Archive for September 12th, 2008

How to Get the Most Awesome Gift Giving Credit Cards

Friday, September 12th, 2008

Are you having a hard time looking for an extraordinary gift? Well, why not try the gift giving credit cards?

Prepaid Visa gift cards for giving are very ideal especially if you are going to give a gift to a person who is unknown to you. Furthermore, such credit cards are very advisable if the person whom you are going to present a gift has already everything in life. As a matter of fact, there are various gift credit cards available nowadays. Hence, you have to consider some steps to take in choosing the best one.

First, you have to choose for a particular gift card shops. You can discover the right place to get prepaid credit cards for gift cards in bookstores, coffee shops, and other fashion stores. You have to make sure to drop by the shop which is much loved by the recipient of a gift. Then, you have to select a gift card that you can use for various stores anywhere. Next, you have to choose gift credit cards which are based on its order and payment process. Of course, you have to choose for the easy and convenient ones. You also have to read and understand all the guidelines. There are actually times that ordering gift giving credit cards online are very advisable because of its accessibility.

Indeed, gift credit cards are the ideal gifts for everyone. However, wise decisions must be taken to have the best gift cards possible as well as to give your recipient the wonderful smiles on their faces. Thus, gift credit cards are really the most awesome type of gifts that anyone can receive.

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How top antique dealers can identify a true Art Deco coffee machine

Friday, September 12th, 2008

The first Art Deco coffee machines, weren’t sold as Art Deco, or even called Art Deco. The term wasn’t coined until the 1960s. At the time designers were making coffee machines in the now familiar idiom, they hadn’t come up with a name for it. There was no conscious movement. More often than not, it was called the ‘Modern’ style - and it was modernity that these pre-industrial coffee machine designers aspired to.

The dream of automated production

Genuine Art Deco coffee machines date back to the late 1920s. In stark contrast to the flowing, organic lines of Art Nouveau, Art Deco looked toward a time of automation and fabrication - a time that lay just beyond the grasp of the technology then available. It’s this fantasy of an age of industrial mass production coupled with the extremely skillful craftmanship that was required to emulate it that embues Art Deco coffee machines with their unique tension and charm. It was all about freedom. Designers believed that automation would set mankind free.

It was also an age of class division. Coffee drinking was still a ritual to be enjoyed by the middle to upper classes. Coffee sets, including cups, grinders, urns and milk steamers were made of quality materials. The apparent indutrialisation of Art Deco coffee sets belied their exclusivity in terms of both materials and craftsmanship.

Top five ways to identify an Art Deco coffee machine

There are five ways to identify a true Art Deco coffee machine. Look for:

  1. Blocky geometry and straight lines.
  2. An attempt to create unnatural and futuristic effects with the limited materials available at the time.
  3. Streamlining, in imitation of the first streamlined cars and trains. Once the combustion engine was accepted as reliable, vehicles became streamlined in the pursuit of greater speed - or at least the look of greater speed. And the same streamlining was applied to coffee machines.
  4. Unashamedly industrial designs that look hostile to humans. You’ll find Art Deco cocktail glasses whose sharp, square designs in the stem make them hard to hold. Or spherical bakelite ashtrays with a cross-shaped inset lid that require a PhD to open. They were meant to look automatic, from a world of machines. They are not meant for humans.
  5. Innovation for innovation’s sake often led to features beyond the scope of the technology of the time.

The demise of the Art Deco coffee machine

The post-war generation saw the dream of fully-automated industrial production become reality. Coffee machines, just like cars, became available to all. Design became more populist. The idiosyncrasies of the one-off Art Deco coffee machine were dropped in favour of less challenging details and cheaper materials. The age of the Art Deco coffee machine came to an end before it had ever earned its name. And the name it earned says little of its industrial aspirations, and more about its true function - decoration and adornment for the privileged.

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