Buckets of Fun at the Seashore

 

QUESTION: As I was browsing a local antique mall, I noticed an old tin sand pail sitting on a shelf along with a variety of other old toys. Seeing it brought back a flood of memories of vacations at the seashore with my family. Every summer, my father would pack up the car for our week at the New Jersey shore. Two items I made my father pack were my tin sand pail and shovel—indispensable for building sand castles. I never thought of sand pails as collectibles and seeing one on a shelf with other old toys was a surprise. What can you tell me about how these little pails got their start?

ANSWER: Sand pails appeal to both boys and girls around the world. Even those living  from the seashore played with their pail and shovel in a sandbox at school or at home in the backyard or by a lakeside. Sand pails weren’t expensive; costing just a few cents, a small price to pay to set a child's imagination off on an adventure. 

Originally, craftsmen made sand pails of wood, decorated with either a simple designs or lettering hand-painted or stenciled around them to appeal to children. After about 1840 tinsmiths started to use tin to make toys. Initially, they made pails from 12 by 14-inch sheets of tin plate imported from Wales. The small size of the sheets restricted the size of these early pails to about 4 ½  inches in diameter. As tin plate technology developed, larger, thinner sheets became available and tin plate started to be produced in the U.S. 

The designs on the earliest tin sand pails were simple, following the pattern of the earlier wooden pails with few bands of color or some letters applied free hand or stenciled over a japanned finish. Japanning consisted of several layers of paint followed by a coat of lacquer. As the market grew the decoration became more complex, a process imported from France in which tinsmiths employed a mixture of varnish and paint burned on in alcohol, then baked to produce a thin translucence to the finish.

They also used embossing on other pails to accentuate the design or lettering. It usually involved a stamping or rolling process so that parts of the surface were raised up while the pail was still in sheet form. It was then very easy to enhance the raised portions with a second color, using a paint pad or roller. 

A major technological advance came in the late 1880s with developments in lithography allowing this printing process to be applied to thin tin sheets. This innovative process printed with a detail that had previously only been possible on paper. This transformed the making of toys, as well as tin food cans and tin advertising signs. It was then possible to use multiple colors and produce fine detailing and a smooth, relatively hard wearing, durable finish. A lithographic press printed the designs and colors on flat sheets of metal from which toys could be formed using tools and dies.

By the turn of the 20th century a family visit to the seashore had become very popular.  America was on the move on weekends and took annual vacations in places like Coney Island, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, or Cape Cod.

Additionally, developments in the technology of printing processes in the 1930s enhanced the colors and details possible on tin pails, and several of the toy manufacturers employed famous illustrators to design the graphics.

The 1930s and 1940s with the popularity of radio and the movies created new heroes, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Snow White along with the Seven Dwarfs all appeared on pails, spades, sprinkling cans and water pumps. The traveling circus was extremely popular. Exotic animals performing amazing acts along with daring performers and clowns with their crazy antics all have their place on beach pails.

As the years passed, cowboys chasing Indians across the range and other Western themes became popular from the influence of television programming. Then the atomic age with space travel captured the imagination and took its place on sand pails.

Tin sand pails and shovels offered a designer a large surface on which to tell a story. Children could identify with the events depicted on pails by The Ohio Art Company of Bryan, Ohio, Kirchoff Patent Company of Newark, New Jersey, T. Cohn Co. of Brooklyn, New York, or U.S. Metal Toy Manufacturing Company of New York. Toddlers could recite favorite nursery rhymes as they looked at the four sides of a beautifully illustrated square sand pail by Julius Chein and Company of New Jersey, or delight in the exploits of Disney characters.

Children delighted in swashbuckling heroes and pirates and acted out their own stories, their pails becoming little treasure chests to transport shells from the water's edge to their ever growing sand piles. 

People are often surprised at the higher prices collectors pay for Victorian and early 20th-century sand pails. This is particularly true of examples showing early airplanes, dirigibles, steamships, Old Glory, the American Eagle, early teddy bears, early Disney characters. 

Condition is everything when collecting tin sand pails, as with other tin-lithographed toys. The design may be worth $500 or $5 the only variable with be condition. Rust, dents, missing parts and major scratches have a serious impact on value.

In establishing an antique or vintage sand pail’s value, subject matter of the illustration on it is also extremely important. Size has no real effect on value. Some collectors like large pails to display on shelves or hang from ceilings, while others prefer the mid-size ones to exhibit in small cases. Many more collect all sizes and include the minipails that were first candy containers, grouping them eclectically.

As with any toys, the best examples of tin sand pails, in mint or excellent condition l always sell for the highest prices. Considering what children did with their sand pails, it’s a wonder any survived at all.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Coffee--The Brew of Life" in the 2023 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

More Than Roses, Apples, and Ivy

 

QUESTION:  My mother was living by herself and, as she was getting older, decided to move into a retirement community. So she needed to downsize. She gave me quite a few pieces of mid 20th-century, solid colored dinnerware that looked a lot like Fiesta Ware. But the pieces had a stamp on the back that said “Franciscan Ware.” I’ve always liked these dishes and would love to find pieces to make up a complete set. What can you tell me about Franciscan Ware? Is it possible to find additional pieces?

ANSWER: The dishes your mother gave you were the first pattern of Franciscan dinnerware, called El Patio, designed by Mary K. Grant in 1934. First introduced by Gladding, McBean and Company, it was available in six solid colors, accompanied by mixing bowls and casserole dishes.

For the next 50 years, Gladding, McBean and Company produced nearly 150 patterns of colorful dinnerware, kitchenware, and decorative pieces of earthenware in Glendale, California. The most popular patterns in the Franciscan line—known as Apple, Desert Rose, and Ivy— featured embossed, hand-painted designs created in the 1940s.

The name 'Franciscan^ was a tribute to the Franciscan Friars who had established missions in California in the 17th century. In 1936, the company changed the name of the line from Franciscan Pottery to Franciscan Ware to convey a sense of quality..

Glassing, McBean produced its Franciscan ware in three distinct types of body material. The first was "malinite,^ a cream-colored durable earthenware. Next high quality vitrified china wares, known as Masterpiece China in 1940 and Franciscan China in 1942.  And lastly, the firm also made Franciscan Ware in a whitestone ware, a white earthenware first used by Gladding, McBean in 1959.

Just as Franciscan body materials came in three categories, so did the patterns used to decorate them. The three were solid-color patterns, embossed, hand-painted patterns, and decided patterns, some of which came in either a glossy or a matt glaze Potters based the earlier patterns on Mexican and early American designs.

Solid-color patterns generally come in a single color, although the company also produced two-tone ones. The very first Franciscan dinnerware, El Patio, made from 1934 to 1953, came in 20 different solid colors and over 103 shapes. Cups and bowl handles had a distinctive, pretzel-like shape. A short-lived variation on this pattern, El Patio Nuevo, was manufactured in a two-tone pattern from 1935 to 1936. The interiors  and exteriors of all pieces came in different solid colors.

Another well known solid-color pattern produced around 1936 was Coronado, finished  in satin, matt, and glossy glazes. Also called Swirl for the swirling, spiraling shape molded into the pottery.

Gladding McBean's designer Morris Sanders created the Metropolitan pattern, originally produced in Ivory, Ivory and Coral, Ivory and Grey, and Ivory and Turquoise satin finish colors. for a New York industrial design exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In color combinations, potters used Ivory for lids and handles and as a liner. They also made Plum and Chocolate Brown patterns, each with Ivory liners. All of the vessel forms in Metropolitan were either square or rectangular.

The embossed, hand-painted patterns had decorative shapes embossed into the pieces. Decorators then hand-painted these raised shapes prior to glazing. Among these were the most beautiful and sought-after Franciscan patterns, including Apple, Desert Rose, and Ivy. The producers of both the Donna Reed and I Love Lucy T.V. shows used Apple and Desert Rose on their sets.

Introduced on January 1, 1940, Apple was Gladding, McBean’s first embossed, hand-painted pattern. It was popular for its bright red fruit, sturdy brown branches. By early 1942, Desert Rose, a pattern with pink wild roses, light brown thorny branches and green leaves, also became popular. Gladding, McBean then applied the Desert Rose pattern to previously existing vessel shapes. The finials on the lids, shaped like rose buds, were distinctive.

The company introduced Ivy in 1948, rounding out the trio of most popular Franciscan patterns. Ivy was originally offered with 27 shapes. Gladding, McBean added additional vessel shapes, including comports, a covered butter dish, a 12-ounce mug, a relish dish with three sections, a side salad, sherbet dishes and a TV tray, in the 1950s.

Besides its three main patterns, the firm produced decaled patterns—underglazed transfer printed patterns produced from the late 1930s right on through to the 1980s. The most popular of these patterns was the Starburst pattern. Introduced in 1954, Starburst featured large and small blue and yellow dots through which black lines radiated. The Eclipse vessel shape upon which Starburst appears was also distinctive.

Because of the volume of pieces produced by Gladding, McBean and Company, it’s possible to find many of them online at eBay and other sellers of antiques and collectibles. 

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 "Pottery Through the Ages" in the 2022 Winter 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.