Vintage Telephone on eBay

Dumpdiggers,

I'm selling this red plastic Vintage Telephone on eBay. I started the sale of at $9.99, but I hope the item fetches ten times that amount. It should. Everyone knows the red phone is the hot line. This item was the center of conversation at the office
where each business phone system is such an important part of modern communication and can seriously impact your firm's overall profitability. The pattern has been established by the success of highly communicative companies that use erp software to integrate various components into a well oiled machine - the red phone is part of that struggle!


Once again, I've used Blabble to insert a modicum of story. Forgive me.

Red phones look great when placed on wooden desks and the look especially good when the sunlight hits them and makes a room's occupants aware on a subconscious level of the importance of someone with a red phone. For this reason they are highly sought after props by home staging companies. I have seen more than one Toronto condo well decorated by a handsome red phone.

The Robert W Campbell Bottle

Dumpdiggers visits the Toronto Archives

Three Tuesdays ago, Malcolm Mcleod surprised me with a Toronto druggist bottle on which my full name appears in the embossing. After beholding this relic, I set about a quest for more insight into my own genealogy.

Have a look at this 5 oz medicine bottle. Although a little dirty, its in good condition. The stain from the original contents is still visible inside, and that’s perfect. That’s just how I intend to preserve the treasures – as found. The slug plate on this transparent piece of Canadian history reads: ROBERT W CAMPBELL / PHARMACIST / TORONTO ONTARIO.

It actually doesn’t surprise me that there are historic objects bearing my name. As one of Scotland’s most notorious clans, the Campbells dominated the Highlands for hundreds of years, and their great leaders included several Roberts, the most famous of which is Robert Campbell of Argyll.

Today, when I type my name into Google, I find there are hundreds of contemporary examples – an actor, an architect, a fiction author and a real estate agent in southern Alabama are the most prolific; the latter owns the web domain RobCampbell.com

Generally speaking, the Campbells were always pretty good soldiers, and the surname appears on the rolls of almost every British military episode from 1709 forward… In most cases however, the highlanders fought for King and Country with an eye on settling their own farms in the colonies. Indeed the Canadian government funded a popular TV show about a family of British settlers called The Campbells in the 1980's.

This particular pharmacist, Robert W Campbell lived and worked in the City of Toronto in 1895, and I found that information and more while visiting the Toronto Archives on Friday 13^th of June, 2008.

I was the first official visitor to sign into the building that morning – the doors open at 9am, and I was there at 9:05.

The City of Toronto Archives is located at 255 Spadina Road, Toronto, Ontario, M5R 2V3. This building is a short walk north of Dupont Station on the University subway line – TELEPHONE – To talk to an archivist anytime during business hours, simply call 416-397-0778. Fax the experts at 416-392-9685.

Ask for an archivist named Steve Mackinnon – he’s terrific.

Are cameras allowed inside the archives?

Don’t even mention the word ‘camera’ when you visit the Toronto Archives. It’s a bad word. It triggers a conditioned response of ‘No Cameras Allowed!’ This clause ‘special permission required’ is peppered with words like ‘appointment’, ‘request forms’ and ‘fees’… yes the Toronto Archives profits by making photographic reproductions. They charge $25 to lens each piece of public property.

Robert W Campbell appears the 1896 City of Toronto records as a Druggist with a business at 398 Spadina Ave, and a house at 41 Willcock St. Below his name appears Sarah Campbell, the widow of another Robert Campbell at 1214 King st West. Then a lawyer named Samuel Campbell, and a school teacher named Sophie Campbell follows him . Thomas S Campbell was a buyer for the T Eaton Company, while another man simply known as Tom Campbell was the chef at the Rossin Hotel. In all, there were over two dozen professionals named Campbell living and working in Toronto in the summer of 1896. I'd like to think this little bottle represents them all, and how hard they each worked to make a name for themselves…

WWII Canada Meat Ration Token

meat ration token1
Originally uploaded by roberrific

This stiff navy blue cardboard token was issued to the Canadian people during and after World War II. There were several reasons why food was tightly rationed during the 'war years'. This is a reminder of that time. Sugar, coffee and tea were strictly limited because they were imported products. Meat was another story altogether. It was exported to feed the troops.

Dumpdiggers found this token while rooting through old cupboards in a farm work shed. I wondered what something like this might be worth? Its made of cardboard, ugly and mass produced... what do you think?

Here is this same Canada Meat Ration token offered for sale on eBay. At the time of this post, there's three days left in the auction... The Seller started the item at 1$ and there have been NO bids yet.

Relics of the Fur Trade #3

Chester Huff is still digging pits in Kenora, or rather somewhere outside the town on the north shore of Lake of the Woods, Ontario. Friends tell me that he’s dragged an ice fishing hut over the excavation (for warmth) and he found a rust covered iron beaver trap six feet down. According to a very reliable source, he sold the item online for 120 bucks!

If Dumpdiggers unearthed a forgotten fur trading post from the mid 1700's, what kind of relics could they expect to find?

Early HBC beaver traps? I’m skeptical. Aboriginal people didn’t use iron traps, and Chester’s fur trading post site (near the original Rat Portage, which is actually located near the town of Keewatin) is supposed to be the exchange point between three Indian nations, and the Europeans (specifically the British in the HBC).

I’m told the Indian fur trappers had developed excellent all-natural methods of hunting beavers without using guns or iron traps. They used snares which would trap the animal in a wire noose, and baited traps, which would attract the animal with food or another substance. The 'deadfall trap', which dropped a heavy weight onto the animal to kill it, was also used. In addition to these ingenuities, the First Nation's people had perfected a method of trapping the beaver inside his own wooden lodge. They somehow blocked the submerged entrance of the beaver den, and then broke into the side of the hut to take the whole family at once!

Iron leg traps (which were cruel and inhumane) came about much later in the history of the fur trade. The first mention of iron leg trap is from David Thompson, the foremost cartographer of North America notes that (white) fur trappers in the lower Red River started using castoreum and beaver traps in 1797. After relocating to Fort Vancouver in 1818, the Hudson's Bay Company’s pacific division sent out brigades of trappers that included from 50 men (and sometimes women and children) with iron leg traps. By all accounts the trapping of beavers was an awful job and dangerous work, particularly because it had to be done in the winter when animal pelts are thickest.

Some of the very first iron traps were made in Fort Vancouver in 1818 and these were designed to catch the beaver by the leg in shallow water. It was attached by a chain to a sharpened stake that was planted in deeper water. The traps were baited with castoreum, a scent obtained from glands in the hind legs of the beaver. Now picture this for a moment, to plant the device the European trapper stood in ice cold water so that he would not leave his own scent on the shore. After the curious beaver, attracted by the castoreum, stepped into the trap the hunter had to be quick to retrieve the prize of the pelt would be destroyed by another animal feeding off the carcass. The trapper skinned his catch at the first opportunity. Back at camp, he would (or perhaps his Indian wife) had to scrape off all the flesh from the skin and the stretch it out to dry. After almost a year in the wilderness, the trapping brigades, with their furs in tow, returned to the trade posts.

Finding an early French Canadian iron beaver trap from the 1780’s and 1790s would be a spectacular relic! It would be extremely collectible and certainly worthy of a museum, (Chester!) and that’s because these items are very rare.

Indeed according to The Fur Trapper the use of iron traps did not become wide spread until the early 1800s. This web page reports that that the iron beaver traps created the Mountain Men, and eventually the Rocky Mountain fur trade. The sole purpose of the American and the Canadian fur trade brigades between 1807 and 1840 was to locate and trap beaver using such devices. During that time frame, it came to pass that trapping beaver by the white European mountain men (in United States territories) was illegal, but the laws were difficult to enforce in that area of the country.

According to the Fur Trapper website, Lewis and Clark did not have beaver traps listed among their Indian trade goods, but several of the expedition members carried iron beaver traps for their personal use. Before the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the Pacific, a North West Company fur trader, François Antoine Larocque, had taken beaver traps to the Crow Indians along the Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers. Lisa, Menard, and Morrison (1807), the Missouri Fur Company (1812), the Astorians (1811) carried beaver traps. From 1818 to 1821, the North West Company's sent three fur trapping brigades to the upper Snake River country under Donald Mackenzie, a former Astorian. The Snake River brigades outfitted each trapper with six beaver traps.

The Newhouse Community Trap is one of the earliest traps used in the fur trade. It is very similar to the Hudson's Bay traps.

Here's a suspicious consignment of historical milieu that has been dressed to sell as Fur Trade relics on eBay. The seller lists the items as ‘Assorted nails from trade posts or battows (boats), part of a fur trade trap, two folding knife blades, end of rifle or pistol barrel, French amber musket flint, five cast brass tacks, Woodland pottery chards, metal arrowhead, copper dangle cut out of a trade kettle, small fur trade ring broach, and what looks to be part of an ice chisel.’ This load of debris is congruous with Dumpdigging. Somebody somewhere at some time dug up an 1800’s fur trade post. But is this evidence of Chest Huff’s amateur archeology in Northern Ontario? Nope. The Seller is listed as American, and I doubt Chester would cross the border. This lot is currently listed for sale at $25.00, and there are still five days left in the auction. I seriously doubt these bits of iron will sell for such a high price (shipping will be expensive too no doubt), but I hope they do find a buyer as such a transaction would further evidence the ‘commodification of history’ in the age of high technology.

Canadian Fine Art sold in Snowstorm

A severe snowstorm swept through Eastern Ontario on January 1st, 2008 - snowflakes the size of soda crackers fell from the sky as we drove west from Cobourg through the blizzard to buy some good Canadian Art.

This was especially unfortunate weather for Randy Potter; the auction entrepreneur was hosting a high profile estate sale this morning inside his own converted automotive garage turned auction hall at 15 Cavan Street in the snow clogged heart of historic Port Hope.

Bad weather is always good news for auction attendees, and veteran Dumpdiggers don’t think twice about sorting their way through six inches of wet snow to get at the best bargains of the year. There was certainly no snow removal service at work in Port Hope yet, and the center of the snowstorm was Whitby, Ajax and Pickering. Nobody would be commuting from Toronto today. The oversized flakes were still falling as my friend's four-wheel drive SUV found easy parking outside Randy Potter's cinder block building.

Inside this cluttered antiques arena, behind its huge garage doors and underneath the unflattering fluorescent lights, Randy Potter himself held court.

On Jan 1^st 2008, in the middle of a severe Ontario snowstorm there was some serious early Canadian contemporary art for sale.

Presiding over the market, Randy Potter was the only man with a microphone, and two hundred spectators eagerly listened to the charismatic auctioneer (who seemed to know most of the audience by name) as he rattled off keyword specific phrases associated with each Canadian cultural object de’art on the block.

Much of this stuff sold cheap, and I was surprised to learn the true values of Canadian art deco lamps and ashtrays. My friend thought aloud about buying a crate of Lincoln Logs for two bucks (for his kids), but then seemed more captivated by the antique porcelain dolls heads, dishes, pottery and crocks that he could see on tables in the background.

This was an auction with commentary by Randy Potter, who occasionally lamented the soft prices with anecdotal remarks like, “I sold this very piece a couple of years ago for six hundred bucks…’ which he said in a tone of obvious disappointment as today's winning bid totaled less than half that amount.

Occasionally one of Randy’s assistants would rest a long stick below one of fifteen Norval Morrisseau signed acrylic on canvas paintings that were hung with care on the wall behind the podium, and the bidding would get white hot for a few minutes.

Fifteen Norval Morrisseau paintings were sold.

Norval Morrisseau paintings are, in my opinion, a terrific investment. The auction staff had hoped that each of these pieces would fetch between three to five thousand dollars as Norval Morrisseau is now considered by contemporary critics to be one of the most important painters (native or otherwise) that Canada has ever produced. You would think the price of his art would appreciate handsomely after his recent 2007 death? But these market factors were not evidenced on Jan 1st 2008 in Port Hope - and consequently there were some real bargains to be had here.

Public apathy (from years of bad prices) and the economic realities at work in this 'age of uncertainty' continue to deflate art auction values - I suppose there's a myriad of factors that keep the prices of these beautiful pieces in the basement; most of these canvases sold for between two to three thousand dollars.

In addition to these terrific pieces there was a Roland Gissing oil on canvas, and a William Brymner painting. There was also an F. Catano water colour, a Lemoine Lionel Fitzgerald painting as well as a Lemoine Lionel Fitzgerald pen & ink; and a Charles Jones Way water colour. But above all of these respected artist's work there was one eagerly anticipated piece - a 19^th century painting that was signed C. Krieghoff. Three bidders ran the price higher and higher. There were two bidders in the room, and one telephone bidder. This oil painting sold for $12,000 as everyone in the room clapped.

Marshall Gummer scrutinizes the Sale Bill

In the back of the room a very knowledgeable appraiser named Marshall Gummer was calmly waiting for exactly the right moment to raise his enumerated card.

Item number #174 on the Jan 1st 2008 Sale Bill at Randy Potter's Auction House was indexed as E.Conyers Barker water colour and Marshall Gummer, one of Canada’s foremost antiques and collectibles experts, was on his own personal quest to buy this painting.

The expert that MoneySense magazine relies upon for accurate appraisals first bid one hundred dollars, then two hundred, and then three hundred dollars - all without hesitation. Marshal acted real determined to make the other bidders aware of his stubborn determination to possess this painting.

The price climbed to three hundred and twenty five dollars and Randy Potter called out ‘Three fifty?’ and Marshall nodded his head. 'Three seventy five?' Four Hundred. SOLD! And that’s how my friend bought a significant piece of Canadian art history for four hundred bucks.

In the painting entitled 'Caledon', E. Conyers Barker used watercolors to paint the likeness of Caledon's first homes (one complete with an outhouse) in 1929 - Marshall has of course researched this piece in great detail and more information appears on Marshall's website, The Appraiser.ca.

Ernest Conyers Barker was born in Toronto on the 18th of March 1909. He died just a few years ago, in Barrie Ontario on the 5th of December 2003. He was inflicted with polio at an early age and remained confined to a wheelchair throughout his life.

Conyers Barker was a fine representational artist best known for his landscapes. He worked in water colours, oils and acrylics. This wheelchair bound painter was a significant member of the Canadian art scene for many years because he was early in ‘the club’ as they say, at the age of 17 years old - in 1924 he won the significant distinction of having a painting hung at the Art Gallery of Toronto, which only later became the AGO.

Born in Toronto, young Ernest studied art at Central Tech (Bathurst at Harbord St.) under Lawrence Panton, Alfred Howell, B.Coghll and P.Haworth and finally under Frederick Henry Brigden at the OSA.

D. Freeman, who has since authored a book, ‘The Horizontal Boy – The Life and works of Conyers Barker’ has made a good presentation of the fact that the crippled boy was a friend of Franklin Carmichael, Joachim Gauthier, Tom MacLean, A.J.Casson and Franz Johnston and was affectionately labeled as 'the Horizontal Boy' early in his career by these distinguished members of the Group of Seven. This was in recognition of his 'non conformative linear' approach to landscape painting, in which he simplified and stylized colour shapes to suggest landscape forms - according to D Freeman, it had nothing to do with his slouching.

Despite the crippling disabilities suffered as a result of contracting polio as an infant, Earnest worked assiduously throughout his life, especially in Northern Ontario and Algonquin Park, following in the footsteps of his earliest influence, Tom Thomson.

His principal ambition during his middle years was to become the finest abstractionist in Canada. But this pursuit did not materialize as the development of his own unique and distinctive form of Realism took over – Conyers Barker’s Realism brought him commercial success in the 1950’s when he was recognized in Canada’s fledgling art scene as an Individualist. He traveled extensively throughout Canada, particularly in the Prairie Provinces and the Maritimes, but Conyers Barker also painted in Florida, and in the Dominican Republic and in Scotland, Wales and England.

Formally, E. Conyers Barker was and will always be remembered as an Ontario artist with his first studios in Toronto, then in the town of Stayner, and finally in Barrie where he worked throughout the 1950’s as an illustrator and commercial artist for Canadian Television CKVR.

Actively painting into his celebrated nineties, blindness finally overcame E. Conyers Barker in the year before his death on 5th of December 2003.

Marshall Gummer was all smiles after purchasing a smart art investment. This is the brand of fine art that he enjoys the most as it reminds him of his own youth and the time he spent on his cousin’s farm in Dartford, Ontario.

And this was a really terrific acquisition, which I personally have no doubt will be further proved as the market appreciates and Canadian culture finds a new premium in the hearts and minds of collectors.

When buying fine art as an investment, Dumpdiggers believes that content is just as important as the painter’s pedigree, and those paintings that detail historic glimpses of early Ontario landscapes will be some of the first pieces to skyrocket in price. Smart buy Marshall. Good time management my friend you are an expert. Marshall!

Relics of the Fur Trade #1

If Dumpdiggers unearthed a forgotten fur trading post from the mid 1700's, what kind of relics could they expect to find?

This is a good question that was put to me recently by a Kenora Ontario digger with a bad reputation.

Chester Huff claims to know a secret spot on the Lake of the Woods, some distance from the original 'Rat Portage' (referencing the 1821 sketch by James Bigsby), and boasts that he's now excavating the remains of the area's first fur trading post!

But Chester is a big talker (no offense Chester, you know you are) and I'm extra skeptical... yet even the possibility HOWEVER makes me contemplate this delicious subject in extra detail, and institute this blog's first serial post, RELICS OF THE FUR TRADE.

FUR TRADE RELIC #1
Hudson Bay Trade Axe

Trade axes are the most essential Fur Trade relic, and that's because the axe is such a versatile tool.

Native Americans used the artifact everyday for all manner of chopping tasks. And they had ceremonial applications, and could also be used as weapons. In the 1600s - 1750s these iron axes were imported from England and France by the boatload for trade in the colonies - later, cruder version were forged inside the blacksmiths shops associated with colonial forts and armouries. These relics are more primitive because they were hand forged; they were often made from a single piece of iron, heated and folded over a mandrel to make an opening for the handle, then forge welded together - this closure was sometimes referred to as a lap-weld.

Early "eyes" were round holes. Later the eyes became oval shaped, or tear-dropped and later still rectangular. Handles or helves were made by the natives, but there are first hand accounts of the Voyageurs or courier du bois relaxing against beached 42 foot Montrealers, whittling small hardwood limbs into handles by the campfire at night. Many axe heads bear their parent metalworkers marks - these are commonly referred to as "touch marks".

Touch marks are made by touching the axe head when it's red hot, and leaving a mark on the metal. Cast or factory made axe heads with makers' marks are often referred to as guild marks. The most commonly found style of axe heads known are the Biscay style, since they were manufactured in the Biscay region of France.


Many different sizes and shapes of trade axes were found in the underwater search conducted at Double Rapids on the French River out of Lake Nipissing in 1961, and are dated late 1600's to mid 1700's. One hundred and twenty some axe heads were found in crates in a sunken long boat by amateur divers. These finds were donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in August, 1964.

How much is a genuine 1700's trade ax worth these days? Well let’s investigate that... The very best way to track an authentic trade ax's value would be to find a genuine 1700's trace axe on eBay, and wait to see who pays what, (and where they live.) *Question for the comments: Would you sell a Hudson's Bay Trade Axe, found in Canada, across the border?

Big Jugs in Barrie

What are you doing here? Tim asked defiantly.

I came to go digging. Didn't we say...?

'It's raining out bonehead!' Tim declared.

Well its not really raining - its just foggy.

'Get in the truck.' Tim doesn't need much convincing to go out looking for antiques, but on wet days in the winter months, he digs indoors.

On a foggy Friday afternoon I followed Timbits around the historic town of Barrie Ontario to look at rare and valuable early Canadian pottery.

Like a trapper out tending his trap line, Tim walks in a preordained pattern on each premises and keeps a pocket full of ready cash to buy any undervalued pieces he spots. Experience has taught him that most Southern Ontario antiques dealers don't know their local history or recognize the names of less prominent potters. If you want to track Tim down on eBay I believe his handle is 'Tim bottle digger' or some combination of those three words. He keeps a close eye on the newest dealer's booths in many local antiques malls, and seems to know the prices of most things without looking at the tags . Its fun to pick up something interesting and ask him what he would pay - its always less than the sticker price.

Tim is especially fond of the Barrie Antiques Centre; the high turnover inside this busy complex demands his frequent scrutiny - and the gregarious management here is also surprisingly helpful in discussing industry news, auction updates, and I suppose this friendly but informative banter is also part of Tim's search ritual.

I wish I had asked the proprietor his name. He was a nice guy, but Tim didn't want to say too much about the prices of the good pottery in front of him though... business and all.

In fact it's tough to get Tim to endorse anything expensive - for the most part he seems to reserve praise for items priced under ten dollars. But he does like salt glazed 'merchant crocks' and that place is packed full of them.

Salt glazed stoneware is created by adding common rock salt (sodium chloride) into the chamber of a hot kiln. Sodium as a flux and reacts with the silica in the clay. A typical salt glaze piece has a glassine finish, usually with a glossy and slightly orange-peel texture, enhancing the natural colour of the clay sealed beneath the glaze. I believe the process dates back to the 14th Century.

Tim likes stoneware jugs that are stamped with merchant's names and addresses from small towns in Ontario. This jug is from a wine merchant in Brantford, Ontario and that makes this piece a 'merchant's jug'. Yes this kind of detailed information on the stamp makes it possible to really accurately pinpoint the relic in time and place, and such pieces are therefore a welcome addition to any Canadian pottery collection.

If you click on and expand the image above you will more easily notice that this particular stoneware jug is 'spalding'. That means that this salt glazed pottery was carelessly stored in a damp basement, or perhaps outside in a garage or barn and, over the years, moisture has crept in under the finish. Those water molecules will over time, bubble up the glaze and ruin the skin of the ceramic. Restoration is difficult. A pottery collector could use a dehumidifier and maybe even a hairdryer to banish the moisture, but fixing the blemishes is a heart breaking exercise in futility.

I made sure I got my hands on a two gallon Flak and Van Arsdale from Cornwall, Ontario. This handsome kiln fired salt glazed beehive was made around 1874 and sold for a nickel; today's price is about $350 bucks!

At this point Timbits told me an interesting story about the blue floral designs that are always present on the early Canadian 'flower jugs' .

The potter, or in some famous cases here in Central Ontario the potter's most trusted assistant, would finger paint the same design on every piece! This primitive early branding was very important to consumers who grew to trust the vessels on which they could identify and recognize the flower. And when that proud potter retired, his son or his business partner took over the operation, and the company's signature image would change slightly... sometimes noticeably, but in many cases its still the same basic design, whether that was a flower or a bird or a horse. The new pattern would not be a significant departure from the earlier 'brand'. As I looked around the Barrie Antiques Centre, I saw many fine examples of this 'brand evoilution'. Tim pointed me toward a collection of crocks from Justin Morton & F.P. Goold. Behind them, I found a jug from a Hamilton potter named Robert Campbell. He had succeeded his father William in about 1875 - both men finger painted a flower pattern on their pieces, but Robert's decal was larger and friendlier.

A wonderful piece, this five gallon crock was made by W.E. Welding in Brantford Ontario in approx 1880. It has enjoyed a very long life as a handy storage container for a wide range of consumables such as water, soda, beer, meat, grain, jelly and pickled vegetables.

This crock could have been made from potters clay obtained in the Don river valley - there was a prolific clay pit there and its well known that Toronto teamsters would deliver that valuable white clay to potteries all over Ontario.

Tim is a true friend. He could see I was interested in learning about the history of Early Canadian Pottery and so he gave me his premier book on the subject by Donald Webster.

On page 78, I found the following census information that nicely details the rise and fall of Ontario potteries. In 1851 there were only thirty potteries in Upper Canada. But by 1861 there were forty potteries and eighty six potteries, and by 1871 there were 166 potters working eighty six potteries. The census of 1881 found seventy two potteries employed 182 potters. The decline, which was to start small and accelerate rapidly appeared first in the 1891 census where figures showed that 115 potters worked sixty potteries.

Early Canadian Pottery by Donald Webster was published in the USA in 1971 by the New York Graphic Society Limited, Greenwich Connecticut. Its broken into ten chapters:
EARLY CANADIAN POTTERY
1. The Production of Earthenware
2 Quebec - The French Period
3 Quebec - The Later 18th and 19th Centuries
4 Ontario Earthenware
5 Earthenware of the Maritimes
6 Miniatures, Toys and Whimseys
7 Salt-glazed Stoneware
8 Manufacturing - Rockingham and Yellow-ware
9 Whitewares and Porcelain
10 The Archeology of Potteries

The last chapter looks especially interesting, but I won't skip ahead to see where or how these guys are digging...