only owned it for a year or two. The ‘butterscotch’ Dandelion mug however, has been in my collection for many years. It too is the best example of it’s kind that I’ve seen. I was so taken with it at a long-ago Woody auction the I paid $750 for it! I remember John Resnik coming up to me after the auction and questioning me as to why I had paid that much for it. I was honest in my answer, "Because I thought it was the prettiest example of a butterscotch one I’d seen." Still is!

I was going to start this paragraph with, "My favorite color has to be celeste blue....", but then I thought, "But what about aqua opal?......and emerald green?........and pastel marigold?.... and..... You get the point. Let’s just say that one of my favorite colors has to be celeste. It’s a hard color to find, isn’t it? Maybe that should be, it’s a hard color to find for sale.

These three celeste pieces have pedigrees about as different as can be had in our carnival glass world. The Stippled Rays compote came from a shop just across the Oregon/Washington border shortly after we relocated here in Oregon. It was in an antique store that had other carnival glass that was, as is usually the case, waaay over-priced. I suspect that the owners didn’t consider it a piece of carnival. I did, and still do. Isn’t it pretty?

The celeste Fenton Grape & Cable bowl came from New Zealand in 1992, the only time I was able to get there. What a trip that was! The Farmyard in the sale, and featured in other articles, also came back with me on that trip. As I’m sure you are aware, celeste G&C bowls are many times more rare than Chicken Bowls, albeit maybe a bit less costly.

I bought the celeste small Vintage bowl at an earlier Cinclair auction. At the time, I believe it was only the second one known. While another one or two may have surfaced since then, it’s still mighty rare. Check out the pinks and blues in the iridescence.

While I’m here, let me share the celeste blue Persian Medallion bon-bon with you. It has a gorgeous dark celeste blue base glass and fantastic iridescence. Like all of these, the edges tend to be sharp in some places, but I can confirm that it’s absolutely perfect when viewed with a jeweler’s loop. Came from an Air Capital convention. Thanks, Mickey!

Three little words......make that, three little vases. The killer Heavy Basketweave vase is the prize here. I’ve not seen another one anywhere like it in terms of almost ‘overdone iridescence’ -- if there is such a thing. Why my good, long-time friends, Larry & Mary Yung decided to part with it, I’ll never know. But I’m sure glad they did! I bought it out of their room at a long-ago ACGA convention. Thanks, you guys!

The purple miniature Morning Glory and the smoke Rococo vases are local antique shop acquisitions. Timing is everything, isn’t it?

I don’t consider myself a mug collector, but over the 37 years that I’ve actively collected, I think I’ve managed to pick up some very pretty examples. Besides the butterscotchy AO Dandelion that you’ve already seen, we will be selling a total of eight Singing Birds mugs, plus a gorgeous pastel marigold Fisherman’s mug and an electric blue Orange Tree shaving mug. Unfortunately, in the rush to photograph all pieces, confused by trying different groupings, we didn’t get good pictures of them all.

There are two stippled marigold Singing Birds mugs as well as two unstippled ones. I love marigold, so buying two different ‘types’ of marigold, dark and pastel, gave me an excuse to have multiple examples of several items. (At the auction, you’ll note ‘marigold twosies’ in quite a few Northwood pieces.) Both pastel mugs have my favorite ‘coloration treatment,’ a yellow overlay. The dark marigold examples are equally gorgeous, with the unstippled example quite simply the prettiest marigold Singing Birds on earth. It came from Steve Morrow’s home in Ottumwa many years ago -- thanks, Steve. I apologize for not being able to share a good picture of it.

The pastel marigold Fisherman’s mug came from a long-ago Woody auction and was the first time my ‘carnival eye’ discovered the yellow overlay on soft marigold that is still a passion for me. Of course, in the 70s, we hadn’t yet decided to put extra adjectives in front of colors like marigold ("pastel," "pumpkin"), green ("emerald"), and blue (I give!)

The dark Singing Birds mugs are unusual in that the amethyst (really a dark shade of lavender) is so pristine and beautiful it looks like it just came from Harry’s factory. After you buy it, come ask me how much I paid for it so that you’ll truly see how badly I wanted it! The blue one is an odd shade of blue (aren’t lots of blue pieces of CG?) If I was asked to put a name to it, I’d call it Renninger, although I do believe that’s an over-used term. You be the judge.

The only picture I have of the electric blue Orange Tree shaving mug is with it grouped with the Renninger Singing Birds mug, but it’s so pretty I hope you will forgive me for showing it to you that way. It came from a collection I bought in Florida. In the photo, it appears to have a greenish cast, but believe me it’s electric blue.

Although not carnival, we will also be selling a custard Singing birds mud as well as a blue opal one.

Not knowing in which article to place this lamp, I’ll include it here. It’s a brass, two-shaded, Dragon’s Tongue table lamp. I shopped until I was able to buy a matching pair of real dark shades to assemble this lamp, and with amber colored lights, it’s a show-stopper when lit. It makes a great accent piece for a carnival glass library or study.

All together we will be selling seven hatpin holders (and 17 killer hatpins!) We featured the fantastic emerald green G&C and the equally beautiful Orange Tree holders in previous articles, but I especially like this picture of all the G&C hatpin holders together, so now I’ve ‘found’ a place to share it with you!

There are some obvious treasures here as well. Nuff said about Emerald (also the name of my car!) Believe me when I say that the far left marigold HPH is truly ‘pumpkin' marigold, (and I dislike the over-use of that adjective as well.) It’s fantastic. Working left to right, next is what appears to be an amethyst example -- but it’s not. It’s green! If someone else won’t let you take home ‘Emmy,’ you still can add a scarce green one to your collection. Continuing right, is the amethyst one. (Or is it the other way around?) Great color as well. And on the far right a scarce "banded" example with electric purple highlights. Take ‘em all home and I’ll frame this picture for you!

I’ll close with another grouping, even if they aren’t iridized. As mentioned in a previous article, there will be a smattering of non-carnival pieces for your pleasure. Four opalescent Northwood Corn Vases, all with the tell-tale ‘old’ mouth shape. The far right one even has a spot or two of blood where the fish hook was removed. Ouch! Seriously, it’s the only one I’ve managed to find with both opalescence and a ‘goofus’ treatment. Neat pieces of glass.

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