Luggage for the Long Haul

 

QUESTION: I recently purchased a vintage trunk. It has no makers mark on the bottom or inside, so I was wondering what year it was made and who made it.

ANSWER: What you have is a flat-top steamer trunk, which from the looks of it, probably dates to between the 1910s and 1920s..

Steamer trunks, which got their name from their storage location on a steamer ship, first appeared in the late 1870s, although most date from between 1880 and 1920. While some had flat tops, those with rounded tops were for those who wanted to try to have their trunk placed  on the top of piles in the baggage compartments, so they wouldn’t be damaged. When people traveled, they did so for longer periods because travel by train, and especially sailing ships or coastal steamers, was slow. 

Steamer trunks generally came in many styles, including the Jenny Lind, Saratoga, monitor, steamer or cabin, barrel-staves, octagon or bevel-top, wardrobe, dome-top, barrel-top, wall trunks, and even full dresser trunks. Since these differing styles only lasted for a decade or two, and—along with their hardware—can be extremely helpful in dating an unmarked trunk.

Trunks generally consisted of a base trunk box made of pine covered with protective and decorative materials. Some of the earliest trunks sported studded hide or leather and looked much like the furniture of the same period since many furniture makers also produced trunks. Later coverings included paper, canvas, plain or embossed tin, with an uncounted assortment of hardware and hardwood slats to hold it down.

There were hundreds of trunk manufacturers in the United States. A few of the larger and well known companies included Rhino Trunk & Case, C.A. Taylor, Haskell Brothers, Martin Maier, Romadka Bros., Goldsmith & Son, Crouch & Fitzgerald, M. M. Secor, Winship, Hartmann, Belber, Oshkosh, Seward, and Leatheroid. One of the largest American manufacturers of trunks was Seward Trunk Company of Petersburg, Virginia. Shwayder Trunk Company of Denver, Colorado later became Samsonite. Another was the English luxury goods manufacturer H.J. Cave trading since 1839. Some of the better known French trunk makers included Louis Vuitton, Goyard, Moynat, and Au Départ.

The easiest way to date any trunk is by examining its style. The Jenny Lind trunk, named after the Swedish singer who toured the United States between 1850 and 1852, had a distinctive hour glass or keyhole shape when viewed from the side.

Saratoga trunks, on the other hand, were the premium trunks of many manufacturers and   encompassed nearly every other style of trunk manufactured before the 1880s. Saratogas had a variety of complex compartments, trays, and heavy duty hardware.

Monitor-tops date from the late 1870s to the late 1910s. They had rounded front and rear corners which formed a lying-down "D" when viewed from the side. Earlier examples usually included labor-intensive hardwood slats while there was a revival much later with rarer, all-metal ones being used.

Steamer trunks, sometimes referred to as flat-tops, first appeared in the late 1870s, although most of them date date from the 1880s to the 1920s. Their flat or slightly curved tops, usually covered in canvas, leather or patterned paper, distinguished them from others. They stood about 14 inches tall to accommodate steamship luggage regulations. Some old catalogs referred to them as "packers," while a "steamer" trunk actually referred to one often called a cabin trunk.

Cabin trunks, often called "true" steamer trunks, were the equivalent of today's carry-on luggage. They were low-profiled and small enough to fit under the berths of trains or in the cabin of a steamer. Manufacturers made them with flat tops and an inner tray compartment to store the owner's valuables deemed too valuable to stow in the baggage  car or ship's hold.

Barrel-staves, made from the late 1870s to the mid-1880s had horizontal instead of vertical slats, giving them a distinctive look.

Bevel-tops, dating from the 1870s to 1900, had a distinct trapezoidal shape when viewed from the side, although the earlier ones usually had a much shorter flattened top section than the later ones.

Wardrobe trunks had to be stood on end to be opened and had drawers on one side and hangers for clothes on the other. Many of the better ones also included buckles/tie-downs for shoes, removable suitcases/briefcases, privacy curtains, mirrors, and makeup boxes. Because of their large size and weight, people used these for extended travel by ship or train.

A dome-top trunk had a high, curved top that could rise up to 25 to 30 inches. Included were camel-backs which had a central, vertically running top slat that was higher than the others, hump-backs which were the same but had no slat in the center of the top, and barrel-tops, which had high arching slats that were all the same height. These trunks date from the 1870s to the 1900s.

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Heraldic Mementos

QUESTION: On a recent trip to England, I came across some small ceramic objects with heraldic crests on them. At first I thought that they were family crests, but upon closer examination, I realized each piece, along with its crest, came from a different English town. I bought several of these “souvenirs” to take home as mementos of my trip. I’d really like to collect them but know nothing about them. Can you tell me how old these pieces might be and if it would be possible to collect them since I live in the U.S.?

ANSWER:  Heraldic souvenirs have become very popular with collectors in recent years, and not just those on the other side of the pond. While you may have to look a bit harder for them over here, you will find them, especially because you can purchase them directly from British sellers online.

These heraldic souvenirs became popular as a result of a tremendous expansion in travel during the second half of the 19th century. This occurred partly because of the rise in incomes which allowed more people to afford to travel and the greatly improved technology in rail and steamer transportation. The latter became so affordable that just about anyone could travel around the country. As more people traveled, the demand for attractive mementos skyrocketed.

William Henry Goss was the first manufacturer to produce heraldic souvenirs. In fact, many manufacturers made them over 70 years, much to the joy of traveling Victorians.

Goss met W.F. Copeland, one of the owners of the Copeland Spode China Factory. Copeland hired him as a clerk in his London warehouse in 1852, and the following year Goss moved to the factory headquarters at Stoke in Staffordshire. By 1857 he had become the chief modeler for the company.

It was the modelers who designed the originals or models of all of the various pottery and porcelain objects that Goss manufactured, ranging from simple utilitarian ware like plates to elaborate ornamental ware such as portrait busts. In 1858, Goss left Copeland and soon had established his own company which produced common ceramic objects for the next 20 years, including terra cotta ware and Parian portrait busts.


The innovation that was to make the firm famous came in the early 1880s. Goss produced small replicas of objects associated with particular places and placed on them the local coat of arms. Wealthy families had been ordering hand-decorated sets of china with the family arms on them for quite some time, so armorial ware wasn’t something new. What was so novel about Goss’ pieces was that he made them inexpensively for ordinary people.

Goss was always particular about the design standards of his wares, and he thoroughly researched both the original historical artifact of each model and the coat of arms it was to bear.  He used armorial reference books to insure that the crests were authenti. Goss also used his Parian porcelain formula for his crested ware, permitting very elaborate sculptural qualities and also making it possible to keep pieces eggshell thin.

To keep standards high, Goss wanted to have only one object sold as a souvenir for any particular place, and also to sell that object solely in the place whose crest it carried. To insure that there was no "cheating" by retailers, the firm had only one agent in each town and required that the agent sell Goss ware and nothing else. Soon Goss made a variety of objects available to local agents, although for a time the crest still had to be that of the place where they were to be sold. If a person wanted an object with the arms of, say, Chester, he or she had to travel there to purchase it.

The production process was rather straight forward. First, a modeler sculpted the model for each object in clay. Then another worker made a plaster-of-paris mold of it. This process often damaged the original model beyond repair. Yet another worker cast a duplicate of the original mold, and used this piece, called the block, to make the master mold which, in turn, he used to produce working models from which the working molds could be made.

Goss used plaster of paris for molds because it absorbed water fast. A worker would pour clay that had been mixed with water to the consistency of cream, called slip, into a mold. Soon, the slip in contact with the mold would dry, and then he would pour the remainder off, creating a very thin clay piece. Each mold lasted for several hundred castings, although toward the end of its life the detail wouldn’t have been as sharp.

Kiln workers fired the "green" ware at about 1200 degrees Celsius. Then, the piece moved to the glazers who would paint the piece and fire it again at a slightly lower temperature. After this second firing, another employee would apply the printed transfer of a particular coat of arms or other decoration and send the piece to be fired again.

Finally, decorators added the color by hand, and again the piece would be fired for the last time. If the piece were to be gilted, it would undergo one more round of hand-decoration and firing. Despite the complexity of the process, the cost to the purchaser was still modest—about several dollars in today's money).

The heraldic souvenir craze peaked World War I. By the 1920s, these common trinkets were beginning to seem old-fashioned. 

Goss’ firm made these souvenirs in a wide variety of shapes, eventually producing hundreds with a myriad of different coats of arms, making the number of possible variations run into the thousands. You could collect these souvenirs for years and still continue to find new and interesting pieces.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my 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.  

The World’s Most Usable Antique

QUESTION: I purchased an old trunk a while ago. It seems as if someone tried to “antique” it back in the 1960s, which makes it look ugly. I’ve seen trunks restored before and wondered if you can tell me something about this trunk and if it can be restored?

ANSWER: Old steamer trunks are one of the most useful of all antiques. They can still be used for storage after given a little TLC. This makes them more valuable because a person who isn’t necessarily an antique collector will buy one to use rather than a plastic bin.

Although trunks, themselves, date back to medieval times, it’s only the ones made in the 19th and early 20th centuries that people buy to reuse for storage. Trunks gained popularity with the coming of the railroads. And while people used them when traveling by stagecoach, they were more likely to use a “carpet” bag, one made of durable carpet material that could be carried by the owner.

People along the coasts of the United States traveled from one point on the coast to another by coastal steamer or, within the interior of the country, by steamboat. Larger trunks could be taken along because these vessels had porters to carry the heavy trunks onboard and off, thus the name “steamer” trunk.

From the later half of the 19th century to the first couple of decades of the 20th, trunks were flat on top. These usually had a smooth metal or canvas covering, and later an embossed metal cover. They also had wooden slats or metal banding to strengthen them, as well as to add a decorative touch. More elaborate trunks, especially those made by Frenchman Louis Vuitton, had rounded tops.

A typical 100 to 130-year-old antique trunk has a stale and musty odor from more than a century of collecting dust, mold, and mildew. Along with the deterioration of the outside canvas, leather and the inside paper lining, the glue, itself, will have decomposed over time. The original tray insert, made from a thin wood fiber or a compressed sawdust type of material, may have a deteriorated paper covering. Dry rot and mold can also be present. The purpose of the restoration process is to stop further deterioration and to remove the collection of dust, mildew, and mold which is causing the musty odor.

A basic restoration consists of first removing all canvas and paper coverings and leather straps and handles. Next the exposed wood must be washed in a special non-toxic solution to kill and remove dust, mold and mildew, then lightly sanded. Any broken hardware must be removed and replaced, as well as all of the leather. It’s important to make all repairs using the same types of tools, nails, tacks, and craftsmanship used when the trunk was first made. The next step is to restore and seal the wood using special non-toxic restorative oils and varnishes in a slow, repetitive manner to bring out the patina that only 100-year-old wood can achieve. The last step is to bring the hardware, fixtures, and any sheathing back to its original color. This includes removing any paint that may have been applied. The hardware, itself, can be painted a flat black if the original finish cannot be restored.

It’s important to use plastic gloves, eye protection, and a construction-grade face mask when removing the dust and old finishes. While there are lots of good non-toxic cleaners on the market today, some toxic ones may have to be used if the finish on the trunk is in bad condition.

Never use an old trunk without properly cleaning it both inside and outside. It’s especially important to scrub the inside and remove and old paper lining that can’t be saved. In fact, unless the paper lining in historically important to the trunk, it should be removed entirely, as should the glue holding it in place. Back in the 19th century, trunk makers used horse glue to attach the paper to the inside and canvas to the outside.. The trunk can then be lined with fabric or vinyl wallpaper.

Many people romanticize about old trunks—where they’ve been and who they belonged to.