Crazy Fads Come and Go But This One Lingers On

 

QUESTION: I have a crazy quilt that once belonged to my great grandmother. It’s been lovingly cared for by her daughter and then her daughter’s daughter, my mother, who’s now getting up in years. When she downsized to move to a retirement home, she gave the crazy quilt to me. I love the intricate designs, but, otherwise, I don’t know much about it. Can you tell me more and perhaps tell me how I can take care of it? It’s in good condition, but I can see that it’s somewhat delicate.

ANSWER: Your crazy quilt is the result a fad that began in the United States nearly a century and a half ago, roughly from 1875 to 1900. As with many country quilts, it became a way for women to use up their extra scraps of cloth or fabric from worn-out clothes. But crazy quilts were also a form of self-expression, much like samplers were a century before. 

Victorian women created crazy quilts like giant jigsaw puzzles, made of irregular pieces of silk, satin, velvet, or plush fabric sewn onto a solid backing of a lighter material, then decorated with embroidery stitches. Many became sentimental diaries stitched with names and legends while others took on the look of nostalgic stitched scrapbooks filled with memorabilia commemorating events, story book characters, garden flowers, even family pets. Women often made them as gifts to a bride or to someone recovering from a severe illness. Others made them in memory of a loved one who had recently passed.

Scraps for these elaborate quilts often came from ball gowns, opera capes, or the parlor curtains. But women could also buy packages of scraps from the Montgomery Ward or Sears Roebuck catalogs. The Singer Sewing Machine Company used crazy quilts as a symbol on their trade cards. Women's magazines of the day offered directions for making crazy quilts as table covers along with patterns for decorating them. Silk manufacturers promoted the use of their scrap waste in making crazy quilts. Magazine publishers also offered booklets on making crazy quilts as premiums in exchange for subscriptions to their periodicals. 

The word crazy in this case actually means irregular, odd, bizarre, strange, or unusual, and perfectly describes these quilts. Some look like a haphazard collection of odd bits of cloth and memorabilia while others are more like abstract works of silk art in shimmering colors reflecting light.

Since crazy quilts are more often tufted rather than quilted, they should be called "throws." Victorian housewives often threw them over parlor tables and pianos, as well as sofas or beds. They were the perfect complement to the ornately carved overstuffed furniture and bric-a-brac of every sort adorning  table tops, etageres, and mantels in the Victorian parlor.

Some historians believe the Victorian crazy quilt may have originated as a result of the popularity of Japanese prints or screens after the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. Others wonder if their fractured designs may have been taken from the pattern of an uneven pavement or cracked ice, a popular decorative border used from the late 1870s through the 1880s.

Likewise, women often copied the patterns painted and embroidered on crazy quilts from Japanese ones. Many crazy quilts display a cranes standing in pools of water, owls and peacocks perched on gnarled tree branches, kimono clad figures, butterflies and cherry blossoms, hanging lanterns and spider webs. 

And since not every woman was artistically talented, makers of crazy quilts could purchase pre-stamped patches or would trace designs from magazines. The Ladies Home Journal offered as a premium to readers bringing in 16 new subscribers a “Crazy Patchwork Outfit,” consisting of 12 pre-stamped pieces of silk, one box of stamping powder, twelve skeins of embroidery silk, and a glittering array of two dozen spangles and two yards of tinsel cord.

Women's magazines also offered how-to instructions for the three basic embroidery stitches---the outline, Kensington, and plush. The outline stitch, also known as the stem stitch, formed a thread line as in a drawing. The Kensington stitch enabled crazy quilt makers to fill in their outlines using various colors. And the plush stitch produced areas of cut silk thread like a pile carpet. 

Quilt makers used embroidery stitches not only along the edges of patches to decorate them and at the same time hold the edges under and in place but also to make designs. Those who lacked embroidery skills could purchase pre-embroidered appliques. Some crazy quilt makers further embellished their creations with painted designs on the fabric after they assembled their quilts. Sequins, beads, spangles, metallic braid, and ribbon were also popular forms of embellishment.

Crazy quilts aren’t as durable as regular quilts. They won’t survive daily folding and shouldn’t be used as throws where they’ll be handled a lot. But they can be mounted on a frame or encased in plexiglass and hung on a wall. Both dry cleaning and wet cleaning damages them, so the only safe way of cleaning them is to use a low power vacuum held well away from the fabric which has been covered with some sort of mesh screening—an old window screen will do—to prevent the fabric from being sucked up and damaged.

Unlike regular quilts, women who made crazy quilts usually signed them. Many have been passed down through generations in a family.

Prices for crazy quilts range from $50 for an average small one to as much as $1,000 for a large exceptionally stitched one. Because their prices are relatively low in comparison with fine 19th-century quilts, many most likely remain hidden away in attic trunks waiting to be discovered.

For more information on caring for old quilts, read “Caring for Antique Quilts” in #TheAntiquesAlmanac. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Sparkling World of Glass" in the 2021 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Original Cafe Chair

 

QUESTION: I recently purchased two bentwood chairs at an antique shop in a nearby town. Both have woven cane seats and the number “14" pressed into the wood under the rim of the seat. I’ve seen similar chairs in coffee shops and cafes, but I purchased these to use in my kitchen. The cane is in good condition and the chairs are stained a dark brown. Can you tell me anything about these chairs—who made them and how old are they? 

ANSWER: You made a great purchase. Your chairs are commonly known as “bistro” or “cafe” chairs, and while most people think they date from the early 20th century, they actually date back to the 1850s.

Michael Thonet (pronounced “toe-net”), a clever and creative cabinetmaker from Boppard am Rhein, Germany, invented the process for bending wood and as a result created the first pieces of bentwood furniture. He originally made your chairs in 1859, however, his company, which is still in existence, made over 50 million by 1930. So yours could date from the early 20th century. 

Thonet, the son of master tanner Franz Anton Thonet, started out as a carpenter's apprentice in 1811. Eight years later, he opened his own shop. In the beginning, he carved his pieces from European beechwood. 

In the 1830s, Thonet began trying to make furniture out of glued and bent wooden slats. His first success was the Bopparder Schichtholzstuhl, or Boppard layerwood chair, in 1836. The following year, he purchased the Michelsmühle, the glue factory that made the glue that he used. However, he failed to obtain the patent for his new process in Germany and England in 1940, so he tried again in France and Russia the next year, but again failed. 

The steam engine appeared on the scene around the time that Thonet's was experimenting with his bending process. He discovered that he could bend light, strong wood into curved, graceful shapes by forming the wood in hot steam. This enabled him to design elegant, lightweight, durable and comfortable furniture, which appealed strongly to style trend at the time. His pieces were a complete departure from the heavy, carved designs of the past.

At the Koblenz trade fair of 1841, Thonet met Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, who was enthusiastic about Thonet's furniture and invited him to his Vienna court. During 1842, Thonet presented his furniture—particularly his chairs—to the Imperial Family. On July 16 1842: Metternich granted Thonet the right "to bend any type of wood, even the most brittle: into the desired forms and curves by chemical and mechanical means." The Prince granted him a second, nonrenewable 13-year patent on July 10, 1856 "for manufacturing chairs and table legs of bent wood, the curvature of which is effected through the agency of steam or boiling liquids.”

When his first factory in Boppard establishment got into financial trouble, he sold it and moved his family to Vienna, where in 1849, he opened a new factory called the Gebrüder Thonet. In 1850, he produced his Number 1 chair, which he intended to sell to café owners.  

He received a bronze medal for his Vienna bentwood chairs at the London World's Fair in 1851, at which he received international recognition. At the next World's Fair in Paris in 1855, he received the silver medal for his new and improved bentwood chair design. In 1856, he opened a new factory in Korycany, Moravia because of the country’s ample supply of beechwood. 

By 1859, he developed his most famous chair—the Number 14, known as Konsumstuhl No. 14 or Vienna coffeehouse chair No.14—for which he finally received a gold medal at the 1867 Paris World's Fair. It became the first example of bentwood furniture. 

Furniture experts regard the No. 14 chair a design classic. It has been praised by many designers and architects, including Le Corbusier, who said "Never was a better and more elegant design and a more precisely crafted and practical item created." 

Thonet produced his No. 14 chair using six pieces of steam-bent wood, ten screws, and two nuts. He made the wooden parts by heating beechwood slats to 212 °F, pressing them into curved cast-iron molds, then drying them at 158 °F for 20 hours. The chairs could be mass-produced by unskilled workers and disassembled to save space during transportation—an idea used today by the Swedish company IKEA to flat-pack its furniture. By the 1870s, Thonet owned offices in almost 20 countries.

The firm’s later chairs used eight pieces of wood and also had two diagonal braces  between the seat and back to strengthen that particular joint.

Today, a No. 14 from the 1860s with a near-perfect seat can fetch about $1,000 at auction.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Sparkling World of Glass" in the 2021 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Where the Tire Hit the Road

 

QUESTION: I was going through some boxes in my attic and discovered an old Goodyear tire ashtray with a green glass insert representing the rim, hub, and nuts of the wheel. This on e must have be used by my father. It’s somewhat tacky, but I wondered if its collectible. What can you tell me about this and other tire ashtrays?

ANSWER: During the first half of the 20th century, tire manufacturers used tire ashtrays to promote their products. 

Firestone and U.S. Tire Company first produced tire ashtrays between 1909 and 1912 as a way to advertise automobile tires in an increasingly competitive market. The earliest ones were narrow and hard like the actual non-pneumatic tires of that era. They featured a steel rim embedded in the tire and a brass ashtray that would slide into the center. The tire had the manufacturer's name and the tire size molded in the rubber, while the embossed brass insert sported the  manufacturer's name, dealer's name or both.

Unfortunately, the brass insert had a short life. The ashtrays produced a couple of years later had a white metal insert advertising only the manufacturer's name. Shortly after this change in inserts, companies eliminated the steel rim.

In the middle of the 1920s, tire manufacturers began inflating automobile tires so tire ashtrays became wider, paralleling development in the auto industry. Companies also switched to glass inserts.

The tire companies also used a variety of colors of glass to catch the consumer's eye. Glass insert colors came in green, amber, pink, red, yellow, milk, and clear. Some were marbleized. In the 1930s, they used Depression glass colors. From the late 1930s to the present, manufacturers have mainly used clear glass inserts with applied stickers to advertise either the manufacturer or dealer.

Prior to the 1950s, most ashtrays were an exact duplicate of the actual tire, right down to the tread. To cut costs in the 1960s, many companies made ashtrays with plastic tires using a generic tread pattern. However, some companies continued to produce rubber tire ashtrays which were exact replicas of the actual tires.

Since tire ashtrays were a form of advertising, tire manufacturers gave or sold them to dealers and distributors who either gave or sold them to their customers. Tire companies also sold them to visitors who toured their plants. During the 1930s, Firestone turned out souvenir tire ashtrays to commemorate the exhibitions where they displayed their products. They sold ashtrays at the 1933 and 1934 Chicago Century of Progress, 1935 California Pacific International Exhibition, 1936 Texas Centennial, 1936 Cleveland International Exposition, 1939 and 1940 New York World's Fair, and the 1939and 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition Goodrich also produced one for the1939 New York World's Fair.

Because tire ashtrays were a popular and effective means of advertising, many companies jumped into production. In addition to the major companies like Firestone, Goodyear, Goodrich and Kelly Springfield, smaller ones including Allstate, Armstrong, Atlas, Brunswick, Cooper, Dayton, Diamond, Fisk, General, Hood, Mohawk, Seiberling and others also produced some.

There were about 600 different tire ashtrays produced in America. Although some of the smaller companies made only one or two, Firestone and Goodyear each made more than 70 between them. American-based companies also produced tire ashtrays in their foreign plants, although they didn’t distribute them in America.

Throughout the years there have been many unusual tire ashtrays. The Overman Tire Company made only two. Both of them were one-piece brass ashtrays with a solid brass devil in the center. The first one, produced in 1926, was a red painted male devil, some of which were ceramic, sitting with its legs crossed. In 1934, the company came out with a red painted female devil posed on a brass tire with tread molded to represent flames.

Another unusual ashtray is the Pennsylvania Vacuum Cup, which featured a matchbox holder. At a glance it looks like a regular tire ashtray, made entirely of glass and painted to resemble a rubber tire. Because the company made it around 1916, it used glass instead of the rubber and steel needed for the war effort.

The first one produced by the United States Tire and Rubber Company. which eventually became U.S. Royal and later Uniroyal. The ashtray was half glass and half metal and featured removable steel spokes.

Many tire ashtrays are unique. For example, Falls Evergreen produced an interesting green rubber innertube with a Weller Pottery insert. The India tire and Rubber Company. of Akron, Ohio made a tire with a notch molded into it to hold a lighter that plugged into a wall outlet. It was the only one that came with its own lighter. Tyler Rubber Company. made a red rubber tire ashtray which was surprising because the company never produced automobile tires.

From the early 1940s to the present, most tire ashtrays found today are about six inches in diameter with a black rubber tire. Before than, tire sizes ranged in diameter from 3½  to 7 inches  made in white, blue, red, green and yellow. 

There are more tire ashtray collectors than most people realize. Add to that the number of people who collect advertising, automotive items and ashtrays in general, and it's easy to see the market for tire ashtrays.

Common ones now sell in the $15 to $30 range, while the oldest and most unusual ashtrays bring between $100 and $200. A few special ones reach $500 or more.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Sparkling World of Glass" in the 2021 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.