Good-bye, lovely.
‘Tis the end of an era: I am, at long last, selling my crazy-amazing antique lamp.
(You know, the one that I found at a junk shop for $75 and purchased despite the fact that my friend Katie declared it to officially be The Most Hideous Lamp Ever Created and literally could not believe that anyone on the planet would think otherwise?) That one.)
I am one thousand percent convinced that this lamp, while perhaps not being to everyone’s personal taste, was an epic antique find for the ages. The thing is just completely bizarre and unique, and I can find nothing at all even remotely similar to it on the Internet (I found one lamp that had similar characteristics on eBay a few years ago, and it was listed at close to $4k). It’s about three feet tall, with an intricate wrought-iron base (that was maybe originally brass and later painted powder blue, or maybe originally powder blue and now just wearing down in spots…?) and blue glass panels that turn translucent when the light is on. It’s INSANE. I adore it. But I want to get rid of it because it’s far too insane and amazing to continue sitting where it is: on a table in my garage that I’m also trying to sell. There’s just nowhere in my house where a three-foot-tall blue lamp makes sense (and trust me, I have tried to find one).
But I cannot sell it until I know what it is: where it’s from, who might have made it, what it’s worth. I NEED TO KNOW. Because there is no way the story behind something like this isn’t a good one. And because I also have no idea what to charge for it.
So here’s my question for you: what do I do now?
Seriously, I have no idea how to even go about beginning a search for information on this piece, short of going on Antiques Roadshow (which, ummmmmmmmmmm please?). I did send an email to a national antiques bureau-type place, but never heard back.
I need to unravel this mystery, because I need this lamp out of my garage before it falls victim to one of my children, but do not want to send it out into the universe before I know what I’m sending. Because I love it.
Help me?
UPDATE: I took the lamp apart and found stamps that say “Accurate Casting” (a company that went out of business in the ’80s), 1968, and 8884. So I take it that it was made in 1968, but beyond that this information isn’t helping me figure out much about this particular lamp – Google searches turn up a lot of ceramic hurricane lamps, but nothing quite like this.
