Dreaming of a Brite Christmas

 

QUESTION: For several years I’ve been searching for older ornaments for my Christmas tree. I’ve seen a good number at flea markets and antique cooperatives. Many of these are still in their original boxes marked “Shiny Brite.” I’d like to know more about this company. When did they produce ornaments and what kind did they produce?

ANSWER: Today, the trend is to decorate Christmas trees with handcrafted ornaments, from simpler ones sold at church bazar to finely crafted ones of wood, silver, and gold sold at Christmas markets throughout the world. But some people prefer to decorate their trees with nostalgic glass ornaments from their childhood.

Ornaments that decorated yesterday’s trees continue to create holiday traditions. Shiny glass orbs hang from branches in bright, shiny colors, and sparkly patterns. Shiny Brite was a mid-20th-century brand created by German-American immigrant Max Eckardt.

Blown-glass Christmas ornaments with hand-painted accents got their start in the German village of Lauscha in the 1840s. Glassmakers blew molten glass into molds shaped like fruit and nuts, then silvered the inside with a special compound of silver nitrate and sugar water. 

As a native of a small village near Lauscha, Eckhardt knew the appeal of glass ornaments and also saw their potential in the American market. He had been importing hand-blown glass balls from his homeland since the early 20th century. He had the foresight to anticipate a disruption in his supply of glass from Germany from the upcoming World War II and in 1937, he established the Shiny Brite Company in New York.  The silver nitrate coating on the insides of his ornaments inspired him to name his company Shiny Brite.

To keep his company afloat, Eckhardt sought the help of New York’s Corning Glass Company, with the promise that F.W. Woolworth would place a large order if Corning could modify its glass ribbon machine, which made light bulbs, to produce ornaments. This machine, built in 1926, produced 2,000 light bulbs per minute. The transition was a success, and Woolworth’s ordered more than 235,000 ornaments. In December 1939,Eckhardt shipped the first machine-made batch to its 5-and-10-Cent Stores, where they sold for 2 to 10 cents each.

By 1940, Corning was producing 300,000 unadorned ornaments per day, sending the clear glass balls to outside artists, including those at Eckardt’s factories, to be hand decorated. After being lined with silver nitrate, the ornaments ran through a lacquer bath, received decoration from Eckardt’s employees and packaging in brown cardboard boxes. According to a LIFE magazine article from December 1940, Corning Glass Works expected to produce 40 million ornaments by the end of that year, supplying 100 percent of the domestic ornament market.

Originally, the ornaments were plain silver, but eventually Eckardt produced them in a large variety of colors: with classic red the most popular color in the 1940s, followed by green, gold, pink and blue, both in solids and stripes. The company also offered Shiny Brite ornaments in a variety of shapes besides balls, including tops, bells, icicles, teardrops, trees, finials, pine cones, and Japanese lanterns, and reflectors. Workers decorated some with mica “snow.”

Through the 1940s and 1950s, Shiny Brite ornaments became the most popular tree ornaments in the U.S. Eckhardt stressed that they were American-made as a selling point during World War II by featuring Uncle Sam shaking hands with Santa on the front of the original 1940's boxes.

Corning continued to crank out Shiny Brite ornaments, and by the 1950s, production reached a rate of 1,000 per minute; with machines also painting them at that time. The 1950s was the peak of Shiny Brite production and popularity, with Eckardt operating four New Jersey factories to keep pace with the demand.

Shiny Brite ornaments dangled from trees through the early 1960s, until plastic ornaments became more popular. But over the years, vintage Shiny Brites have remained popular with collectors for their beauty and nostalgia, and acting as a sort of time capsule of American holiday history. They are some of the most sought after vintage ornaments from the mid 20th century and are the perfect decoration for those Space-Age aluminum trees.

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 Age of Photography" in the 2023 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.

Behind the Eight Ball

QUESTION: When I was a teen, I used to spend my afternoons after school at the local Boys Club playing basketball and pool. In fact, I got pretty good at pool over the years. Now that I’m older, I’ve gotten back into pool. Only today, they call it billiards. I also like to collect things. Is there such a thing as billiards memorabilia?

ANSWER: Actually, there is, but the market for billiard-related items is pretty steep. But let’s take a look back at how this game began.

Billiards began as a lawn game similar to the croquet played sometime during the 15th century in France.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England, the game had moved indoors to a wooden table with green cloth to simulate grass and a simple border around the edges. The term "billiard" came from the French for either the word "billart," one of the wooden sticks, or "bille," a ball. Since the early 19th century, it has been known as the "Noble Game of Billiards," but in fact all sorts of people played the game from its beginning. In 1600, Shakespeare mentioned it in his play "Antony and Cleopatra."

When players brought the game indoors, players shoved the balls rather than struck them with wooden sticks called maces. The cue stick didn’t appear until the late 17th century. When the ball lay near a rail, the mace didn’t work because of its large head. Players then would turn the mace around and use the end of its handle to strike the ball. The handle was called a "queue" meaning "tail" from which came the word "cue." For a long time only men were allowed to use the cue. Women had to use only the mace because people felt they were more likely to rip the cloth with the sharper cue.

At some point, a player used chalk to increase friction between the billiard ball and the cue stick. Performance improved dramatically, There are four distinct shapes in various colors---square, round, triangular and wafer. The square variety is by far the most common. The  earliest chalk was white, but the majority today is green or aqua to match the felt on the tables.



Early cues typically varied in length between 54 and 57 inches for pool, and between 60 inches and longer for billiards. The finer cues were normally four times more expensive than the common "house cue," reaching as high as $13 for a tournament-trophy quality model. Around the turn of the 18th century, the leather cue tip appeared. This allowed a player to apply side-spin, topspin, or even backspin to the ball. All billiard/pool cues used to be one single shaft until the two-piece cue arrived in 1829.

Billiard/pool tables originally had flat walls for rails. Their only function was to keep the balls from falling off the table. Players originally called them "banks" because they resembled the banks of a river. They soon discovered that the balls could bounce off the rails and began deliberately aiming at them, and thus the "bank shot" was born. This is where the billiard ball is hit toward the rail with the intention for it to rebound as part of the shot.

Wood made up the bed of a billiard table until around 1835, when slate became popular due to its durability for play and the fact that it wouldn't warp over time.  As for the size of billiard tables, a two-to-one ratio of length to width became standard in the 18th century. Before then, there were no fixed table dimensions. By 1850, the billiard table had essentially evolved into its current form.



The game of billiards has had many variants. Players referred to a table without pockets as a "billiard table," while those with pockets were called "pocket billiard" tables. The term "carom table" was used in the early days of the sport to denote a billiard table without pockets. To carom meant to strike two balls at the same time with the white cue ball.

The sizes of billiard balls ranged from one inch for children's tables, to 2½ inches in pocket billiard balls, to as large as 2 3/4 inches in the carom variety. The most common material used was clay. And although manufacturers tried many other concoctions, they eventually settled on some type of composition resembling clay. Celluloid balls first appeared   in the late 1800s and proved to be the best substitute for ivory available at the time. While the makers of clay balls claimed that the celluloid balls occasionally exploded upon contact, this wasn’t true. What they did do was shatter during cold weather when left overnight in poorly heated pool rooms.

Though clay, ivory, and numbered balls were available for over 150 years, and the basic appearance of early billiard cues stood unchanged for much longer than that. Of the more than 150 independent billiard table manufacturers from the early to late 19th century, only a handful were in business for more than a few years. Many combined forces to improve sales and often bought out competitors.

And though the term "pool room" now means a place where people play pool, it had a very different meaning in the 19th century. Back then a pool room was a betting parlor for horse racing. Owners installed pool tables so patrons could pass time between races.

By the 19th century,  ballrooms of the wealthy featured highly carved and/or inlaid, exotic billiard tables. But, it wasn't just the well-to-do who played. For more than a century, even small towns had a pool hall. Businessmen and politicians transacted many deals around pool tables. Gambling also occurred, which is where the term “pool hall” originated. The most common place in town for placing bets or taking chances on a “pool” was the billiard parlor, and these smoky establishments soon became known as “pool halls."



Unfortunately, "pool halls" began to get a bad name and this reputation slowly dimmed the lights on the honorable game of billiards. Hundreds of them began to falter and close across the country in the 1930s and 1940s. Many politicians were advocating the closure of billiard rooms in an attempt to "clean up their communities" as part of their campaign platforms, all the while playing billiards in the homes of their upper-class constituents.




While the memorabilia from this field is amazingly diverse, finding early items isn't easy. It takes persistence, great patience and sometimes deep pockets to put together a collection.

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.  

Who Will be Mother?

QUESTION: I love to drink tea. In fact, I began drinking it when I was about 10 years old. I love the aroma and the steam that comes from the cup as I put it to my lips. Of course, as a tea afficionado, I always brew loose tea. But what I can’t stand are the bits of leaves that always seem to end up in the bottom of my cup. A tea strainer is a necessity if brewing tea from leaves. I always had a simple one that fit over the top of my cup and let me pour the tea through it, collecting the dregs in the strainer as it went. Last year, I attended an antique show and treated myself to a beautiful sterling silver tea strainer. I love it. So much so that now I’d like to begin collecting them.                        

ANSWER: People have used tea strainers for centuries. During the 18th and 19th century, when having tea was an important social event, silversmiths made tea strainers for wealthy tea drinkers. Since no one liked fishing loose tea leaves out of their teacup, strainers became a popular tea accessory. Tea strainers enabled hostesses to filter the leaves out while pouring tea in each person’s cup.

After it’s introduction to Europe, tea drinking began to inspire elaborate serving conditions. Unlike in China or Japan where tea drinking had a religious significance, tea drinking rituals in the West emphasized tea’s exotic origins and the server's wealth. Over time, an assortment of locked storage containers, special serving vessels, measuring spoons and other implements became part of any tea service. And, unlike the Chinese, who simply dumped tea into the pot and poured carefully, Europeans devised strainers to remove not only the leaves but also stems, grit, and other debris often found floating in the tea.
                   
By the 17th century, strainer spoons to remove the "motes" or tea debris with perforated bowls and pointed ends for clearing teapot spouts became common.

Toward the end of the 18th century, the silver cup strainer, adapted from wine strainers and from larger two-handled silver punch strainers used to extract lemon and orange juice used in other beverages, appeared. For tea, the cup strainer had one or two handles of silver or other material and fit over the cup to filter tea as it was poured.

By the 19th century silver craftsmen experimented with various designs to secure the cup strainers to the teacup. Some had two handles that straddled the cup while others were made with clasps to clip onto the edge. They also developed stands to support the strainer when it wasn’t in use and to catch the drippings.

Teapot spout strainers, featuring a pierced basket or bucket-shaped strainer with long pins to be inserted in the spout, were another tea trapping device developed in the late 18th century. As a person poured the tea, it flowed through the strainer and into the cup. Although they dripped tea on tablecloths, their dainty appearance and intricate piercings made them a highly desirable tea accessory. Spout strainers were more fashionable in Europe than in America and silver manufacturers created many novelty forms such as helmets, buckets and shells.

In the mid 19th century a new development in brewing came in the form of the tea infuser, also known as a tea ball. Tea balls are perforated, spherical containers made in two parts and connected either by a hinge and clasp or by screw threading.

Tea balls not only trapped tea leaves, but contained them within the pot for the brewing. Tea balls weren’t made in America until after 1880, but they quickly became the most popular tea strainer form used in America. More than 60 prominent American companies, such.as Gorham, produced them in quantity and in whimsical shapes, such as grapes, walnuts, lanterns, faces, teapots, shells, cauldrons, fish, Earth, and the Liberty Bell.

There have also been square tea balls, both an oxymoron and a rarity. A particular favorite is a curled-up dormouse, recalling the unfortunate creature dunked into the teapot during the Mad Hatter's tea party in the children's classic, Alice in Wonderland.

The last form of tea strainer to be invented appeared in England in the 1890's and quickly found its way to the United States. The stick infuser or spoon infuser, consists of a covered spoon-like bowl perforated on both lid and bowl. Like tea balls, tea drinkers filled the stick infusers with tea leaves, but unlike the tea balls, people used them to brew one or two cups of tea. Like the tea ball, the stick infuser gained popularity in the United States. Again. manufacturers presented numerous design variations, replacing the spoon bowl with a ball or heart shape and using different handle forms made of bone, porcelain  and wood. Some stick infusers with upright handles resemble pipes, while others resemble a pair of tongs or an egg on a stick.

The development of the tea bag signaled the end of mass production of silver tea strainers. Today, the tea strainers of the 18th through the early 20th century stand as valuable reminders of the importance of aesthetic pleasure in a social ritual—the serving of tea.

Learn more about the tea experience by reading "The Origin of Afternoon Tea" in #TheAntiquesAlmanac and also about sterling silver tea sets in my Google+ Collection, Antiques and More.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit 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 the Victorians in the Winter 2018 Edition, "All Things Victorian," online now.  

A Clock With Balls

QUESTION: When I was growing up in the 1950s, my parents had a colorful clock hanging on our living room wall. It had colored balls for the hours and stood out against the white wall. I had forgotten about it until recently when I discovered it, covered with dust, in the attic of my parents’ house as I was cleaning it out after my mother died. What can you tell me about this clock, and does it have any value or should I just give it the old heave ho?

ANSWER: Believe it or not, that dusty old clock is an icon of 1950s modern design. Often listed as being designed by George Nelson, the clock is shrouded in controversy. Yes, George Nelson did indeed play a part in its creation, but historians now believe that its actual designer was Irving Harper, who worked for George Nelson in his design studio.

The Ball Clock was the first of more than 150 clocks designed by George Nelson Associates for the Howard Miller Clock Company, which sold them from 1949 into the 1980s. Nelson Associates, first launched as a studio by George Nelson in 1947 in New York City, employed some of the most celebrated designers of the time, including Irving Harper, Don Chadwick and John Pile, all of whom contributed to the clocks.

George Nelson Associates, Inc., a leading home furnishings and accessories design studio, made modernism the most important driving force during the 1950s.  From his start in the mid-1940s until the mid-1980s,  George Nelson partnered with most of the modern designers of the time. His skill as a writer helped legitimize and stimulate the field of industrial design by contributing to the creation of Industrial Design Magazine in 1953.

Nelson became the Director of Design for Herman Miller, a leading industrial design firm, in 1947 and held the position until 1972. He used the money he earned in this position to open his own design studio in New York City. On October 26, 1955 he incorporated it into George Nelson Associates, Inc. and moved to 251 Park Avenue South. The studio brought together many of the top designers of the time, who were soon designing for Herman Miller under the George Nelson label. Among the noted designers who worked for George Nelson Associates were Irving Harper, George Mulhauser, designer of the Coconut Chair, Robert Brownjohn, designer of the sets for the James Bond film Goldfinger, Don Chadwick, Bill Renwick, Suzanne Sekey, John Svezia, Ernest Farmer, Tobias O'Mara, George Tscherney, who designed the Herman Miller advertisements, Lance Wyman, and John Pile.

But controversy was to cloud George Nelson’s success. In recent years, it has come out that many of the designs for which Nelson accepted credit were actually the work of other designers employed at his studios. Examples of this include the Marshmallow sofa, designed by Irving Harper, and the Action Office, the forerunner of the office cubicle and for which Nelson won the prestigious Alcoa Award, neglecting to mention that it was Robert Propst who actually created it.

It seems that Nelson believed that it was okay for individual designers to be given credit in trade publications, but for the consumer world, the credit should always be to the firm, not the individual.

Nelson’s company designed many wall and table clocks for the Howard Miller Clock Company, including the Ball, Kite, Eye, Turbine, Spindle, Petal and Spike clocks, as well as a handful of desk clocks. However, Irving Harper designed most of them. Howard Miller assigned numbers to all the original clock designs. The most famous, the Ball Clock, became Clock 4755. It was available in six color variations.

According to legend, the Ball Clock was designed by George Nelson, Irving Harper, Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi during a night of drinking in 1947. Its Space Age atomic look supposedly came from the an abstraction of the atom with its nucleus and particles.

The Beauty of Christmas Kugels

QUESTION: I came across a heavy white glass ornament with what appears to be some sort of decals on the bulbs. Also each one has a colored stone–almost like birth stones–indented into the ornament. All the tops are a gold finish. I have seen a lot of ornaments but none like these. Any ideas?

ANSWER: It sounds like this person has discovered a kugel, a type of heavy glass Christmas ornament made in Germany from about 1840 until 1914. The word kugel means “ball” in German. The first ones were smooth, heavy glass balls that were too heavy to hang on anything but a stout pine in the yard, so people hung them in their windows.

Louis Greiner-Schlotfeger invented the kugel to compete with the glassblowers of neighboring Bohemia who had perfected blowing glass beads lined with lead mirroring solution with produced a brilliant shine. And though he was able to duplicate the lead mirroring solution, he couldn’t hand blow his kugels thin enough. The result was heavy pieces of glass shaped as balls in a rainbow of colors in sizes ranging from an inch in diameter to over 30 inches.

Originally, the glassblowers hung their kugels with bits of wire. After blowing a glass bubble, they snipped it from the blowing tube which resulted in a small neck with a hole leading to the inside of the kugel. They ground the neck down leaving just a hole and attached a decorative brass cap, held in place with wire arms that spread apart inside the glass sphere. Finally, they attached hanging rings to the caps and hung them with wire hooks.

It wasn’t until 1867, when Greiner-Schlotfeger’s village built a gas works that he had a steady, hot, adjustable flame, enabling him to blow thin-walled glass balls. From that point, it was a simple step to blowing glass into cookie molds shaped like fruits and pine cones. While the glassblowers still called them kugels–more specifically Biedermeierkugeln, referring to the Beidermeier Period in which they were made–they technically weren’t any longer and soon people called them Christmas ornaments.

By 1880, full-sized trees decorated with expensive imported German glass ornaments became all the rage among the wealthy. American retailer, F.W. Woolworth, saw these ornaments on a trip to Germany, but was reluctant to order any for his stores–at least at first. To his amazement, his original order sold out in two days.

For more information on kugels, read my article on antique Christmas ornaments.