Dodge Guns Go Big

Proving yet again that they can be one of the most sound investment opportunities in a dicey economic landscape, several antique guns fetched six figure sums during today's sale at Cowans.

An anonymous phone bidder paid $440,000 for a never-fired 1886 Winchester rifle made for auto magnate John F. Dodge while a Savage Model 1889 Takedown Rifle, which also features Dodge’s initials in raised gold, went for $230,000.

"Mr. Jobs - Don't Tear Down This House!"

Our headline should be read with the best Reagan intonation you can muster.

Sigh, well, here we go again. Today's a big day for Apple chieftain Steve Jobs who has been fighting a long drawn out battle to tear down a house he owns in posh Woodside, California.

It's a beaten up, 17,250 square foot Spanish colonial mansion built by a San Francisco copper king and now in deep disrepair as Mr. Jobs, who favors the new and streamlined over the old and leaking, seeks to replace the structure with a fresh one of his own - presumable one you can blow into and play like a flute (you have to have an iPhone to understand that one).

He bought the rancho in 1984 and wants to level it but preservationists say hey, what about the antique organ, lavish fittings, and other stuff only antique people know about and love that are still inside.

Jobs said "come and get 'em" - just take the house with you when you leave. Today the Woodside town council will reconsider Jobs' longstanding request to level the 84-year-old structure, which many say was left to rot in place.

Antiqueswest.com doesn't have room for the organ, but we'll take the sinks and other fittings, Steve - huh? Pretty please?

Face To Face With History In Egypt

I've always been interested in Egyptology, not so much for the study of successive Egytpian Dynasties through the ages, but what archeologists have to go through to unearth the past there.

It seems they've unearthed a significant find recently southwest of Cairo.

Egyptian archaeologists on Sunday unveiled mummies, brightly painted sarcophagi and dozens of ancient tombs carved into a rocky hill in a desert oasis south of Cairo.

More than fifty tombs — some as old as 4,000 years — were discovered recently on a plateau overlooking farming fields in the village Illahun, located in the Fayoum oasis about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of the Egyptian capital.

Archaeologists gave journalists a rare tour of the ancient burial site Sunday, which is next to the nearly four millennia old pyramid of Pharaoh Sesostris II.

Three slim wooden sarcophagi believed to be holding female mummies were laid out in one of the tombs. The innermost coffins were painted to resemble the deceased using blue, yellow, rust and black dyes.

In another tomb, workers slowly removed the lid of one inscribed with hieroglyphic prayers to reveal a colorful mummy case that el-Ayedi said belonged to a woman named Isis Her Ib, the daughter of one of Illahun's mayors nearly 4,000 years ago.

Not much was known about who used the ancient necropolis. El-Ayedi said some of the tombs were just 2,800 years old, while others were from the Middle Kingdom, which dates back 2061-1786 B.C.

Maltese Boilermaker - A Riddle For You Engineers

We all know how old things can sometimes take on a life of their own, taking on a provenance - a history - all their own after they are recovered from someone's garden or, in this case, a Maltese dockyard.

It seems the Maltese government recovered what the Maltese Times is billing as a 130-year-old steam locomotive under "layers of dirt" at the much-bombed and historic dockyards recently, restoring the engine to its former splendor.

But as we have often seen when old things are ressurected, this one's past is open to discussion, with you engineering types wading in about its origin, use, and age.

Check out the Malta Times video article HERE and let me know what you think. Looks like a WWI-era backup boiler to me but I know better than to question you guys when it comes to push rods, lifters, and armatures.

Anyway, a fun little puzzle from Antiqueswest.com

Rip, A Dickins of a Heroic Dog

A medal awarded to possibly the earliest version of today's rescue dogs was sold at auction today for the U.S. equivalent of $36,000 - more than $15,000 over estimate.

The Dickin Medal, Britain's highest honor for animals and known as "the animals' VC, was awarded to a mongrel dog named Rip who was credited with finding more than 100 people trapped in bombed out buildings during World War II.

Rip had been found abandoned in an air raid shelter and was adopted by E. King, an Air Raid Precaution Warden. He went to work with no formal rescue training and proved quite effective at the job.

Maria Dickin, who established the medal program, decorated Rip in 1945. Among the 62 animals awarded the Dickin Medal are dogs, pigeons, horses and a cat.

World War II Dive Bomber Comes Up Off the Bottom of Lake Michigan Today

We've been watching this one for awhile and will bring you whatever we can get of attempts to lift a war-era Douglas SBD Dauntless out of frosty Lake Michigan.

Our understanding is that the beautifully preserved veteran has actually reached the surface of the lake, has been boomed off to prevent oil discharge and is being allowed to drain a bit before she is lifted onto a recovery barge.

Incredible work by preservationists. The airplane will replace an SBD currently on display at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans after restoration. Early indicators are that some wing crumpling and nose damage is apparent but that the fuselage is intact and still bearing its WWII markings.

It's a relic of a time when young pilots practiced takeoffs and landings from a pair of coal-burning paddlewheel ships converted into freshwater aircraft carriers, so seagoing carriers could stay at war. There are dozens of such wrecks in the lake.

This one, when restored, should be worth a cool $2 million.

Matisse, Monet, Turner... Hitler?

A set of paintings and sketches purportedly done by a young Adolf Hitler sold at auction Thursday for 97,672 pounds ($143,358).

Among the 15 pictures is a portrait of solitary figure dressed in brown peering into wine-colored waters. The date is 1910, the signature reads "A. Hitler" and scribbled just over the mysterious figure are the letters: "A.H."

Mullocks, the auction house that conducted the sale, vouched for the authenticity and said they were acquired at the end of WWII by a British soldier serving in Germany.

The "mystery" portrait sold for about 10,000 pounds ($14,600). Buyer John Ratledge, 46, said he planned to hang it at home or in his office.

"Cannon Ball" Unearthed by Gardener Turns Out To Be Old Fence Post Finial

Police in Fort Smith, Arkansas say a man puttering in his garden was surprised to find a Civil War era cannonball in his garden. Only the "cannonball" turned out to the top of an old fencepost.

Proving that even experts can be fooled when it comes to dirty, crusty old things the four-inch round chunk of metal was "touched off" by sympathetic detonation later today and later x-rayed - when it was determined to be decorative and not combative.

There were a number of Civil War engagements in and around Fort Smith, including the Battle of Massard Prairie.

Dumb and Dumber Destroy Fifteen Antique Vehicles

You hear about this from time to time, a couple of miscreants get together and pool what limited mental resources they have and set out to destroy something nice.

In Mountainboro, AL, two kids ages 11 and 13 admitted to setting a fire at a local storage facility that gutted fifteen antique cars and motorcycles.

The "children" told an investigator they smashed windows on all the vehicles and set one on fire. The flames gutted the building and the vehicles that included cars, a truck and a motorcycle.

Each boy was also charged with criminal mischief and burglary.

No motive was given, but criminal stupidity comes to mind. We harken back several years ago when a couple of real low-life graffiti scribblers jumped the fences of a storage yard in San Francisco and proceeded to deface some antique and historic railcars. Damage: $100,000. Penalty: Slap on the wrist.

These stories hurt in several ways, but mainly because we love these things and don't like to see them destroyed or damaged.

A Day Draped In Black Crepe and Tinged by Mourning

News of President Lincoln's death swept through Washington and touched every resident, every business. The town was draped in black as storefronts turned into impromptu monuments and tributes to the nation's fallen leader.

Someone, possibly a man but no one knows for sure, walked the streets with pen and paper and captured the messages at each address - not to mention the nation's grief.

The age-toned pages, each bearing hand-drawn images of one of the most important days in our national story line, were revealed recently by caretakers at Brown University.

They document the fury of the nation, as well as its sadness.

"Let Them Eat (Urp)... Cake"

Those who know us know we have had a longstanding love affair with things British for many years - the architecture, the people, the antiques.

And every so often an item ends up on a dealer's table or under the auctioneer's hammer that makes us smile and say: "That's just so... so British."

Take the case of the royal wedding cake. A piece of one, that is... from the 1871 wedding of Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, Princess Louise, to the Marquis of Lorne.

Not the decoration, an actual piece of very old cake. Asking price: 145 pounds, or $215US. Would you shell out your hard-earned pound notes for this slightly crumbly tidbit?

We'll find out - it goes up for sale today in Birmingham.

The slice, which is one-inch thick and protected by parchment, is a tiny portion of the towering 5-foot (1.5 meter) cake served at Princess Louise's wedding. The entire cake originally weighed over 225 pounds (102 kilograms) and took three months to create.

The wedding caused an uproar when Princess Louise angered the Prince of Wales by becoming the first British princess to marry a commoner. She was determined not to be burdened by the ritual of marrying another royal.

The cake slice is still wrapped in its original parchment, and it was kept for generations in a gentlemen's "cabinet of curiosity" where men kept treasures to show off, such as fossils and pieces of Egyptian art.

"Never Been Kissed" Scottish Diva Rocks the UK - Treat Yourself, Folks, Treat Yourself

Click HERE and prepare to be overwhelmed. You'll thank us...

The embed link has been disabled I'm sure because this woman has just been signed to a rather significant recording contract but she walked out onto a stage in the UK last week and brought the house down.

I'm not big on these shows, but this was an incredible moment, made even more significant by the fact that she described herself as "looking like a garage," "never been kissed," and "live alone with me cat, Pebbles."

Gentle readers, if you want to see the triumph of the human spirit incarnate, watch this - and treat yourself to the smarmy, "know everything" look of the teenager who knew before this woman opened her mouth that she was "daff."

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Watch it.

Hearst Castle Paintings Return Home - To Holocaust Survivors

We never cease to be amazed by the circuitous, often tortured routes items that come to us and other collectors often take. This came home to us again this week after three distinctive paintings, mainstays of the art collection on display at William Randolph Hearst's famed "Castle," turned out to have been acquired during a coerced sale of Jewish assets by Nazi "buyers."

The paintings are being returned to the family of two Holocaust survivors and, oh, what they have seen in their lives.

Investigators determined the paintings belong to the heirs of Jacob and Rosa Oppenheimer. They were deeded to the state of California by the Hearst Corporation in 1972 as part of the transfer of the Castle to the state park system.

William Randolph Hearst, who didn't know the ownership history, acquired the paintings from a Berlin gallery in 1935.

A Very Pretty Kite Indeed...

A rare two-seat version of the beloved Spitfire fighter, the plane that earned a nation's gratitude for its part in the Battle of Britain, may fetch a record price when it goes before the hammer at Bonhams in the next few weeks.

Purists may malign it for its "double bubble" or "two hump" configuration, but this is the real thing, a one-seat World War II-era fighter that became a two-seat trainer in the 21st century.

Bonhams, which is offering the meticulously restored plane at a sale on April 20, estimates it will sell for 1.5 million pounds ($2.2 million). Retrieved from a junkyard in South Africa 30 years ago, the plane is now certified to fly.

Bonhams' Austria unit, Bonhams & Goodman, sold a 1945 Spitfire Mark XVI for NZ$3.2million ($1.8 million) in September, reportedly the record auction price for a Spitfire. That plane had been on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio until 1997.

The one now for sale is a Mark IX model delivered on Oct. 23, 1944, one of 23,000 Spitfires built through the war.

Da Vinci Emerges from a Collection in Basilicata

Some beautiful things coming out of the weeds these days as historians expand their reach for interesting bits of history.

One such item was a lovingly rendered portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, discovered the in the art collection of a family in Italy's southern Basilicata region. The artist is unknown and there is damage, but the initial consensus among experts is that the wood supporting the canvas dates to the late 15th or early 16th century - when Leonardo was known to be among us.

The newly discovered portrait, partially damaged by scratches and measuring some 60 by 45 centimeters (24 by 18 inches), shows Leonardo wearing dark robes and a black, feathered hat.