Yesterday, Betty Lynn attended the Ontario Womyn's (sic) Drum Camp Four Day Retreat at Camp Oconto near the town of Sharbot Lake to take part in a senior drum class offered by her friends Amy Oak and Barb Pitcher from Michigan. As roadie, my job was to get Betty Lynn to the camp gate and then return to pick her up, four hours later.
There I was, with nothing to do, but with a beautiful area of eastern Ontario to explore. So, I headed back towards Perth with the idea of trying to find some new antique shops. Just to the west of Perth on Highway 7, I stopped at a roadside shop called Antiques and Things. From the outside, it did not look promising, but once inside, I was impressed with the quantity and quality of the items for sale, including a good number of figurines. There was one cabinet of Hummel figures, but it was so situated that I could not get within four feet of it. Still, I carefully scanned each shelf from that distance in the hopes of spotting a frame drummer. Nothing. There were also three smaller objects lying on their sides on the shelf which I could not quite make out, but which I assumed were not Hummels. Could one of them be holding a drum?
I moved on, and might not have gone back to that case if I had not spotted, in another case, a figure that did indeed look as though it was holding a frame drum. That was good enough to get the proprietor to come over and open the cabinet. That object was a disappointment, but since I had already had her over, I thought I might as well ask her about the objects in the Hummel case. When she opened that door, and lifted out the piece I was asking about, I was delighted to find that it had two little Hummel inspired figures on a German style Christmas tree candle holder, one of which was indeed banging away on her frame drum! The attached card stated that this was "Drumming for Joy," set One in the Berta Hummel "Sharing the Light of the Season, Heirloom Classics, Ornament Collection." 2002 Bradford Editions 87601.
I am surprised that I spotted it, given that the figures on the ornament are only two inches high, and the total ornament is just four inches. Not bad for these old eyes! My basic rule is to look at each figure with the question: "What are the hands doing?" Nothing else is of importance.
"Drumming for Joy" is not a new Hummel figurine for us. Indeed, in April of this year, we found and purchased the larger original the BH 58 copyright Goebel 1998 Thailand at the Springfield Antique Center, in Springfield OH.
We had been on the lookout for a Hummel frame drum player ever since we found a "Made in Japan" figurine in 2011 which looked like it might have been modelled from a Hummel original. It is interesting to contrast the crude painting on this latter figure, with the "real" Hummel.
