Heavily Patinated (Much Used!) Walter Bosse for Herta Baller 1950s Brass "Hand" Ashtray folk art toy axe This piece has a truly

This piece has a truly fantastic presence and object-hood

with several large plants in New England that operated until the 1970s

but as it is this gorgeous 1975 book is the next best thing

Wooden barbells always seem a bit of a funny thing to me

and sometimes really rather dark--which tends to feel to me much truer to the experience of childhood than teddy bears and unicorns

Heavily Patinated (Much Used!) Walter Bosse for Herta Baller 1950s Brass "Hand" Ashtray folk art toy axe This piece has a trulyI happened upon this one digging around in Maine this week an iconic brass 'hand' ashtray designed by Walter Bosse and produced by Herta Baller, Austria, c. 1950 Terrific form all the way around, with the pinched thumb and forefinger meant to evoke the holding of a cigarette and this particular ashtray was clearly very much used as such, with lots of blackening to the bowl. I have wiped it well with a damp cloth, but not attempted to clean or polish