What Goes Around Comes Around

 

QUESTION: For the last couple of years, I’ve been buying vintage kitchen utensils. At first, I had planned to use them to decorate my Mid-Century Modern kitchen, but I got hooked on them and now purchase them not only at flea markets but online. Some I recognize, others I don’t. What types of gadgets did women use in their kitchen? And are these old utensils worth collecting?

ANSWER: Kitchen gadgets are a popular collectible. And what’s interesting about them is that most are still usable in today’s kitchen. Even with all the electric and electronic devices available today, there are just some things that need to be done by hand, preferably with some sort of gadget. The proliferation of gadgets advertised on T.V., the Internet, and social media attests to this.

There are dozens of quirky looking utensils—graters, slicers, ice cream scoops, ice picks, juicers, peelers, sharpeners, mashers, ricers, strainers, sifters, scoops, scales, and ladles. The list is almost endless.

All these utensils—from food mincers, pitters, and corers to spiral whisks and jar lifters—eased even the most basic of a housewife's culinary chores. Ingenious kitchen gadgets made exacting tasks—such as defining the outer edges of a pie crust with a pie crimper—a pleasure. Colored handles added to their attraction.

During the late 19th century, the modernization of the American kitchen had begun. The kitchen was a place where families gathered informally to cook and bake, make butter, can and preserve fruits and vegetables, peel potatoes, dry herbs, and wash dishes. And it took a variety of utensils to complete these jobs.

From the 1920's through the 1940's, large and small companies manufactured  hundreds of these gadgets, trying to help make kitchen work easier and more colorful. Brightly painted cooking utensils of the 1920s brought the first dab of color into American kitchens. Apple green led the cutlery color wheel, followed by Mandarin red. 

What could be better than homemade pie with homemade crust? Most pie crimpers had wooden handles and resembled small versions of today's pizza cutters Whalers often carved them of whale ivory for their wives and sweethearts back home. By the 20th century, makers introduced metal with the wood. Of course, there were many other baking gadgets like dough blenders, pie lifters, rolling pins, and spatulas. 

Before food processors and electric beaters, there were efficient hand and mechanical beaters. Among these were a variety of wooden handled spiral whisks, flat wire whips, and, of course, those very efficient rotary beaters. The forerunner to the food processor was the glass pitcher beater which came in variety of shapes and sizes.

Old choppers and mincers had wooden handles and stainless steel curved blades. Many of the old ones, made of glass, wood, or steel, were more durable. Some glass jar choppers and mincers had handles to turn, making the work easier and faster. Of course, cooks also used grinders mounted to the corner of the kitchen table. Simply by putting almost anything into the wide opening at the top and turning the handle, they could grind meat, nuts, and berries.

Department stores such as Abraham & Straus, Macy's,, and Wanamaker's led the market selling colorful vintage utensils and other kitchen paraphernalia. 

Many small businesses produced these labor-saving utensils. One of the most notable was A & J Manufacturing Company of Binghamton, New York. Colored utensils from A & J can be found at flea markets and antique shops and shows simply because these products proliferated nationally and internationally in the kitchen-cutlery market for nearly 40 years.

A & J began humbly in 1909 in the homes of Benjamin T. Ash and Edward H. Johnson, who lived in rural upstate New York. After creating and marketing their first product—a one-handed eggbeater—they added numerous other kitchen gadgets with natural wooden handles to their product line. By 1918, A & J had moved to a commercial building and employed 200 workers who cranked out some four million tools annually.

The company was the first to offer knives, spatulas, ladles, and other items in one package. 

These early 20th-century kitchen gadgets have a strong relationship to today’s “As-seen-on-TV”  gadgets, advertised on many of the retro channels. Take the one-hand blender. Except for its streamlined shape and lack of a colored handle, it’s very similar to Ash’s and West’s one-handed eggbeater. It puts a new spin on the old saying, “What goes around comes around.”

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.

Horn a Plenty

 

QUESTION: I’ve always been fascinated by antique items made of horn. I see them in cases at antique shows all the time. I’ve even purchased a hair comb or two and a walking stick with a horn handle. But I have no idea how these items were produced. I assume most of them were made in the 19th century, but I’m only guessing. Can you give me some insight into the production of products from cow’s horn.

ANSWER: Horn has long been used to make various utilitarian objects. Ancient people blew through it to call meetings and such. Other horns held gun powder for muskets. And ornate hair combs made of horn were all the rage in Victorian times.

Long before synthetic materials like Celluloid, Bakelite,  and Lucite came on the scene,  Mother Nature provided an interesting assortment of moldable organic materials. These unique substances from plants and animals are known as "natural plastics."

Thermoplastics are materials that are made pliable by the application of heat, then molded with pressure or by casting in a cold mold. Additional applications of heat will subsequently re-soften thermoplastics and distort the original molded shape of an object. Though many modern thermoplastics are recyclable, antique thermoplastics can be permanently damaged by heat. Testing methods, such as exposure to hot water and the ever-popular hot pin test, can ruin valuable antique objects that are very often irreplaceable. So caution should be taken when trying to identify the materials from which some antique molded items are made.

Collectors seek objects fashioned from natural thermoplastic materials like cow horn in the 18th and 19th centuries. Over time, people used horn for a .variety of useful and ornamental applications. It required persistence and hard work to understand its unique properties. Through trial and error, ingenuity and luck, horn smiths developed successful fabricating techniques for working with horn.

Horn is a form of a protein called keratin, the same type of material as in fish scales, bird feathers, human hair and fingernails. Tiny compressed hair-like fibers, which can be seen with a magnifying glass, make up the structure of ' horn. Because of its unique protein formation, horn frays easily and has a tendency to split and crack during fabrication, making it difficult to work with. 

Horn smiths harvested, cleaned and fabricated horn into a variety of useful and ornamental objects such as dressing combs, hair ornaments, buttons, jewelry, decorative inlaid frames, trinket and snuffboxes. Because of Its beautiful pale translucent quality, they used horn extensively during the Edwardian Era for producing Art Nouveau accessories that depicted the dragon fly motif. 

Horn was a plentiful by-product of the meat and leather industries. It had been used for centuries n its raw state to make objects like powder horns and for fashioning common utilitarian items such as serving spoons and shoehorns. Oxen, steer and cow horn ranged in color from pale cream to light mottled gray. Buffalo horn, obtained from India, Thailand, and China, was dark brown. Domestic cattle horn vas plentiful and ranged in color tones from pale grayish green to streaked dark brown.

Manufacturers used raw cattle horn to make pressed rattans, umbrella and utensil handles, jewelry items and dressing combs. But Before these finished products could reach consumers, they had to first be fabricated. This process actually began with the meat industry.

Slaughterhouses had a surplus of raw cattle horn, which they stockpiled into various sizes and colors. This they sold cheaply to manufacturing companies or merchants who were in the business of applying horn to fabricators. A representative from the fabricating company would carefully select horn for specialty items like ornamental hair combs. Some representatives traveled the world searching for fine horn. When color wasn’t a consideration, the horn went for making common utilitarian objects like utensil handles or buttons.

After sorting, fabricators prepared the raw horn for the first step in processing. Workers trimmed the ends away by means of sawing two cross cuts—the first called the "head" or "rootº cut and the second the "screw" or "tip" cut. They then gathered the tips  to make utensil handles and buttons and used the ragged edges of the head cut to produce fertilizer.

They then sent the trimmed horn to the "opening department" where they soaked it with water and heated it over an open fire until it became softened. Another method commonly employed by fabricators involved softening the trimmed horn in huge vats of hot water or oil.

Nevertheless, once sufficiently pliable, the horn was ready to be split open. In order to prevent waste and in an attempt to end up with a rectangular piece of material, workers made an elongated, spiral cut beginning from the widest part of the horn up through the narrow section. After slitting, they forced the  horn open using tongs, and then placed it between screw plates to flattened it.

Fabricators often performed special finishing techniques on raw horn to change its appearance. They frequently clarified and sometimes stained it. The clarifying process involved squeezing the cleaned and flattened material between heated and oiled iron plates under tremendous pressure until it became translucent. Lantern makers used clarified horn, which had a slight greenish hue, as a "glaze" instead of glass in lanterns throughout the 18º and 19" centuries. Another use for ultra thin, translucent sheets of horn was to layer them between the pages of important documents in order to protect them from damage caused by bleeding inks. But the most important application of clarified horn was in the production of fancy ornamental hair combs.

Horn smiths stained clarified horn to resemble expensive tortoiseshell by first exposing it to diluted nitric acid which turned it a pale yellow. Once they achieved the desired amber color, they sprinkled and streaked the horn with a mixture of caustic soda, litharge, or lead monoxide, and dragon's blood, a colored resin derived from the rattan palm. This solution reacted with the nitric acid in the treated horn and turned the affected areas orange. The end result was a mottled imitation of tortoiseshell in mellow shades of amber and orange. Records show that in the late 1880s the comb factory of Stewart & Company of  Aberdeen, Scotland, used 3.5 million horns to only 600 pounds of authentic tortoiseshell per year.

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 "Advertising of the Past" in the 2023 Spring 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.

Knock on Wood

 

QUESTION: Before the pandemic, I had been going to antique shows, especially those that featured more primitive pieces. One of the things that caught my eye was the variety of wooden objects, utensils, and containers on display. I’ve always liked the look of natural wood and think that I might start a collection. But there were so many different items that I don’t know where to start. Can you help me/

ANSWER: As with any type of collection, it’s important to collect what you like. A way to narrow this down a bit might be to think about what you like to do. Are you an avid cook that delights in all sorts of kitchen gadgets? Do you like unique containers? Do you like to work with woodworking tools? Once you decide what category of wooden items you’d like to collect, then, and only then, should you begin purchasing items for your collection. Also, it’s important to set a budget limit—know what you can afford—especially in the beginning. 

Woodenware generally consists of utilitarian items used in the everyday lives of 18th- and 19th-century Americans. Also known as treenware, from the word "treen," an old usage for "from trees." Wood was the component in the construction of many necessities in early American life.

Craftsmen used pine, a soft wood that was east to work with, for making woodenware and boxes. Dough boxes, trenchers—large oval or rectangular serving or preparation bowls---and small boxes made of pine are a favorite of collectors. They also used cherry, poplar, and butternut but didn’t use oak very often.

Fine examples of handmade, early American burl bowls can reach prices of over $1,000. A burl is an abnormal growth on a tree, occurring on a limb or the trunk. It’s harder than the normal wood of the tree. Due to its hardness, woodworkers often burned the piece of burl in the center, than dug it out with tools, finishing it to form the implement. Heavy and tough, the burl exhibits a beautiful and unusual appearance, becoming even more attractive over time when a patina forms. Burl items seem less likely to crack over time than the items made from normal wood. Some larger wooden-ware items may exhibit a partial burl in their construction.

Probably the most common examples of woodenware found were made for food preparation and storage. Family members fashioned many of these items by hand, but unfortunately, they discarded them when they were no longer usable. Hand-planed and carved marks are sure signs of handcrafting, as is a non-symmetrical design. Bowls and dry measures are probably the most common pieces of early manufactured woodenware. But finding a maker’s name on an item is rare.

Butter molds and stamps are another type of woodenware often seen. However, plates, utensils, and cups are scarce and command higher prices. Though handmade bowls sell well, manufactured bowls from the late 1800s and early 1900s are more common and affordable. Most desirable of the manufactured bowls tend to be the unusually large examples, of over 18 inches in diameter.

Designed to hold all types of dry goods, such as flour, cornmeal and other grains, pantry boxes are popular among woodenware collectors. They especially like the covered oval boxes with finger lapping made by the Shakers. The finger lapping helped the boxes keep their shape over time. Makers usually painted many of these. Like most items, it these boxes retain their original paint, the value increases dramatically.

Woodenware also includes items, such as shovels, buckets, tools, and barrels, used in daily life. Coopers made staved buckets and barrels. They constructed the majority of them with iron bands, and occasionally used wood bands.

Grain shovels, hay forks and rakes were some old farm implements made from wood. 

Makers cut early pieces from one piece of wood, with the grip, handle and shovel constituting one piece. Later, they made them from two pieces, joined with nuts and bolts  Farm implements, like rakes, forks and shovels, received a good bit of hard use, and often exhibit wear and tear.

Staved firkins, or sugar buckets, used to hold sugar and other dry goods, and had a  cover, swing handle, and wood bands. Wider at the base than at the top, these buckets came in several sizes. Painted examples are the most valuable. Other utilitarian pieces included sap buckets, used for collecting sap for maple syrup making, kerosene buckets, and drop handle water pails.

Woodenware was made to be used, often strenuously and regularly. Wear and use marks not only add to the intrigue of the piece, but also help in differentiating it from a recently made one. Chop marks usually cover the interior of bowls and trenchers. Stir sticks will be stained from soups and jams. Farmers scraped grain shovels thousands of times against barn floors. In addition, the wood has probably been exposed to a wide range of weather conditions over the years, as people often stored pieces in barns, attics, and cellars. And because some of the earliest pieces of American-made woodenware were quite thin, cracks and breaks were inevitable.

Woodworkers used different finishes on various types of woodenware. They left kitchen implements natural, though the exteriors of bowls and trenchers may have been painted or stained. Cooking oils and fats gives them a smooth, rich patina. Constant handling of the item also contributed to a well-worn look. Original finishes and paints add to woodenware’s value. Old red, blue or mustard paints are especially desirable. 

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 Sears Catalogue and the items sold in it in "Sears' Book of Bargains" in the 2021 Fall 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.

The Art of Knokhloma

 

QUESTION: For years I’ve been collecting decorative wooden bowls and utensils that someone told me were Ukranian. They look to be some type folk art but I’m not sure how old the pieces I have actually are.  I’ve never seen or read anything about them, but their bright colors and attractive designs  really attracted me. I found most of the pieces in my collection at garage sales and fleamarkets. What can you tell me about the pieces in my collection?

ANSWER: The pieces in your collection aren’t Ukrainian but Russian—there’s a difference. In fact, they originated in the Kovernino District of the Nizhni Novgorod province north of Moscow. The painting style became to be known as Khokhloma. 

, which first appeared in the second half of the 17th century, is known for its curved and vivid mostly flower, berry and leaf patterns. The Firebird, a figure from the Russian fairytale, can also be used.

A combination of red, black, and gold are typical colors for Khokhloma. When artisans paint on wood, they use mostly red, black, green, yellow and orange  over a gold background. This makes the wooden tableware look heavier and metallic.

The production of painted dishes in Khokhloma is first mentioned in 1659 in the letter of a boyar called Morozov to his bailiff, containing an order for 100 painted dishes and 40 painted wine bowls.

The handicraft owes its origin to the Old Believers, who, fleeing from persecutions of officials, took refuge in the local woods. Even earlier, however, local craftsmen had experience in making tableware from soft woods. But it was icon-painters who taught them the special technique of painting wood in a golden color without the use of real gold.

The craftsmen carved utensils and dishes out of wood, then primed them with clay mortar, raw linseed oil, and tin powder. They then painted a floral pattern on top of this coating. After that, they coated the pieces with linseed oil and hardened them in a kiln at high temperatures. 

Artisans used two principal wood painting techniques on the Khokhloma—the  "superficial technique," red and black colors over a goldish one, and the "background technique," a goldish silhouette-like design over a colored background.

One of the villages where the art of Khokhloma painting had originally been practiced in ancient times grew to become a trading post to which the local craftsmen brought their wares for sale starting from the 18th century.

But it wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that Westerners first learned of the Khokhloma painting style through an exhibition in Paris. But by the early 20th century, the style seemed to be fading away, only to be revitalized during the Soviet times. 

The Khokhloma craftsmen united into artels in the 1920s to early 1930s. In the 1960s, the Soviets built a factory called the Khokhloma Painter near the Khokhloma village and another one in the town of Semyonov. These two factories have become the Khokhloma centers of Russia and still produce tableware, utensils,, furniture, and souvenirs.

The three colors—red, black, and gold—used in Khokhloma painting had a profound symbolism for decorating the sacred church vessels and the dishes and cups used in the monasteries and nunneries, as well as in icon ornaments. The red color represented beauty, the gold color symbolized the spiritual heavenly light, while the black color signified the cleansing of the human soul. The religious symbolism of colors has long been lost in the Khokhloma art but the precise and solemn scheme of colors inherent in the festive design of the "gilded" dishes grew to be traditionally used for decorating all wooden Khokhloma articles and made them especially favored by collectors.

There are families in the region famous for Khokhloma art who have been keeping secret formulas of painting materials and techniques, transferring them from one generation to the next for more than three centuries. 

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 "Celebrating an Olde Fashioned Holiday" in the 2020 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.

Kolorful Kitchen Kollectibles

QUESTION: I have been cleaning out my grandmother’s house after her death. In the kitchen drawers, I’ve found dozens of quirky looking utensils, most with colorful wooden handles. Some of these I’m sure I can use today. Should I use them or put them aside as collectibles?

ANSWER: Every American kitchen had a least some of these handy-dandy doodads. Each utensil had one use, so housewives had to buy a large number of them to take care of all the tasks a typical kitchen required. And, yes, some of them may be somewhat valuable—at least the rarer ones.

These early 20th-century kitchen gadgets have a strong relationship to today’s “As-seen-on-TV”  gadgets, advertised on many of the retro channels. Take the one-hand blender. Except for its streamlined shape and lack of a colored handle, it’s very similar to the one-handed eggbeater that worked with an up-and-down motion, similar to a top, created in 1909 by Benjamin T. Ash and Edward H. Johnson of upstate New York. It puts a new spin on the old saying, “What goes around comes around.”

But why the colorful handles? Brightly painted cooking utensils of the 1920s brought the first dab of color into American kitchens. Apple green led the cutlery color wheel, followed by Mandarin red. But manufacturers also produced wooden handles in white, blue, black, or yellow, and sometimes two-toned with ivory stripes.

All these utensils—from food mincers, pitters, and corers to spiral whisks, ice picks, and jar lifters—eased even the most basic of the housewife's culinary chores. Ingenious kitchen gadgets made exacting tasks—such as defining the outer edges of a piecrust with a pie crimper—a pleasure. Colored handles only added to their attraction.

Kitchen gadgets, from spoons to mashers, were originally all-wood, simply carved, and shaped to meet various purposes in the kitchen. Pie crimpers are a good example. Whalers often carved them of whale ivory for their wives and sweethearts back home. By the 20th century, makers introduced metal with the wood and a sea of new items appeared in homes.

Black was the first "color" used to paint wooden handles, then white, just prior to 1920. It wasn’t until the  late 1920s that other colors began to appear and continued in use through 1950, when plastic handles took over.

The history of colored cooking aids directly parallels that of the emerging automated kitchen. Prior to the industrial revolution, agateware offered lackluster, all-white kitchens their only hint of color. Kitchenware, dishes, pots, and other items were also plain and unimaginative. Utensils—in their bare steel frames plated with tin, nickel, or chrome, and later stainless steel were just as pallid until color came along.

It happened around 1927. Competition was everywhere, especially in real estate. To attract buyers, builders resorted to gimmicks such as using pink and blue tiles, instead of the traditional white, in bathrooms. The tiles were a hit—an indication that America applauded merchandisers' efforts to add vibrance to homes. Houseware manufacturers quickly responded. A color revolution in the kitchen had begun, and it hasn’t let up yet.

By the end of the decade, the "Color Craze" had replaced the "White Enamel Era," so-called by women's and home-fashions magazines. Department stores such as Abraham & Straus, Macy's,,and Wanamaker's led the market selling utensils and other kitchen paraphernalia in color. Sears Roebuck, Kresge, Spiegel, and F. W. Woolworth—also retailers catering to middle class housewives—offered serving trays, canisters, spice sets, breadboxes, clocks, scales, garbage cans, dishes, and even dustpans to eager homemakers.

Kitchen-tool manufacturing was widespread in the early part of this century. Many small businesses produced all types of labor-saving devices with and without color. Acme Metal Goods Mfg. Co., of Newark, N.J., and Bromwell Wire Goods, in Cincinnati, Ohio, were only two.

But antiques dealers say the name on utensils that probably pops up more often than others is A & J Mfg. Co., of Binghamton, N.Y. Colored utensils from A & J are widely available at flea markets and antiques shows and shops simply because these products proliferated nationally and internationally in the kitchen-cutlery market for about 40 years. Stamped into the tool's metal, their trademark is a diamond shape with the Monogram "A & J" superimposed on the utensil.

A & J began humbly in 1909 in the homes of Benjamin T. Ash and Edward H. Johnson, who lived in rural upstate New York. After creating and marketing their first product—a one-handed eggbeater—they added numerous other kitchen gadgets with natural wooden handles to their product line. By 1918, A & J had moved to a commercial building and employed 200 workers who cranked out some four million tools annually.

A & J was the first to offer knives, spatulas, ladles, and other items in one package. In 1923, the company entered the toy market, producing its regular kitchen items in miniature, with the same colored handles, for young girls. The half-sized eggbeaters, waffle irons, strainer spoons, and rolling pins were exact replicas of the ones Mother employed. Johnson's intent with the company's line of Mother's Little Helper Kitchen Tools for Little Cooks and Bakers was to familiarize future housewives with the A & J name so they would buy the company's products when they grew up and had a home of their own. The strategy worked.
                                   
A & J was so successful that Edward Katzinger, founder of Ekco, bought the company in 1929 and moved it to Chicago in 1931. Ekco kept the A & J trademark and line until the 1950s, and sold the toys until 1937.

So while some of the items advertised on TV today may seem futuristic, their purpose is the same—to make like easier with less work for not only mother, but anyone who cooks.

For more information, see an earlier post of this blog on kitchen gadgets from February 18, 2013, entitled “Less Work for Mother.”