The Halloween Edition!

Featuring skulls, daggers, magpie superstitions and phantom hair

Hello friends, and welcome to Dearest’s yearly spoooOOooky edition, in which we revel in the coffins, spiders and old man beards (wait, what?) that inhabit the more unusual corners of the antique and vintage world. Pull a chair up to the fire with me and let’s huddle together for safety.

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This Victorian pendant features a tiny, gold-filled skull that’s riveted onto an oval moss agate plaque. The skull’s eyes are French paste — leaded glass that’s cut and polished to resemble diamonds — and guess what? THEY MOVE. The pastes are loosely set within each eye socket, so they shift around like a pair of 19th century googly eyes.

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I love the simplicity of this 2018 rose gold “Sword” bangle by contemporary high-end jewelry brand Bee Goddess. The piece is designed as two opposing daggers, one set with brilliant-cut diamonds and the other with treated black diamonds.

It’s going up for sale today in the Knightsbridge Jewels auction at Bonhams London and is estimated at $680 – 950. There’s some damage to the underside of the bracelet, but even adding in a repair cost from your local mom & pop jeweler wouldn’t bring it anywhere NEAR the current retail price of the piece, which is around $5,900. This is why it pays to keep your eye on auctions!

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Now, I haven’t heard these tales here in the US — so I’d love my English and French friends to weigh in on this — but apparently there are LOADS of superstitions about magpies?

The main superstition insists that seeing one magpie is bad luck, but seeing two is good. The UK birding site Bird Spot delves even further, listing specific magpie superstitions by region:

Scotland – A single magpie seen near the window of a house is a sign of an impending death.

Wales – If you see a magpie when starting a journey and moving from right to left then the journey will be hazardous.

Ireland – Magpies are the souls of evil-minded and gossiping women.

Yorkshire – Magpies are associated with witchcraft and you should make the sign of a cross to ward off evil spirits.

Somerset – Carrying an onion with you at all times will offer you protection from the bad luck a magpie may bring.

Northampton – A group of three magpies together predicts a fire.

Devon – If a fisherman sees a magpie first thing in the morning he won’t catch any fish that day.

Sussex – Bucking the trend, in Sussex a magpie perched on the roof of a house is regarded as a good sign and that the house is in no danger of falling.

And what the hell, France?

France – evil nuns are thought to be reincarnated as magpies.

The circa 1900 openwork gold pendant above is up for sale in tomorrow’s The Hercules Collection Part II auction at Bonhams London, and it features two evil nuns in blue enamel with rose-cut diamond accents in a setting composed of the French words “une pie tant pis deux pies tantmieux,” or “two magpies are better than one.” It’s suspended from a rose- and single-cut diamond surmount, and features French assay marks.

And now we know why Abe Simpson lived to such a great age.

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Man, memento mori stuff can be gruesome. You all know by now that memento mori means “remember you must die,” and is essentially a meditation on the fleeting nature of life. Memento mori objects usually contain references to death — coffins, skeletons, skulls etc. — and some are pretty graphic, like the ivory pendant above. Circa 1510-1530 and probably from Southern Germany, it features a dead man's face carved on one side, and a reverse side that depicts a decaying skull writhing with worms. Blegh. The carving is set with silver suspension rings at top and bottom, so it maybe was originally included on a chain or large rosary. It’s in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

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This exceptional mourning pendant was recently sold by Rowan and Rowan, but it’s definitely still worth noting here for its unusual inscription. The pendant takes the form of a 2” tall double-sided coffin, and one side features brown hair set under crystal, with a plaque and monogram that provide us with the details of the deceased: “GB aged 34 died Aug. 15 1785.” A thin enamel border extends around the edge of the piece and is inscribed “Twas the last pang that took him from my breast.”

The opposite side features an inset of gray hair, with the details “MDW aged 83 died Nov. 30 1838.” A similar enamel border runs around the edge and states: “Tho lost to sight to memory dear.”

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Please take a moment to fully absorb this cover.

“Does that say, ‘OLD MAN’S BEARD???,’” you may ask — and the answer is yes, yes it does, for it is literally a story about a young woman who is being haunted (stalked, even!) by an old man’s beard.

That titular story is the first in the collection Old Man’s Beard: Fifteen Disturbing Tales, published in 1929 by Herbert Russell Wakefield (1888 – 1964). Wakefield was an English writer primarily known for ghost stories, and stylistically, his work is very similar to that of the great M.R. James: it draws the reader in with brisk, dry wit and then delivers up some detached but pretty horrifying imagery. If you weren’t a big ocean person to begin with, this won’t help:

“And then for a moment she recovered consciousness, and after staring fixedly at Sir Perseus for a full ten seconds, she said in a cold, toneless voice, ‘I put my foot on a face. I could feel it. And then I felt the hair, and it began to come up my legs and pull me down.’ And then she began to scream and scream and scream, and it took all the strength of Sir Perseus and young Randall to hold her down in bed. Presently her struggles became less violent and Sir Perseus put a hypodermic syringe to her arm.”

I mean, yes, it’s an old man beard, which is extremely funny. But STEPPING ON A FACE IN THE OCEAN? I stepped on some grapes in the supermarket once and nearly shit myself. No thank you.

ANYWAY, the first edition copy above is included in Heritage Auction’s October 14 sale of The Gary Munson Collection of Horror and Fantasy Rare Books, and that cover illustration is just *chef’s kiss*.

The story itself is a very short read. You can get the book for $.99 on iBooks and you can also hear the tale read aloud on the Manfred Arcane YouTube channel:

That channel is basically a collection of vintage recordings of old horror stories, and it’s my new most favorite thing.

Check out the rest of that auction, too — there are some phenomenal books on the block, including a first edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (current bid at time of writing: $76,000), as well as firsts from Bram Stoker, Poe, Tolkien and Bradbury, among many others.

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This Russian silver-topped 14k pink gold spider brooch is up for sale in Rago’s Fall Jewelry auction on October 20, and features ruby eyes and a circular-cut ruby and diamond….torso? I don’t know my spider anatomy. (Wait, thorax! I think it’s a thorax? Whatever. I’m not looking it up.) The spider’s body is further embellished with green enamel and a web-like fan of single-cut diamonds. The legs are set with diamonds and sapphires, and the piece is a good size, measuring 2 ¾ x 3 ¼ inches.

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Also in that sale is a wonderful collection of Edwardian owl jewelry, which is happily being sold as a single unbroken lot. The pieces above are just part of the collection, which consists of 15 yellow and pink gold brooches, one necklace and one pendant. Most feature diamond or gem-set eyes, and some also include platinum. All date to the early 20th century.

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Hey, for a mere $78,500, you could own this totally haunted 17th century mirror! Circa 1695, signed, original silvered glass, fruitwood and sycamore marquetry frame, blah blah blah. Here’s the info. Please make it stop shrieking at me.

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I’ll leave it there for today, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this year’s installment of the weird and wonderful, and as always, please feel free to reply to this email, find me on Twitter, or leave a comment. And have a wonderful Halloween! Anybody getting dressed up?

M xxx

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