Thursday, December 11, 2014
Overcast, snow mixed with rain,warm
Overcast, snow mixed with rain,warm
The Beautiful Hubley Doorstops
Yesterday, I was searching on Liveauctioneers when I was attracted to some cast iron doorstops. I immediately know that's what I was going to write about for today. As I was writing this post, I decided to check when I last write about these. I checked and I wrote in October 2012, and In May 2013. Today's post is for the Hubley cast iron doorstops,but most of the major toy cast iron toy manufacturers of the time made these as well.and most of them are quite ornate and beautiful. Houses back in the 1880's and into the first quarter of the 20th century were not made as well as today, nor did they aways have concrete foundations. So doors tended to tilt with"mini" small rubber doorstops, doorstops in the time of cast iron doorstops were doorstops! They were large decorative pieces meant to keep those doors "in their place", but also to act as decor for people's homes. These were beautiful figures of art, and were meant to be! Some of the companies even hired well-kwon artists to design and draw these magnificent pieces.
For today, I sleeked just 5 fine samples,but there are 1000's and thousand's to be found on Liveauctioneers, ebay, and many to be found on auctioneers websites. If the Smithsonium had some,and I'm sure they do, I would like to see an exhibition of these fine American items. They are truly fine pieces of art, and some of them look almost like porcelain pieces like Royal Doulton!
I selected a mere 5 Hubley animal doorstops.If you were to look, you'd find a huge cache of these items.Dog,there would be a doorstop for probably every breed of dog, beautifully cast horse, people, caricatures of people, and boats, and so on.
Fred Everett's name appears in 2 of today's doorstops. He must have been a fine artist and designer, and I'm sure there's a post to be written on Mr. Everett in the future. You have to admire the skill and craftsmanship of these cast iron figures. Just go to ebay and search for "reproduction" cast iron toys. Then examine then in large-size mode if you can. They're nowhere near the quality that these doorstops are from so long ago!
The piece below is just one-sided,hot bilaterally-symetrical, having an identical left and right side and with held to ether with a screw or an iron rod hammered at the end to hold the halves together.
"Monsieur Penguin" (my name for the doorstop) is elegant in its simple design,
and I love those feet!
Beautiful!
If I were to visit someone in late afternoon on a winter day, and I was tired, I'd probably have a second or third look at these figure. With harsh sunny light streaking into the house, this Peke would catch me off guard, and I'd wonder if it was ready to attack since it was so quiet. Having m y own dog,Buddy,I like all dogs and usually pet them when I see one while walking Buddy. However Pekes, and Yorkies, and a few other small dogs are barkers no matter how nice I try to be. There are some quiet ones though.
For sure with this doorstop angled just the right way to state at me, I'd be wondering!
Buddy seems to be a barker when we're home.And he always barks at the mailman.My mailman,Kenny won't even go near Buddy, try as I may to get the two together. Kenny has had "experiences" with dogs on his mail route.
However, sometimes Buddy is quiet and doesn't bark, especially when you want him to bark! I call him facetiously our "guard Poodle". He's smart though,and I bet he understands the word "facetious" and just turns away on purpose to show me his "derriere".
If you're a dog owner, you'd know what I mean!
Thanks for dropping by,and as always
have a great part of the day or night
wherever you may be,
Stacey
toysearcher@gmail.com
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