A visit with the Larsons

On Saturday, January 19, my Mom (Karen Campbell) and I went out to Chatsworth to visit with long time Scottie Collectors, Phyllis and Harry Larson.

I met the Larsons the first time 8 years ago at my first Scottie Convention. They are a delightful couple who fell into collecting Scottie treasures 30 plus years ago while hunting for old clocks (Harry's passion).

Like many of us, their collecting is not limited to Scotties and my Mom and I really enjoyed learning about their other collectibles, including their cut glass, hand painted porcelain creamers, clocks, and other fabulous flea market finds.

I took over 150 photos of their collections and the link to all of them is at the bottom of the post. I picked out a couple of photos to feature.

The cut glass piece (below) is from "American Brilliant Period" 1880-1920. The Russian Pattern (which it is) is the most difficult to cut and Harry says that the White House has a full set of the pattern. It just sparkles.


This bellman is delivering up a gold Scottie.


The piece below is one of their favorites and a rare find.

This is their Maggie. She usually doesn't like strangers; however, she was on my lap as soon as I sat down for a visit. Guess she knew that I was a fan of hers.

Then we have Penny, their latest rescue. Despite her looks, she is a Scottie at heart. She was very excited to know that I know how to play "Scottie" style.

Phyllis told me the story of this wonderful old leather chair. Apparently she and Harry were coming home from some dressy event, many years ago, and saw someone throwing this chair out. It was filthy, but Phyllis (dressed up), approached the man and asked if he was really throwing it out. He said yes and they loaded it into their car and never looked back. A little saddle soap revealed the beautiful painting on the old leather.

This green porcelain Scottie is one of Harry's favorite pieces.

Phyllis started out collecting the painted porcelain sugars and creamers; however, when they got too expensive she moved onto Scotties. Some of the painted china is "RS Prussia" done in the early 1890's. They have about 8 pieces and the rest are German.

Phyllis is also an artist. I took several photographs of her oil paintings. This one is of one of their early Scotties. Truly a one-of-a-kind collectible.

I failed to get a "good" picture of Harry & Phyllis together; however, here she is telling me how much she loves having "Mr. Lonely" in her Scottie collection, as Harry looks on. "Mr. Lonely" is an animated singing Scottie that was out several years ago and was a gift to them from their good friends Peggy and Gary Moore. The Larsons are standing in the threshold of their Scottie room. You will have to check out my photos (link below). There are an incredible amount of collectibles in just this room alone.

The 2 electric clocks (below) with the Scottie second hands were made by Sangamo Electric in IL in the 1920-30's. The pink is 50 cycle and runs 12 minutes fast every hour. The black one is 60 cycle. CA did not change to 60 cycle until 1946, some other states were 60 cycle earlier than CA. The black one was not running until Harry tapped it. He was as surprised as we were to see it running.

Phyllis cranked up one of their Victrolas. She and I had a good time dancing around to the old music. Phyllis paid $200 for this Victrola back when $200 was a hell of a lot of money. I checked eBay and just the Victrola would be $1800. She got almost all of the records with hers.

Harry (originally from Sweden) and his sister used to call the opera singers on the Victrola the "naked arms voice". He was talking about this while I was goofing around singing an Aria playing on the Victrola.

The "office" was the last stop on the tour. This is where the collections all come together. Harry has a huge collection of German Rolling Eye Scottie Clocks along with bookends and Phyllis Scottie book collection in this room. My Mom recorded a video as we went through the house and you can see the clip of this part of the collection on her blog -- http://scottieearsandtails.blogspot.com.

***

To check out more of my photos of the Larson's Collections, click here.

***

A very special thanks to Phyllis and Harry for letting us spend the afternoon with them and giving us so much information and photos to share.

Rose Bowl Flea Market Finds - Jan 11, 2009

Being in Altadena (just above Pasadena), I literally live minutes from the Rose Bowl and have the opportunity to go to the world renowned Rose Bowl Flea Market the second Sunday of every month. Somehow, years pass and I remember that I should go after the Sunday has passed or long before it is going to take place.

However, on Sunday the 11th of January, the stars aligned and I remembered to go. It was a beautiful Southern California day. While everyone else in the country was freezing, I was enjoying the 80+ degree weather.

I did find quite a few Scottie collectibles. My pocket book was not large, so I was able to resist. I found a woman that had some original Bakelite pieces; including one of the Scottie napkin rings at $100. A gentleman who travels as a comedian on a cruise ship had quite a few Scottie pieces; including the ashtray below.

I photographed this ashtray because I had not seen anything like it before. If you tip the front of this Scottie forward onto the lever, he raises his back leg and puts out your guests cigarette with a stream of water.

He was $400. However, several Scottie collectors have him in their collection and say that he is not worth that much. Apparently there is also a Japanese knock-off of the original.

I did spend $30 at the same booth and got the small Scottie pin holder (below).

It was a delightful day hunting for Scotties.