The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-02-23
COSTLY CANES.
Expensive Handles for Canes and Umbrellas
Some Queer Canes.

Y
rounds of the press to the effect that a
Georgia lawyer has cane, the head of
which is carved to represent the head
of duck, holding $3.50 sapphire in
its bill, and with two diamonds worth
s7,100 each for its eyes. at may be
true" the affable young man having
charge of the cane department in a
large jewelry house said "but the
figures are pretty steep. 1t is not an
infrequent thing for men to come in
here and order canes that cost $500 or
5000, gold heads with jewel settings,
you understand; but $14,750 cane is
rather beyond our experience. For
ordinary sale the canes we keep in
stock do not run over 1920. We al
ways have on hand cord or so of canes
that run from $50 to S120. "Gold-
headed presentation canes?" Yes, we
sell good many of them, but hardly
ever to the out-of-town buyers.
Our more expensive canes are those
in which artistic fancy enhances the
value of the gold Here is one, modi-
fed shepherds crook of hammered and
chased Roman gold, the greatest pecu-
liarity of which is its price-$115
This hammered crutch head of
blended red and yellow gold is worth
1920. Here are a lot of new designs,
Indian and Persian fancies, unique,
and some of them pretty, that run from
$50 to Sis. They are made of gold,
the beauty of which is that it was put
| through certain chemical treatments
that brought it ost looking like almost
anything but gold. This one, for in
stance, that looks like steel, is gold,
and so is that one resembling red
enamel. Some of these, light ones,
were made up as cheap as $50, but we
have none so low-priced on hand now.
Those very dainty little square crook
gold-headed canes, or switches rather,
we sell as cheap as $3S to $50.
From thesel let us pass to the silver
heads. OF them we have a great vari-
ETY., from 50 for plain hammered
silver ball up to S25 for large one OF
the newest fashion, which is close
imitation of an old fashioned buck
horn handle, OF SIS for one like this
which is, as you can see, combination
of silver, gold and copper that looks
like sort of marble metal. There is a
wide diversity of styles in silver heads
some of them, as you will notice, the
plainest possible door knob" OF
simple ball-and others full of fancy
and exquisite workmanship. There is
novel and pretty thing, a perfectly
round ball of rock crystal held in place
by silver clasps, that we sell for $25
A man came in here the other day
offering for sale couple of canes that
he had made, believe. They were
composed of small, thin pieces Of
agate, cornelian, and other stones, il
alternate layers, set on a steel rod an(
highly polished. l should think there
were 200 pieces in each cane, and HI
only wanted $25 each for the com
pleted ones. l don't see how the,
could be gotten up for the money, bu
we did not invest in them.
"The materials we generally emplo.
for the sticks are malacca; bamboo ant
ebony. There are some very hand
some and costly canes made in Mexico
from some animal substances, clarified
as the Mexican saddle seats sometime
are, and inlaid with silver. Genera
Jack Easement used to have one tina
he refused $50 for. Then fine cane
are occasionally turned out of what i
represented to us as hippopotamu
hide. In fact, gentlemen bring al
sorts of sticks to have fancy heads pu
on them. Whatever the stick may be
its value is nothing compared with tn
head we put on it in most cases of tina
sort. Diamonds, sapphires and othe
precious stones are very often set il
them to order. OF course we keep n
such jeweled heads in stock.
We don't have so much call 70
fancy carved ivory and solid limitation
silver heads. monkeys and dogs heads
and birds and such things as we use
to do. People seem to go in now fo
rare and fine sticks, lasting and relif
BILE ones, and the cane dealer VIII
wants to keep up with the times mus
have an almost infinite variety of stick
from all parts of the globe. I've see
one, plain rough stick, without fe
rule, and only bent crook at the tol
that was said to have been worth Sl7
5 900 when it came into the country.