Happy Meals for Happy Kids

 

QUESTION: I was going through some boxes in our attic and discovered one filled with those little toys my kids used to get in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Most people, especially mothers, consider these junk. Do they have any value or should I just toss them?

ANSWER: Believe it or not, some of those little toys are actually little treasures, depending on their condition. McDonald's is famous for its Happy Meals, and kids the world over I have been fattened up on weekly doses of them for over 40 years. Since the early 1980s,  the main hook has been the toy included with the meal. 

Many collectors of McDonald's memorabilia are mostly interested in toys that relate to specific McDonald's characters, but there have also been many tie-ins with established movie, TV and toy lines. Those tie-in items appeal to collectors who are specifically interested in what the Happy Meals promoted.

The first major tie-in to the action adventure market was with Star Trek. The series  returned from TV limbo in the form of a highly promoted film in 1979, and producers planned a huge promotion. This included Star Trek Happy Meals based on the movie. Six different boxes featured activities. One box encouraged kids to fill in the dots to complete a picture of the Enterprise while another offered a chance to decode a message with Mr. Spock, and so on. Toys and premiums included plastic Video Communicators, iron-on transfers of the characters and the Federation symbol, and "Navigational" wrist bracelets. 

Just as collectible are the items that McDonald’s made available to their restaurants, such as display signs, a cardboard Enterprise, and, rarest of all, a silver smock worn by McDonald's employees, which featured an emblem that combined the Star Trek and McDonald's logos. 

Another heavily merchandised franchise was The Dukes of Hazzard, the campy rural action show that dominated TV in the early 1980s. In the summer of 1982, McDonald’s  test marketed a Dukes of Hazzard promotion in St. Louis. The items included plastic cups with pictures of the various characters, and vacuumed plastic meal containers in the shape of the vehicles from the series, including the General Lee car and Daisy's Jeep.

Hot Wheels came to McDonald's in 1983.The cars were the subject of a national promotion, but there were also certain cars distributed only on the East Coast, and some only on the West Coast. Others appeared nationwide. McDonald’s offered 14 Hot Wheels cars in Happy Meals at any given location. There were "Collect All 14" store displays that included these 14 cars. The cars from this promotion individually sell for  $10 to $15, but the 14-car display unit commands can sell for between $300 and $400.

E.T. was a huge promotion for McDonald's, thanks to the family-friendly appeal of the movie. Although E.T. appeared in theaters in the early 1980s, the first Happy Meal with an ET theme didn’t go on sale until 1985. It offered  two different box designs and a series of four posters depicting scenes from the film.

Hasbro, the toy industry giant, got into Happy Meals with a combined promotion for Transformers and My Little Pony. Transformers, robots that became vehicles and other mechanical devices, were one of the top selling action figure lines of the 1980s. Each original Happy Meal promotion include four different small Transformers. Today, they sell for between $40 and150 each for diehard Transformers collectors and up to $100 if they’re still in their cellophane baggie packs.

Ghostbusters, the cartoon TV show known as the Real Ghostbusters spun off of the hit movie, became the next big craze for kids in the action/adventure genre. Ghostbusters appeared in McDonald's Happy Meals in 1977 with four different boxes and school supplies based on the Marshmallow Man and Slimer ghosts seen in the film and cartoon series. These included a pencil case, ruler, note pad and eraser, pencil and pencil topper, and pencil sharpener. All are difficult to find and highly collectible.

Hot Wheels returned in 1989 with more cars available in different regions. There was a 12-ear display that now sells for $300, followed by repeated promotions, shared by Mattel's other titan, Barbie, throughout the 1990s.

Not to be outdone, Matchbox also had a promotion in 1988, featuring a 16-car counter display and cars that now sell for $8 to $10 each.

The I990s proved to be even mare interesting for action-adventure tie-ins, as several popular super heroes became involved with Happy Meal promotions.

1991 saw McDonald's teaming with Disney to promote Hook, the retelling of Peter Pan with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. The official Hook Happy Meal boxes, which featured striking artwork, contained four Hook floating bathtub toys.

A tie-in with the TV cartoon version of Back To The Future caused some controversy. The assortment consisted of four rolling toys, but Doc's time traveling Delorean car had wheels that small children could remove and swallow. McDonald's issued an advisory to parents, urging them to avoid giving the cars to small children. The next big promotion also had its share of problems.

In 1992, McDonald's was ready to cash in on Batman merchandising and featured a big promotion involving Batman Returns with four vehicle toys, including Catwoman’s car. 

For some reason, Halloween toys are usually big hits. The Ronald and Pals Haunted Halloween McDonald’s Happy Meal set featured a 20-inch display used at McDonald's restaurants in the 1990s. The company ran their 1998 promotion nationally during October. Unfortunately, many store managers trashed most of the displays afterward. The promotion included six toys—I am Hungry, Witch Birdie, Black Cat Grimace, Jack-o-lantern McNugget Buddy, Ghost Ronald, Scarecrow Hamburglar and Ghoul.

The McDonald’s Happy Meal for Disney Toy Story2 in 1999 includes pretty much every recognizable toy from the "Toy Story 2" movie. The complete set included an incredible  20 toys, which doesn’t seem possible for the movie.

Not all McDonald's toys were tiny plastic junk. Some, like It’s Happy Meal Girl Doll from 1997,  were big plastic junk, part of a series of Happy Meal baby dolls. Actually, these dolls were surprisingly well made for something produced by a burger chain.

And while the intention of Happy Meals was to get kids to eat McDonald’s foods and make them happy, those same little toys are making many collectors happy as well. 

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 "Advertising of the Past" in the 2023 Spring 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.

Horn a Plenty

 

QUESTION: I’ve always been fascinated by antique items made of horn. I see them in cases at antique shows all the time. I’ve even purchased a hair comb or two and a walking stick with a horn handle. But I have no idea how these items were produced. I assume most of them were made in the 19th century, but I’m only guessing. Can you give me some insight into the production of products from cow’s horn.

ANSWER: Horn has long been used to make various utilitarian objects. Ancient people blew through it to call meetings and such. Other horns held gun powder for muskets. And ornate hair combs made of horn were all the rage in Victorian times.

Long before synthetic materials like Celluloid, Bakelite,  and Lucite came on the scene,  Mother Nature provided an interesting assortment of moldable organic materials. These unique substances from plants and animals are known as "natural plastics."

Thermoplastics are materials that are made pliable by the application of heat, then molded with pressure or by casting in a cold mold. Additional applications of heat will subsequently re-soften thermoplastics and distort the original molded shape of an object. Though many modern thermoplastics are recyclable, antique thermoplastics can be permanently damaged by heat. Testing methods, such as exposure to hot water and the ever-popular hot pin test, can ruin valuable antique objects that are very often irreplaceable. So caution should be taken when trying to identify the materials from which some antique molded items are made.

Collectors seek objects fashioned from natural thermoplastic materials like cow horn in the 18th and 19th centuries. Over time, people used horn for a .variety of useful and ornamental applications. It required persistence and hard work to understand its unique properties. Through trial and error, ingenuity and luck, horn smiths developed successful fabricating techniques for working with horn.

Horn is a form of a protein called keratin, the same type of material as in fish scales, bird feathers, human hair and fingernails. Tiny compressed hair-like fibers, which can be seen with a magnifying glass, make up the structure of ' horn. Because of its unique protein formation, horn frays easily and has a tendency to split and crack during fabrication, making it difficult to work with. 

Horn smiths harvested, cleaned and fabricated horn into a variety of useful and ornamental objects such as dressing combs, hair ornaments, buttons, jewelry, decorative inlaid frames, trinket and snuffboxes. Because of Its beautiful pale translucent quality, they used horn extensively during the Edwardian Era for producing Art Nouveau accessories that depicted the dragon fly motif. 

Horn was a plentiful by-product of the meat and leather industries. It had been used for centuries n its raw state to make objects like powder horns and for fashioning common utilitarian items such as serving spoons and shoehorns. Oxen, steer and cow horn ranged in color from pale cream to light mottled gray. Buffalo horn, obtained from India, Thailand, and China, was dark brown. Domestic cattle horn vas plentiful and ranged in color tones from pale grayish green to streaked dark brown.

Manufacturers used raw cattle horn to make pressed rattans, umbrella and utensil handles, jewelry items and dressing combs. But Before these finished products could reach consumers, they had to first be fabricated. This process actually began with the meat industry.

Slaughterhouses had a surplus of raw cattle horn, which they stockpiled into various sizes and colors. This they sold cheaply to manufacturing companies or merchants who were in the business of applying horn to fabricators. A representative from the fabricating company would carefully select horn for specialty items like ornamental hair combs. Some representatives traveled the world searching for fine horn. When color wasn’t a consideration, the horn went for making common utilitarian objects like utensil handles or buttons.

After sorting, fabricators prepared the raw horn for the first step in processing. Workers trimmed the ends away by means of sawing two cross cuts—the first called the "head" or "rootº cut and the second the "screw" or "tip" cut. They then gathered the tips  to make utensil handles and buttons and used the ragged edges of the head cut to produce fertilizer.

They then sent the trimmed horn to the "opening department" where they soaked it with water and heated it over an open fire until it became softened. Another method commonly employed by fabricators involved softening the trimmed horn in huge vats of hot water or oil.

Nevertheless, once sufficiently pliable, the horn was ready to be split open. In order to prevent waste and in an attempt to end up with a rectangular piece of material, workers made an elongated, spiral cut beginning from the widest part of the horn up through the narrow section. After slitting, they forced the  horn open using tongs, and then placed it between screw plates to flattened it.

Fabricators often performed special finishing techniques on raw horn to change its appearance. They frequently clarified and sometimes stained it. The clarifying process involved squeezing the cleaned and flattened material between heated and oiled iron plates under tremendous pressure until it became translucent. Lantern makers used clarified horn, which had a slight greenish hue, as a "glaze" instead of glass in lanterns throughout the 18º and 19" centuries. Another use for ultra thin, translucent sheets of horn was to layer them between the pages of important documents in order to protect them from damage caused by bleeding inks. But the most important application of clarified horn was in the production of fancy ornamental hair combs.

Horn smiths stained clarified horn to resemble expensive tortoiseshell by first exposing it to diluted nitric acid which turned it a pale yellow. Once they achieved the desired amber color, they sprinkled and streaked the horn with a mixture of caustic soda, litharge, or lead monoxide, and dragon's blood, a colored resin derived from the rattan palm. This solution reacted with the nitric acid in the treated horn and turned the affected areas orange. The end result was a mottled imitation of tortoiseshell in mellow shades of amber and orange. Records show that in the late 1880s the comb factory of Stewart & Company of  Aberdeen, Scotland, used 3.5 million horns to only 600 pounds of authentic tortoiseshell per year.

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 "Advertising of the Past" in the 2023 Spring 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.

Collectibles for Beer Lovers

 

QUESTION: Along with enjoying a variety of beers, I've also started collecting beer-related items. So far, I've collected mostly small items—bottle openers, coasters, glasses, and a variety of cans from various breweries. But there are so many things out there, I'm not sure what to do next. Can you help me get some direction to my collecting?

ANSWER: Collecting beer-related memorabilia is one of the most popular pastimes. But because the number of items varies greatly, collecting beer-related items can be daunting. 

The Chinese have been brewing beer for over 5,000 years. The Greeks and Romans revered it as a healthy beverage. But during the Middle Ages in Europe beer drinking was popular because beer was cleaner than the water.

Beer has been a part of American culture since the first Virginia colonists began brewing ale from corn in 1587. Adrian Block & Hans Christiansen's brewhouse at the southern tip of New Amsterdam, now Manhattan, was the first brewery established in the New World. 

In 1935, the G. Kreuger Brewing Company of Newark, New Jersey, became the first brewery to sell beer in steel cans. That year, only about 25 percent of all beer sold was packaged in bottles and cans. Breweries sold the rest in kegs.

Breweries have always been competitive with each other. To beat the competition, they used everything from distinctive bottle labels, foam scrapers, serving trays, brightly colored cans„ neon signs, tip trays, cups, T-shirts, hats, and countless other items so consumers would remember one brand over another.

Today, the market for vintage brewery collectibles is hot. But there are so many different items. Key categories include beer cans, beer steins, beer trays, beer signs, beer bottle labels, and bottle openers, plus more unusual items such as tap knobs and bar statues. Many collectors also focus on specific brands.

Beer collectibles consist mainly of bottles, cans, and advertising. Advertising comes on coasters, matchbooks, shirts, beer tap knobs and handles, statuettes, labels, and signs.

One of the most popular beer-related collectibles is beer glasses. They include everything from early hand-blown glassware to modern pint glasses covered in  advertising. In the 18th century, people drank beer in glass goblets at meals. Early stemware designed for beer often bore engraved hops-and-barley motifs.

The glass cups and mugs of the 18th century were simple and smaller compared to today’s versions, as the ale was much stronger than modern beer. Beer mugs were generally made in a cylinder or barrel shape with a handle and no foot. Because they were manufactured in glasshouses that produced bottles and windows, early American mugs were almost always made from colored glass.

In the 1820s, the development of a glass-pressing technique by John P. Bakewell allowed glassware patterns to be mass produced, quickly diversifying the shapes and styles of beer glasses. Though glass manufacturers found it difficult to blow even the simplest-looking tumblers with smooth sides and no foot by hand, pressed glass molds made this form commonplace.

During the 1880s, as breweries expanded and pasteurization allowed them to send products longer distances, beer-glass advertising became popular. A few of these early advertising glasses used color-embossed logos, but most relied on an acid-etching silkscreen process. 

And since  the U.S. has never instituted legal restrictions on beer serving size, American bars have used a variety of serving glasses, including tall pilsner glasses, with a slightly indented waist near the base and the goblet or tulip-shaped glass mounted on a short, sturdy stem.

Though people considered these objects "throwaways" in their day, collectors worldwide now vigorously pursue them. Prices for these collectibles vary widely, so focusing a collection is important from the start. To begin, you might build on what you already have or start in a new direction of interest. It's easy to start small, with something inexpensive like coasters. Serving trays, signs, a cans produced after Prohibition are all good places to start.

So what determines pricing for brewery collectibles? As with other antiques and collectibles, it's condition, condition, condition," since most brewery collectibles have been used. Pristine examples can command high prices, and they can be difficult to find. While rarity is important, for collectibles where multiple examples exist, condition rules.

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 "Advertising of the Past" in the 2023 Spring 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.

Those Happy Days

 

QUESTION: After the death of my mother, I’ve started to clear out my parent’s house to get it ready for sale. Among the items I’ve been sorting through were a good number of what I believe were things from the 1950s. Since I was only a small child during that time, I’m really not exactly sure what is from back then. Can you give me an idea of the type of things that might have some resale value and where I might sell them?

ANSWER: The 1950s were a time of relative prosperity after the end of World War II. However, items from back then fall into two categories—higher end pieces like futuristically designed furniture and accessories and everyday items like kitchen and household wares. And collectors are pretty much divided into these two groups, also.

Many people, especially younger ones, view the 1950s as a time of carefree happy days. The T.V. show “Happy Days” did a lot to help that a long. But, in fact, the decade was filled with rules and restrictions, the result of which caused the backlash among younger people in the 1960s.  But recently collectors have been resurrecting and rediscovering the era, albeit while wearing rose-colored glasses.

However, the 1950s was a decade of creative solutions and bold designs. Objects once outdated, corny and embarrassing, whose final resting place was yard sales and thrift stores, are now found in pricey shops in major cities. This serious second look from dealers,. collectors and architects transcends all the outlandish fads, weird shapes, silly ideas and annoying colors. What they’re now seeing are progressive designs and superb workmanship, mostly on the high-end pieces. 

Transitional best describes the Fifties decade. America was passing out of the dark, serious, wartime 1940s into a colorful era of discovery, experimentation, and prosperity. Veterans were starting families in the suburban developments like Levittown in both Long Island and southeastern Pennsylvania. Mom’s found themselves bound by their apron strings in the kitchen while dads went off to work. Dwight Eisenhower led the country while Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle dominated centerfield. And automobiles were large, showy, and powerful.  

Designers, fueled by the exploration of outer space, applied the graceful, soft curves and lines of Art Deco to furniture and appliances, which took on streamlined, futuristic shapes. When the Russians launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, in October 1957, merchandise that resembled sleek spacecraft seemed all the more apropos for the times.

News broadcasts came over Bakelite and C radios that sported rounded, curved lines and often bold coloring. Designers adopted shiny chrome for lamps, table and chair legs, blenders, toasters, and waffle irons. Tubular steel added simplicity, beauty and durability to furniture and accessories. Lighting fixtures and clocks sprouted appendages resembling sparkling celestial bodies or satellites.

For the growing middle class, manufacturers employed chrome's step-sister, aluminum, to mass-produce inexpensive tumblers, goblets, cocktail shakers, trays and ice buckets. Plastic, especially red, could be found in most kitchens in condiment containers and curtains. Cabinets contained Fiesta ware, simple, pastel-colored dishes for everyday use.

Decorative figurines became popular. No living room was complete without a black ceramic panther slinking on a tabletop or used as a lamp base. Small ceramic lamps with a doll, animal, or other figure, marketed as the perfect little glow to set atop the TV, supposedly helped to save viewers’ eyesight in darkened rooms.

Coffee tables assumed the shape of boomerangs. Wall clocks looked like exploding, atoms or models of molecular structure. Kitchen tables, made of durable Formica in bright red, yellow, and often turquoise, complemented shiny white enamel hanging cabinets. Builders of new suburban homes tiled the bathrooms in black and pink or sea green. 

In the better part of towns, a sophisticated 1950's home might contain a pair of Eero Saarinen's all-enveloping womb chairs in bright red, or had as its piece de resistance a free form, walnut and glass coffee table designed by Isamu Noguchi. 

Baby boomers, looking to recall items with which they grew up, have fueled the current interest in what’s now commonly referred to as the Mid-Century Modern style—taking in the 1950s and 1960s. They perceive the Fifties as an innocent time compared to now.

Manufacturers designed products for the Machine Age, using mass-production and assembly line methods. Thus, many of today’s collectors seek pieces developed by specific designers whose creations bring higher prices.

Charles Eames worked for the Herman Miller Company of Zeeland, Mich. He popularized furniture made of laminated plywood and bentwood. George Nelson, also of Herman Miller, designed clocks and furniture. Paul Frankl designed furniture from the 1920s to the 1950s. Influenced by Art Deco, he used both geometric and curved shapes. His simple, black and white, curved lacquered pine tables and desks today sell for several thousand dollars each.

Knoll International of New York employed Eero Saarinen. Best-known for his molded plastic womb chair, he worked also in cast aluminum. Italian immigrant and sculptor Harry Bertoia also designed for Knoll, where he pioneered in using metal rods and wire in side and lounge chairs. And Gilbert Rohde, also associated with the Herman Miller Company, combined traditional mahogany and maple with chrome and glass.

Russel Wright worked in glass, plastics, aluminum, textiles, pottery and furniture. He designed tableware for the Steubenville Pottery Company, Iroquois China Company, and Harker Chinaware. And he developed furniture for Knoll and Heywood Wakefield.

Unlike painters, these artists didn’t sign their work, so collectors need to learn to identify furniture by shapes, materials, and quality of workmanship. Although the furniture usually had manufacturer data on paper labels, many of the labels have long since fallen off.

Other companies mass-produced less expensive look-alike imitations of designer furniture. And the U.S. courts refused to allow the original designers to legally. protect their work, which further complicated matters.

Fifties merchandise sells consistently well, especially chrome kitchen appliances, decanters, cake covers and lazy Susans. During the 1990s, items from the 1950s was cheap by today’s standards. But as the popularity of these items has grown, so have the prices. Aluminum Christmas trees, illuminated by a revolving color wheel, are a good example. Once castaways, they now sell for over $150.

And while Fifties kitchen appliances are still popular with collectors, especially if they’re in excellent condition, the market for them has softened somewhat.  However, colorful Bakelite and Catalin radios still sell for three figures.

As far as selling items from the 1950s, both eBay and Etsy are probably the best bet. Selling them at yard or garage sales or fleamarkets won’t really yield much of a profit. Regardless of the site, the Internet offers a global market with the possibility of selling at higher prices.   

The consensus among dealers today is that a lot of 1950s furnishings sit in attics, basements, and thrift shops waiting to be purchased for a song by the wise buyer who has memorized the music. And that means that happy days may be making comeback.

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 "Advertising of the Past" in the 2023 Spring 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.