Moe-Bridges Table Lamp, ca. 1900
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GUEST:
It was my mother's. Ever since I was a little kid, it's always been in the house.
APPRAISER:
Well, the lamp we know was made by the Moe-Bridges Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We know that because of the signature on the bottom of it, which we should take a look at. This lamp made in Milwaukee, in probably the late 19th, early 20th century, is really in the Arts and Crafts style. Now, Moe-Bridges was working off of designs that the Handel Glass Company and the Pairpoint Glass Company made very famous in New England. And this is what I would describe as a notch down in quality from those lamps. Those reverse-painted lamps have beautiful scenic images on them, as this one does, and you can see the landscape decoration on it. It is part of a design movement that I would describe as the Brown Decades. It is mid 19th century to late 19th century, when people were decorating their homes in very somber colors and dark browns and dark greens and wine reds, and this is, finally, we get to the middle class when they're able to appreciate the high style Brown Decades at the turn of the century. Another tip-off on this lamp in terms of its value is the fact that this does not have a bronze base to it. It looks like bronze, but it's not. It's probably an iron base that has been patinated in this brown color.
GUEST:
Oh.
APPRAISER:
And you've done a wonderful thing here. You've got 25 watt bulbs in this lamp, which is perfect to really enhance its color. It really does look like a sunset. It's the type of bulb that would have originally been in the lamp. I would appraise it probably in the $2,000 to $3,000 range.
GUEST:
Really?
Appraisal Details
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