Websitings - TV Lamps, Horn Collecting and Congressional Medal of Honor.

September 2006 Issue Journal of Antiques - July 2006 Issue

Feature Article
Geppi’s Entertainment Museum at Camden Yards

Business of doing Business in Antiques
A Working Vacation

Guess What?
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Websitings
TV Lamps, Horn Collecting and Congressional Medal of Honor.

Coins
What I’d Collect If I Were Starting Over

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This month Mike McLeod takes a look at TV Lamps, Horn Collecting and Congressional Medal of Honor.

Readers who would like to share interesting websites with Mike may contact him via email at: mikemcl@mindspring.com.

TV Lamps
www.tvlamps.net

Gold-trimmed ship lamps were popular in the 1950s.

These humorous fish as lamps may have been made by American Art Potteries in Morton, Illinois.

Econolite’s “Roto-Vue Junior” line included this Hopalong Cassidy model. (Photo, courtesy eBay seller “vic-ts”.”)

Remember the scene in A Christmas Story when the Old Man (Darren McGavin) pulls the leg lamp he won out of the box? I haven’t looked at all of the hundreds of photos on the TV Lamps website, but I don’t think you’ll find a leg lamp there. (However, it is surprising how many websites are selling them. Just search “leg lamp” on any search engine.)

Mark Stevens is the owner of the website, and he describes its purpose as trying to “…fill the need for reference material pertaining to TV lamp collecting.”

Television was a world-changing invention in the 1950s. It swept the country, and because people watched movies in theaters in the dark, they did the same at home. Soon, eyestrain and other problems were blamed on the boob tube. To rectify this perceived problem, TV lamps were created.

As Mark relates, “It wasn't long before many of these televisions were topped with a new adornment, a ceramic, back-lit statuette...the TV lamp. It was felt that the ambient light generated by these lamps reduced eyestrain, permitting guilt-free viewing. Soon, TV lamps became a must-have addition to the family television, positioned front and center, rather like a hood ornament on a ‘50s-era automobile. While their reign as a favorite piece of home decor only lasted about 10 years, they possess a significance in design that is an influence even today.”

Literally, thousands of lamps in many shapes and materials were manufactured and sold. Mark’s website does a first-rate job in exhibiting dozens and dozens of examples. In addition to photo galleries categorized by manufacturer (close to 100 are listed, all with links to photos) and subject matter (animals, plants, faces, ships, people, etc.), there are articles, book reviews, links and photos of two other collectors’ collections of lamps. For the collector, there are articles of interest: “A TV Lamp Collecting Guide,” “Markings and Labels,” “Exploring a Historic Lamp Factory” and others as well as recommended reading.

Take a look. You’ll surely find many that will strike your fancy. But no leg lamps.

(Note: I was a little nervous that Mark might have a leg lamp on his website hidden among all the photos, so I emailed a photo of one to him to make sure. Unfortunately, he thought it was so funny that he wrote back saying he was going to post a leg lamp photo on his website. Sorry, my fault.)

Horn Collecting
www.horncollector.com

Possibly a 1920s D&P Lebrun Cavalry, 4-valve trombone.

Circa 1950s double-belled, sax-shaped trumpet.

Having had four children in various bands in school and an eight-year-old daughter taking piano lessons now, I was amazed and enthralled to see a website with horns from the 1800s and 1900s without dents in them. I was further amazed to see a trombone with a double bell and a cavalry trombone with horizontal and vertical workings (both pictured here). There are lots of other older and interesting instruments on the website. Eric Totman also built a beautiful display to for his collection, as you will see on the website.

There is little information on the website, but lots of photos of great instrumen

Congressional Medal of Honor
www.cmohs.org

Medal of Honor recipient Specialist 4th Class John Baca.

Each service has its own Medal of Honor, the Army, Navy and Air Force.

First awarded during the Civil War, 3,460 people have since earned the Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest award. Of those, Mary Walker was the only woman ever awarded this medal, and this was for her service as a surgeon during the Civil War. Amazingly, 19 men have earned two Medals of Honor. Notable names on the list of heroes include Audie Murphy, Sergeant Alvin York and Jimmie Doolittle.

The only legal way to collect a Medal of Honor is to earn it since it is illegal to sell them, so most of us will never own one. But that does not prevent our appreciating what it represents.

This website lists all living Medal of Honor recipients and reports on them as they pass away. I served in the United States Marine Corps for four years, and during that time, I never saw anyone wearing this distinctive medal with a blue ribbon and a field of 34 white stars (representing the 34 states in the Union in 1862). Medal of Honor winners are rare. Just over a hundred are alive today – often because the medal was awarded posthumously.

As the website explains: “Medals of Honor are awarded sparingly and are bestowed only to the bravest of the brave; and that valor must be well documented. So few Medals of Honor are awarded, in fact, that the only ones awarded after the Vietnam War were bestowed posthumously to Army Master Sergeant Gary I. Gordon and Army Sergeant 1st Class Randall D. Shughart for valor in Somalia in 1993, and posthumously to the most recent recipient, Sergeant 1st Class Paul R. Smith for valor in Iraq. There were no Medals of Honor awarded during Operation Desert Storm and operations in Grenada, Panama and Lebanon. However, since 1993, 39 other Medals of Honor have been awarded to correct past administrative errors, oversights, follow-ups on lost recommendations or as a result of new evidence.”

This is a very stirring website because it details the heroic actions of all the Medal of Honor recipients, which are almost beyond the bounds of belief. Here are a few of their deeds:

After his platoon had sustained very heavy causalities in Chatel-Chehery, France, during WWII, Corporal Alvin C. York took command and led seven men in taking a machine gun nest. While it continued to pour heavy fire upon them, Corporal York and his men took not only the weapon emplacement, but also four officers, 128 men, and “…several guns.”

On July 11, 1943, 2nd Lieutenant Robert Craig in Favoratta, Sicily, found and took a hidden machine gun emplacement, killing three of the enemy. Not long thereafter, Lieutenant Craig and his platoon took fire from an estimated 100 enemy soldiers. Lieutenant Craig ordered his men to head for cover while he drew the enemy’s fire. Charging to within 25 yards of their position, Lieutenant Craig then fired upon and killed five and wounded three before he was fatally wounded. His “…intrepid action so inspired his men that they drove the enemy from the area, inflicting heavy casualties on the hostile force.”

Specialist 4th Class John Baca was part of a recoilless rifle team in Vietnam. When a platoon in his company came under heavy fire, Specialist Baca moved his team to a position to aid them. While setting up, a hand grenade was thrown into the middle of his men. Specialist Baca “…unhesitatingly, and with complete disregard for his own safety, covered the grenade with his steel helmet and fell on it as the grenade exploded, thereby absorbing the lethal fragments and concussion with his body. His gallant action and total disregard for his personal well-being directly saved eight men from certain serious injury or death.”

Heroes do walk among us.

The website is an extension of the Congressional Medal of Honor Museum located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, on the hangar deck of the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point.

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