Reproductions

Collectors of antiques often evolve into dealers of antiques. Once their homes are filled with stuff, they need to sell it in order to collect some more.This happened to Charles Pollock, a Los Angeles designer, nearly 30 years ago. But his career as an antiques dealer took a different twist."I began to find antiques priced out of sight for most consumers, so I decided to reproduce them," Mr. Pollock said.Mr. Pollock still prowls antique shops and warehouses wherever he may be, searching for unusual pieces.

With a new survey finding the Chesapeake Bay's crab population at its lowest level in five years after a poor spawn last year, Maryland officials announced Friday they would move to tighten catch limits on the region's iconic crustacean. The annual winter survey of Maryland and Virginia waters tallied 300 million crabs, the Department of Natural Resources reported. That's down nearly two-thirds from the number seen last year, when Gov. Martin O'Malley held a press conference at a crab house in Annapolis to declare crabs had rebounded from near-collapse in 2008 and were more plentiful than they'd been in nearly two decades.

Q: Where can I get an authentic-looking reproduction of an pTC Early American candle chandelier fitted with enough electrified candles and flame-shaped bulbs to light a full-size dining room properly?A:Write to the Workshops of David T. Smith, 3600 Shawhan Road, Morrow, Ohio 45152; (513) 932-2472, enclosing $3.50 for a catalog of his furniture and chandeliers or $19.95 for a product-inventory videotape.Q: How can I find out the value of an old rowing machine?A: Collector Kevin Mark appraises pre-1960 exercise equipment.

Forty years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in every state in its historic Roe v. Wade decision. It affirmed that the constitutionally protected right to privacy includes every woman's ability to make her own personal medical decisions without the interference of politicians. Four decades later, a majority of Americans still agree with the high court that personal health care decisions should be left up to a woman. In poll after poll, the majority of Americans support access to safe and legal abortion in some or most cases.

Making copies of fine antique furnishings for sale to the masses is not a new concept. In fact, furniture makers have been at it for so long that many of the copies now are antiques, too.But suddenly -- thanks to shifting demographics and the current economy -- everything old is new again, and interest in antique reproductions is high.Traditional furnishings of all sorts are popular now with middle-aged baby boomers who are hungry for a sense of heritage and nostalgic for an earlier, simpler time.

Los Angeles Times Syndicate 4,18l Many people love the look of what's become known as the "20th-century classics." But when it comes to actually furnishing their homes with either originals or reproductions of these pieces, most admirers find the potential problems to be a big turnoff.For starters, fine examples of this furniture aren't easy to come by. Some pieces were made as long ago as the 1920s, and they have all but vanished from the commercial market. More recent originals may occasionally be found, but their price tags are often a cause for alarm.

Paintings in museum-quality frames are popping up outdoors around town - displayed on a post just outside the entrance to Baltimore's City Hall and along Patterson Park, mounted to the wall on a corner of the Avenue in Hampden. These high-quality reproductions of vintage pieces from the Walters Art Museum give a new meaning to the concept of art in public places. Within the next few weeks, 20 more works will be unveiled, from Fells Point to Meadowood Regional Park near Green Spring Station.

Even the most avant-garde interior designers seem to be getting caught up in the resurgent popularity of modern classics that first appeared on the American scene 50 or 60 years ago. Art deco furniture from the 1930s and the amorphously shaped pieces of the postwar period are now being eagerly collected. Furnishings and decorative items produced by the Arts and Crafts movement earlier in the 20th century also continue to be highly valued by contemporary collectors.I don't share the enthusiasm for many 1950s relics, but I can certainly understand the nostalgia for a time when America was the world leader in modern design.

Camouflage and make-believe are important tools of my trade. These are not to be confused, however, with fake or knock-off designs, which I generally regard as unacceptable. In fact, one of the worst things about copy-cat products is that they usually fail in their attempt to duplicate the original and wind up looking like cheap imitations.That doesn't mean it's always bad form to emulate the real thing. These days, technology does sometimes allow for the production of good-looking items that are less expensive and easier to maintain than the models from which they're derived.

Q: I would be interested in your evaluation of this Ansonia "Triumph" model shelf clock. I know it has been in the family since 1900.On the back it states "Prize Medal Awarded, Paris Exposition, 1878."A: This model clock was introduced in 1880. It would probably sell in the $400 to $500 range.The Paris Exposition Medal was awarded to the company, Ansonia, not the clock.Q: What can you tell me about my Limoges porcelain box? It is 5 by 6 inches and 1 1/2 inches deep. It is decorated with fish, shells and seaweed.

The number of young striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay fell to a record low this year, a drastic decline from a near-record high the year before, state officials reported Tuesday. State biologists checking Maryland's part of the bay found the fewest newly spawned striped bass that they've tallied in any year since annual surveys for the fish began 59 years ago, the Department of Natural Resources reported. Maryland's state fish, also known as rockfish, is closely monitored because it supports a multimillion-dollar recreational and commercial fishing industry that employs thousands.

Sensing, perhaps, that they are losing the public relations battle after Senate candidate Todd Akin's forehead-slapping views on "legitimate rape" and the female body's magical ability to guard against pregnancy, Republicans are trying now to focus on the "real" issues of the economy and jobs, which play to businessman Mitt Romney's strengths, rather than the "side issue" of reproductive rights. Birth control and abortion were non-topics at the recent Republican convention. The GOP argument, in the words of Florida attorney general Pat Bondi, is that women don't care about a party's stance on women's reproductive health: "What women care about are jobs, the economy, the unemployment rate.

Paintings in museum-quality frames are popping up outdoors around town - displayed on a post just outside the entrance to Baltimore's City Hall and along Patterson Park, mounted to the wall on a corner of the Avenue in Hampden. These high-quality reproductions of vintage pieces from the Walters Art Museum give a new meaning to the concept of art in public places. Within the next few weeks, 20 more works will be unveiled, from Fells Point to Meadowood Regional Park near Green Spring Station.

Were you paying close attention during all those awkward “birds and the bees” talks and sex education lessons? If not it's OK, because you're about to go download a game for free (on sale from $.99) that will obliterate everything you would've picked up anyway. “Sperm Wars” is a sort of turn-based RPG where you fight other sperm cells for reproductive dominance. Why you're not trying to fertilize an egg is anyone's guess, but then again, this game was so confusing that maybe I didn't get that far. To start off, you're shown a map of the world that makes the game seem a little like “Risk.” For reasons unknown, North America is locked to me, and you have to choose “attacking” a territory off the coast of Africa.

Monday's Doonesbury cartoon sums up the GOP's "war against women" in a few words in its reference to the state legislators and members of Congress who are anti-abortion zealots. All of the congressmen who voted to de-fund Planned Parenthood and stop Medicare coverage of contraceptives are Republicans. Which raises the question: What were Republican women thinking when they helped elect candidates who don't believe women should be allowed to make reproductive choices for themselves?

It's a great time to be a jimmy in the Chesapeake Bay - if you're a blue crab looking for a good time.  There are nearly three times as many female crabs as there are males now, thanks to catch limits imposed by Maryland and Virginia to protect more "sooks" from harvest. Those catch limits, which included banning winter crabbing in Virginia and shortening the season in Maryland, are widely credited with fueling a dramatic rebound in the population of the iconic crustacean, which only four years ago was believed to be dangerously close to crashing because of overharvesting.

Q: Can you give me any information on trade signs shaped like objects relating to particular businesses, professions and occupations? How can one tell the age of such signs and whether they are authentic or reproductions? Where can such signs be found?A: Trade signs were homemade, made to order or mass-produced. They were also reproduced by folkcarvers and factories as decorative items that can sometimes be mistaken for the authentic examples, especially if they were purposely aged.Authentic signs, depending on condition, age and origin, can command sizable sums.

Q: I recently purchased a Wallace Nutting picture, and when I showed it to a friend, she told me that Nutting also produced furniture. This was news to me. Is my friend right?A: Your friend wins this one. Not only was Nutting a talented photographer, he also produced reproductions of Colonial furniture of exceptional quality. But wait, there's more. He was a minister, an antiquarian, an author and a lecturer.At the peak of his picture business, his studio employed nearly 100 colorists who hand-colored the photographs.

The Old Masters have come to Laurel. Some of the most memorable works of Boticelli, da Vinci, Van Gogh, Picasso, Dali, Wyeth — among others — have been installed at a new museum on Main Street. Ok, so they're not original works. But the high-quality reproductions, framed and hung in a floor-to-ceiling museum presentation, make an impressive display at a newly remodeled section of the Laurel Art Center. Earlier this month the Main Street art store unveiled its new "museum" at an invitation-only open house attended by some of its most loyal customers.

The Chesapeake Bay's beleaguered oyster population spawned a bumper crop of babies last year, state officials announced Monday, and there are signs that the diseases that have ravaged the bay's bivalves for more than two decades might have loosened their stranglehold. Gov. Martin O'Malley heralded the "exciting new evidence" from the state's recently completed survey of Maryland waters, adding in a statement that there is "reason to be more optimistic than ever about the recovery of this iconic species.