Rock Around the Jukebox

QUESTION: My husband recently purchased an old jukebox for a game room we created in our basement.  It’s a Wurlitzer 1015, and considering it’s 68 years old, it still plays pretty well. He paid $3,500 for it. Can you tell me more about this machine and others like it? Did my husband get taken on this deal?

ANSWER: While the jukebox is more or less a thing of the past, a few still exist in arcades and road houses off the beaten path and in the private collections of people who yearn for a return to those happy days. The one your husband purchased is the most popular of the oldies but goodies and normally sells for twice that amount.  

A jukebox, for those of you who may not know, is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that plays selections from self-contained media, at first records, then CDs.. The classic jukebox has buttons with letters and numbers that restaurant, diner, and bar patrons pushed  in combination to choose and play a specific selection at first for a 10 cents, then later 25 cents, 50 cents, and upwards.

The earliest jukebox was called a  a "nickel-in-the-slot phonograph," and it came about in the late 1880s. The state-of-the-art invention, engineered by Louis Glass and William S. Arnold of San Francisco, was a coin-operated machine that was a modification of the phonograph, invented by Thomas Edison. Upon receiving a coin, unlocked the mechanism, allowing the listener to turn a crank which simultaneously wound the spring motor and placed the reproducer's stylus in the starting groove. Frequently exhibitors would equip many of these machines with listening tubes, similar to acoustic headphones, and array them in "phonograph parlors" allowing the patron to select between multiple records, each played on its own machine. Some machines even contained carousels and other mechanisms for playing multiple records. Most machines were capable of holding only one musical selection, the automation coming from the ability to play that one selection at will. The first of these music players was put at the Palais Royal Saloon in San Francisco on November 23, 1889. 

The jukebox continued to evolve. Hobart C. Niblack invented a way for the machine to automatically change records in 1918. This led the Automated Musical Instrument Company (AMI) to produce an innovative type of jukebox. Initially playing music recorded on wax cylinders, the shellac 78 rpm record dominated jukeboxes in the early part of the 20th century. 

In 1928, Justus P. Seeburg, who manufactured player pianos, combined an electrostatic loudspeaker with a coin-operated record player and gave the listener a choice of eight records. This Audiophone machine was wide and bulky and had eight separate turntables mounted on a rotating Ferris wheel-like device, allowing patrons to select from eight different records. Later versions of the jukebox included Seeburg's Selectophone, with 10 turntables mounted vertically on a spindle. By maneuvering the tone arm up and down, the customer could select from 10 different records.

Song-popularity counters told the owner of the machine the number of times each record had been played, which allowed the owner to replace less-played songs with more popular ones.

 

The term "jukebox" came into use in the United States around 1940, apparently derived from the familiar usage "juke joint", derived from the word "juke" meaning disorderly, rowdy, or wicked.

Jukeboxes had once been enclosed in wooden cabinets, but by 1937 manufacturers had begun to make them of gaudy plastic, frosted glass, jeweled mirrors, and chrome ornaments. Many of those Art Deco creations were self-contained light shows with polarized revolving disks, bubble tubes, and flashing pilasters. 

In the 1940s, the jukebox started evolving into the version we know today with colorful designs. Manufacturing stopped during World War II, however, as the materials were needed for the war effort. After the war, jukebox manufacturing continued, with the Seeburg Corporation introducing the vinyl record jukebox that used 45 rpm records. 

During those golden years, the Leonardo da Vinci of jukebox design was Wurlitzer's Paul Fuller, who was responsible for 13 full-size machines, five table models, and numerous speakers. The Golden Age of jukebox design ended when he suffered a heart attack in 1944 and died the next year. By then a new generation of larger jukeboxes had appeared, and the classic machines from the golden years—1937 to 1949—were, for the most part, relegated to the junk heap and forgotten. 

 became an important, and profitable, part of any jukebox installation. They enabled restaurant patrons to select tunes from their table or booth. One example is the Seeburg 3W1, introduced in 1949 as companion to the 100-selection Model M100A jukebox. Stereo sound became popular in the early 1960s, and wallboxes of the era came with built-in speakers, enabling patrons to sample this latest technology.

The popularity of jukeboxes extended from the 1940s through the mid-1960s, but they were particularly fashionable in the 1950s. By the middle of the 1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in America went into jukeboxes.

And even with all of today’s high-tech music devices, the sound from one of those old machines was fabulous. Nothing beats hearing an old 78 on a machine created just to play it. Those were the days.

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Shaping the Modern American Lifestyle

 

QUESTION: For the last several years I’ve begun to purchase various pieces of Mid-Century Modern furniture and accessories. While doing so, the name Russel Wright has come up frequently. I understand he was one of the more influential industrial designers of the 20th century. I’d like to learn more about him and his designs, so that I can be on the lookout for them as I browse thrift shops and used furniture stores. What can you tell me about Wright and his designs?

ANSWER: Russel Wright was indeed a master of modern design. He created dinnerware, glasses, spun aluminum, wooden tableware, stainless steel flatware, textiles, and furniture, giving a sense of style to the modern American home. Wright was one of the premier industrial designers of the modern era.

He first began to work in silver and chrome, creating small decorative circus animals for gift shops. His later work in chrome came after he signed a contract to design for Chase Brass & Copper, which he did from 1935 to 1946. Wright's designs for Chase are hot marked with his name.

Wright’s early gift items were expensive, and being in the midst of the Great Depression, he found it necessary to develop items that were more affordable. So he instead turned to spun aluminum, actually manufacturing items in the basement of he and his wife’s home.  He created around a 100 items, including stove-to-table items, a concept which doesn’t work well in aluminum but which was later expressed in other materials. Wright combined aluminum with wood, rattan, or cork, enabling the resulting pieces to be combined in a variety of ways.

From aluminum Wright moved on in 1935 to create the Oceanic line of woodenware for Elise Wood Working Company. For these designs, he used naturalistic the forms of leaves, snail spirals, starfish, and water ripples. Even though they were all machine made, these products had a handmade look and feel.

Wright's first furniture designs, for Heywood-Wakefield in 1934, made use of curved veneers and looked more Art Deco than his later furniture. Unfortunately, these pieces didn’t sell well and weren’t durable enough to use constantly. But they showed Wright's early interest in open stock pieces that could be used in a variety of ways.

The breakthrough in furniture design for Wright came with his introduction of American Modern, a line manufactured in American rock maple by Conant Ball, which sold the pieces in both dark and "blonde" finishes. Wright’s wife, Mary, coined the name "American Modern," which was later used for other products for the home. Macy's was so enthusiastic about the furniture line that they constructed a nine-room house in their New York store to display the furniture in room settings.

Wright also worked with the Old Hickory Furniture Company in Martinsville, Indiana on unique rustic furniture featuring his modern stylings. The Old Hickory line first appeared in 1942 and some of the designs stayed popular through the 1950s.

In 1939, Wright introduced a colorful line of American Modern china, the most widely sold American ceramic dinnerware in the country’s history, made by Steubenville Pottery, of Steubenville, Ohio. But American Modem china was low-tired, thus subject to chipping and crazing. After World War II, Wright introduced Iroquois Casual China, made with a high-fired glaze, suitable for dishwasher use, that came with a three-year guarantee. 

He followed his successful china line with glasses, flatware and textiles. This was the beginning of Wright’s American lifestyle, as he offered consumers a way to create a comfortable home with a unified look as they put it together, piece by piece. American Modern china, in production from 1939 until 1959, was the country’s all-time biggest selling line of dishes.

In addition to ceramic dinnerware, Wright also designed several popular lines of Melmac melamine resin plastic dinnerware for the home and did early research on plastic Melmac dinnerware for restaurant use. Beginning in 1953, Northern Plastic Company of Boston began production of his first Melmac line of plastic dinnerware for the home, called "Residential."  

As with his ceramic dinnerware, Wright began designing his Melmac only in solid colors, but by the end of the 1950s created several patterns ornamented with decoration, usually depicting plant forms.

Wright's approach to design came from the belief that the dining table was the center of the home. Working outward from there, he designed tableware to larger furniture, architecture to landscaping, all fostering an easy, informal lifestyle. It was through his popular and widely distributed housewares and furnishings that he influenced the way many Americans lived and organized their homes in the mid-20th century.

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 "Coffee--The Brew of Life" in the 2023 Summer 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.

  

Be There or Be Square

 

QUESTIONS: I really like the look of Mid-Century Modern design. I’ve started to gather furniture and accessories to decorate my apartment. I’ve been looking for a distinctive set of dishes to use in my kitchen. Can you recommend any?

ANSWERS: Yes, I can. While not many people are familiar with this, I recommend dinnerware from the Blair Ceramics of Ozark, Missouri. While often similar in price to its modern day counterpart, the 1950s dinnerware is superior in that it is often hand-painted and decorated. No two pieces are exactly alike 

Originally from Mount Vernon, Ohio, William Blair graduated from the Cleveland School of Art, after which he studied art and traveled throughout Europe. After returning to Ohio, he painted children’s portraits for a year before he apprenticed in ceramics for a pottery in Mount Vernon. His sister, Dorothy, and her husband, Bernard Purinton, opened the Purinton Pottery Company in 1936. Blair went to work for them painting decorations on their pieces. In 1941, Bernard and Dorothy moved their pottery to Shippenville, Pennsylvania.

Blair directed his artistic talent toward the production of pottery and was instrumental in the design of Purinton's characteristic handpainted wares. While there, Blair designed several of the most recognizable patterns including Apple which was the most popular while the factory was in operation. He also created the off-round shapes of the dinnerware lines with the Heather Plaid and Normandy Plaid motifs.

Blair believed that the design of American dinnerware needed to be overhauled. So he left Purinton and sought the help of his nephew Bart Higgins, who blueprinted molds while Blair worked on the designs. When they were ready, they traveled to the Springfield area and began searching for a building to convert to a factory. In Ozark, they found the old Fray Johnson Ford auto agency building, located just north of the Ozark square,  which was just the right size. For a year, they worked to convert it into a ceramic factory. They bought a $15,000 kiln from West Virginia and installed it into their factory. By 1946, they were hiring local workers and training them  to work in mixing, molding, glazing, painting, and kiln rooms. Each piece had to be painted by hand. 

By 1949, the company employed 32 workers, who produced as many as 3,600 pieces per week during peak production times. The firm shipped dinnerware to all 48 states, Hawaii, Cuba and Canada, to be sold by such retail outlets as Neiman Marcus and Marshall Field's department stores.

Blair Ceramics produced several lines of dinnerware, most with innovative square-shaped plates and platters. Blair frequently voiced objections to round plates and dinnerware while employed  by the Purinton Pottery. At his own company, Blair had the opportunity to produce what he considered more pleasing and appropriately shaped dinnerware. These distinctive pieces are also characterized by unique twisted handles and leaf-shaped knobs on the lids of serving pieces.

Blair had all his pieces hand-painted and marked most of them with an underglaze backstamp "Blair decorated by hand" The firm’s most popular pattern was Gay Plaid which it distributed and made continuously during its operation. This design featured horizontal forest green stripes and chartreuse and brown vertical stripes. Also produced were Rick-Rack with yellow stripes and brown zigzag bands; Yellow Plaid, similar to Gay Plaid except the predominant color is yellow; Bamboo, an ornately decorated design with multicolored leaves and bamboo in brown; and Autumn Leaf, consisting of a three deaf pattern in several shades.

The era of Blair Pottery came to and end in the Mid-50’s when lightening struck the factory building in Ozark and the resulting fire burned it to the ground. Bill Blair, who had overseen the operation each day, was weary of being tied to the business, and chose not to rebuild.

Prices for Blair dinnerware are still reasonable. For example. a coffee server sells for approximately $45; a five-piece place setting, $35; a creamer and sugar or 14-inch platter, $20; a stick-handled gravy bowl, $18; and ice-lip jug, $25. Prices for most patterns are approximately the same for comparable pieces.

While dinnerware produced in the 1940s-1950s was out of favor with the public for many years, recently it has been rediscovered by savvy collectors who see a certain charm in the quirky designs. 

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 "Antiques of Christmas" in the 2021 Holiday 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.

Figural Cookie Jars Still Hold Delicious Delights

QUESTION: I’ve come across two old cookie jars when cleaning out my parents home and wondered if they are worth anything. Are they collectible?

ANSWER: Cookie jars don't have to be old to have substantial value since collectors determine a jar’s value  by design, rarity and condition more than its age. Though the British used covered jars of cut glass and silver made especially to hold shortbread biscuits during the 19th Century, thus the name “biscuit jar,” it was the American pottery jar that first caught the eye of collectors.

The first American cookie jars, either glass or pottery, gained popularity at the start of the Great Depression in 1929. Shaped like covered glass cylinders or pots with screw-on lids, these early cookie containers were more utilitarian than decorative although they were often painted with floral or leaf decorations.
                                   
The Brush Pottery Company of Zanesville, Ohio, produced the first ceramic cookie jar, in green and with "Cookies" painted on the front. The company marked their jars with “Brush USA.”
By the mid-1930s, stoneware became the predominant material for American cookie jars.

As the end of the 1930s decade dawned, most manufacturers followed the move to molded pottery, and designers became more innovative as they began to produce cookie jars in figural shapes resembling fruits, vegetables, animals, and other whimsical characters such as Goldilocks.

The golden age of American cookie jars got underway in 1940 and lasted until 1970, with several manufacturers rising to prominence, including the Red Wing, McCoy, Brush,. Hull, Regal China, Metlox, Shawnee, and Robinson-Ransbottom companies. Many of these companies located in the clay-rich Ohio River Valley. By the mid-1940s, cartoons and comics inspired many makers to reproduce the popular characters of the day–Superman, Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, Mickey Mouse, and Woody Woodpecker, to name a few.

Collectors love McCoy cookie jars. The company, based in Roseville, Ohio, produced cookie jars from about 1939 until 1987. Their first jar–the “Mammy” cookie jar–is today one of the most valuable.

American Bisque of Williamstown, West Virginia is recognized as another top U. S. manufacturer, beginning in the mid-1930s. They’re particularly well known for the cartoon characters which they translated into cookie jars, and they marked them “U.S.A.” on the bottom.

Other well respected U.S. manufacturers are known for particular cookie jars or series, such as Metlox of California, maker of the highly sought after Little Red Riding Hood jar, and the Abingdon Pottery of Illinois, maker of the Mother Goose jar series.

Today, with the advent of Zip-Loc packaging and plastic, air-tight containers, the cookie jar, for the most part, has gone the way of the horse and buggy and the Ford Edzel. But the nostalgia lives in on the cookie jar collections of hundreds of admirers who long for those good old days and the delicious homemade cookies found inside these jars.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 24,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about vintage games in the 2019 Holiday Edition, "Games, Games, and More Games," 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 Whimsy of Murano Glass

QUESTION: My mother had this colorful little glass owl, and I had it sitting downstairs for many years on a shelf and had forgotten about it. Actually, I never liked it. But I knew nothing about it. I've tried and tried to find out about it online, but discovered nothing that would help me identify it. Do you know anything about it? Is it from the 1960s or 1970s?

ANSWER: Your owl vase comes from the Island of Murano in the Venetian Lagoon. While Murano glass has been made for several centuries, collecting antique pieces may be a bit over the budget of most people. However, pieces like this one from the 1960s are much more affordable and do pop up at flea markets from time to time.

Murano glass objects have gone up in price in recent years. Those items made in the 1950s are especially popular because of their reasonable prices. Typically, Murano pieces are low bowls and ashtrays with abstract shapes. Some are rounded or blobbed, kind of like an amoeba. Others have pointed "fingers" in the design which reach outward or up in many directions. A few stand higher, with fingers reaching upward to form a handle for a basket. There are also bud vases. All are have deep, vibrant colors, and all are heavy and have polished smooth bottoms.

Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Veneto, or Venetian Lagoon, less than a mile north of Venice. Today, it has a population of over 5,000 and is famous for its glassmaking. This reputation as a center for glassmaking came about when the Venetian Republic, fearing fire and destruction of the city's mostly wooden buildings, ordered glassmakers to move their foundries to Murano in 1291. The glassmakers of Murano have specialized in fancy glasswares ever since.

They developed or refined many glassmaking technologies, including crystalline glass, smalto or enameled glass, goldstone or golden glass, mullefiori or multicolored filement glass, lattimo or milk glass, and imitation gemstones made of glass. Today, the artisans of Murano still use these centuries-old techniques, crafting everything from contemporary art glass and glass figurines to Murano glass chandeliers, as well as tourist souvenirs..

Murano glassmakers eventually became the island’s most prominent citizens. By the 14th century, glassmakers could wear swords, enjoyed immunity from prosecution by the Venetian state, and had permission for their daughters to marry into Venice’s most affluent families. But there was a downside. Glassmakers weren’t allowed to leave the Republic. Anyone caught exporting professional glasmaking secrets was put to death. Many craftsmen took this risk and set up glass furnaces in surrounding cities and as far afield as England and the Netherlands. By the end of the 16th century, three thousand of Murano island's seven thousand inhabitants were involved in some way in the glassmaking industry.

The late 19th century saw a resurgence in the art of glassmaking on Murano. By the turn of the 20th century, they only produced special pieces for La Biennale di Venezia, the Venice Biennale, an international art exhibition that began in 1895.

Following World War I, the glassmaking factories began normal production of non-traditional pieces. By the 1930s, they began producing pieces in the Art Deco style. This continued until the Biennale of 1942, at which the Murano glassmakers outdid themselves by exhibiting pieces in exciting shapes and colors that brought a lift to war-weary Venice.

Some of Murano's historical glass factories, including De Biasi, Gabbiani, Venini, Salviati, Barovier & Toso, Pauly, Berengo Studio, Seguso, Formia International, Murno Gladst, Simone Cenedese, Alessandro Mandruzzato, Vetreria Ducale, Estevan Rossetto 1950, remain well known brands today,. The oldest glass factory is Antica Vetreria Fratelli Toso, founded in 1854.

Overall, the Murano glass industry has been shrinking as demand has waned. Imitation works from Asia and Eastern Europe have stolen an estimated 40-45 percent of the market for Murano glass, and public tastes have changed while the designs in Murano have largely stayed the same. The difficult and low-paying nature of the work has decreased  the number of professional glassmakers in Murano from about 6000 in 1990 to fewer than 1000 today.

Today, about 50 companies use the Artistic Glass Murano® trademark of origin.  Regionale di Veneto Law Numero.70, passed in 1994, introduced this trademark and continues to regulate it. While glass factories on Murano aren’t required to apply for the trademark and many choose not to, works that bear it have their authenticity guaranteed.

One of the main characteristics of Murano glass is its bubble-free quality. By adding fluxes and stabilizers such as soda and lime to silica sand, glassmakers can melt the glass at a lower temperature, making the glass homogeneous and bubble free. While basic Murano glass is colorless, the addition of small amounts of minerals, oxides, and chemical derivatives to the base composition of the glass powder gives it its brilliant colors.

Today, the island of Murano is synonymous with glass. Everything imaginable is made from Murano glass: wine goblets, vases, candlestick holders, miniature animals, paperweights, chandeliers, lampshades, dinner services, tiny pieces of glass candy, beads, and every kind of jewelry you can imagine. There’s tremendous variety in quality, price, and style. When it’s quickly turned out for a cheap profit among the tourist trade, it can look hideous. When it’s well done, Murano glass is exquisitely beautiful.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 24,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about vintage games in the 2019 Holiday Edition, "Games, Games, and More Games," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

For My Lady’s Dressing Table

QUESTION: When I was a little girl back in the early 1950s, I remember my mother’s skirted dressing table with its many glass and silver boxes, which contained her combs and her perfumes and the fine white powder she used when she went out. Sometimes when she was busy doing something, I would sneak into her bedroom and sit at her dressing table and play with her dressing set, pretending to be a big girl. Now that I’m older and have been all grown up for quite a while, I’d like to find out more about those early dressing sets. I’ve seen some at flea markets, but I have no idea if they’re worth much. Can you help me?

ANSWER:  Dressing table sets first became fashionable in the 18th century. Back then, a variety of items may have graced a lady’s dressing table, including comb and brush sets, little boxes, and perfume bottles. 

Perhaps the most beautiful items of the Victorian lady's dressing table were the brush sets, which included hair brushes, clothes brushes, hat brushes, combs and a hand mirror. These sets became fashionable in the second half  of the 18th century.

Leading silversmiths of the time backed many of them with engraved silver. Others used ivory or tortoiseshell backs, sometimes inlaid with the fancy scrolled monogram of the owner in silver.

Combs have been in existence since ancient Egypt. The Romans taught the Britons to use  combs rather than go through their hair with four fingers. An early alternative to the comb was a scratching stick, often in the form of a hand or bird's foot carved in ivory or hardwood, which ladies might also use to relieve their itching scalps.

There were two categories of combs. Ladies used back, puff and side combs to hold their hair in place after having it styled. Both men and women used dressing and folding combs to arrange their hair, These dressing combs were often part of fancy brush sets.



Early comb makers used cattle horn, ivory, and tortoiseshell for their combs, as well as wood, bone and metal. Ivory and tortoiseshell were the most desirable and costly. At the end of the 19th century, a cheaper substitute for ivory was Xylonite, also called French Ivory, an early form of white plastic sold by the Xylonite Company. Few of these sets have survived because when the brushes wore out, a woman would discard the entire set.

In addition to comb and brush sets, a variety of boxes adorned ladies’ dressing tables. First made in the 17th century, dresser boxes contained a number of tiny compartments and drawers to hold trinkets, jewelry, and other items, and often had a mirror fitted in the inside of them. Today, these have become known generically as “jewelry boxes.”

Patch boxes are small elegant boxes used to store patchet, worn by wealthy women to hide an imperfection or to draw attention to a pleasing facial feature. Made from a variety of materials, patchet were often shaped
like tiny hearts, circles or diamonds.

But powder boxes were the most essential item on the dressing table. Figural ones took the form of half dolls or ballet dancers. From 1870 to 1920 a woman could wear powder without being considered a prostitute, so these boxes appeared in large quantities. A few of them contained a tiny puff, made of fibers or cotton with a tiny handle sticking up.

Another container to hold powder was the talc, a small elongated container similar to a salt  shaker. A lady shook some talc out on her fingers to help ease the often tight-fitting kid gloves onto her hands.

But one of the largest and most ornate containers found on a dressing table was the porcelain trinket box, made by Limoges, Capodimonte, and other European and Asian porcelain companies. Ladies used it to hold button-cufflinks. odd pieces of jewelry, or small souvenirs,. Some featured hand-painted flowers, designs and portraits and came lined with colored plush or velvet. The more elaborate boxes had interior division and trays.

Another required item on a lady’s dressing table was the perfume bottle. The tradition of encasing perfumes in expensive and beautiful containers is an ancient one. Ancient Egyptians used alabaster bottles to store perfumes, due to its density and coolness to prevent evaporation, but they also used elaborate blown glass perfume containers.


The variety of 18th century perfume containers was as wide as that of their fragrances and uses. Liquid perfume came in beautiful Louis XIV-style pear-shaped porcelain bottles. Glass perfume bottles became increasingly popular.



Fine china makers brought out all sorts of dainty things for the dressing table. The hairpin holder, hair receiver, pin tray, manicure set and the small tray upon which it lies, powder boxes, cold-cream casket, lotion bottles, rouge pot, comb and brush, jewel boxes, frames of the hand and triple mirrors, bonbonniere, perfume bottles, sachet holders and the cunning little barrel for small change were all of china and all matched and decorated with small isolated flowers pansies, violets or daisies—scattered carelessly over the entire surface.

Although not as common as porcelain dresser sets, matched dresser sets in cut glass, pressed glass and milk glass appeared in the late 19th century. Cut glass colognes came in a variety of shapes. The stoppers might have matched the design or have been made of silver.

Dressing table sets can range from perhaps $25 at a flea market to over $300,000 at auction, depending on when they were made. Finding one from the 18th century in one piece will be a challenge.

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