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Cartoon brings humour to humidor 

This majolica tobacco humidor features the famous Happy Hooligan, a comic strip character developed by the late cartoonist Fred Opper for the Hearst Newspaper chain. The cartoon first appeared in 1900 and ran until 1932. Despite his frequent bad luck, Happy Hooligan was an eternally optimistic Irish tramp with an enormous smile and a tin can for a hat. Here, he's featured with one of his brothers, the monocled Montmorency, and the two are embarking on a trip to England. The chained bulldog with the pipe on top of the jar is symbolically guarding the valuable tobacco inside. This piece was made in the Austria-Germany region between 1900 and 1920 and has great appeal for four different categories of collectors. Anyone interested in figural humidors, majolica, tobacco items, or cartoon characters would no doubt be charmed by this piece. At auction, it could spark some serious rivalry and I wouldn't be surprised if it brought as much as $550.

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