It's All in the Pattern

 

QUESTION: I recently purchased a summer quilt with a sunburst pattern. It really brightens up my day to see the sun spread out on my bed. How did women come up with patterns like this? The patterns I’ve seen on quilts seem to be endless.

ANSWER: Quilts originated as a practical need but eventually they also became personal works of art. They served as window and door coverings. Hanging quilts on the dirt walls of a sod house made them seem more homelike. Quilts could serve as privacy walls, creating sleeping areas in a sod house or one room cabin. Quilts folded and laid on a board placed between two chairs became a sofa.

Patterned quilts have been around for a long time. While some appeared in Colonial times, the peak time for pattern quilts was the second half of the 19th century. Most quilts took hundreds of hours of work. Although some individuals did make the older ones, the most intricate ones were the result of a group of women sewing together in what became known as a “quilting bee.”

During the years between the American Revolution and the beginning of the westward migration, bedcovers blossomed with cotton cutouts salvaged from leftover bits of expensive European chintz. Women carefully snipped around the bird and floral motifs of the imported chintzes and appliquéd them on fields of plain domestic cloth to make the most of the patterned fabric available to them. Known as patchwork quilts, these served a practical purpose—to keep people warm in bed at night.

The pioneers spent up to a year preparing for their trip West. Besides drying and preserving foods and purchasing coffee and beans and barrels of sugar and flour, they packed dishes, clothing, utensils, needles and thread. And they made quilts. The emigration guides suggested that each family should bring enough bedding so that each man, woman and child would have two to three blankets or quilts. They packed some of their quilts in trunks and kept others for daily use.

But it was during the years of the westward journey, from 1840 to 1870, that women stitched the majority of patchwork quilts. As families moved west, fabric became scarce, so women creatively used what they had. While their Colonial forebearers used bits of leftover fabric, pioneer women also used pieces of old clothing and household linens. They stitched these scraps together in designated patterns with some pretty folksy names—the Hole in the Barn Door, Rocky Mountain Puzzle, Log Cabin, Galaxy of Stars, and hundreds of others that reflected the joys and sorrows of pioneer women’s lives. Only rarely did quilters use new pieces of cloth.

Another type of quilt popular at the time was the crazy quilt, a seemingly wild pattern made more coherent by a series of straight seams. Because of a lack of space and quilting supplies, individual pioneer women often assembled lap-sized quilts suitable for throwing over the legs when riding in a wagon or carriage in cold weather. 

The crazy quilt is the oldest quilt pattern. Early quilters used any scrap or remnant available, regardless of its color, design, or fabric type. They fitted and stitched together pieces of worn out clothing, women's calico dresses, men's pants and shirts, household linens, and other oddly shaped fabric scraps.

Crazy quilts, which Victorian women also used to decorate their parlors featured rich colors and textures and displayed fine embroidery skills. Victorian quilters filled their quilts with bits and pieces of their personal past; a piece of father's vest, a husband's tie, lace from a wedding veil, or ribbons commemorating political events. The result was a riot of color with a story behind each scrap.

The quilts of the late 1800s illustrate the extravagance of the Victorian age. In fact, the quilts that most typify those years aren’t really quilts at all, but thin parlor throws meant to thrill the eye—not warm the body. At home on the tabletops, sofa arms, and piano backs of overstuffed parlors, these throws had neither quilting nor batting. Yet, in their own splashy way, they were as much masterworks of American stitchery as their pioneer predecessors.

Pieced from the best silks, satins, and velvets—materials newly available to the growing middle class—the patchwork throws of this era are rich mosaics of color and texture, emphasizing proficiency in embroidery and the mastering of different types of stitches. Women's magazines of the day printed detailed embroidery instructions for anyone to follow.

Quilt patterns varied widely. While the patchwork quilt was usually more of an overall design, quilters created specific patterns that have been passed down to today. Four of them—the None Patch, the Pinwheel, the Double Wedding Ring, and the Eight Point Star, and all their variations–were particularly popular. 

The Nine Patch is one of the simplest and quickest quilts to sew, and because it was a good way to use up every small scrap of fabric available, it was used often. On the prairie, sewing was an essential skill. Young girls learned to sew blocks before they learned to read. At an early age, often as young as 3 or 4, girls were taught to piece simple blocks such as the Nine Patch. Many were very skilled at piecing a block by age 5.

The Pinwheel pattern first appeared in pioneer quilting during the 1840s. It developed as a  representation of the water pump windmills found on farms or small towns along the trails westward.  Water was not only necessary for cooking, drinking and bathing, but it was also a power source especially in timber and grain mills. Quilters considered the pinwheel quilt to not only be decorative, it also paid homage to the  windmill that allowed them to survive pioneer life.

During the early 20th century, women's tastes shifted from dark colors to a rainbow of pastel colors—mint greens, lemon yellows, and watermelon pinks. The Double Wedding Ring was a pattern that lent itself well to pastel fabrics. A feature of many Double Wedding Ring quilts was its scalloped edge created by the circles that made up the quilt.

The Double Wedding Ring pattern dates back to the 15th century. It was reminiscent of the “Gimmal ring,” a popular engagement ring in which the betrothed couple each wore one ring during their engagement, and then the rings were interlocked during the wedding ceremony and worn by the wife.

The quilt pattern can be found as early as the late 19th Century. It had long  long been a symbol of love and romance with its interlocking rings symbolizing marriage. The quilt was traditionally made by Mothers and grandmothers made these quilts for their children and gave them as gifts on their wedding day or anniversaries.

Stars were probably the most common pattern used on quilts. Homesteaders traveling West used the stars for guidance, plus they considered stars as religious symbols of their faith in God.

There were hundreds of star patterns. Some quilts had just one large radiating star, often called the Star of Bethlehem or Blazing Star, while in others, quilters used dozens of smaller stars. The simplest and most popular star pattern was the eight Point Star.

A star pattern wasn’t an easy design to cut or sew. Quilters had to be precise, as any inaccuracy in cutting or piecing became worse as the quilter added pieces. If poorly pieced, the quilt wouldn’t lie flat when finished. An intricate star pattern was one way for a quilter to show her needlework skills.

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 "The World of Art Nouveau" in the 2022 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.

The Hidden Bed

QUESTION: My husband and I recently purchased an older home. After we closed the sale, we discovered a Murphy bed in one of the smaller bedrooms. Though the bed needs some refurbishment and a new mattress, it’s seems to be in working order. Can you tell me more about Murphy beds and perhaps how old this bed might be.

ANSWER: Murphy beds have been around since the early 20th century. They have been made continuously by various companies, so it’s difficult to tell how old your bed is.

The Industrial Revolution brought with it lots of innovative ideas for convertible furniture, but it wasn’t until immigrants began arriving in greater numbers in the latter part of the 19th century that some of these came into common use. Whole families often had to live in one room—eating, relaxing, and sleeping in the same space—so that they needed furniture that served dual purposes. Beds stand out as the primary convertible piece of furniture most wanted by urban dwellers at the time. 

By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the rolling trundle bed had become a common piece of furniture in homes. This large rectangular box rolled under high bedsteads for storage during the day. At night, an adult or child would pull on a rope and drag the bed out for sleeping.

A Murphy bed, on the other hand—also called a wall bed, pull down bed, fold-down bed, or hidden bed—is one that’s hinged at one end to store vertically against the wall, or inside of a closet or cabinet.

William Lawrence Murphy invented the Murphy Bed around 1900 in San Francisco. Legend says that he was falling for a young opera singer and courting customs at that time wouldn’t permit a lady to enter a gentleman’s bedroom. His invention allowed him to stow his bed in his closet, transforming his one-room apartment from a bedroom into a parlor.

Murphy then formed the Murphy Bed Company and patented his “In-A-Door” bed in 1908. He never trademarked the name “Murphy Bed.” 

Earlier fold-up beds had existed and were even available through the Sears Catalog, but Murphy introduced pivot and counterbalanced designs for which he received a series of patents. 

In 1911, William L. Murphy filed a patent for what he called his “disappearing bed.” His innovative design enabled a person to convert a bedroom to a sitting room by folding the bed back into a chifforobe-style cabinet mounted to the wall. 

Most Murphy beds don’t have box springs. Instead, the mattress usually lies on a platform or mesh, held in place so as not to sag when in a closed position. The mattress is often attached with elastic straps to hold the mattress in position when the unit is folded upright.

One of the most unique hideaway beds was the convertible piano bed from 1885. This piece could be placed in the family’s parlor and by day the room would look stylish and functional as not everyone could even afford a piano. Then by night it was a bed, affording a large family more flexibility with their sleeping arrangements. Later Murphy beds catered to the poor, but early versions may have appealed to middle and upper classes as curiosities.

Sarah Goode, the co-owner of a furniture store in Chicago with her carpenter husband, filed a patent in 1885 a patent for a “cabinet bed,” more commonly known as a “bed in a box.” Goode’s customers often complained that they liked the furniture she and her husband sold but simply didn’t have anywhere to put it in their small, urban homes.

So Goode set about inventing a folding cabinet bed that when not in use looked like a desk standing against the wall. Goode’s design was far more elaborate than a bed-in-a-box. Her folding bed unit had hinged sections that were easily raised or lowered by an adult.

Essentially, when the user folded the cabinet down, it changed shape revealing a bed. The concept wasn’t new since other manufacturers had developed “hideaway” beds that could be found in early Sears catalogs. Many of the manufacturers of these pieces had factories in Indiana. 

Unlike Murphy beds or piano beds, Goode’s cabinet bed was movable and short in stature, allowing for a safer experience and ease in moving the bed around the room. Upright hideaway beds need to be fixed to the wall so that they didn’t topple over, but cabinet beds could be freestanding.

Another feature that separated Goode’s design from all but the piano bed was that her roll-top cabinet desk-bed was actually a functional desk, with working storage and a writing surface to be accessed when not in bed form. It isn’t known if Goode’s furniture company made these beds or if she licensed her patent to other furniture makers. However, an existing cabinet-desk-bed from the era doesn’t mention anything about Goode or her patent, instead it bears the label of A.H. Andrews & Company, based in Chicago, that claim to be the sole manufacturer of such a bed.

Today both new and antique Murphy beds are quite costly, most selling for at least $1,200 to $1,500 for either.

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.

Early Bank Notes Reveal a History of Our Country

QUESTION: My dad collected old currency and coins. Some of the currency is quite old and doesn’t look anything like today’s money. What can you tell me about this bill? And why is it so different from the currency we use today?

ANSWER: American banknotes have not always been green. In the mid-19th century, banknotes contained a rainbow of colors. By examining these paper artifacts, Collectors can take a tour of America circa 1800.

Prior to the Civil War. the U.S. government didn't regularly issue paper money. But people still needed to use some form of currency, so banks issued their own paper money—bank notes.



Many types of notes circulated during this era, known as the golden age of U.S. currency, which generally began in the late 18th century and lasted until the Civil War. The most common type of note, the "demand note," entitled the bearer to a certain monetary amount. Individuals would deposit something of value in the bank (usually herd current stock), and the bank would issue to the individual on-demand notes that he or she could use as a vehicle of exchange to purchase items from a merchant who could then redeem the note with the bank, that "on demand" would exchange the bank for gold or silver coins issued by the federal government.



A bank's capital, which often appears on the banknote, (capital $1,000,000), guaranteed the value of these notes, and for this reason, two officials often signed each note to ensure that a greater amount in banknotes was nut issued than the bank could cover. Private hanks and public banks, which obtained a charter to operate, and savings banks, which operated under a different set of rules, all issued the demand note. Some demand noted contained a space in which a bank official wrote a payee's name and thus allowed a bank to specify the identity of the hearer, who would endorse the note by signing its often blank reverse as one would endorse a modern cheek. Other types of notes circulated as well. Post notes worked like bonds and were redeemable only after a predetermined time noted on the bill (e.g. "redeemable after six months").



Private merchants also issued notes, sometimes referred to as scrip, which they used to pay employees. Some laborers were paid only in scrip, which was generally redeemable only at company 'stores. This often led to the economic enslavement of laborers who "owed their soul to the company store." Railroads, shipping lines and many other type, of merchants issued notes to their employees.

While the bank note system worked, poor or dubious business practices threatened the integrity of the private and state banking system that ran amok in the first half of the 19th century.

Most of the time, banks were honest. But stories of fraud were rampant. banks that issued more money than their capital guaranteed and banks with a phantom capital, or no money to guarantee their notes.

This led to the distrust of unfamiliar hanks, and as a result, the notes did not work well for inter-state banking. A merchant in one state wouldn’t honor a bank note from an unfamiliar bank in another.

With so many different bank notes circulating, the proliferation of fakes or counterfeit notes was inevitable. The sheer number of issuers and varieties of notes issued—more  than 1,600 banks in 34 states collectively issued more than 10,000 varieties—provided the hungry counterfeiter with a virtual smorgasbord.

The word counterfeit refers to an illegally replicated note. Some genuine notes had their denominations altered; consequently, the alteration raised the value of the note, hence the name "raised note." A variation on this theme, the "altered" note also appeared. An altered note was a genuine note altered to look like another bank's product. The more artistically inclined produced original designs and added a legitimate hank's name on the notes, thus creating a spurious note.

In fact, so many counterfeit notes circulated—some 55.000 varieties—that bank officials began to stamp or handwrote the word “counterfeit” across the surface of the note.

During the Civil War, the U.S.Congress took action to end private issuance of banknotes. Congress passed legislation that forbade the private issuance of currency, and the federal government began issuing its own notes. Banks could still issue currency bearing their own name, but to do so, they needed to obtain a charter from the federal government, which entitled them to issue notes, known as National Bank Notes, supplied by the federal government.



The new notes led to the modern association of money with the color green. This relative lack of variety could make the counterfeiter's job much harder, though, and the number of attempted counterfeits dwindled.



The most interesting aspect of obsolete banknotes is the detailed and often colorful vignettes they contain, which collectively offer a lithographic history of American culture. Each bank note told a story. A $1 note from The Merchants and Planters Bank f Savannah. Ga., for examplel, contained the image of a covered wagon. When the note was issued in the 1830s, the covered wagon would have been the preeminent mode of transportation taken by settlers traveling to the Western territories.



Scrip from the Delaware Mine on Michigan's Upper Peninsula features the image or a copper finer wielding a pickax. A $5 note from the. Bank of the Commonwealth in Richmond, 'a., contain, the image of planters standing next to the barrel of tobacco—one of the crops that drove Virginia's economy in the antebellum era. Moments frozen in time, dense images offer the closest thing possible to a photograph of 19th century life.

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  La Belle Epoque in the 2020 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.

The American Look of Danish Modern

QUESTION:  My wife’s mother bought this piece of furniture around 1976.  It seemed to be an antique back then. The label on the back says it’s from Meier & Pohlman Furniture Company.   I looked online and haven’t found anything quite like it with a curved top. I’m interested in knowing more about this piece?  Can you lead me in the right direction?

ANSWER: I can do better than lead you in the right direction. I can take you there. But first, you need to know more about what style your cabinet is. This china cabinet is a form of Danish Modern, an American version in fact, that was originally part of a suite of dining furniture. The Meier & Pohlman Furniture Company made it in the early 1950s.

Danish modern is a style of minimalist furniture and housewares from Denmarkthat originated with the Danish design movement. In the 1920s, Kaare Klint embraced the principles of Bauhaus modernism in furniture design, creating clean, pure lines based on an understanding of classical furniture craftsmanship coupled with careful research of materials, proportions and the requirements of the human body. With designers such as Arne Jacobsen and Hans Wegner and associated cabinetmakers, Danish furniture thrived from the 1940s through the 1960s. Adopting mass-production techniques and concentrating on form rather than just function, Finn Juhl contributed to the style's success.

Adopting the Functionalist trend of abandoning ornamentation in favor of form, he nonetheless maintained the warmth and beauty inherent in traditional Danish cabinet making, as well as high-quality craftsmanship and materials. His use of teak wood added warmth to his pieces.



The development of modern Danish furniture owes much to the collaboration between architects and cabinetmakers. Cabinetmaker A. J. Iversen, who had successfully exhibited furniture from designs by architect Kay Gottlob at the Paris World Exhibition in 1925, encouraged further partnerships. In 1927, with a view to encouraging innovation and stimulating public interest, the Danish Cabinetmakers Guild organized a furniture exhibition in Copenhagen which occurred annually until 1967. It fostered collaboration between cabinetmakers and designers, creating a number of lasting partnerships including those between Rudolph Rasmussen and Kaare Klint, A. J. Iversen and Ole Wanscher, and Erhard Rasmussen and Børge Mogensen.

Following World War II, Danish designers and architects believed that design could be used to improve people's lives. Particular attention was given to creating affordable furniture and household objects that were both functional and elegant. The fruitful cooperation ensued, combining Danish craftsmanship with innovative design. Initially, the furniture was handmade, but recognizing that their work would sell better if prices were reduced, the designers soon turned to factory production. Interest in Danish Modern in the United States began when Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. from the Museum of Modern Art purchased some items for the Fallingwater home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. This ultimately led to mass-production in the United States, too.

The scarcity of materials after the Second World War encouraged the use of plywood. By the 1940s, the development of new techniques led to the mass production of bent plywood designs by Hans Wegner and Børge Mogensen. They used beechwood for their furniture frames with a teak overlay.

From the beginning of the 1950s, American manufacturers obtained licenses for the mass production of Danish designs while maintaining high standards of craftsmanship. Later, they altered their designs to suit American tastes and introduced American parts  to reduce costs. One of these furniture manufacturers was the Meier and Pohlmann Furniture Company of St. Louis, Missouri.



From 1891 until 1959, the Meier and Pohlman Company manufactured fine wooden furniture. The company's original factory stood close to the Mississippi River, on Second Street. By 1874, when John Meier and John Pohlmann founded their company, lumber yards, saw mills, and other woodworking establishments already crowded this area. Here they had easy access to the rafts of white pine logs floated down the river from Wisconsin and Minnesota. The depletion of the northern forests, however, forced St. Louis furniture makers turned to other sources of wood by the beginning of the 20th century. Meier and Pohlmann, for instance, increasingly relied on rail shipments of oak from Missouri and the Carolinas.

The firm's relocation to Fourteenth Street in St. Louis in 1891 reflected the general westward movement of people and industry in the neighborhood while its tremendous success mirrored the growth of the furniture industry in St. Louis at that time. By 1906, the city ranked first in the country in terms of the volume of furniture produced and its market extended across much of the American West. Initially, Meier and Pohlmann recruited skilled cabinetmakers from Germany to work in their factory. The sons and grandsons of these original workers comprised a large part of the labor force well into the 20th century. Contracts with Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward gave the company a national market for its fine dining room furniture after 1938.

Unfortunately, a dramatic increase in shipping rates and a shift in the public’s interest to the new Mediterranean style, ultimately led to the company's closure in 1959.

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.

One Person's Trash is Another's Treasure

QUESTION: I’m new to garage and yard saling. Last year, I went out every Saturday but all I came home with was junk. I collect a number of things and am always looking for additions to my collections. Can you give me some tips on how to make my bargain hunting trips more successful?

ANSWER: It’s Spring time and along with the flowers blooming are the yard and garage sales that seem to pop up everywhere. Fifty years ago—yes, that’s how long they’ve been going on—there weren’t that many and people had lots of interesting things to sell. But today competition is fierce, not only from other garage and yard sales but from eBay and other online sales sites. So what’s the secret?

While garage and estate sales are great venues for bargain hunters, there are sometimes way too many bargain hunters for the number of bargains out there. It used to be—and generally still is—that the contents sold at garage sales represent items the seller has outgrown physically and/or emotionally. On the other hand , the articles offered in estate and moving sales typically reflect an array of accumulated household goods spanning one to three generations. Both of these types of sales have become American institutions.

Whether you’re an antiques collector or just like decorative arts, collectibles, books or toys, chances are you’ll find something in these sales that fits your fancy.

To be a successful bargain hunter requires organization and planning. Those who just hop in their cars and head for the nearest neighborhood sale are likely to be disappointed. But the experienced garage saler is another animal altogether. If you’re looking for items to add to your collections, make a want list before you go so that you can spot an item you want when you get there.



This will help you stay focused in your pursuit of bargains. It’s way too easy to get sidetracked when encountering unexpected bargains at sales. Before you know it, you’ll have spent all the money you brought along. Remember, garage and estate sales don’t take credit cards.  Prioritize your stops according to your interests. If you’re after antiques and collectibles, go through the Garage Sale ads in the classifieds or look at yard sale and neighborhood sites on the Internet. Highlight those sales that emphasize antiques and collectibles. Garage and estate sales in established or older neighborhoods usually offer the best selection of these items while those in newer developments offer contemporary items like clothing, cheap furniture, and kids’ toys.

When setting up your schedule, decide if you’re making a full day of it. If so, plan accordingly. Pack up your vehicle the night before with equipment to make your bargain hunting easier. Besides a measuring tape, veteran garage salers take along the classifieds ads relevant to the day's tour, a map, magnifying glass, snacks, a variety of fresh batteries, packing materials, boxes, and a sufficient amount of cash in small bills. Check the weather forecast and oordinate your attire around it. Wear comfortable shoes and layered clothing, especially if the weather forecast is uncertain. Also carry a   transparent shopping bag—it prevents anyone from accusing you of stealing—and a fanny pack. The lesser amount of gear and clothing accessories you have to deal with, the easier it will be to shop.

Most sales start between 8 and 9 A.M., although some begin as early as 7 A.M. Although the early bird catches the best bargains, don’t show up at a sale way before the start time and pester the seller. An old trick is to tell the seller a story about your sick aunt and how you have to get home to take care of her or some such fiction. This or similar ploys are usually used by pickers who want to get the “pick” of the goods. Another trick is when they show up early as the seller is setting up and distract the seller by constant questions, hoping that the seller will give in and sell them something—anything to get rid of them. The larger the sale and more important the sale's items, the larger the number of buyers and the earlier the attendees will arrive.

As soon as you arrive at a sale, take a quick overview of it and decide where you want to head. Don't be timid as far as asking where particular items are located if you can't find them. The sooner you get to the items you want, the quicker you can claim them.



Generally, all sales are final. Therefore, always inspect your goods carefully before you purchase. Concentrate on items in good, complete and working condition. If the article is electrical, ask to plug it in at an available outlet so you know it works. Battery- operated items lacking batteries can be tested by those that you have brought along.

Shoppers like bargains and often want to barter. Sometimes, this works, especially at garage sales. If you think an item is too expensive, it doesn’t hurt to propose a lower price or ask what the seller’s best price might be.




Another option in finding bargains is to return on the second day of the sale, if it’s a two-day affair. Usually sellers will reduce the prices so that they can get rid of their items. Of course, you risk the possibility your treasure may have already been bought by someone else. Leaving a reasonable offer with your name and phone number is another way if you feel the object's price is beyond your means. It gives the seller an alternative if the piece hasn’t sold by the end of the sale.

When buying furniture, appliances and/or other bulky items, try to arrange for a timely, later pickup convenient with the seller. Always retain a receipt that identifies you as the new owner and present this information on your return. If you can fit in some of the piece's components, take them the day of the sale, as this will ultimately lighten your final load and prevent the seller from selling your purchase to someone else—believe it or not, this happens. And when you go to pick up your purchase, don’t’ rely on tools or manpower on the part of the seller. It’s up to you to provide both the proper gear and muscle called for.

In the end, chances are when you unpack the treasures from your day's hunt, you’ll discover you not only saved some money, but you also made some outstanding purchases. After all, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

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 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about western antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook. 

History on the Dining Table

QUESTION: Ever since I began collecting antiques, I’ve always been fascinated by the beautiful Staffordshire transferware designs on dinnerware. Recently, I saw several stunning pieces at an antique show. These featured American battle scenes and images of historical sites. I thought transferware had only bucolic scenes of the English countryside. Why did English potters produce this type of ware and when was it popular?

ANSWER: That’s a very good question. In fact, most Americans today probably don’t know that English potters were some of our country’s staunch supporters, even risking near treason to do so.

It was bad enough that American soldiers defeated the British in the Revolutionary War, but then on December 14, 1815, the British military conceded defeat to the Americans for a second time. Josiah Wedgwood, a prominent 18th-century English potter, had proclaimed the American Revolutionary War a serious mistake for Britain. He and his fellow potters of the Staffordshire district felt no better about the War of 1812. After all, with the destruction,   blockades, and hatred it generated, warfare was bad for business since the Americans had always been good customers.



To make amends, the Staffordshire potters promptly began decorating their dinner services, tea sets, and assorted crockery with scenes of American military victories guaranteed to make   Americans proud while leaving British generals and admirals glowering in disgust. To add to the victories, the potters exported dinnerware with images of America's war heroes, elder statesmen and favorite politicians. With these, the potters of Staffordshire won back the hearts of their American customers. Historical Staffordshire became the success the potters had hoped for—an economic victory where the British military had failed.

Historical Staffordshire wares were popular, durable, mass-produced in quantity and reasonably priced. They reached a wide audience and offer today’s collectors with fascinating glimpses of America’s past.

Although the Staffordshire potteries produced mugs, pitchers, foot baths, and chamber pots, dinnerware and tea services dominated production of historical Staffordshire ceramics. The potteries first produced it in pearlware and later in a number of durable white wares. Both pearl and white wares were almost as white as porcelains but were rugged enough to survive rough oceanic voyages. Artists decorated the earliest of these with printed transfers in deep cobalt blue that had become popular in the United States. A wider range of colors followed in the 1830s. Running short of military victories and notable personages, the potteries turned to more peaceful subjects, such as individual buildings, towns, idyllic landscapes, and the newest advances in Victorian transportation.

Staffordshire potteries manufactured historical dinnerware from about 1820 to 1860, reaching the height of its popularity between 1820 and 1845.

Printing scandalous portraitures to promote sales was nothing new to the Staffordshire potters. Putting pots before principle was an old habit. Britain’s politicians had long been lampooned and her military heroes hailed on transfer printed pots and mugs to promote sales at home.

During the War of 1812, industrious British engravers supported the cause of American freedom with near-treasonable anti-government images of cringing British lions emblazoned with insulting, anti-English slogans. These could be slipped out through the neutral Netherlands and taken to shore by any number of unrecorded vessels navigating up lesser traveled American waterways.

The designs on historical Staffordshire wares were examples of an early mass- production technique of the growing Industrial Revolution, transfer printing. England's potters developed the technique during the 18th century and perfected it in the 19th century. Industrialization provided British potters with the most rapidly growing stock of earthenware bodies in history. Transfer printing allowed them to quickIy produce large numbers of identically decorated wares from this stock for the first time in potting history. Together the new, white earthenware bodies and the printed patterns would provide a popular, quality ware at a fairly low price, a ware many families of modest means could easily afford.



The quality of the transfer printed pattern, however, was crucial. The artwork determined whether the ware sold well or not. Artists created transfer printed patterns, some of whom had great skill while others didn’t. The largest pottery manufacturers hired their own artist engravers. Smaller companies purchased their patterns from engraving firms. The transfer printing process perfected by Sadler and Green of Liverpool in 1756 allowed a potter to duplicate a pattern by transferring it from an engraved and pigmented copper plate to a ceramic vessel using a specially treated paper.

Artists copied artwork directly from books of the day and from competing engravers' portfolios. They created illustrations for dining services featuring different central prints on each piece, all following a common theme—a "City Series" or a series of "Picturesque Views" for example. Since the central print varied from plate to plate, the artists created a standard border design  to identify the pieces of a single service. Most Staffordshire potters identified specific border designs as their own unique trademarks. In most cases that view was respected. However, smaller companies did copy these designs from time to time.

Women did the meticulous work of correctly placing the inky paper carrying the pattern onto the bisque pottery and for joining the seams of the borders and designs. Most took great care in doing this since they were aware of the Victorian ideal of the "perfect finish." Many of the historical Staffordshire prints how these ladies tried to achieve that ideal. Their printed patterns appear seamless although they placed most of them using several pieces.

However, hastily engraved, copper plates provided transfers that were often larger than the  pottery on which they were to be placed. These oversized patterns, once transferred to their papers, had to be cut and trimmed to fit the smaller vessels. The trimming often led to virtually illegible inscriptions as the women cropped the letters away. While the images frequently remained whole, the words suffered as few of the women trimming the prints could read. They trimmed that which had little meaning to them. Not that it mattered too much because many of their customers couldn’t read either.

And while housewives used historical Stafforshire ware for serving guests and at holidays, eventually the transfer images evolved into peaceful bucolic scenes and souvenir plates.

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 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about western antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

From Boredom to Art

QUESTION: I belong to a reenactor group that specializes in Revolutionary War reenactments. Some of the men carry powder horns as part of their equipment. Most of these are plain reproductions. They serve the purpose. At several larger gatherings of reenactment groups, I’ve seen some beautifully engraved horns. What can you tell me about these engraved horns?  Might they be original or are they reproductions?

ANSWER: Powder horn collectors are a very specialized group. The horns they collect are usually engraved but not all of them are valuable. Today, there are a number of very good reproductions and contemporary powder horns being made. They’re so well done that it’s often impossible to tell the authentic ones from the reproductions.

Powder horns once provided a practical, inexpensive way to carry gun powder for use in the early flintlock and percussion firearms. They were America's first art form. Early settlers had to work so hard there was no time to make art.



The French and Indian War was the catalyst for horn art. Soldiers had a lot of time on their hands and were lonesome. So on their horns they drew images of their houses, trees, their gardens, their dogs, their girlfriends and other things that reminded them of home. But the simple powder horn of the early frontier evolved into personal works of art out of necessity. Soldiers, and perhaps groups of hunters, had to have an obvious way of identifying their horns.

Sometimes they used only their initials. If the horn owner was literate, or knew someone who could copy letters, dates, names and places, he had them engraved onto his horn. Eventually, animals, mythical creatures like mermaids or griffons, birds, snakes, various styles of flowers and vines and all sorts of geometrics decorated powder horns. To make their horns more personal, some men engraved rhymes on their horns. Next to his wife and children, a man’s powder horn was often his most cherished possession.

This high level of artistic competence among common soldiers and pioneers shows that many people in the Colonies must have had art training. Children who went to school learned penmanship and calligraphy which helped in engraving their horns as young adults.



Less artistic soldiers could pay professional hornsmiths, who traveled with the troops, set up tents, and took orders, to customize their horns. Better-paid military officers could afford to set the trend around camp for horns with similar designs. Historians believe there was a community of horn carvers who observed and borrowed from each other's work.

The earliest known American engraved horn, inscribed with the name Daniel Tuttle, dates from 1727. But older doesn't translate into more valuable. Seventeenth-century "pilgrim horns" sell moderately because they were plain and lacked artwork. Most of the classic engraved horns are 13 to 17 inches long. But horns may vary from a few inches to over two feet long. Usually, the bigger the horn is, the older it is, because men took longer forays into the forest to hunt in the 18th century.

Early on, settlers hunted for weeks at a time. As they got more settled, they would go hunting in the afternoon, so they didn't need to carry two or three pounds of powder with them. Because of this, they took smaller horns which they would carry in their bags or pockets.

Early settlers often carried two horns. One was a smaller horn which held fine-grain, faster burning gunpowder used only for priming the pan in early flintlock mechanisms. When percussion replaced flintlocks beginning in the 1830s, most men carried only a single horn in the field.



But many hunters and soldiers ceased using powder horns altogether in the 1830s with the advent of brass flasks and leather pouches.

So how can a collector tell an old horn from a new one. Old engravings often start deep when the knife first enters but then pressure is decreased and the rest of the line has uniform depth. Lines made with a knife and not a dentist's drill won’t end abruptly but will extend beyond the image's outline.

Collectors look for the "warmth and glow" emanating from an antique powder horn. The most prized horns are those with maps engraved on them. Often they show forts or towns along a river. Some originated as guidelines allowing soldiers to find their way back to forts. They became popular Ind eventually were professionally made by hornsmiths. Some map horns, though are believed to have been carved long after the war when soldiers returned tome. In some cases, horns were used as proof of military service, thus qualifying their owners to a pension.

While ordinary 18th- and 19th-century horns are common and usually sell for $10 to $40, those engraved with intricate artwork have attained the level of treasured American folk art worth thousands of dollars. Engraved horns can sell for as little as $34 and as much as $34,000. Many engraved horns came from the area around Lake George, New York, site of Fort Ticonderoga. Horns inscribed with historic names from that region are more valuable.

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 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about Colonial America in the Spring 2018 Edition, "Early Americana," online now.