I’ve briefly mentioned here and there that we have listed a whole bunch of stuff on eBay, but I figured I should tell you a little bit more about all our listings. We’ve lived here in Germany for 8 years now. It’s amazing how the time just seems to fly by (and it only seems to pass more quickly every year) and in that time, we’ve accumulated quite a few things that we no longer use. Some things, we barely even used when they were new.

We also inherited (for lack of a better word) a bunch of stuff when we bought this house. The previous owner was apparently a flea market junkie, both buying and selling things – but personally it seemed like he was just trying to make his house look like a warehouse of junk. It seems he couldn’t resist picking up anything made from wood (even if it was just part of a table or chair – but to be fair he was a carpenter so perhaps thought he could use the stuff) and there were lots of other items he seemed to collect as well.

You may have read about our massive clean out efforts here; maybe you even got to help. But we have thrown away about 150 cubic meters of trash so far…and there’s certainly another container or five worth of stuff around here. But that’s all for another time and place because now we are focusing on decluttering the spaces around the farm that we use (or would like to get more use from) and hope to make a little money off our junk during the process. Our trash is another man’s treasure, right? Then we’ll have space for all the junk we do use and be happier since we’ll actually know where stuff is, instead of going on a mission every time we need to find a screwdriver or the power drill. We’ve also discovered that we have a bunch of baby stuff that can be liquidated already – it’s incredible how quickly you go through clothes, chairs, stools, etc. with a baby. But at least most of what we bought is in high demand still so we’re actually making more money from some things than we paid for them!

A lot of the stuff we’re listing is random books, figures, art and other knickknacks that were left behind in the house. We figure that most of it isn’t worth more than a couple bucks because we know that an antique dealer came through the house before we saw it and offered the family 2000 euros for everything inside. Let me just say that this guy made the deal of the century because the house was FULL of furniture and other stuff. I have no idea what the family was smoking when they agreed to that price but half would have been enough. Even someone desperate for money would recognize that they’re getting scammed. But I digress – I’m just glad we didn’t see the place full of furniture or we really would have cried when we heard the story about them selling everything.

We’re on our third set of auctions and are often surprised at what does really well on ebay. But so far, so good — and since we’ve sold all but one item that we’ve listed, it’s given us some motivation to keep on listing stuff…even if it can be a complete and total pain.

We put about 30 auctions online Sunday evening and sat back to wait. One of the items is a buffalo or bison statue which seems to be made of some thin earthenware ceramic.

It’s got this funky glazing on it and looks like the artist laid copper leaf pieces on one side and glazed over that. Not an ugly piece but we just wouldn’t know where to put it and we don’t like it enough to keep it. We figured we might get 5 or 10 euros for it since it’s fairly large (2ocm long x 16cm wide x 22cm high) but in the first day we had 3 people watching the auction. Ok, maybe just buffalo and bison fans jumping on the boat.

Then we got an email from a guy who offered us 48 euros to buy it now plus the price of shipping for it. Now the auction started at a buck – so this kinda got us wondering if we were missing something. I searched and searched on the Internet to find this guy, but only found a couple of similar pieces and nothing to make me believe this is either of those. There are no distinct signature markings and the people on ebay only got one photo of it – perhaps they’re just hoping that it’s something that is worth money. But if they aren’t sure, why not just bid 10 euros for it? Or watch the auction to see what happens? Why an offer to immediately purchase it for 48 euros? And where did he come up with such an odd price?

So now I come to you, in hopes that you can assist. I’ve heard about the Lisa Larson bison which was made for the World Wildlife Federation in 1975, and it does look extremely similar from the one photo I managed to find of her bison  – but I don’t think it’s the same one. And it doesn’t have the markings that the WWF bison is said to have.

I also came across an artist named Guido Gambone who did similar sort of work, but most of the animal sculptures he did seem to be smaller and wildly colored. But the bronze leaf which is glazed over is indicative of the 1950-60’s when he was doing art.

Other than that, I got nothin’. So if you see it and recognize it from somewhere, please let me know. We’ve pulled the auction from ebay for now and will probably take the sculpture to a place in Frankfurt that will hopefully be able to tell us something. I’ll let you know what turns up. By the way, another person contacted us after the auction was over and asked about buying it. He didn’t volunteer a price, though.

Here’s a few more photos in case you are bigger art buffs than we are and think you can tell something about it . Click on any of the images to make them larger. And thanks!

Above is the bronze/copper leaf side. The drips actually seem to be at least partially due to the leaf work because you can see what appears to be a raised area where the leaf is. Below is a closeup of the leaf work. The glaze is cracked a little bit on top of the copper color. We have no idea if that was intentional or not but it’s the only place on the figure with cracking like that.

The color around his eyes is more or less the natural color of the pottery used to make this. There are some details to the facial features, but it is still quite subtle, much like the division of the feet.

And then the thing that really throws me — the feet covered with felt. I’ve never seen anything like that on a piece which is worth anything, unless someone who didn’t know better did it. But this stuff appears to actually have been part of the firing process. There’s no indication that it would just peel off. Maybe they used some hard core glue to get it on there, but it definitely doesn’t appear that it would come off.

Update 09/24/09: Here’s what we’ve now learned. This bison was made by a company called Ruscha Keramik in the 1960’s or 1970’s. There were several different animals as well as different colored glazes. This was in a time when lots of bright colors were being used on the pieces like lava. As far as pricing goes, the red version of this bison usually goes for about €150. We’ve been told the blue also goes for this price although the red is supposed to be the rarest (even though we have seen nothing but red ones for sale online.) We’re still debating what to do with this bison but are thinking that if we put it back on eBay we’ll start the bidding at €100 and see what happens. Supply and demand ultimately set the price, regardless of what a little book says something is worth.

Update on 1/10/2011: In case you’re wondering, we’ve still got this bison and he’s hanging out in our guest house until we start the great eBay sell-off. This era of ceramics is often referred to as fat lava, and there are multiple sizes of these bulls…this one being on the smaller side. The bison are all one molded piece and so they are rather fragile and easily broken, so the pieces are a bit rare. Plus they were not as useful as a vase and apparently fairly expensive when they came out so they didn’t sell all that well. There is another color called Volcano which is a bright orange and apparently the more desirable of the colors. I’ve actually never seen one for sale in our color anywhere which still makes me curious.

I recently found another article about these bisons so I thought I would tack it on here:

http://markhillcollects.blogspot.com/2008/05/load-of-old-bull.html