Monday, September 9, 2013

Who knew a lamp full of cobwebs can cost you a fortune!

 
Who knew a cobweb table lamp can cost millions of dollars?!  Well, if it is stamped with Tiffany Studios, it can be.  The rarest of all Tiffany studio lamp is the cobweb lamp.  There are only seven made because it was so costly to produce.  The price in 1906 was $500!  To give you context, the average wage is 22 cents an hour at that time.  This means even after working for a full year without eating and paying rent, one still can't afford this lamp.  It was costly to produce because most of the Tiffany lamps have bronze base with glass shades, this particular model has glass mosaic base.   This lamp, more so than any other Tiffany studio lamp design, has an unified thematic composition from top to bottom.  Since this is the ultimate Tiffany lamp, you can pretty much only find it come up occasionally at Christie's or Sotheby's although one did come up for auction at Michaan's auctions in California last year.  You can also buy reproduction of this particular lamp from Frontgate.  But frankly I would not get it from them.  If you seen and touch the real Tiffany lamp, you would not buy reproductions.  The quality difference is night and day.  It's like buying a real Birkin versus buying one from a street vendor in china town in NYC...  

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