Manny's Vintage Mintage presents:

Axel R Stocks (1946-2015) Axel The Jeweler aka 'Metal Messiah' Axel:
When a teenager, Stocks’s family moved to suburban New Jersey, where he met Bruce Springsteen and Debbie Harry, but he found his calling upon visiting Greenwich Village in 1967. There and then he met Hugh Nanton Romney Jr., better known to the world as “Wavy Gravy.” Gravy was an acid head who, preaching the then-trendy gospel of LSD, psychedelicized Stocks, who afterward took up making trippy jewelry and dressing like a wizard with a Jesus complex. In a sense, he felt “reborn,” but the repressed has a way of returning in sometimes surprising ways, as irony is a powerful force in the universe.

Over time, Stocks’s jewelry became somewhat popular, and he was introduced to Salvador Dali, who was then living at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. Sensing something peculiar, Dali took an immediate interest in Stocks, and asked him about his life. After Stocks related his life-story, Dali pronounced that, from thenceforth, Stocks was to paint with his own blood. The two then consecrated their encounter with a hemoglobin-rich round robin of exquisite corpse. 

While Stocks continued to make jewelry, eventually selling some rings to Keith Richards and Lady Gaga, among others, he also created a body of at least a hundred blood paintings, taking his inspiration directly from Dali. The paintings are scarce and now sell in the five to six-digit range. (I will soon be putting up several)
Many have described his work as 'Surrealist', but Axel himself said that he was a 'Tabooist'.

Axel most often made his rings out of solid 16k sterling silver, but sometimes worked with pewter for some items, especially when gold-plating. HOWEVER, without disrupting the integrity of the rings by scraping, filing, or microscopic drilling, the only way to tell what substance the rings are made out of is the the Archimedes 'water-displacement' test, which I personally am not capable of accurately administering. 
Thus I CANNOT GUARANTEE that these 'white metal' RINGS ARE SILVER are, although rare-metal buying professionals I've brought them to have identified most of the Axel metalworks collection in my possession as such without actual scraping.
Suffice it to say that, regardless of the materials involved, you would be buying this item as an authentic 'Axel Stocks' work of art, and not to melt it down for its base metal value!


FOR SALE HERE

BORIS KARLOFF as Universal Monsters' FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER
Sculpted and struck by AXEL STOCKS

Ring size 10.5, Weight 1.35 troy ounces

Believed to be completely sterling silver, but as mentioned above, there are no guarantees for the purposes of this sale on that belief

This is one of series of COMMISSIONs of Monsters, Cartoon Characters, and Superheroes 
created by Axel Stocks specifically for the late RALPH 'JAY' ROGERS,
the noted UNDERGROUND COMIX ART Collector & Dealer, and BONZAI COMICS store (NYC) owner
during the 1990s. 
They were done specifically to be sold through the Bonzai store, and NO MORE THAN FIVE OF EACH CHARACTER DESIGN WERE STRUCK.


CONDITION: Exactly as when new (+30 years of tarnish/patina) NO Damage Whatsoever!



Due to many requests, I have enrolled in eBay's GLOBAL SHIPPING PROGRAM (GSP) so that buyers OUTSIDE THE USA can have access to purchasing my items.

IMPORTANT: if you wish to buy more than one of my items and have them ship together, WRITE TO ME FIRST before doing anything and tell me which items you want, and I will make a custom listing just for you that includes all of them for the agreed combined sale price.

DON'T click the Buy It Now buttons on the various items first, because the GSP DOES NOT ALLOW COMBINED SHIPPING OF MULTIPLE SALES in the GSP cart!!!


REMEMBER, you can make a Best Offer if you think the price is too rich for you. 
I have 'automatic offer rejections' TURNED OFF, which means i will see and consciously consider every offer..

(doesn't mean I will accept, tho')

Assuming I have other items you also want at time of this purchase that are allowed to ship Media Mail, do the Buy It Now [BIN] on each of the items you want and PLEASE WAIT for Combined Shipping Invoice - I may be able to trim shipping downwards somewhat when items ship in the same package.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?  I will answer any other questions of concern/fact by looking at the actual item I am selling