GARDEN STATUE SELLS FOR RECORD PRICE

A 1931 garden statue estimated at $12,000 to $18,000 auctioned for an unexpected $118,000 this week. The 4-foot-tall bronze statue with a green patina was in the garden when a lucky man bought a home and its contents about 40 years ago. The owner was offered $3,000 for the statue a few years ago but kept it until last week's auction. The statue was made in Paris by Egyptian sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar (1891-1934). Cleveland Auction Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, sold the piece, which set an auction record for the artist's bronzes.

CIGALIA SOAP

Q: Recently I bought a very interesting bar of soap called "Cigalia" by Roger & Gallet. It looks like a cricket. The box has a bed of silky material. The soap looks like it hasn't been used, although there are end bits missing. Can you tell me anything about this?

A: Roger & Gallet was founded in Paris in 1862. The company made perfume and cosmetics. Perfumed soap was first made in 1879. The soap was wrapped in silk paper. Cigalia perfume was introduced c.1910. "Cigale" is French for cicada. The perfume came in a Lalique bottle embossed with cicadas and two cicadas were impressed on the lid of the box it came in.

JAPY FRERES

Q: This blue Delft clock was given to me by an elderly friend in 1972. It is marked "Royal Bonn Delft" and "Bailey, Banks & Biddle, Philadelphia." On the back of the clock is a medallion that says "Japy Freres & Cie Grd Med. D'Honneur." Can you tell me about the clock?

A: Royal Bonn was the trade name used by Franz Anton Mehlem, who had a pottery in Bonn, Germany, from 1836 to 1931. Bailey, Banks & Biddle is a jewelry store founded in Philadelphia in 1832 that now has locations across the United States. The clock was probably sold at its Philadelphia store. Japy Freres & Cie. made the movement for your clock. The words "Grd Med. D'Honneur" indicate that Japy Freres was awarded the Grand Medal of Honor, the highest award, at the close of the Paris exposition in 1855. Your clock was probably made between 1855 and 1867, when another Exposition Universelle was held in Paris. It would sell for up to $600.

FAKE ALERT

Fake Alert

We have received lots of flack about our comments (Kovels Komments, June 4) on crystal skulls, the basis of the movie "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls." A Paris museum discovered a few months ago that its crystal skull was not an Aztec carving but a fake, and this month the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution also found they had fakes. All of the skulls were made with modern tools. Maybe the legendary skulls of the movie are still to be found, or maybe it's all just a good story.