Word: scrimshaw
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American folk art, however humble its origin, is soaring in value as well-crafted objects like pewter pots, duck decoys, quilts and scrimshaw (erotic examples in particular) become ever scarcer. Photographs are commanding fine arts prices; an original print of Ansel Adams' Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico sold last week for a record $22,000. "We can see the day when a single photograph will fetch $100,000," says Philippe Garner, a Sotheby's photographic expert. Almost any object from the once scorned 19th century now seems as precious as Suez Canal Co. stock was in its heyday. Twenty...
...Scrimshaw...
...Tijuana. Once the playground of Hawaiian royalty, and later in the 19th century a major port for whaling ships and China clippers, the clapboard community has been restored to a state of authentic tackiness. La haina boasts some 30 restaurants and about 260 stores whose offerings range from elegant scrimshaw and touristy puka-shell necklaces to T shirts with slogans like DON'T HASSLE THE HUMPBACKS, MAUI NO KA Ol (Maui is the best) and HERE TODAY GONE TO MAUI. On the town's bustling waterfront, tourists cram aboard the 50-ft. trimaran Trilogy for daylong sails...
...normal day, the marketplace has the air of a modern Bartholomew Fair. Cabaret tunes from the piano bar commingle with bluegrass songs played by street musicians. The streets between the buildings, once choked with produce trucks, have been closed to traffic. Now pushcart vendors hawk their wares-scrimshaw knives and jewelry, puppets and pottery-while in the North and South Markets, scores of small shops offer highly specialized merchandise. Various stalls comprise an international bazaar of imported delicacies. In Quincy Market, the center hall, shoppers may sample raw oysters, yogurt cups...
...decades now, dealers in early American folk art have been ransacking barns and attics, dragging back to the cities truckloads of their quarry: samplers and fracturs, whirligigs and tavern signs, painted chests, quilts, scrimshaw, wooden Indians and running-horse weather vanes peppered with goose bumps from 50 years of target practice by farm boys. It is an industry with scholarly spinoffs...