Whether Victorian furniture or 18th-century salt-and-pepper shakers intrigue you, you’re bound to find something you like among the auctions’ array. Look through the catalogs (click here for May 16, here for May 17). If you can’t wait for the live online auction, place an absentee ballot after registering. (All bidders must register.)

To whet your interest, take a peek at just a few items up for bids.

Lot 2512594 (May16 auction) is a Spanish National cash register. What a wow, this circa 1908 to 1916 complex and intricate machine was designed to be used by nine different clerks or keep track of nine separate departments. It was also the most expensive machine produced at the time, with prices from $315 to $555, possibly much more if a floor stand or other options were added. It is in very good condition and carries an estimate of $1,700 to $2,200.

Antique Spanish National cash register

Lot 2512749 (May 16 auction), a sheet poster of the movie “Woman of Rome” with Gina Lollobrigida. La Lollo, once deemed the most beautiful woman in the world, starred in this Luigi Zampa flick. “Love was her profession . . . men her career!” the poster proclaimed. Pretty racy for 1956. In very good condition, it’s estimated at $275 to $400.

"Woman of Rome" poster

Lot 2513471 (May 17 auction), “Army of the Future,” a book by Charles de Gaulle. Charles de Gaulle, a World War I hero, fell out of favor with the French military brass after writing this book in 1934. He made a case for a small, highly mechanized, quick-moving army, arguing that the old theories of warfare that produced the Maginot Line, erected to stop the Germans should they decide to invade, would no longer work. He proved, tragically, correct. When the Germans did invade in 1940, they used new tactics, went around the Maginot Line and quickly added France to their list of conquests. In good condition for its age, it’s estimated at $35 to $65.

"Army of the Future" by Charles de Gaulle

Lot 2512634 (May 16 auction) is a splendid example of 19th-century craftsmanship. This writing desk and étagère comes from the workshop of John Jelliff (1813-1893), a renowned New Jersey cabinetmaker. From 1836 to 1890, John Jelliff and Co. produced what is considered some of America’s finest, handcrafted furniture. Made from fine rosewood, the desk measures approximately 64.5 inches high by 36.75 inches wide and 23.75 inches deep. Condition: Very good. Estimate: $7,750 to $9,000.

Antique Victorian American desk

Lot 2513444 (May 17 auction), a circa 1850 rose medallion reticulated basket in good condition. This Chinese Export chestnut basket, sometimes called a fruit basket, is 10.75 inches by 10 inches with a height of 4.25 inches. There is no underplate. It is estimated at $950 to $1,200.

Circa 1850, rose medallion reticulated basket

All these items are subject to a reserve price.

WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

Join WorthPoint on Twitter and Facebook.

The bidding starts at noon (EDT) on Sunday, May 3. Absentee bids may be placed after registering. (All bidders must register.)

Thom Pattie, WorthPoint’s chief Worthologist, has been in the auction industry for 40 years. He and GoAntique dealers looked over the items to make sure descriptions are accurate and informative and the estimates reflect good value, an additional step in the process to ensure buyer confidence when bidding.

Here are a few offerings that might catch your collecting fancy.

Lot 2511930 is a 1969 Marc Chagall lithograph, “The Yellow Background.” It comes from a Galerie Maeght edition of 3,000. The 31-inch-by-22.5 inch poster is listed in fair condition because the outline of a previous matte is visible. A new matte and frame would hide that. Estimate: $275 to $450.

Marc Chagall's "The Yellow Background"

Lot 2512143, a 1920 carved-shell cameo of a red-haired beauty. Delicately lovely and versatile, this 14-karat yellow-gold piece can be worn as a brooch or pendant. It is 2 inches high and in excellent condition. Estimate: $250-$350.

Red-haired lady shell cameo

Lot 2512067 is a litho of an 18th-century François Boucher painting. Boucher (1703-1770) was a French engraver, illustrator, designer and Madame de Pompadour’s favorite painter. Boucher, known for his mastery of genre scenes, captured the sweetness of the moment (“sweetness” depends on how you interpret the woman’s expression). The litho, once part of the Seattle public library art department, is 8.5 inches high and 11 inches wide. In good condition, it is estimated at $25 to $50.

Litho of a 1793 François Boucher painting

Lot 2511970 would make a nice addition to any Florence Ceramics collection. Lovers of these ceramics know that the company evolved from the grief of a mother trying to get over the death of her son. Florence Ward turned to pottery making and developed an expressive style, creating perfectly proportioned graceful figurines. This 7-inch Rose Marie is in good condition, although there is some damage to one her lace sleeves. Estimate: $75-$125.

Florence Ceramics' Rose Marie

Lot 2511986, an 1870 Bohemian glass vanity set. Wonderful for a boudoir, a boudoir in the offing or to add a touch of romance to the bathroom, the three pieces are graced with etched hunting scenes and floriated work. The set is in excellent used condition and estimated at $100 to $150.

Antique Bohemian glass vanity set

With Lot 2511994, you won’t have to worry about people sticking their hands into this Art Deco-period biscuit jar. They’ll be too busy admiring it. Spice up your kitchen by displaying the bright, bright orange jar with its flowers-and-fruit pattern. The top and handle are electro-plated nickel silver. Made by Hampton Ivory, it is 5.5 inches tall with a few specks where color have been lost, some roughness around an edge, but there are no chips or cracks. Estimate for this exuberant 1925 piece is $100 to $150.

Art Deco period biscuit jar

All these items are subject to a reserve price.

For more information on the auction, click here. To create a bidder account, click here.

WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

Join WorthPoint on Twitter and Facebook.

Beloved and coveted by so many little and not so little girls—the average age of female collectors is 40—the beauteous and curvaceous Barbie was born March 9, 1959. That was the day she was first introduced at the American International Toy Fair in New York.

She was conceived, so to speak, a few years earlier. Paper dolls had been popular for a long time. In the 19th century, you had your Dottie Dimple and Jessie Jingle. McCall’s magazine had Betsy McCall. In the 1950s, you cut out clothes and dressed actresses June Allyson and Jane Powell.

Ruth Handler, co-founder of the Mattel toy company, saw her daughter eschewing baby dolls in favor of the grownup paper cutouts, and that got Handler thinking. Maybe the toy world was ready for something different. Touring Europe in 1956, the eureka light bulb went on in Handler’s head when she saw Bild Lilli, a curvy, bosomy doll based on a comic-strip character.

Back in the States, she and engineer Jack Ryan designed a similar adult-looking toy, named it Barbie after Handler’s daughter, Barbara, and voilà, history was made.

1959 Barbies on exhibit in Prague

The popularity of Barbie and company—boyfriend Ken, girlfriends Midge, Stacy, Cara, Lea, the list goes on and on and includes many, many pets—is staggering. According to Mattel, more than a billion Barbies have been sold in some 150 countries at the rate of three per second.

What accounts for this success? Barbie Worthologist Melissa Musselman says, “Barbie was about being popular, about being glamorous. Girls pretended to be that doll with all the fun clothes, the cars, friends, boyfriend and roles to play.”

Early Barbie and Ken shown at a Washington state museum. Photo by Joe Mabel.

1961 Barbie and Ken fashion booklet

To get details on the fashion booklet, visit GoAntiques.

That has translated today into tens of thousands of Barbie collectors.

Shari Caudron, author of “Who Are You People?” (Barricade Books), wrote about attending a Barbie convention and being mystified by the fervor and delight the collectors took in the doll. Then she saw a vintage Barbie, the first— Teenage Fashion Model—and got excited because she remembered her sisters playing with one.

“Oddly,” Caudron related, “I find myself a little thrilled to recognize the doll. I confess this to Sandi [Holder, owner of the Doll Attic]. She laughs. ‘That’s what Barbie is all about,’ she says. ‘It’s about reliving good memories and helping people get back a bit of their childhood.’”

She's in the Army Barbie

Inside Barbie's Friend Ship

If you’re interested in learning about this Army Barbie, click here and here for Barbie’s Friend Ship.

And there are A LOT of different Barbies to collect. Over the years, this has not been a gal afraid of changing professions. Barbie surgeon, career girl, art teacher, aerobics instructor, NASCAR driver, 1976 Olympics gold medalist in gymnastics (which probably came as a surprise to Nadia Comaneci, who took three golds, and Nellie Kim, who won two), Barbie in the army. Why, there was an Astronaut Barbie four years before Neil Armstrong took that one small step for man on the moon. And she’s run for president three times—take that Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Barbie’s platform? World peace, aiding the impoverished and homeless, and caring for animals. That could have been her answers in the Miss America pageant, which she apparently won in 1974.)

All the many incarnations of Barbie over the years, of course, came with numerous accessories and outfits—all the better for collectors.

1968 party outfit

Vintage Barbie straw bag

Vintage Barbie Ballerina tutu

For more information on the party outfit, click here. On the vintage handbag, click here, and the tutu, here.

Despite all the doll’s wonderful attributes, Barbie has not been controversy free. That first swim-suited fashion model had measurements the equivalent of 39-18-33. (Two actresses who came close to those proportions were Jayne Mansfield (40-21-36) and Sophia Loren (38-24-38), though both were obviously a lot hippier.) Some people felt Barbie’s figure gave little girls an unrealistic ideal. She eventually got a little wider around the waist and not quite as big across the chest.

Then there was book that accompanied Slumber Party Barbie—“How to Lose Weight.” “Don’t eat” was the answer. Oops.

And what could Mattel have been thinking when it came out with Oreo Fun Barbie? There were Caucasian and black versions. In Mattel’s defense, this was a promotion with Nabisco. Still, it didn’t go over well in the black community because Oreo was an unflattering term used to describe someone “black on the outside and white on the inside.”

Then there was the pregnant Midge with a little removable pouch that contained newborn Nikki. Despite Midge being married, there was enough of an uproar that Wal-Mart discontinued selling it.

1988 Cool Times Midge

Cool Midge can be found on GoAntiques.

Of course, some of the criticism has bordered on just plain silly. A researcher in Finland, with nothing better to do, calculated that Barbie did not have enough body fat to menstruate. Get a grip. Barbie is a toy.

As one enthusiast said to Shari Caudron, “Anything that allows us to play is a good thing, and I don’t know why people are so critical of Barbie sometimes. I mean, I can’t believe it when people say Barbie is bad for a girl’s self-image. That’s ridiculous. It’s a doll. Kids know that. It’s adults that make Barbie a problem. In the 1960s, America was barely in space, and there was already an Astronaut Barbie. How can that be bad for kids?”

1971 Malibu Barbie

A newer version of Malibu Barbie comes with sunblock. Click here to find out more about 1971 Barbie.

Whatever your opinion of America’s perkiest and leggiest sweetheart, there’s no denying she’s brought a lot of joy to a lot of people. To celebrate her Big Five-0, from March 9 to 14, Mattel is selling a “throwback” Barbie in her original zebra-print swimsuit at the 1959 price of three bucks. And it’s throwing a Barbie bash in a 3,500-square-foot, human-size Barbie Malibu Dream House. Among other festivities will be the Barbie Beauty Pageant at the SideBAR in New York. Contestants will dress up as their favorite Barbie and prance along the bar.

An artist's depiction of a naturally aged 50-year-old Barbie

So here’s looking at you, Babs. Many happy returns.

Sandra Lee Stuart led a deprived childhood without a single Barbie doll, which may be why she can’t accessorize to this day.

WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

A Cincinnati, Ohio, attic produced more than your average trove. Up there at the top of the house was discovered not one, not two—oh, let’s cut to the chase—80 works by Thomas Corwin Lindsay, which apparently had been stored there for more than 70 years.

Woman leaning on stone wall

Farmer with walking stick

Lindsay (1845-1907) was a Cincinnati artist known for painting landscapes and animals. He was one of many Americans who studied at the Düsseldorf (Germany) Academy, which arose from German Romanticism. The academy, with its emphasis on “plein art painting”—painting landscapes on site—contributed much to the Hudson River School.

Lindsay’s work was shown at the Cincinnati Industrial Exposition, which ran from 1870 to 1883 to showcase local manufacturing, art and the city’s economy, and in 1896, at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Countryside

Cows in front of farmhouse and barn

Most of the attic find is being handled by Wooden Nickel Antiques, a Cincinnati antiques and art dealer, and will be shown at the Eisele Gallery of Fine Art.

According to the gallery’s owner, Douglas Eisele, who also specializes in restoration, the works have never been on the market. While their condition is characterized as “attic found,” some will only need minor touchup. Others need to be stretched.

Seated figure

Cows in pasture

Some of the paintings are of the Ohio and Kentucky countryside. Others show historic sites. A letter of authentication will be provided with any that are unsigned.

So come spring, you might consider cleaning your attic. Who knows what you’ll find.

WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

“There is no question that things have slowed down,” Malbuff said. “Collectibles are a discretionary, end- of-the-line purchase. . . . Still, folks do shop.”

The Great Strasburg Emporium, located in the Shenandoah Valley, about 75 miles west of Washington, D.C., is housed in an old, 40,000-square-foot silk mill and provides space for 80 to 100 antiques dealers.

At the Emporium, a shopper might find a Victorian claw-foot bathtub, an 18th-century ribbon cabinet, a 1860s Pennsylvania two-horse surrey or a 130-year-old paper scrip used to pay for rides on the old Chesapeake & Ohio Canal.

These days, however, items like the two-horse surrey, which sold for $4,500, or the ribbon cabinet, which fetched $15,000, aren’t the ones that are moving.

“Since the economy has tanked, I’d say our sales are off 40 percent,” said Malbuff. People, however, are still looking for bargains. “Instead of spending a couple of hundred dollars a sale, folks are spending $30 or $40.”

The items people are focusing on are lamps, mirrors, small furniture, coins, jewelry and glassware, Malbuff said. “Though,” he added, “I can’t tell you exactly what style will sell.”

These are items that tend to be more utilitarian or useful, and when obtained by a well-informed and skilled dealer, can actually be a better value than going into a retail store to, say, buy a mirror.

“People look for something rare or unusual,” Malbuff said, “but that doesn’t mean it has to cost a lot.” For example, old glass bottles or pottery pieces from the early 20th century are handmade, distinctive and reasonably priced.

“We look to be competitively priced with stores,” Malbuff said, “and you can do that by going to estate sales, buying lots.”

The key is knowledge of the market—and that is the biggest lesson Malbuff said he has learned since taking over the Emporium a little more than five years ago.

Malbuff and his wife, Annette, had been collectors—buyers, not sellers. “I was interested in historic items, old books and cool stuff,” Malbuff said. “My wife is a serious glass, china and porcelain collector. She’s an expert on Wedgwood jasperware, Irish Belleek and Noritake china.”

A former IT executive, Malbuff soured on corporate America and was looking for a new opportunity, and Leo Bernstein—a Washington banker who had created the Emporium and was then in his 80s—gave the Malbuffs that opportunity.

“He was looking to turn over the ownership, and we worked as consultants for a year, working with the various dealers, and we learned so much from them,” Malbuff said. The Malbuffs would go to auctions and estate sales with dealers, learning the inner workings of the trade. After a year, the couple took over the operation.

The biggest lesson Malbuff said he learned is that there is a huge lack of knowledge and information among both sellers and buyers. “So often people don’t know what they have,” Malbuff said. “When I started, I thought I’d be the dumb one.”

And finding good information isn’t that easy, either. “Some people are going around saying they are appraisers and don’t know what they are doing,” Malbuff warned.

At the Emporium, Malbuff said he learned the value of working with a group of experienced and well-versed experts in their fields. It helped inform his work and management. And that, he said, is his aim at WorthPoint. “The market is so broad that what you need is a knowledge base—the accumulated knowledge of a lot of people,” he said.

WorthPoint—Get the Most from Your Antiques & Collectibles