Be careful what you wish for . . .

There has been a lot of chatter in the Scottie world about the new animation release of Coraline. I wasn't paying much attention, but yesterday when there were a set of Coraline alphabet cards up for grab at Curves - I took them thinking I could use them for my Creative Souls workshop.

The packet was sealed and I didn't think to open it until this evening when I saw another comment on a Kathy Edmunds email about how someone had caught a picture of the Scotties in the theatre in one of the scenes (see picture below) in the movie. There are 500 Animated Scotties that fill the Theatre - Wow!

In the movie trailer on the Internet, you can see the Scotties in the theatre - http://www.coraline.com/

So I opened the deck of Alphabet cards and low and behold under U - not S there is a Scottie Angel.

It says "U is for Up -- Where Scottie Dogs Fly Anything's Possible in an Otherworld Sky".

Thanks to Kathy Edmunds for keeping me up-to-date via email and Ann Brocklehurst for the additional information on her blog -- http://scottishterrierdogs.blogspot.com/.

In surfing a bit more on the web, I found this video which has a clip of the Angel Scotties on the shelf (towards the end). It is interesting how they did the stop animation.

Another video which shows the Scotties barking and jumping.

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.

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

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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.

Larry's Museum

For years I have heard about Larry Adams' Scottie Museum in Lewes, Delaware and this Thanksgiving while visiting my parents in their new house is Georgetown, Delaware, I got a chance to see this "Scottie Museum" for myself.

Larry has a lovely home along a water inlet. When we first pulled up, I noticed that the shutters had Scotties on them. Very cute!

I was then greeted by his 4 real Scotties.

As I was taken through the house, Larry talked about the additions he'd made to the original house, built long before any of us were born. The interior was very tastefully done with Scottie collectibles sprinkled here and there. Larry was getting ready for a holiday party, so the trees were up with Scottie decorations.

I was impressed with some of his collectibles, but would I consider this a museum? Hardly.

We climbed up to the Widow's Walk and he has an impressive view of the water way. It was cold (remember, I'm from Southern California), so we quickly headed back down.

I was then asked if I was ready to see the museum. I was confused - wasn't his house the museum?

A door was opened and I walked into the most impressive collection of Scottie collectibles I have ever seen.

The room is above his 3 car garage and is probably bigger than my 1000 square foot house. Every wall had book shelves from floor to ceiling and there has to be hundreds of book-ends, salt & pepper shakers, lamps and books. There are thousands of figurines with very few duplicates (if any).

Larry picked out two of the thousands of collectibles for me to inspect closer. The one Scottie below is a cigarette dispenser from France. The back of the bar opens up. Not sure of the history of the other, but it sure is cute.

To see more pictures of Larry's Scottie Museum, click here and if you are ever in Lewes, Delaware, you must stop by and see if for yourself.

Scottie Pumpkins

Happy Halloween!

You know you are onto something when you hear about your own creation from someone completely across the country from you.

Two nights ago, I was talking with Gary Moore from Cincinnati Scotty Friends and he started to mention the Scottie Pumpkins he had carved and taken to the Michigan Scots gathering.

I, of course, had heard about the Scottie Pumpkins from my Mom (Karen Campbell), who had heard about it from a customer that had gone to the Michigan Scots gathering. Word travels fast among Scottie Collectors.

Anyway, Gary was getting ready for another road trip (3 weeks) and I convinced him to send me photos of the Scottie Pumpkins to post on my blog . . . so without further ado . . .

















Gary mentioned on the phone that when Peggy (his wife) walked into the Michigan Scot gathering with the large Scottie pumpkin cut-out pinned to her top - they all went gaga "like it was Bakelite jewelry."

The hollow foam pumpkins were purchased at Michael's and my mom says that some Michael's will do the carvings for you - if you bring in the design. Gary did his own carvings and said it was very easy - draw the pattern on and then use an Exacto knife to cut it out.

Here's what Gary wrote about the process:

I took the cutouts and put clips on the back and they double as a pin for the girls. For whatever reason the one I took to Michigan Scots was a big hit in the auction for rescue. It took me all of about 10 minutes to do this; so with that said just about anybody can do this - Doesn't take a lot of talent. (so much for my Rock Star status). Wal-Mart has the little flicker lights in packs of 3 for $2.99.

Run, don't walk, to Michael's to get your pumpkins.

Thanks, Gary.

The Connor's Beswick Ware Old Display at 2008 Scottie Convention

As I promised several months ago (how quickly time passes), I wanted to write a brief blog entry about each of the Old Displays at the 2008 Scottie Convention.

As a Ceramic Artist, the Connor's display of their collection of Beswick Ware intrigued me and I found the pieces with the lady bugs very amusing.




































I wrote to Lesley Connor when I was working on resizing and labeling the photos to find out more about this collection -- this is what she wrote back:

"All the pieces were Beswick Ware, Made in England. Everyone is familiar with the black standing dogs which were on the left in the front but everything on there was Beswick.

The white guys with ladybirds and the toothache guy are called "fun models" in the 1996 book we have of Beswick Animals. There is probably a newer version out by now but all those pieces are shown in this one. You will find these also made by Sylvac, Gobel, in Japan and
unmarked. My book tells me they were first issued 1939, 40 & 41 thru 1969,70 & 71 depending on each piece.

The bookends were issued between 1934 and 1966, the ashtrays 34 - 65 and the blue pieces between 34 - 67. I thought about bringing the book for the display but completely forgot about doing that. I love what you can find in a book! Since I am giving date, the larger black Scot was issued 1965 - 1990 and the smaller one 1993 to present (1996 book)."

Thanks to the Connors for such a wonderful display.

Garage Sale Find

I don't often go to garage sales, but Altadena seems to have a good number of them with good stuff. So, this morning on my way to run my various Saturday morning errands, I stopped at a few.

I was off to a good start only spending a dollar and getting a bunch of chess pieces for my mixed medium art pieces (see Creative Souls).

I continued on and ended up at one sale where the person had no clue what a garage sale is. She was way overpriced on a bunch of junk and no one was buying anything. I told her that her prices were way out of line and that no one cares who previously owned the piece (e.g., my favorite grandmother). If it means that much to you, you should keep it. At the next sale, I was thanked by those who overheard me tell her off.

I then stumbled across a sale at the Zane Grey estate (it is two blocks from my house - who knew). It is no longer owned by the Grey family; however, the house was apparently sold to the current family with everything in it (in the 70's) - the next generation is now cleaning out the house.

Anyway, it was a lot of junk, people and chaos. However, they did have a collection of dogs for sale. I sorted through and picked out ten - only 9 are pictured. The 10th one is a small dog on a magnet and he was still in the bag (forgotten) when I took the photo.











An instant Scottie collection! The Belleek in back is in pristine condition. I did have to pay a little more for it, but I got the rest of them for $10.

Guess I need to start going to more garage sales.