SOME THINGS OLD ARE NEW AGAIN

• We saw milk at the grocery store this week advertised as "like mother used to make"--as if mother made milk for the whole family. I looked at the pyro ads on the glass milk bottle. The milk is not homogenized, so the cream separates and rises to the top. It's a good bottle for a milk bottle collector to save.
• Beads are back as bracelets. New bead bracelets are like charm bracelets--each bead represents an event. We suggest collecting old beads, including early Chinese porcelain beads that held the cords on inros (boxy Chinese pocketbooks).
• Holt Howard novelty giftwares made in the 1950s are selling well again. They lost favor and were considered "kitsch" in the 1970s, were collected by a small group in the late '80s, dropped in popularity again, and now are moving up in price. The comic heads, sly kittens, smiling mice, realistic roosters, and Christmas figures make an amusing display. A pixieware liquor decanter sells for about $600; an instant-coffee holder with a smiling dark-skinned girl is $250.
• Blue decorated white stoneware is selling for record prices, much higher than in past decades. The newest record is $103,500 for a Boynton Pottery water cooler from Albany, New York, dated 1817 and decorated with birds and fish.