At Sea in a Bottle

 

QUESTION: My grandfather was a merchant seaman for most of his life. From his work, he developed a passion for historic ships and out of that for models of historic ships in bottles. Sadly, he’s recently passed on but before he died, he gave me the ships in bottles, about a dozen of them, that he had collected. I’m curious to learn how long people have been building models of historic ships in bottles. And exactly how did they do that?

ANSWER: Historically, the first mention of objects placed in bottles dates back to 1719. A German artist, musician and magician, Matthias Buchinger, built models, although not necessarily of ships, inside bottles. This was remarkable since he was born without arms or legs.

The oldest surviving ship in a bottle, a Turkish or a Portuguese three-masted warship, dates to 1784. Instead of laying on its side as most do, the maker placed it in an egg--shaped bottle, which hes placed upside down over a wooden stand. 

The idea of putting a model of a ship in a bottle became very popular after the fast sailing ships like the clipper came into service. So most of the antique ships in bottles found today appeared after 1840.

Ships in bottles became more popular as folk art in the second half of the 19th century, after the introduction of cheap, mass-produced bottles made with clear glass. They also became a very popular nautical gift during the late 18th and the early and mid-19th centuries in both Europe and the Americas.

Historians believe that monks living in monasteries spent tireless hours working on the earliest examples of these intricately carved models. The emergence of putting ships inside bottles can be followed back to the mid to late 19th century.

Ships in bottles were a unique way for anyone to connect with maritime history even if they weren't a sailor. By the 20th century, with the creation of new, faster ships on the seas, so ships in bottles became more diverse in design. 

Antiques experts classify a ship in a bottle as an impossible bottle—a bottle containing an object that does not appear as if it would fit through the bottle's mouth. It’s the most iconic type of impossible bottle. Other common objects often inserted into bottles include fruits, matchboxes, decks of cards, tennis balls, racketballs, Rubik's Cubes, padlocks, knots, and scissors. These may be placed inside the bottle using various mechanisms, including constructing an object inside the bottle from smaller parts, using a small object that expands or grows inside the bottle, or molding the glass around the object.

Over the centuries, many people probably asked themselves just how the model ships got into the bottles. There are two ways to place a model ship inside a bottle. The simpler way is to rig the masts of the ship and raise it up when the ship is inside the bottle. The maker built the masts, spars, and sails separately and then attached them to the hull of the ship with strings and hinges so the masts could lay flat against the deck of the ship. He then placed the ship inside the bottle and pulled the masts up using the strings attached to the masts. However, the hull of the ship must have still been able to fit through the neck of the bottle. Ships bottle makers often chose bottles with minor distortions and soft tints to hide the small details of erecting the ship inside the bottle, such as hinges on the masts. Some used specialized long-handled tools to build the entire ship inside the bottle.

Since ships of the past came in different shapes and sizes, the size of the bottle and the extent of its flat-base shape when placed horizontally mattered immensely to the makers. 

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.

Hess Toy Trucks Still Rolling Along After Over 50 Years

NOTE: This week marks the seventh anniversary of this blog. It also marks a milestone in readership with over 125,000 views. To commemorate both events, I'm presenting an update of my very first post on Hess Toy Trucks.

QUESTION: I want to buy a Hess toy truck for my son for Christmas. I saw an ad for the newest one on T.V. which said I could buy them online. Aren’t they being sold at local Hess gas stations anymore? I remember my first Hess truck. I played with it until it literally fell apart.

ANSWER: A lot has happened since you first received your first Hess truck for Christmas. In fact, a lot has happened to the company in the last three years. The Hess Oil Company has undergone some major changes, the biggest being the selling off of all of their gas stations to Marathon Petroleum. These are set to become Speedway stations by the end of 2017. So naturally, Hess trucks won’t be sold there anymore. Instead, Hess Oil has set up a special Web site to sell its latest truck.

Hess sold its toy trucks online for the first time in 2012, hoping to reach out-of-town customers who didn’t reside near one of Hess’s East Coast gas stations. Last year, it sold them online and at select malls. This year marks the first time that Hess will sell the trucks exclusively online.

Starting in 1964, the Hess Oil Company wanted to thank their loyal customers by making small replicas of their trucks as a token of appreciation for their business throughout the year. The company was the first one to manufacture toy trucks that had working lights and sound.

The Hess toy trucks, helicopters, police cars, airplanes, space shuttles and rescue vehicles have been popular Christmas gift traditions for over 50 years. In fact, it’s one of the longest running toy brands on the market.

Because the company produced these trucks in limited quantities, they limited each customer to two of them. That first truck sold for $1.29, and today can sell for over $2,500. Over the last 20 years, the value of some of the older Hess trucks has doubled.

Hess periodically has a rare truck such as the 1995 chrome truck with helicopter and the 2002 chrome Mini, which the company gave away at a stockholder meeting. In  2006, it gave a special truck to New York Stock Exchange employees to commemorate its name change from Amerada Hess Corporation to Hess Corporation.

However, more than half the value of each truck depends on the condition of its box. If the truck, itself, is also in perfect condition, then it’s considered to be “MIB” or “Mint-in-Box.”  Most people have trucks they bought to give to their kids for Christmas. Unfortunately, their children played with the trucks and now they’re worth a fraction of the mint ones.

Plus values of these toys tend to fluctuate, depending on who’s buying them. While dealers pay the lowest amount and then double it to sell them, some collectors will pay just about anything to get the truck they want. In fact, one collector drove four miles to meet a woman in a rest area on an Interstate highway just to look at a truck she had for sale. But true value of a truck is whatever anyone is willing to pay for it.

While the first trucks were tankers, succeeding ones ran the gamut from transports to fire trucks and car carriers.  In 1966, Hess deviated from its line of trucks by producing an ocean-going tanker, based on the Hess Voyager, a patrol car in 1993, a helicopter in 2001, an SUV in 2004, and a race car in 1988, 1997, 2009, 2011, and this year, 2016. but it wasn’t until 1993 that the company offered a police car and in other years sold a helicopter carrier and monster truck. In recent years, boxes have contained one larger vehicle transporting smaller friction-motor vehicles, such as motorcycles, race cars, or cruisers.

The 2016 Hess Toy Truck and Dragster is a powerful, race-ready duo with sleek styling, drag-racing inspired sounds, over 50 brilliant lights, and an innovative design for wheelie-popping action. The truck is a mighty motorsport flatbed designed to transport the dragster to any racing event. Styled with a solid green lower body and green-accented white upper body, it’s loaded with chrome detailing including a front grill, sunshield, side panels, and exhaust pipes. The cab houses four top-mounted buttons that activate three realistic sounds—horn, ignition, and a race launch countdown, as well as the headlights, tail and running lights. A hidden ramp with slide-activated hydraulic sound ensures this duo can quickly get to the next dragstrip.

The oversized dragster is the largest accompanying race car in the fleet’s history. Its innovative pull-back motor and tilt-activated weight transfer design allows the speedster to launch in either a flat or wheelie position. The racer features super bright LED headlights, a stylish spoiler, and chrome detailed hood-mounted air intake, side exhaust pipes and rear parachute box.

Because Hess toy trucks didn’t gain mass popularity until the 1980s, those few collectors savvy enough to pack one away in its box without touching it are the only ones who can cash in on the higher values of Hess toy trucks from 1964, when they first came out, through the 1970s.

The Hess Toy Truck is one of the longest-running toy brands on the market. However, the price has gone up considerably from that first truck selling for $1.29 in 1964 to $31.99 for this year’s truck and dragster.

Remember, unless a Hess truck is an early model and still new in a pristine box, it has little value. Unfortunately, the market for Hess trucks has been flat for several years, so selling all but the oldest trucks will be a challenge.

Sweets from a Queen

QUESTION: I have an old tin candy box with a picture of the Queen Mary on the front. It says on the side that the box contains candies made by Bensons Confectionery Ltd. of Bury, England. I’ve always like this box and keep extra buttons in it. What can you tell me about it and the Queen Mary?

ANSWER: Bensons was the official confectioner of the Cunard Line, the company that built and operated the R.M.S. Queen Mary. While your box is the more common type, they come in a variety of shapes, including a full rectangle with rounded corners, a more angular rectangle with the corners cut off, and one that has its corners cut off further to almost produce an oval.

The Queen Mary her illustrious career as the most luxurious passenger liner of her day, catering to the rich and famous, on May 27, 1936, the day she departed Southampton, England, on her maiden voyage to New York City, with a stop in Cherbourg, France.  Measuring 1,019 ft long, 118 ft wide, 185 ft high, and weighing in at more than 81,000 gross tons, it was built to accommodate 815 first class, 787 second class, 573 third class passengers and 1,200 crew members.

But the liner’s early days weren’t so smooth sailing. Construction began as job Number 534 on December 1930 at the John Brown Shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland. A year later, Cunard halted construction as the Great Depression took its toll. To get things going again, the British Government loaned Cunard the money to get the project going again with one requirement—that the company merge with its rival The White Star Line.

The infusion of cash was enough to get the ship afloat, and in September 1934, Cunard launched the ship it now called the Queen Mary to great fanfare.

Everyone wanted a piece of the action. Fashion magazines positioned themselves in association with the Queen Mary, as the pinnacle of style and elegance. Advertisers, including   the National Hotel Management Company, which operated a chain of top-end U.S. hotels, also used the maiden voyage to launch promotions of their own.

Unfortunately, World War II put a temporary hold on the ship’s main service. The Queen Mary was just two days way from ending its 143rd crossing cross the Atlantic. The British Admiralty instructed Captain Irving of the Queen Mary to put his ship on war alert in a coded message.

Warned of possible submarine attacks, Irving posted additional lookouts and ordered work crews to extinguish all exterior lights and black out the ship's 2,000 portholes and windows. He also instructed his helmsmen to steer a zigzag course.

Apprehension gripped the passengers as its 2,332 passengers, many of them Americans, realized that they had narrowly escaped Europe as the threat of war became a reality. Two days later, on September 5, 1939, the Queen Mary arrived safely in New York Harbor.

She remained docked at Pier 90 on the Hudson River until March 1940, when the British Admiralty called her into active service. A coat of drab gray paint replaced the bright Cunard livery of black, red, and white. Workers also blocked out the huge letters spelling out the ship’s name. They also removed most of her carpeting, furniture, artwork, as well as 200 cases of crystal, china and silverware and stored them in Cunard warehouses along the Hudson.

The ship then sailed to Sydney, Australia, where Cunard workers transformed the Queen Mary into a troopship. They removed any remaining furniture and all 2,000 stateroom doors
put them into storage. Then they installed wooden bunks and hammocks for troops, converted shops into military offices, and converted her ballroom into a 50-bed hospital.

On her first wartime voyage in 1940, the Queen Mary carried 5,000 troops. Between 1940 and 1946, she made 72 voyages, safely transporting 765,429 military personnel. In fact, in July 1943, she carried 16,683 troops, the largest number of humans ever transported on one vessel at one time—a world record that still stands today.

Until Cunard installed stabilizers in 1956, the Queen Mary was also known as “Rolling Mary.” Cunard even had peach-colored glass used in mirrors in first class so that green-skinned complexions could take on a rosy glow. During a wartime crossing, Bing Crosby spent three days in the cargo hold because the lower on the ship, the steadier the ride.

Following the war, Cunard demilitarized the ship and refitted her. From February to September 1946, she made 13 round trips between Southampton and New York under the U.S. Army's "Operation Diaper," more commonly known as the “Bride and Baby Shuttle.”

A typical war bride menu included a choice of roast loin of fresh pork or cold roast beef, mashed or baked potatoes, salad, fruit, cheese, biscuits and coffee. Not the luxury of prewar meals, but certainly a feast by the standards of the time.

In July 1947, the Queen Mary resumed its role as a luxury passenger liner. She continued to make transatlantic crossings for another 20 years, eventually falling victim to a decline in the number of passengers, as modern travelers embraced air travel.

In May 1967, the Queen Mary had outlived her usefulness. Cunard put her up for sale and the City of Long Beach, California became her new owner for $3,450,000. The ship made a final voyage from Southampton to Long Beach but was too  large to fit through the Panama Canal. As a result, she had to travel down the coast of South America and around Cape Horn.

Conversion from luxury passage liner to floating hotel and tourist .attraction took four years to complete. Today, you can experience her Art Deco opulence and marvel at the 56 different varieties of wood veneers used throughout the ship.

Today, collectors actively seek out any piece of Queen Mary memorabilia, such as this Benson’s candy tin. While the tin sells for around $40 online in good condition, a variety of other items, including posters, timetables, commemorative medallions distributed by the Daily Record, and brochures issued by Cunard White Star Limited announcing the "Launch of No. 534, in the presence of Their Majesties, The King & Queen, Wednesday, September 26, 1934, at Clydebank, are also available.

Schlock Clocks

QUESTION: I have a clock made by United Metal Goods Manufacturing Company, Inc., in Brooklyn, New York, in the shape of a pirate ship. Can you tell me who made my clock and when? It has three chrome masts, each with three sails, a ship’s wheel containing the clock dial mounted on the front, and a light imbedded in each end. 

ANSWER: Your ship clock is an Art Deco stylized version of a pirate ship, made in the mid-1930s. United Metal Goods Manufacturing Company produced unique and decorative timepieces as well as staple clocks and timepieces, mostly electric with reliable electric motors produced by the Westinghouse Corporation.

The foundation of most of these clocks was a remarkable electric motor and gearing designed by Anthony William Haydon between 1931 and 1939. His power system allowed these clocks to also perform other functions, such as twirling a cowboy's lariat or moving a figure in a graceful Hula. United Metal Goods made an astounding variety of animated clocks by using the Haydon patents.

braham Levy founded the United Clock Company in Brooklyn, New York in 1905. He remained president of the company until his death in 1961.In August of 1968, United bought the inventory, equipment, and tools of the Sessions Clock Company of Forestville, Connecticut, and for a short time marked clocks made at the Sessions factory “Sessions-United.” Eventually, United expanded its operations and became United Metal Goods Manufacturing Company.

The clocks that United Clock Company produced became known as "Carnival” clocks because carnival owners gave them as the "big" prizes at carnival games. Most of the time, however, players were never able to win these clocks because carnival owners often rigged the games. They eventually earned the monicker “schlock” clocks for their tasteless design.

United cast many of its clocks from spelter, a zinc alloy, including its ships clocks. The company offered its clocks in a variety of styles including the banjo clock, leaf sculpture clock, wagon wheel clock, and the traditional wall clock. Mantel clocks included a carriage and horses clock, Statue of Liberty clock, scales of justice clock, and an animated light-up fireplace clock. United also made other styles of clocks for the home including trophy bowling clocks, ship clocks, teddy bear clocks, and train clocks. They even produced pocket watch clocks that hung on the wall or from the ceiling.

These often tasteless clocks became a necessary decorative accessory for mantels in the homes of prosperous young couples in the 1930s and 1940s. The tradition of a ship model on the mantel comes from New England, where older families made much of their wealth in whaling. In that case, the ship model represented a constant reminder of the source of the family wealth. It was natural that the ship model eventually merged with the mantel clock.

As people moved to apartments in the cities, space for the tall clock vanished, leading to the popularity of mantel clocks. Often, manufacturers combined these clocks with figurative elements such as dogs, horses, goddesses, or whatever, limited only by imagination and their bad taste. United Metal Goods produced a long line of cheap, tasteless clocks that have since become cultural icons.

Hess Toy Trucks Roll On

QUESTION: What is the best way to sell a 1966 Hess Voyager Tank Ship? And how do I figure the asking price?  The tanker is in the box which is slightly faded and has some damage to two of its corners, plus one of the stickers on the side of the tanker is torn.

ANSWER:  It’s Thanksgiving time once again and along with Black Friday comes an equally long-standing tradition—the sale of Hess toy trucks. But the poor economy has most everyone watching their pocketbooks, so even Hess Toy Truck sales, both of previous models and the newest one are suffering. T.V. ads touting the features of Hess’s new truck toy prompt many owners to perhaps dust off older models in preparation for selling them.

But selling Hess toy trucks isn’t easy. The group of true collectors of these toys is a small, very selective one. These are people who are searching for the premier pieces to fill out their collections. One of these prime models is the “B Model Mack Tanker,” which first appeared in 1964. At first the company produced these toys in limited quantities and limited each customer to two trucks. Back then the B Model Mack cost $1.29, but today it can sell for as much as $2,000, down $500 from two years ago.

Leon Hess knew a good thing when he saw it, and soon the company produced more trucks to meet the demand, including a series of minitrucks. For many years, people lined up at Hess Stations on Black Friday morning to get their hands on the coveted toy “truck” of that year, then last year, the company started selling their trucks a week ahead. This year, sales began on November 11, two full weeks ahead. But popularity killed their potential and resale prices fell.

Because Hess toy trucks didn’t gain mass popularity until the 1980s, those few collectors savvy enough to pack one away in its box without touching it are the only ones who can cash in on the higher values of Hess toy trucks from 1964, when they first came out, through the 1970s.

More than half the value of each truck depends on the condition of its box. If the truck, itself, is also in perfect condition, then it’s considered to be “MIB” or Mint-in-Box. Those who saw the collecting potential of these toy s bought two, giving one as a gift to their child and keeping the other in pristine condition for their collection.

Probably the best place to try to sell the tanker in question is on eBay. This saves a lot of searching for markets—let the collectors search for the models they want. However, most Hess trucks sell on eBay for about $20, around the price of a new truck since 2000 or so.
In one case, four of them, listed for a starting bid of $9.99 on one auction with $21 shipping—twice the cost of the trucks themselves—didn’t even sell. Unless a Hess truck is an early model and new in a pristine box, it has little value.

Hess trucks were one of the first toy trucks to have working lights and sound operated by batteries. The first one came in three different versions. The rarest of these was a Bills 18-wheel tanker with a white top and the Hess logo with a yellow border placed over the Bills logo. The side decals on this model display only the word "Gasoline", its battery card has printing on both sides, and the bottom of its box is black. The most common version features a green cab with yellow fenders. A similar version of this tanker truck appeared in the late 1960's, 1970's and 1980's, but the tank is green, with a white strip, displaying the Hess name, down the center. The tanker then returned in 1990 with a white tank, with the Green "HESS" name on the side. Hess introduced another version of this white tanker truck in 1998 as the first in the Hess mini series.

Leon Hess, founder of Amerada-Hess Oil, originally had these toy trucks made as thank-you gifts to his customers. Some, produced as gifts for stockholders and staff, never went on sale. These are the most highly prized by collectors since only a few of these special trucks were made.

Throughout the years, Hess has offered non-truck vehicles as part of its toy truck collection, including a tanker ship, based on the Hess Voyager, in 1966, a patrol car in 1993, a helicopter in 2001, an SUV in 2004, and a race car in 1988, 1997, 2009, and this year, 2011. In recent years, boxes have contained one larger vehicle transporting smaller friction-motor vehicles, such as motorcycles, race cars, or cruisers.

For the first time in the collection's 47-year history, the two vehicles in the current set offer sounds and 34 lights in both on and flashing modes, activated by a button on the truck cab, a chassis switch, and the ramp. The newest truck also features four-wheel spring suspension and a pullout ramp that automatically activates a hydraulic sound. The truck's flatbed trailer carries a race car modeled after an American stock car that sports a pull-back racing motor and Hess Express logo. A push of the race car's gas cap activates flashing lights and the sound of the car's engine. The lucky kid who gets this as a gift on Christmas morning will also be able to play with it immediately since the package contains two Energizer 'C' batteries. But the hottest feature of this year’s truck is an app with which a child can virtually race the car online.

The Hess Toy Truck is one of the longest-running toy brands on the market. As in past years, the truck will be sold exclusively at Hess retail stores in 16 East Coast states from Massachusetts to Florida, while supplies last. However, the price has gone up considerably from that first truck selling for $1.29 in 1964 to $26.99 for this year’s truck and race car.