A Cracked Jug Sold For $440,000

A cracked 19th-century French claret jug that was expected to sell at auction for £200 fetched more than a thousand times its guide price. Two buyers became locked in a bidding war at Lawrence’s auction house in Somerset, pushing the price to £220,000. The jug was presented in a fitted box of Morel á Sevres, and one auctioneer suggested that this could be the mark of the French goldsmith and lapidary Jean-Valentin Morel. Some people think the auction was actually of two items. Collectors realised the box was worth a lot more than the jug.

World's Oldest Guitar

I really must admit that European instruments are not my strongest suit, so I won't try to embellish this little photo gallery.

Last week when I was visiting with the folks at the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix, we had a surprise visit from Frank Koonce. Frank is an instructor at Arizona State, and is the proud owner of what may well be the world's oldest surviving full size guitar. Believe it or not, this thing is over 400 years old!

The guitar has been attributed to Belchior Diaz, a Portugese builder who probably made the instrument around 1590.

Frank was gratious and allowed us to handle the guitar, and answered all our questions as we checked out this amazing instrument:

That's s head instructor, John Reuter, standing in the background.


Instead of regular metal frets, it has tied ligatures like those on a lute:


The instrument has been through a lot of restoration over the years, including a top replacement:


It seems hard to believe, but this may be the original parchement rose:


The multi-ribbed back and the neck are ebony with ivory inlay and the top is spruce.

Foliage Covered Botanical Building by Mass Studies

If you’re a fan of botanical architecture, this might just be the coolest building ever. Architects Minsuk Cho and Kisu Park of Mass Studies designed this flora-clothed multi-level building to house Belgian fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester’s store in Seoul, South Korea. The building was completed in October 2007 and takes green roofs and living walls to another level, using foliage to cover both the external and internal wall surfaces. We love that it looks as if the building is growing up from underneath the greenery, blurring the lines between plants as ornamentation or structure.



On a site located in an alley near Seoul’s rapidly transforming Gangnam district, the building stands as a green marvel, three floors tall, housing the Ann Demeulemeester shop on the first floor, a restaurant above, and a Multi-Shop in the basement. The designers, Seoul-based Mass Studies Architects, wanted to incorporate as much nature as possible into the building within the constraints of a low-elevation, high-density urban environment.


The building is defined through the convergence of natural and artificial, interior and exterior, rather than demonstrating a stark contrast between the dualities. If you’re wondering what those green species are, it’s primarily a geotextile planted with an herbaceous perennial to form the living walls.