Thanks for the Memories

QUESTION: When I was a kid, my parents used to take me to Atlantic City every summer. As I get older, my memories of those summer vacations are but vague recollections. Recently, I was browsing a local antique cooperative and came across a small, red and white cream pitcher with “From Atlantic City 1897" scratched into what looks like a red coating. Immediately, memories from those vacations from my early childhood came flooding back, so I bought it. What can you tell me about my little pitcher?

ANSWER: Obviously, your little cream pitcher dates from before your birth, but like other souvenirs of summer destinations, it’s no less important. In fact, with the coming of the railroads in the early part of the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution, middle-class Victorians took to the road, rail, and sea in great numbers. Most of them wanted to take home a souvenir of their trip, and your little cream pitcher is one of them.

One of the most popular of these were ruby-stained glass toothpick holders, tumblers, goblets, creamers and pitchers inscribed with their name or the name of the destination and the date.

Glass souvenirs did not first appear at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876, as many believe, but much earlier. Little keepsakes had always been made in blown glass. After less expensive pressed glass appeared in 1825, owners of fairs and expositions sought out these more profitable items. Manufacturers pressed plates and tumblers with pictures of an event. But it was the smaller items, such as match and toothpick holders and little creamers and mugs that became popular. Makers often stained these pieces red or amber and engraved them with an inscription. Glass makers created thousands of these small articles for the large expositions, such as the Chicago Fair in 1893, as well as the popular county fairs.

Staining a piece of glass involved painting an already-pressed piece of clear pattern glass with a ruby-colored stain and reheating it to 1000 degrees in a kiln which turned the coating bright red. Sometimes, makers used an amber stain to decorate their pressed pieces. Pieces stained in this fashion could then be engraved with flower or leaf bands or souvenir inscriptions.

Produced in the United States from 1880 to 1920, there were eventually thousands of patterns of pressed glass that flooded the market. Makers produced many of the more popular patterns in a variety of forms. They combined different colors of glass and different decorating techniques to produce hundreds of thousands of pieces of glass. People would purchase a piece of blank stained glass at an event or travel destination and could then have it personalized with their name and date.

One of the more popular ruby stained patterns, Button Arches, introduced originally around 1898, continued in production until the 1960s and 1970s. The design consisted of slightly overlapping pointed arches around the bottom edges and covers of pieces, each arch containing tightly packed "buttons."  Made in clear, clear with ruby staining and gold-stained bands, collectors can find this pattern highlighted with souvenir inscriptions.

In the late 1890s, the U.S. Glass Co., a consortium of smaller companies, came up with the idea of marketing a series of glass patterns named after the various states. Though a few of these patterns were new to the series, some were reissues of earlier lines reintroduced as part of this line. The state series continued through the turn-of-the-century. Most of the state patterns featured geometric or imitation cut-glass designs, but a few had a plant and flower motif that added to their appeal.  Obviously, state patterned glass was popular as a souvenir from the state for which the pattern was named.
   
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 17,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac.

Blowin' in the Wind

QUESTION: We just purchased an old farm house and barn. The barn has an old weather vane mounted on top of a cupola on the roof. My husband and I aren’t sure if we should restore it or leave it as is. What can you tell me about weather vanes in general and whether we should have it restored?

ANSWER: It doesn’t really matter how old your weather vane is, as long as it’s not new. Old weather vanes atop old barns are an American tradition and today are worth some bucks, even if they’re weathered.

Weather vanes have been blowing into the wind for as long as farmers and sailors needed to know the direction of the breeze, but they have traditionally performed another function as well. Silhouetted against the sky for all to see, a weather vane was often an emblem that declared to the world the profession of the person who mounted it: a quill for a lawyer, a dory for a fisherman, a prize Holstein for a dairy farmer.

The earliest known weather vane, dating to 48 B.C., was an image of Triton—a Greek god with the head and torso of a man and the tail of a fish—mounted on The Tower of the Winds in Athens.

Weather vanes didn’t gain popularity until nobles in medieval England flew banners from their castle walls emblazoned with their coats of arms. After the Normans conquered England, these "fanes,” as the banners came to be known, were made of iron with designs cut into them. Since what wouldn't bend might break, makers soon rigged them to turn with the breeze. By the English Renaissance, the fane had become a vane, a simpler and more functional device affixed atop a merchant's shop as often as on a knight's battlement.

The colonists who settled America brought their traditions with them, including the weather vane. While it's likely that the first colonial vanes were crudely cut from wood, by the late 1600s several Puritan meeting houses were topped by iron vanes. Boston's Old State House, erected in 1713, sported a swallow-tailed banner with an arrow, and by 1740, America's first craftsman of weather vanes, Shem Drowne, had begun fashioning copper vanes for Boston's public buildings.

Prior to the 1850s, blacksmiths created most vanes. And though they devoted considerable skill and imagination to them, forging iron vanes or beating them out of copper was largely a sideline, something a blacksmith did on request.

Blacksmiths in coastal New England towns, where watching the wind has always been vital, made vanes in the shape of ships for sea captains, cod and flounder vanes for fishermen, and leviathans for the whale hunters on Nantucket and at New Bedford. In-land, farmers sawed crude wooden vanes in the shapes of plows and farm animals, or found a blacksmith who could fashion more sophisticated vanes for their barns.

After the 1850s, metalworkers like Alvin Jewell, of Waltham, Massachusetts, began manufacturing copper vanes using templates and molds, a process that was faster than the ancient repousse method, in which they pounded copper into the desired shape. Speedier manufacturing processes meant lower costs, and Jewell found that his patterns sold quite well through mail-order catalogs.

L.W. Cushing, perhaps the best-known weather vane manufacturer of the 19th century. He added them to a collection of over 100 silhouette and full-bodied vanes in his catalog. Other weather vane companies soon opened for business, including J.W. Fiske and E.G. Washburneboth of New York City, and Harris &Co. of Boston.

It was during the height of the Victorian Era when weather vanes were one of the most sought after items. They began appearing on everything from stables to gazebos. Prices ranged from $15 to $400 for the  vane, its brass turning rod, a copper ball, and a set of brass cardinals indicating the points of the compass.

The boom in weather vanes didn't last long, only 50 years or so, but during that period hundreds of designs were sold throughout America: banners, locomotives, fire engines, Statues of Liberty, clipper ships, river steamers, cannons, even sea monsters and dragons. Still, the traditional designs—roosters, horses, and other animals—remained the most popular.

By the early 20th century, changing tastes and simpler home design—particularly the decline of the cupola—caused a decline in vane popularity.
               
People began to be collect weather vanes as folk art about 40 years ago. Many sought vanes made by factories that originally sold them through catelogues, so handmade vanes weren’t even an issue. The highest amount ever paid for a weather vane was for a factory-made, copper Indian chief vane from 1900 that sold for $5.8 million at Sotheby’s in October 2006. Others have sold for prices from four figures on up.

Scarce and unusual weathervane forms, such as mermaids, cars, trains, and firemen, are very popular with collectors. The most common ones, however, are horses, roosters, and cows which tend to fetch lower prices.

The majority of collectors like old copper vanes that have a green or verdigris patina which helps to date it.  But the biggest problem are the vanes made now from original molds from defunct factories.
Though manufacturers generally don’t conceal the replicas’ origins, subsequent sellers often do.

The weathervanes that command the highest prices have not been restored. They have a patina—often noticeably different on one side thanks in part to prevailing winds and decades of exposure to sun, sleet, rain, snow and birds.