Thousands of vintage Christmas ornaments part of Virginia Beach estate sale: ‘I’ve never seen anything like this’
By Stacy Parker, The Virginian-Pilot,
2024-09-18
John Kupfer, 94, sits in his home surrounded by a fraction of the Christmas collection curated by his late-wife Marian at their home in Virginia Beach on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. Marian passed at 89 and spent most of the later part of her life traveling with her husband and creating her extensive Christmas collection. The collection grew so large that most of it stayed up year-round in their home. Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot/TNS
VIRGINIA BEACH — Christmas stuck around for all 12 months of the year at the Kupfer household.
As John and Marian Kupfer aged, antique trees adorned with rare handmade ornaments remained on display in the corners of their living room. Santa figurines, animated music boxes and nativity scenes were left out to enjoy year-round.
“My mom loved Christmas,” said daughter Kathy Nelson.
After Marian Kupfer died last year at 89, her husband moved from their Pembroke area home into an assisted living facility. Now John Kupfer, 94, and his children have decided to sell the house and its contents, including thousands of vintage Christmas ornaments.
An estate sale at 716 Severn Dr. begins Thursday and continues through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day.
Larry Zedd of Virginia Beach Antique Co. has organized the sale. Zedd has handled 18th, 19th and 20th century furniture and decorative arts for 50 years. The Kupfers’ Christmas collection is unusual, he said.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Zedd.
Marian Kupfer’s obsession with Christmas likely started as a result of not having much of one as a child. She was born during the Great Depression.
“Money was tight,” said her daughter.
Marian Kupfer’s mother had a tree that opened like an umbrella and she would hand her daughter a present wrapped in a paper bag.
“That was her Christmas,” Nelson said.
When she became an adult, Marian Kupfer dreamed of decorating Christmas window displays like the famous ones at the department stores in New York City. But soon she was busy raising three children, so the house where the Kupfers lived for 55 years became her canvas.
She’d set an elaborate dining room table and invite family, neighbors and friends to come over and experience the holiday through her eyes.
“If you wanted to get in the Christmas mood, you came here,” Nelson said.
The Kupfers eventually joined The Golden Glow of Christmas Past, an organization focused on the history of antique Christmas ornaments, lights and decorations. They’d drive to the group’s conventions and stop at country Christmas stores up and down the East Coast.
John Kupfer happily endured his wife’s love of collecting vintage Christmas and other holiday decorations, though it wasn’t his personal passion. The couple was married for 70 years.
“I loved my wife, and that was the basis of everything,” he said.
John Kupfer liked musical and mechanical relics. He collected antique record players and magic lanterns that projected images from hand-painted slides.
The estate sale includes most of the treasures the Kupfers accumulated over their lifetime, including Bimini mercury glass figurines ranging in price from $25 to $60, a collection of framed antique postcards for $75 and an Edison Home phonograph for $750. A 75-year-old rare handmade glass Santa ornament is priced at $250, while a complete feather Christmas tree covered in antique ornaments is for sale for $1,550.
In the main hallway, there are dozens of framed fashion prints from Godey’s, a women’s magazine of the 1870s, each around $20, decorative flue covers also $20, and a Seth Thomas wall clock for $250.
But the real showstopper is upstairs. In her 60s, Marian Kupfer built an intricate Christmas village filled with miniature figurines and paper mache houses. It stretches from one wall to another. Zedd hopes to sell it as one scene. Price is to be determined.
“You really have to look,” said Nelson, leaning over to point at the snowy landscape. “Down here is soldiers in camp, and then there’s a fall scene and there are several of the nativity sets.”
omg, My husband passed recently and I am having to go through 45 years of stuff. I am so glad that I didn't ever start a collection like that. It is hard to part with the inherited things from my family as it is.
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