Owl & Twig

The Field Guide

How to identify, date, and value the things you find. Written from what passes through our hands, one estate sale at a time.

Latest The Thrift Store CD Rack Is Hiding Money in Plain Sight The CD rack is the most ignored shelf in any thrift store. Four visual cues separate the dollar discs from the hundred-dollar ones, no barcode scanner required. September 10, 2026
Brad Keeler vs. Maddux of California: whose flamingo do you have? Two Los Angeles potteries made pink flamingos at the same time, and one modeler worked for both. The... Sep 10, 2026 ToysRushton rubber-face stuffies: the Atlanta plush that looked back at you Every other stuffed animal of the 1950s asked a child to imagine a face. Rushton painted one on... Sep 5, 2026 Hawkeye Corp. Garfield Aquarium, circa 1990: an 18-inch plastic Garfield with a clear two-gallon fishbowl set into his belly Home & SeasonalThe Garfield aquarium: the fish tank where the fish live inside the cat Hawkeye Corp. put a two-gallon fishbowl in the stomach of a cartoon cat famous for eating anything that... Sep 5, 2026 Pottery & PorcelainThe signature says Mara. Here's who she was. Millions of hand-engraved Mexican stoneware mugs passed through American gift shops with one name on the bottom. It... Sep 5, 2026 Rocky Rock 'em Sock 'em action playset by PAC Toys: Rocky Balboa and Clubber Lang in the ring, two children at the controls ToysThe Rocky Rock 'em Sock 'em playset: the $18.88 toy that let you knock Mr. T's block off PAC Toys put Rocky Balboa and Clubber Lang in a Rock 'em Sock 'em ring for one season,... Sep 4, 2026 1984 Wallace Berrie All-Star Snork plush, yellow with curled snorkel and SNORKS shirt ToysThe Snorks plush: two $9.97 dolls that beat their own cartoon to the Christmas catalog Casey and All-Star Snork were $9.97 each on page 104 of the 1984 Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog, weeks... Sep 4, 2026 Five Viking Glass owl glimmer fairy lamps in Ruby, Honey, Brown, Avocado and Persimmon GlassThe Viking owl glimmer: the seven-inch bird that outlived the glasshouse that made it Viking Glass introduced its two-piece owl fairy lamp, catalog number 6900, around 1970 and poured it in the... Sep 3, 2026 A pair of vintage solid brass cranes on white Design & MaterialsThe brass cranes: a $19.99 Sears bird that became a $400 decorator piece Two solid brass cranes were $19.99 the pair on page 360 of the 1983 Sears Wish Book. The... Sep 3, 2026 Early Dakin Garfield plush with small, separated eyes ToysThe Dakin Garfield: how to date a plush cat by the space between his eyes Every Dakin Garfield says 1978 on the tag and almost none were made that year. A field guide... Sep 2, 2026 Vintage Tyco Garfield telephone, eyes closed, handset resting on the cat's back Electronics & PhonesThe Garfield phone: the eighties' best-known landline, and the beach that keeps giving it back Tyco's Garfield telephone was a real phone whose eyes opened when you lifted the handset. Then a shipping... Sep 2, 2026 The phone that pretended to be a spacecraft Electronics & PhonesThe phone that pretended to be a spacecraft The Crusader SR-500 Space Shuttle Robot Phone is what the deregulated American telephone looked like at its most... Sep 2, 2026 ToysThe 1952 Sears Christmas Book: the year Marx went plastic Sears gave six pages of its 1952 Christmas Book to electric trains. Read against the Lionel pages that... Aug 30, 2026 Art & PaperThe Wish Book: how Sears taught America to circle things For sixty years it arrived in late summer and was read more carefully than anything else in the... Aug 29, 2026 Hewlett-Packard HP-01 calculator watch from 1977 with a red LED display and 28-key keypad on a steel bracelet. Electronics & PhonesThe calculator watch went from $3,950 to $20 without changing its design It was the most expensive watch in America, then the cheapest gift under the tree, then a punchline,... Aug 29, 2026 A Mechanical Martin wind-up Martian with its original tall, narrow box, from the author's collection ToysThe Mechanical Martin: the misspelled Martian that terrified 1950s children The box says Martin. The toy is a Martian. A wind-up tin invader from 1950s Japan, why so... Aug 28, 2026 Lawn Darts: The Toy America Banned Like a Weapon (And What a Set Is Worth Now) ToysLawn Darts: The Toy America Banned Like a Weapon (And What a Set Is Worth Now) Sold in the toy aisle, banned like a weapon, worth up to $200 to collectors today. Case File... Aug 27, 2026 Art & PaperM.C. Escher: what a real print looks like, and what he carried home from Amsterdam He failed his secondary school exams, never took a mathematics course past eighteen, and spent the last thirty... Aug 21, 2026 The reverse of a 1982 Masters of the Universe He-Man blister card, showing cross-sell artwork for all eight wave one figures ToysBy the Power of Grayskull: the origins, lore and collector's guide to the original 8 He-Man figures Mattel's answer to losing Star Wars was a barbarian with a spring in his waist. Eight figures shipped... Aug 15, 2026 Rookwood stalking panther paperweight, shape 2563, dated 1946, in a glossy green glaze Pottery & PorcelainThe Rookwood panther, and how to date one Two panthers, consecutive shape numbers, and a mold that outlived everyone who touched it. Shape 2563 scanned in... Aug 15, 2026 Seller's DeskMost Broken Vintage Was Broken at the Packing Table A milk glass owl can survive sixty years of estate sales and then die in the back of... Aug 15, 2026 Pottery & PorcelainMing Dragon Blood: how to tell a Brad Keeler lobster from everyone else's The birds get the attention. But the red glaze on a lobster dish was the hardest thing Brad... Aug 14, 2026 GlassFour Things to Look at Before You Pick Up a Mug Nobody flips over three hundred mugs. Four visual cues — color, shape, words, and technology — do almost... Aug 14, 2026 Every Brad Keeler Figurine We Can Account For: A Working Catalog Pottery & PorcelainEvery Brad Keeler Figurine We Can Account For: A Working Catalog Keeler numbered almost everything he made, then died before anyone wrote the numbers down. One hundred eighty-one pieces... Aug 13, 2026 The glimmer in the eye: how to spot a real Brad Keeler flamingo Pottery & PorcelainThe glimmer in the eye: how to spot a real Brad Keeler flamingo Seven years of looking for Brad Keeler flamingos taught me what to check, what to forgive, and why... Aug 13, 2026 Two owls, a 1921 woodcut by Julie de Graag. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Art & PaperThe Dutch woodcut artist whose owls are yours to keep Julie de Graag died in 1924. A century on, her owls, cats and mushrooms belong to everyone —... Aug 13, 2026 Lefton Devil Figurines: A Collector's Guide to Mid-Century Kitsch's Favorite Troublemaker Pottery & PorcelainLefton Devil Figurines: A Collector's Guide to Mid-Century Kitsch's Favorite Troublemaker Little red horns, rosy cheeks, and a whole lot of mischief. Here's how to identify a real 1950s... Aug 9, 2026 Home & SeasonalThe Halloween Artist on Your Shelf: A Johanna Parker Collector's Guide She may be the most widely sold Halloween designer in American retail and one of the least recognised... Aug 9, 2026 Why Vintage Halloween Collectibles Hold Their Value Home & SeasonalWhy Vintage Halloween Collectibles Hold Their Value Halloween decorations were built to be thrown away, which is exactly why the survivors are worth what they... Aug 9, 2026 Whose Owl Is It: Dating the Glass Owl on the Nest GlassWhose Owl Is It: Dating the Glass Owl on the Nest The hen on a nest sold by the thousand. The owl did not. What survives came from a... Aug 9, 2026 A vintage Kix Atomic Bomb Ring, showing the gold-toned band and aluminum warhead with its removable red plastic tailfin. ToysThe Toy at the Bottom of the Box: A Field Guide to Vintage Cereal Premiums Cereal companies spent seventy years perfecting the art of selling breakfast to children who only wanted the prize.... Aug 9, 2026 Art & PaperCrewel Is the Thread, Not the Style — and Other Things Sellers Get Wrong Wool on linen, four hundred years old, and the thing your grandmother stitched from a kit in 1972.... Aug 3, 2026 Paint by Number Was Invented in Detroit. Here's How to Collect It. Art & PaperPaint by Number Was Invented in Detroit. Here's How to Collect It. A Detroit package designer, a boss who hated his first attempt, and a hobby that put an oil... Aug 3, 2026 Seller's DeskFacebook Just Gave Marketplace Sellers Their Own App. Here's How to Use It. Meta launched Seller, a standalone Facebook Marketplace app, in July 2026 — plus a free Facebook Verified badge.... Aug 3, 2026 LightingVintage Lava Lamps: Why a Cloudy Bottle Is the Whole Appraisal Bases get repainted and caps get swapped, but a cloudy bottle is often permanent — which makes fluid... Aug 2, 2026 Art & PaperFirst Edition or Fifth Printing? How to Read a Copyright Page Almost every question about a book's edition is answered by one page and one row of numbers. How... Aug 2, 2026 Green glazed vintage ceramic Christmas tree with multicolor plastic peg lights and a yellow star topper, on a wooden side table Home & SeasonalVintage Ceramic Christmas Trees: Why the Date on the Base Lies to You The famous Atlantic Mold A-64 ceramic Christmas tree design was copyrighted in 1958 and cast for roughly forty... Jul 29, 2026 3D printed Castle Grayskull inspired desk organizer with dramatic sunset background ToysCastle Grayskull: The Full History, the Materials, and Why We 3D Printed Our Own The real history behind Castle Grayskull, what the original 1982 toy was made of, how vintage pieces are... Jul 26, 2026 Illustration of a two-headed hen on nest design, two hens facing each other on a woven nest lid GlassFive Hen on Nest Rarities Actually Worth Chasing Most hen on nest dishes sell for $20-60. These five real categories — a one-of-one Greentown mold that... Jul 25, 2026 Vintage sparkling clear crystal art glass snail figurine GlassSteuben Glass: The One Fact That Dates Almost Any Piece Steuben's hundred-plus-year run splits cleanly into two eras that collectors treat as almost different companies. Color or clear... Jul 25, 2026 Vintage porcelain owl figurine by M. Requena, Valencia, Spain Pottery & PorcelainBoehm Porcelain Birds: Why the Model Number Lies to You Edward Marshall Boehm turned porcelain birds into museum objects, but the same subject can carry three different reference... Jul 25, 2026 Vintage yellow Lucite owl trivet and spoon rest, mid-century modern cast acrylic Design & MaterialsLucite: The Hot Water Test, and Why It Is Not Just Plastic Lucite is a DuPont trade name for a specific acrylic, not a generic word for clear plastic. Here... Jul 24, 2026 Design & MaterialsDansk Is Not Danish, and the Mark Tells You the Decade The company was founded on Long Island. The designer was Danish. And the stamp on the underside of... Jul 24, 2026 Set of L.E. Smith Moon and Stars amber pressed glass tumblers GlassMoon and Star: The Signature Tells You Everything One pattern, four makers, a hundred and thirty years. The current producer signs every piece specifically so the... Jul 24, 2026 Blenko yellow crackle glass vase, design 6424 by Joel Myers, mid-century hand-blown art glass GlassBlenko: No Mould Seams, and a Scar on the Bottom Blenko is blown into a wooden mould and then spun, which erases the seams. That, plus the pontil... Jul 24, 2026 Palatnik: The Op Art Animals Hiding in Thrift Store Glass Cases Design & MaterialsPalatnik: The Op Art Animals Hiding in Thrift Store Glass Cases Abraham Palatnik was a pioneer of kinetic art in Latin America. He also made cast acrylic animals that... Jul 24, 2026 Seller's DeskProwl: I Got Tired of Opening Nineteen Tabs, So I Built This Prowl is a free sourcing dashboard for vintage hunters. One search box, nineteen marketplaces, live prices next to... Jul 24, 2026 ToysTwo Toys, Two Tiny Details, Two Completely Different Prices A doll's hand and the pattern on a cardboard box. Neither is obvious, both decide what the thing... Jul 24, 2026 GlassFairy Lamps: A Candle Salesman Invented an Entire Collecting Category Samuel Clarke did not set out to make collectibles. He wanted to sell more candles. Here is how... Jul 24, 2026 Art & PaperDuck Decoys: Why Worn Original Paint Beats a Clean Repaint The most important commercial decoy maker in America was in Detroit. Here is how to read a decoy's... Jul 24, 2026