Antiques Freaks

059 Buttonhooks

In a dark age before the dawn of zippers, we had buttons. So many buttons. Too many buttons. Solution? BUTTONHOOKS! Warning for terrible things happening to brains and eyes.

058 Razors

It's a hatchet for your face! This week we discuss razors, from their ancient origins to their stage musical and silver screen fame, all the way up to their hipster resurgence. With a pit stop in King Camp Gillette's bizarre utopian metropolis.

057 Decorative Electricity with a Chapter on Fire Risks (1891)

Meet the electric Victorian version of Martha Stewart! Mrs. J. E. H. Gordon, aka Alice, is here to tell us all how to best decorate our London townhouses. With electricity! You won't believe what she does to her Chippendale. It will rejoice the heart of your butler.

056 Cloisonne

It's not just a rockin' good They Might Be Giants tune. It's also an incredibly difficult and intricate decoration technique that may have contributed to the collapse of the Byzantine Empire.

055 Steampunk

Get your goggles, cogs, and corsets ready! It's time to delve into the wild wild world of steampunk. Pour one out for all the antique clocks destroyed along the way.

054 Pin-Up Girls

From Gibson to Vargas, the Antiques Freaks discuss the history behind saucy illustrations of ladies.

053 Antiques Fraud! Keane Big-Eye Paintings

It's kitsch gone wrong! Will the true artist behind these weepy-eyed waifs please stand up?

...Because we have to congratulate them on getting an Antiques Roadshow appraiser to say the word "anime" out loud.

052 Antiques Fraud! Dr. Beringer's Lying Stones

Fraudulent fossils abound in 18th century Germany! Tune in to hear a tale of academic pranking gone horribly awry.

051 Postcards, Deltiology, and the Berner's Street Hoax

Postcards! It all started with legendary Regency prankster Thomas Hook and only got weirder from there.

050 Lights, Ornaments, and the Legend of the Christmas Spider

Happy Boxing Day! In the second half of our holiday special, we cover lights from candles to bubbles to NOMA and beyond; tinsel, pavuchky, and the Legend of the Christmas Spider; the Yankee Candle Flagship Store Bavarian Christmas Village; Thomas Kinkade; Czech beaded ornaments; festive hospital fires; Dragostea din tei; Repo! The Genetic Opera; "spontaneous" human combustion; the Spider Queen; Goliath bird-eaters; and our future careers as Hallmark Holiday movie writers. Plus spiders. A lot of spiders. Probably too many spiders. Enjoy!

049 Shiny Brite Ornaments and Kugel Balls

It's the first half of our two-part Christmas special, featuring Shiny Brite vintage ornaments and Kugel balls! Other talking points include Charles Dickens, witches, vampire lore, and Martin Luther. Happy Holidays!

048 The Pope Chest

What do the Salem Witch Trials and Benjamin Franklin have in common? A cool $2.4 million at Christie's. With special guest appearance by the Witch Bureau. Eat your heart out, Sabrina Spellman.

047 Pearls

Antiques Freaks drops some pearls of wisdom just for you. About pearls! You have to bite them. (Don't bite them.)

046 Danger! Lead Poisoning

Yet another occupational hazard of the antiques industry dating back to the age of antiquity! Join us as we explore which antiques contain lead and which glassware you should absolutely stop using for your nightcap. See also: Caravaggio, Beethoven, Ancient Rome, the most unlikely and least-safe artificial sweetener of all time, and Queen Elizabeth I. Apologies to Flea Market Flip. Begrudgingly.

045 Bubby Pots and Invalid Feeders

It's not a gravy boat. It's a downward spiral into Victorian sanitation failure and ill-advised website names. (Apologies for sound quality - our microphone picked up literally everything on the TV in the next room and stripping that out gave us tin-can voices. Thank you for your patience!)

044 Kewpie Dolls

Everyone's favorite horrible little shifty-eyed gremlins! But did you know their secret history? Spoiler alert: it involves parachutes, burglary, and suffragettes. Not necessarily in that order.

043 Hummels

Before we had Beanie Babies, we had Hummels. These cutesy collectible porcelain children pissed off Hitler something fierce. #hummelbrag

042 Danger! Poison Bottles

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! To celebrate, we've brought out one of Dee's favorite collections: poison bottles. Please do not use them to serve spooky cocktails at your party. You will die.

041 Oddities

What do you get when science and history collide? ODDITIES! We close out Goth Month with special guest Olivia, here to tell us all about what oddities are and where they came from. (Hint: it's all Napoleon's fault. Probably.)

Follow Olivia!

• @obfvscate (twitter)
• 0bfvscate.tumblr.com
• ...and watch out for Lord of Thundertown coming this December from NineStar Press!

Sources:

• Orientalism by Edward Said
• Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice by David P. Silverman, John Baines, and Leonard H. Lesko
• Distilling Knowledge by Bruce Moran

040 Antiques Outtakes Medley

Dee's out-of-studio this week, so we put together an assortment of the best deleted scenes from our Patreon! Covering everything from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell to Drug Abuse Resistance Education to Singin' in the Rain, and so much more.