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Liquidation of Carlo of Hollywood Collection

Liquidation of Carlo of Hollywood Collection


Hello all,

One of the most frequently asked questions we get is “are you selling any Carlos”? The answer is finally a big YES!!!

As many of you may know, we have been collecting Carlo of Hollywood for well over a decade and have amassed a very large collection (around 70 pieces). Our current collection consists of ALL original watercolors by Carlo, no prints across all genres such jungle cats, nudes, tropical, asian, western etc. just to name a few. All the ones in our collection are still vibrant in color. Now that we have arrived in Texas we are going in a different direction with our decor. This means most of our collection will be put up for sale in the next few months. This isn’t going to be a bargain basement sale and we are not desperate or in a rush to sell. As many of you collectors know, these watercolors seem to be climbing in value. More to come so keep an eye out! If you’re curious about what Carlos could be up for sale please search for “Carlo” on in Keyword Search on our blog. Even so, that only covers a fraction of our collection. 

Items we may consider as trades are as follows:

-Frederic Weinberg

-Steelcase floating furniture

-Chromecraft

-Eero Aarnio

-Kartell

-Eames

-Knoll

-Broyhill Chapter One

-Adrian Pearsall

-Joe Colombo

-Modeline

We are open to any high end space age and MCM pieces. Feel free to send us photos of anything you have that you think might be of equal trade. We are not looking for projects, so please don’t send items that require a complete restoration.

Below is a small sample of our collection.

Vintage Fiberglass Safari Animal Heads From Banana Republic

Vintage Fiberglass Safari Animal Heads From Banana Republic

While surfing Craigslist I came across a gentleman who was selling three wall mounts. He was selling a Zebra, Gemsbok Antelope and a Kudu Antelope (Kudu is the one with the twisted horns). We are always on the hunt for cool additions to add to our Tiki/Big Game room and these fit the bill!

The retail company called Banana Republic was founded by Mel and Patricia Ziegler in 1978

Back in the 80’s Banana Republic was rolling out African safari themed ads. During this time they went all out decorating their stores. They adorned the walls with many kinds of fiberglass safari animal heads.

These heads had a stamp that reads BR1985 (Banana Republic 1985). They produced the animal heads I am posting but also elephants, rhinos, giraffes and many more. Most of these heads were destroyed after a change in the stores advertising direction. Enough with the back story let’s discuss the mounts we picked up…

The first one I will discuss is the Kudu. These are life size pieces and unfortunately this one had a busted off horn at the base. Upon further examination I realized the other horn was loose as well. I decided to bust that horn off at the base too.

I knew the best thing to fix this was JB Weld! This stuff is remarkably strong. The horns were made out of solid resin so I needed something that would be able to hold them in place with their considerable weight.

I applied a liberal amount of JB Weld and used my finger to wipe off any excess that squeezed out from under the horns. Once dried I touched the bases up with paint to help conceal the repairs.

Next I put the Zebra head in its place…

Lastly I hung the Gemsbok…

Along with these new additions we have our rhino, shark and chimp!…

Here is a small video of the heads in place…

Autumn’s Under the Sea Nursery

 

Ever since Mel and I found out we’re having a baby girl, we have worked hard at getting the nursery in order. We decided to name her Autumn, but we didn’t want to use a predictable Autumn theme such as owls, leaves, foxes, etc.  We had an excess of Mel’s fifties ceramic wall fish and mermaids, and we couldn’t find a place for our mid-century Reglor fish lamps, so we decided to do an under the sea theme. This was not easy to carry out considering most sea themed nursery items are geared towards boys.

What would our baby nursery be if we didn’t add a Carlo of Hollywood watercolor trio? This trio offered a unique challenge because the two smaller Carlo paintings have chartreuse colored frames. This required me to introduce that color throughout the room to tie it all together.

We were more comfortable with using modern MCM style pieces in her room rather than vintage children’s furniture because we had concerns about safety and lead paint. We chose the Babyletto Bingo 3-in-1 convertible crib and storage combo. What drew us to this crib is the mid-century style and splash of sea-foam green accent. For seating, we needed something comfortable for the long nights ahead and we knew a wooden rocking chair wouldn’t cut it. Searching online, we came across this blush colored swivel rocking chair by Delta Children. We vintaged up the rocking chair by adding an original atomic barkcloth throw pillow that pulls colors from the room.

Believe it or not, the dressers are from Ikea. They are the Busunge style and come in either pink or white. When you purchase them, each dresser comes in two boxes. One box has the frame, and the other has the drawers. So, we got creative and mixed pink drawers with a white frame. We think it compliments the room nicely.

On top of the dressers we have our 1951 Reglor fish lamps. I restored them about five years ago and we absolutely love them. Vintage fish lamps are very hard to find. Continental Art Company made a fish lamp that we’re still looking for. I’ve linked it here.

Because we wanted to make the room as atomic as possible, we pulled in some vintage shadowboxes. The first shadowbox on the left has a similar shape to a Carlo of Hollywood frame. It’s a reversed forced perspective style. Inside the shadowbox are vintage ceramic mermaids and fish by Lefton, Bradley, Gilner & Relco. The bowtie shadowboxes have vintage fish and mermaids by Lefton, Josef Originals and Nameth Enterprises. The amoeba shaped shadowboxes contain vintage mermaids by Bradley. We filled in the open spaces above the figurines in each shadowbox with vintage ceramic bubbles. We used museum max to secure them in place so we didn’t have to nail into the shadowboxes.

Instead of just hanging Autumn’s vintage ceramic fish on a blank canvas, I decided to paint under the sea murals with mountain silhouettes as the backdrop. The first photo showcases vintage fish and mermaids by Deforest, Norecrest, and Freeman McFarlin. The vintage wall fish in the center photo are all by Freeman McFarlin. The vintage shell in the center photo is just marked Japan. The last photo has vintage fish by Deforest, Ceramicraft and a vintage shell marked Japan.

The vintage mermaids on the left are by Freeman McFarlin. The center school of fish are by Lefton. The last photo of the vintage seahorses are by Nameth.

All the above vintage ceramic fish are by Deforest.

The upper left photo showcases our favorite pink vintage wall fish made by Freeman McFarlin. The blue swordfish is also by Freeman McFarlin, and the two small green fish are by Ceramicraft. The vintage angel fish on the upper right are by Deforest. The last photo is a really large mural made up of many vintage ceramic fish by Freeman McFarlin, Deforest and Ceramicraft.

We’re really happy with how the room came together. Unfortunately, we don’t think that the photos do the murals justice. Here are some additional photos of the finished room.

This vintage pendant light was designed by Heiftez Rotaflex.

Milo and Kozmo have taken to Autumn’s new room. We find them sleeping on her bean bag all the time.

 

Fiberglass Find!!!

Fiberglass Find!!!

This is the view of San Francisco seen from the fair.

Last weekend Mel and I decided to take a break from unpacking to attend the Alameda Point Antiques Faire. There have been very few times where we had such a successful haul as this faire. While cruising all the vendors we came across an amazing rhinoceros wall mount.

Don’t worry all you animal rights activists, this thing is made out of fiberglass! We purchased this from Bob & Bonnie of Alchemy Estate liquidations in spot M23.

They were so nice and just wanted to make sure it went to a good home. Our tiki room is quickly becoming a fiberglass game room!

We were so excited to get this. We missed out on a hippo a while back, so this makes up for it. We are on the hunt for more of these fiberglass wall mounts and hope to add more to the collection. We will share our other scores shortly.

Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Home Tour Recap

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Well, Mel and I have finally gotten back to normal after such a big event.  The home tour was a lot of work, but well worth it.  We had a fantastic turnout and we got to meet so many of our neighbors, followers of our blog, and made some new friends.

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An event this large doesn’t happen by accident.  It is through a lot of hard work and sacrifice of dedicated people.  We’d like to thank the following folks for everything they put into making this such a successful event.  First off, we would like to thank the SacMod team who put this all together and made the event run seamlessly.  Thanks to the Sacramento Art Deco Society volunteers who helped manage the crowds during the tour.  A special shout out to our friend Jon of SacMod, my Mom Shirl & Step-Father Dave for sticking with us the ENTIRE day!  Finally, a huge thanks to the guests!

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We were up early on tour day trying to make sure everything was perfect.  We even tried to stage the front yard with vintage cement pink flamingos, atomic lawn furniture, and of course, Betty-Lou our 55′ Chevy Bel Air!

Shane & Mel

Mel & I even dressed up for the event.  Shane: Vintage Paradise Found Pink Flamingo shirt. This is the same style shirt worn by Tom Selleck in Magnum PI.  Mel: Pinup Girl Clothing Jersey Cap Sleeve Top and Best Frocks Forever – Circle Skirt in Midcentury Bubble

People started showing up right at 9am and they came in waves.  Below is a video of the line that started to form outside our house.

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The line is forming!!! #sacmcmhometour

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 As you can see in the video below of our kitchen & dining rooms, our house was literally packed with tour guests.

 

Here’s a video of our living room.  Volunteers from the Sacramento Art Deco Society even dressed in Art Deco period clothing, which complimented the tour nicely.  This is Linda at our front door.

All the folks who toured our home were very respectful and so complimentary of our home and collection.  We loved being around so many folks who appreciated the same things we do.  We even received gifts from folks who wanted us to have items to add to our collection. We received a lamp, bathroom fish & bubbles, and tiki mugs.  It was also great to find out that some of our blog followers made special trips just for the home tour.  Some readers came out as far as Texas, Arizona, and Los Angeles.  We want to extend a special thanks to those guests who traveled a great distance to see our home.

As promised, for folks who were unable to make the tour, we’re posting photos & videos of each room in our home.  There is too much to include in just one post, so you’ll see separate posts for each room over the next few weeks.  Let’s start with a video of the tiki room.  Unfortunately, there isn’t any music (so we don’t infringe upon any copyright issues).  Just imagine Martin Denny’s tropical music playing in the background.

Below are some shots of the room for a more detailed view.

Carlo of Hollywood Stallion Partner

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As you may be aware, we’re major collectors of Carlo of Hollywood watercolors.  One of our favorite pieces is our large Stallion watercolor.

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This is one of the two smaller ones that would have been part of this 3 piece set. When Carlo watercolor paintings were sold, they were usually in pairs or sets of three. In the case of this stallion set, there is one large one and two smaller ones. Usually, one of the smaller ones would be almost a duplicate of the larger one.

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This one has some character, but it may just be dirt under the glass. I’ll have to take it apart and clean it up!

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We just love the bold imagery of these pieces.  We of course, love the forced perspective/angular frames.

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We decided to hang them above our fireplace.

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Hopefully, one day we’ll locate the other smaller Carlo.

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As always, we hope to enjoy these for years to come.

Sunday’s Best

Mel and I came across an ad on Craigslist that stated a gentelman had some items he wanted to sell. We drove up through the beautiful El Dorado Hills until we arrived at his homestead. We had the pleasure of meeting a man by the name of Tom. As we spoke he began to tell us that his wife had been an antique dealer for years. They had been into antiques since the 70’s. His wife passed away recently due to cancer and Mel and I could tell it was hard for him to go through their collection and sell it. It makes you realize that when you go to these estate sales that these were someones prized possessions. These are the things they cherished. I guess all I am saying is that as a dealer/collector sometimes we forget what this stuff meant to those who owned it before us and those left behind.

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These are the items we were fortunate enough to find at Tom’s place.

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As I am sure a lot of dealers out there know, stuff is getting harder and harder to find so it makes your day when you stumble across a collection of cool items.

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Most of these items will make it into the our shop, while others will be staying with us.

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Here are a couple of large Carlo of Hollywood watercolors we purchased. These will end up in our shop.

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Mel and I have been looking for one of these for a long time. This is a collapsable record/magazine holder. We wanted to start selling records and this will work great to display them.

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Here are a couple of cool looking danish lamps that are heading to the shop.

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We have a 1958 Wurlitzer 2200 jukebox and these speakers will be great companions for it.

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This John Hauser style hoop chair will make someone very happy. It’s going into the shop!

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I wish we had room in our home for this pink dream chair with frieze fabric. This chair is clean and will also be going into the shop.

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For me, this was the find of the day. We have a vintage bathroom that is the same color and this vintage dentist’s cabinet will be a great addition.

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Here are a pair of breathtaking Art Deco horse head lamps. They need to be cleaned up and I need to find some shades for them. These will be going in the shop.

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This was not a part of Tom’s items but we picked this up a few days ago from San Jose. This is the highly sought after Heywood Wakefield record cabinet (model: m395).

Well now comes the hard work of restoring these items as needed, but I wouldn’t have it another way!

Rare Large Tiger Carlo of Hollywood Watercolor

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One of the great things about having this blog is that it is a great way to connect with folks who are trying to sell items we collect. In this instance a gentleman from Redding California reached out to us and asked if we would be interested in a jungle cat Carlo.

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As you might guess, we are always interested in jungle cat Carlos. This Carlo makes a complete 3 piece set as they were originally sold. We already had the two smaller ones on the right.

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Excuse the reflections

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This Carlo is the largest in our collection now. We used to own a ballerina Carlo that must have been over 5ft wide but we sold it.

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With the black background it really makes the greens and oranges jump out!

Jungle Cat Carlo of Hollywood Pair They’re Grrrrreat!

Jungle Cat Carlo Paintings

Mel and I were contacted by Bobbie at At Home Modern regarding these fantastic Carlo of Hollywood watercolors she purchased from auction house in New Jersey. I had seen pictures of these online before but had never seen them in person. They are soo cool with the black background.

Jungle Cat Carlo

Unfortunately, these had some mild condition issues. It appears dust and some light mildew had accumulated on the surface of the art. This happens when the back dust cover is torn or missing or when the paintings are stored in a humid area. If you recall, we had a set of bullfighters that had mold that penetrated the paintings.  I had to do an extensive restoration of that pair. Luckily, the mold & dust on this set did not penetrate the art.

Jungle Cat Carlo

Jungle Cat Carlo

We were able to carefully remove the surface debris and they cleaned up great!

Jungle Cat Carlo

Jungle Cat Carlo

I refinished the frames of course.

Jungle Cat Carlo Paintings

These will look fantastic in our Tiki room.

Hepcat Tiki Room

Here is a sample of the Tiki Room so far. There is still a lot I want to do. So far so good.

Hepcat Tiki Room

Rare Underwater Carlo Of Hollywood

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Mel and I have been so busy as of late.  We had our store launch on Saturday and we shot down to Alameda on Sunday for a full day of shopping.  Once we arrived home I decided to hop on Craigslist to see what was on there and I came across this Carlo.

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We hopped back in the car and drove back to the Bay the same day.  We have been hunting for an underwater Carlo for the longest time.

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It appears to be a Hawaiian piece.  I believe the large black fish is a shark.

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We have a line on a set of smaller fish Carlo’s that we plan to get to flank this large one.  We are soo excited!

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