Let’s Have a Cold One

QUESTION: Ever since college, I’ve been a great lover of an ice cold beer. And today, with all the microbrews out there, I’ve become quite the beer afficionado. Along with enjoying a variety of beers—I even have a special refrigerator in my garage to keep my collection of microbrews cold—I’d also like to start collecting brewery memorabilia in earnest. I have a few items—coasters, bottle openers, and a variety of cans from various breweries. Can you help me get some direction to my collecting? There are so many items that I’m not sure where to start.

ANSWER: It’s appropriate that you’ve contacted me this week since the Fourth of July is probably the leading holiday at which people celebrate with cookouts and coolers of icy cold beer.

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. Ever since then breweries have opened all over America.



Michael Combrune published The Theory and Practice of Brewing in 1762. This was the first attempt to establish rules and principles for the art of brewing. In 1808, members of the Congregational Church in Moreau, New York, formed a temperance society. From that point forward, a major struggle between beer drinkers and those who disapproved began, culminating in Prohibition. Until the rise of these societies all over the country, the only competition breweries had was from whiskey manufacturers.

During Prohibition, breweries produced "near beer," a nonalcoholic beer, which people  greeted with a lukewarm reception at best. The breweries also made "health tonics," ice cream and many other products to keep themselves afloat during this time.

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.

The breweries have always had competition, from other alcoholic producers as well as other breweries.  To beat the competition, they used strong print and media advertising campaigns, elaborate visuals, and colorful giveaways. They used everything from foam scrapers, brightly colored cans, distinctive bottle labels, neon signs, tip trays, cups, hats, shirts, serving trays and countless other items in an attempt to make the consumer remember one brand over another.



Today, the market for vintage brewery collectibles is hot. But there are so many different items that beginning collectors have a very good chance of finding ones to fit their tighter budgets.

First, a beginning collector should buy what he or she likes and can afford. Prices for these collectibles are all over the map, so focusing a collection is important from the start. To begin, a novice collector might build on what he or she already has or perhaps start in a new direction of interest. That can include beer bottles or cans, unique advertising signs, and even beer coasters from around the world. Often, these can be had for the cost of a cold beer.

Beginners should select a collecting theme early or risk accumulating too much material to handle. It's easy to start small, with something inexpensive like coasters, as long as the beginner always buys items in the best condition. Beginning collectors of brewery collectibles usually start with signs, trays and cans produced after Prohibition. Advance collectors collect the pre-Prohibition era material and usually zero in on the geographic area in which they live or grew up.




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.



One of the priciest examples is the Clipper beer can, which sold on eBay for more than $19,000. Lithographic factory signs have sold for $7,500 to $15,000, die cuts for $1,000 to $2,500, tin lithographic serving trays for $250 to $1.000 and tip trays for $250. While these are the priciest items, there are lots of others selling for much less.. Signs with reverse painting on glass and calendars are especially prized by collectors.

The variety of brewery collectibles is astounding, so much so that they offer lots of possibilities for collectors at all levels. The bottles and cans produced today may someday be worth more than the contents they hold as will signs, lights, mirrors, tap handles, and labels.

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 Spring Edition, "Down to the Sea in Ships," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.   

Whatever Happened to Elsie the Cow?

QUESTION: When I was a kid, I remember seeing Elsie the Cow all over the place. She appeared on all Borden dairy products, billboards, and magazine ads. I even had some Elsie toys. Whatever happened to Elsie the Cow?

ANSWER: Elsie the Cow was the hottest advertising personality in the country in the 1940s and 1950s. Borden Company produced thousands of items bearing her likeness to promote its products.

In 1852, Gail Borden, Jr. received a patent for his condensed milk process, and in 1857 he founded the Gail Borden Jr. and Company. He reorganized his company in 1858 as the New York Condensed Milk Company, which ultimately became the Borden Co.

During the early 1860s, Borden sold his condensed, sugar sweetened milk from push carts on the streets of New York. His product was always pure and safe, and in 1864 when Louis Pasteur showed the world a real live germ, Gail Borden finally learned exactly why his heat process was so successful. The demand for Borden’s condensed milk grew during the Civil War and his business boomed. Though Borden died in 1874 at the age of 72, he lives on as the "father of the modern dairy industry."
   
During the 1920s and 1930s the commercial dairy business was growing. Borden's bought hundreds of area dairies, out marketing, underselling, and forcing them to sell their milk direct to the large processors at smaller profits. The public sided with the struggling farmers.

In 1936, Borden's, to create a more wholesome public image, placed a new kind of advertising in some medical journals to attract the attention of pediatricians. These ads featured several cartoon cows, one of which was named Elsie. The ads promoted Borden's high standards of quality.

In 1938 a radio copywriter intrigued by the magazine ads wrote a sample Elsie commercial and gave it to a network news commentator whose show Borden  sponsored. He read it over the air and his listeners loved it. Fan mail began arriving addressed to Elsie the Borden Cow.

Borden prepared national magazine ads and local dairies put Elsie's picture on their bottle caps.

Borden reacted quickly by choosing the most attractive of the 150 cows---a Jersey from Massachusetts whose name the company changed from You'll Do Lobelia to Elsie.

The public's response to Elsie was unprecedented. A survey done in the late 1940s showed that Elsie was a more known and recognized figure than the president of the United States.

After being a featured attraction at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and 1940, and starring in a movie. Elsie became a highly recognizable personality. Borden began to show her wearing the popular ruffled shoulder apron and in 1941 she stood up and became an American housewife.
       
All through the 1940s Elsie collectible advertising items and toys were hot. At one point, Borden's had over 100 licensed vendors producing everything from puzzles and games to handkerchiefs and lamps. Everyone loved Elsie.

The 1950s also brought the creation of the "Good Food Line" train which featured Elsie’s entire family, her husband, Elmer, and her two children, Beulah and Baby Beauregard, promoting Borden’s milk, ice cream, and cheese. In 1958 Borden's commissioned Ringling Brothers to build a parade model of the famous train. It had a special car for the live Elsie to ride on and was used in thousands of parades until the early 1990s. After that, Elsie had faded into history. She spent her last days on a farm in Texas.

Promoting Through Time

QUESTION: I have an old clock with advertising for Jolly Tar Pastime Tobacco on it in raised letters. I’ve had the clock for a long time and never saw another one like it. Can you tell me anything about it?

ANSWER: You’re the lucky owner of a Baird advertising clock. You’ve no doubt seen pens and other items with printed advertising on them. But in the 1890s, a clock advertising a company was a novelty. Clocks promoted foods and beverages, household products, even medicines, such as Monells Teething Cordial for Children. They even advertised pet food like Clarke’s Patent Buffalo Meat Dog Cakes, endorsed by Queen Victoria, herself. Each clock says something different on it.

Born in Philadelphia in 1860, Edward Payson Baird went to work for the Seth Thomas Clock Company in 1879. In 1887, he left Seth Thomas to form his own company, the Baird Manufacturing Company, in Montreal, Canada,  to produce cases and doors for advertising clocks to house Seth Thomas movements. While he made his cases of pine or oak, he used papier-maché for the doors, with embossed letters around the clock face promoting the virtues of one product or another. Baird had numerous clients in the United States as well as in Canada and  Great Britain.

Baird used papier-maché for his clock doors because of the ready availability of wood pulp in Canada. By 1890, he moved his operation across the border to Plattsburgh, New York.  When economic circumstances forced him to close his Plattsburgh factory in 1896, Baird shifted his base of operations to Chicago, where he produced clocks with embossed, stamped tin advertisements. However, by that time interest in advertising clocks had begun to wane, so he concentrated his efforts on manufacturing parts for the fledgling telephone industry.

While some advertising brands, like Coca-Cola, are instantly recognizable and still exist today, many other products and brand names have long since disappeared. Baird clocks are the only clocks made from papier-maché that have advertising on them. Most resemble a figure 8. The top doors are 18 inches wide, while the bottom ones are 12 inches wide. While Baird clocks are 30½ long, Baird did make smaller 26-inch models. 

Baird also produced 18-inch-diameter gallery clocks. For the most part the dial on these clocks  measures 12 inches and the hands are straight, with a few exceptions. All Baird clocks have two doors unlike many other clocks produced at the time with only one door, giving access to the dial and pendulum.

A Baird clock in good working condition, with its original dial, glass, movement, and paint job, can sell for around $3,000. Some exceptional pieces sell for over twice that and higher. And well known brands, again like Coca-Cola, can sell for even more.

What's All the Fuss About Fans?

QUESTION: I was digging around in my mother’s attic the other day and discovered a flat box containing two very beautiful fans. I imagine these must have belonged to her mother or grandmother. What can you tell me about them? Do they have any value?

ANSWER: Fans have been around for a very long time. As a piece of functional art, they go back as far as ancient Egypt. The Egyptians saw them as sacred instruments used in religious ceremonies. They also became a symbol of royal power. But it was the Chinese who evolved the fan into a complex, decorated instrument. The Japanese took the fan one step further and produced a folding version, supposedly based on the folding wings of a bat. When Marco Polo returned to Venice, he brought with him fans made of vellum, paper, swan skin with blades of gold, silver, and inlaid mother-of-pearl.

The original purpose of hand fans was to create a breeze, but they had many other uses. They could be used as protection against rain, as a tray for offering or receiving refreshments, and to hide bad teeth. European women would use fans to hide their faces during mass.

By the 18th century, the folding fan had come into its own in Paris. Delicately hand-painted floral motifs, on a structure of decorative sticks, came into common use. In fact, any wealthy lady worth her salt had to have fans as accessories to her wardrobe.

These wealthy women developed a whole language of salutations and signals around their fans. For instance, carrying a fan in the left hand signified "desirous of acquaintance" while allowing it to rest on the right cheek meant "yes" and on the left "no." Drawing a fan across the forehead meant "We are watched" and drawing a fan across the eyes meant "I am sorry." Opening a fan wide meant "wait for me." Dropping a fan meant "We could be friends." If a lady fluttered her fan, it meant “I am married.” But if she placed the handle of her fan to her lips, it meant "kiss me."  An open fan held in the right hand in front of the face—the ultimate form of seduction—meant "follow me"

The blades of these delicate instruments could be of carved ivory or tortoise shell inlaid with precious inlaid metals and elaborate jewels. Less expensive fan sticks were usually of sandalwood or fruitwood. These rococo fans were the finest ever made, and many fo the designs took the form of stylized art.

By the latter part of the 18th century, fans had gained popularity as a fashion accessory in the upper circles of American society. While fan makers imported finer sticks, they made their own wooden ones.

The earliest fans made in any large quantity in the United States were paper souvenir fans depicting historical scenes. as well as current events. Lithographers portrayed views of New York's Crystal Palace, 1853, the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876, printed in black on a cream background, and the World's Columbia Exposition in 1893.

By the late 19th century, fans displayed images of nearly every product. Every department store and every manufacturer advertised on fans, including such products as coffee, milk, bread, carpet sweepers, restaurants, cafes, theaters, sewing machines, etc.

Before the advent of air-conditioning, funeral parlors gave out fans t mourners. These were as much to keep mourners cooler in warm weather as they were to wave the stink of the corpse away. These mourning fans became a social necessity. Manufacturers often fashioned them in black materials to coincide with the black clothing worn during recognized periods of mourning. Of course, it didn't hurt to print the name and address of the mortician on the guards of a cheap wood fan.

Fans are still relatively inexpensive—except the jewel-encrusted ones—so they’re ideal to collect, especially for the novice collector. Many sell for $5-$20 online. Some of the most sought after fans came from the E.S. Hunt Company, later called the Allen Fan Company. In 1868, Hunt patented the process by which he assembled the fan sticks and the fan leaf in one step. This included folding or creasing and gluing the leaf to the fan sticks at the same time under pressure. This was America's first fan to appear and unfortunately folded, like its fans, in1910. 

It's All in the Cards

QUESTION: I recently purchased a scrapbook full of brightly colored cards displaying advertisements for various products. Can you tell me about these types of cards and about how old they might be?

ANSWER: You seem to have stumbled on a scrapbook full of advertising trade cards. While
T.V.  commercials, as well as magazine and Internet ads  promote everything from cars and medicines to food products, during the latter part of the 19th century, trade cards did the selling.

In the 1890s, manufacturers focused their advertising efforts nationwide. Although the Industrial Revolution gave them the know-how to mass-produce consumer goods, they needed a way to show off their new products. At the time, magazines were just beginning to show ads. A new inexpensive method of color printing called chromolithography appeared in the 1870s and paved the way for trade cards. Reproduced by the millions, these colorful handouts flooded the country, becoming at once an effective business device, as well as folk art. Companies mailed them. Merchants gave them to their customers. Traveling salesmen distributed them door to door. And consumers saved them, often trading them with friends.

Although most were about the size of a playing card, others measured up to 3 x 5 inches. The typical card featured a colorful picture on one side and a sales pitch on the other. Frequently, the manufacturer left a blank space for a merchant to add his name and address.

The most common trade cards are flat pieces of colorful cardboard, however even more popular are die-cut cards—those cut in the shapes of the objects they advertise. Particular favorites include such varied subjects as pickles or teacups. Some are two-sided, with a different scene on either side, each of which promotes one of the company's products. Others fold or have movable parts.

Metamorphic cards have flaps that fold out to reveal pictures different from those seen when closed. Some cards encourage the viewer to open the flap to discover what happens next. One titillating card pictures a woman sitting in a bathtub with her knees visible. When opened, the card reveals her serving drinks to two bald men.

Cards with movable parts are fragile and often in poor condition. Unfortunately, few of these cards with all their parts intact have survived decades of wear and tear. Hold-to-light or see-through cards are even more fragile. The picture changes or words come into view when the card is held up to the light, completing the advertisement.

At the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, manufacturers put thousands of these bright little pasteboard salesmen into the hands of a product hungry public. Grocers handed them out for every imaginable product, from soup to soap! Manufacturers inserted some cards right into packaging. People saved the cards with a passion, pasting them into scrapbooks.

As their popularity grew, trade cards evolved into trading cards which manufacturers frequently packaged as serialized premiums in products such as cigarettes and coffee. Arbuckles' Coffee, for example, offered  a 50-card series of states and territories.

Some of the products most heavily advertised by trade cards, included those involving medicines, food, tobacco, clothing, household goods, sewing items, stoves, and farming tools. Two of the most popular categories were medicine and tobacco. In the late 19th century, claims made for patent medicines weren’t  regulated by law, and trade cards advertising these medicines often promised miraculous results.

Tobacco companies inserted trade cards into cigarette packs as stiffeners to protect the contents. Allen and Ginter in the U.S. in 1886, and British company W.D. & H.O. Wills in 1888, were the first tobacco companies to print advertisements. Several years later, colorful lithographic illustrations began to appear on these cards which featured a variety of topics ranging from sports to nature. By 1900, over 300 tobacco companies produced thousands of tobacco card sets. Children would often stand outside of stores to ask customers who bought cigarettes if they might give them the trade cards in their packs. By the 1950s, trading cards boy began to collect sports, military, and automobile cards contained in packs of bubble gum.

The popularity of trade cards peaked around 1890, and then almost completely faded by the early 1900s when other forms of advertising in color, such as magazines, became more cost effective.
The more common antique trade cards sell for about $1 to $15, depending on quality and condition.

Close Cover Before Striking

QUESTION: My grandfather left me his collection of match safes. All I know about them is that they held matches to keep them dry. Some of his are extremely ornate. What can you tell me about them?

ANSWER: Yes,  match safes did help keep matches dry, but they also served another purpose—they helped keep the bearer safe. Early matches were prone to igniting from rubbing against one another or spontaneously, so most people carried a match safe to house their matches. Between 1890 and 1920, most people carried strike-anywhere matches, so they could light stoves, lanterns and other devices. By then the pocket match book, invented by Joshua Pusey, had become popular.

John Walker, an English druggist in Stockton-on-Tees, England, made the first friction match in 1826. He  called his invention "friction light." The first containers Walker used to hold the matches he made and sold in his chemist’s shop were round canister-shaped tin boxes that cost two pence each and held 100 matches. Since there was no roughened surface on the boxes to ignite the matches, he inserted a piece of sandpaper for that purpose. Unfortunately, Walker never patented his invention.

Three years later, Samuel Jones sold a similar product with the catchier name  "Lucifers.” Soon after, Charles Sauna invented a phosphorus match in France and by 1836 phosphorus matches patented by Alonzo Dwight Phillips of Massachusetts became available in the United States. By 1840, friction matches were in common use.

There are numerous varieties of pocket match safes—figural, advertising, combination boxes, and trick or puzzle boxes. Manufacturers also produced wall match safes, designed to hold loose matches or a box of matches, as well as table top match safes, match box holders, and match grips, usually mounted on a standing ashtray, which were three-sided and gripped the match box. Early pocket match safes were merely functional and plain in their styling, but later on they became ornate accessories, much like jewelry.

While there’s an endless variety of figural pocket match safes out there, that is those featuring a person or animal or some sort of object, there are many more featuring advertising. Just as today's matchbooks usually contain ads on their front and back covers, pocket match safes often featured advertising, but in the form of a particular shape or perhaps a slogan, such as those given away as souvenirs of restaurants and hotels. Manufacturers of all sorts of items gave away match safes much the way companies today give away pens or business card holders. Mythological figures and salon art were popular subjects.

Some advertising match safes started out as product sample boxes. These contained samples of gramophone needles, pens, tea, cocoa, razor blade, and tobacco samples. After a person used up the  samples, they could use the box in which it came as a match safe. This also ensured a greater longevity for the ads.

In the United States, one of the most prolific manufacturers of match safes was the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island. Others included William B. Kerr, Unger Brothers, Battin, Blackington, Whiting, George Scheibler and Shreve & Co.

Match safes come in all sorts of shapes and patterns, from plain and decorated square, oblong and round cases, to a myriad of novelty shape made of silver, gold, brass, tin, gunmetal, nickel silver, ivory,  white metal, and even wood and porcelain. However, most were made of inexpensive materials. Those made of precious metals usually had a gold wash interior to prevent corrosion by the chemically active match heads.

Most later match safes came with a ribbed surface on the bottom for lighting the matches. Some match safes incorporated a cigar cutter or a small knife blade as well. While most people carried them in their pockets, gentlemen often suspended them from a fob chain.

The Difference Between Real Collectibles and Created Ones

QUESTION: I have a 1939 New York World's fair desk calendar that has little knobs that change the date, month and a 1934 Chicago world's fair dish which could be silver plate with the federal building, electrical group, hall of science and travel and transport buildings embossed on the bottom.  Do these items have any value other than as keepsakes?

ANSWER: What you have are real collectibles. And while they may not be worth a fortune, they still have value in the collectible market. Unlike created collectibles, like decorated plates and such, objects like these, as well as those from 19th to mid-20th-century advertising, etc, can grow in value as the supply of them dwindles through breakage and deterioration. This is the cause of your uncertainty.

Collecting is one of the oldest hobbies. King Tut of Egypt collected walking sticks. Heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post collected Faberge originals. Franklin D. Roosevelt and King George VI of England collected stamps. There are also coin, doll, cup, and spoon collectors. All of them had one thing in common—the love of collecting unique and beautiful objects.

Why do so many people collect these objects? There’s a basic human need to possess items that have stood the test of time—items that have become a part of history.

Many people have the desire to own beautiful things but for mostly economic reasons, this isn’t possible. Up to the latter part of the 20th century, collecting valuable items has mostly been the hobby of the wealthy. To make it possible for the growing post-war  middle class to feel the same thrill of collecting as the rich, gift collectible manufacturers began to create items with implied value which the average person could afford and which, in time, were supposed to increase in value.

Collectibles manufacturers like the Franklin Mint began by minting special coins and producing figurines and plates. Eventually, people collecting these items grew into the largest group of collectibles collectors.

Part of the incentive of collecting is the inherent value of the object. While speculation was the motivation for collectible purchases in the late 1970's, most collectors today buy for the appeal of the item.

To keep the collecting public buying, manufacturers produced objects in series. This gave some people the incentive to purchase every piece in the series. The sad thing is that while the manufacturer guaranteed the value of the object with a certificate of authenticity, and that the value would definitely increase, they really had no control over the market they had created for their wares.

Another ploy of these manufacturers was the term “limited edition.” What this meant was that they'd produce only a certain number of each item, thus creating a built-in appreciation value. However, the number was often vague. For example, they guaranteed to produce ceramic items for a certain number of firing days, but no one knows just how many pieces they produced each day. Some of the more sought after items, such as Hummel figurines, had editions of 2,000 to 10,000.

In order to make their “collectibles” attractive to this new group of collectors, manufacturers made sure each piece evoked a nostalgic response in both men and women. The former liked the manly aura of collectible coins, military figurines, and model cars—the sportier and more luxurious the better. The latter like the beautiful images that adorned porcelain plates and delicate figurines, reminiscent of Meissen ware.

One of the most popular of the collectible figurine series was "Stormy Weather," picturing a little boy and girl huddled under an umbrella. The Goebel company introduced at least five new pieces a year, which kept collectors satisfied and the company in the black.

Collectible plates, which took up where magazine illustration left off, became the second most popular collectible. Some depicted characters from fantasy and fiction as well as adventurers, T.V. and film stars, and scenes of the past. Many were reminiscent of the old Saturday Evening Post covers. To create a cache for their collectibles, companies took on names such as the Bradford Exchange, giving collectors the impression that what they bought was an investment.

The plates created by Royal Copenhagen became some of the most popular. These familiar blue and white plates featured scenes from Danish life. Along with Hallmark and others, the company also produced collectible Christmas ornaments.

Ironically, these collectibles weren’t cheap. For all money they spent on them, collectors could have been buying real collectibles. These are objects tied to a certain event or period in history, such as 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair collectibles. Hundreds of companies produced over 25,000 different souvenirs in larger and smaller quantities for the Fair. Even early Coca-Cola advertisements and paraphernalia have value. Later manufactured Coca-Cola items, on the other hand, do not.

For more information on the created collectibles market, be sure to read this article, "9 Completely Worthless Collectibles."