From Art to Cheap Carnival Prizes

 

QUESTION: Recently, as I was helping my grandmother to downsize before moving to an assisted living community, I discovered several pieces of kitchy Plaster of Paris figurines, small lamps, and strange little pockets depicting animals with a hollow space behind them. My grandmother told me that my grandfather had won them for her at the annual summer carnival. What are these things? Can you tell me more about their history?

ANSWER: The items belonging to your grandmother are known as chalkware. Though popular during the mid 20th century, chalkware actually got its start in the 18th century as an alternative to Staffordshire ware. But most people recognize it as the cheap carnival prizes given away to winners of games. 

Chalkware is an American term for popular figurines either made of molded plaster of Paris or sculpted gypsum, and painted, typically with oils or watercolors. Often referred to as the "poor man's porcelain," chalkware was primarily created from the late 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, during the Great Depression, and during the Mid-Century Modern era. Created during the earlier period as a serious decorative art, often imitating the more expensive imported English Staffordshire figurines. Those during the second period were more typically satirical. 

Once it cured or hardened, a worker removed the plaster holder from the mold and painted to give it strong eye appeal. Chalkware became a popular item sold in five and dime stores, and the designs seemed endless. Most manufacturers, including Roseville, Weller, and McCoy potteries, produced a variety of wall pockets, designed to hang on the wall and hold a variety of items, such as stamps, matches, flowers, and letters. 

As the Great Depression took hold in the U.S. in the 1930s, chalkware shifted towards more whimsical designs. These items were both colorful and playful, providing a brief escape from the economic woes of the time.

Eventually, carnival operators begin giving chalkware figures as prizes, especially during World War II. By the 1960s, stuffed animals replaced them.

After the War, young homeowners sought out chalkware as an inexpensive and expressive decor for their homes, including table lamps, figurines, and wall decor. Attracting fine, mundane and comic artists, chalkware reached a broad audience from 1945 to 1965, providing everything from representations of European sculpture, to kitsch images of exotic travel and cartoonish characters.

By the mid 1950s in the United Kingdom, chalkware took the form of eggcups, match holders, and ashtrays. The earliest designers were Paoli Brothers and Hermann Lohnberg. By 1956, tastes changed with a move to animals. By 1957, figurines and statues of African-style ladies and gentlemen had become popular.  

Mid 20th century chalkware lamps were often romantic and exotic with a focus on the idealized beauty of historic, natural, and abstract designs. Common motifs included dancers, often sold as a male and female pair, innocent or sensual figures, trees, flowers, animals, zig-zags, waves and modern abstract sculpture typical of the period. One of the most popular motifs were of romanticized, stereotyped Asian, African, Native American, Hawaiian people in exotic and often inaccurate settings or costumes. Some of these lamps were made as nightlights with small bulbs. TV lamps, based upon popular chalkware radio lamp designs, quickly became replaced by ceramic.

Wall decor chalkware included bath motifs like fish or mermaids, kitchen motifs like fruit, and 'wall pockets' that often were faces with small areas in the back suitable for air plants or plastic flowers.

People took to the highways in the booming post-war era, creating a need for tourist souvenirs, including ashtrays, figures, bobble-heads and destination-specific items. 

One of the overlooked markets for chalkware was the religious-based one. Manufacturers produced a large variety of statuary, wall plaques, and other religious objects for use in churches and the home. 

Some of the more popular American chalkware companies include Continental Art Company and Universal Statuary Corporation in Chicago, Alexander Baker Company and 'ABCO' in New York, Fine Arts In Plastics or F.A.I.P in Brooklyn, Jo Wallis Lamp Company, Miller Studios, and Reglor in  California, and Vaillancourt Folk Art in Massachusetts.

As the 1970s dawned, heavy, and easy to break or chip, chalkware eventually lost favor to ceramic and plastic alternatives in the 1970s. 

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 50,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Federal America" in the 2026 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.

The Delicate Beauty of Russian Lacquer Boxes

 

QUESTION:  I have came across a box at a thrift store and after researching I am not sure it is or is not an authentic Russian Lacquer box. I was wondering what you thought?

ANSWER: According to my research, I believe your box was made in the village of Palekh, Russia, where similar boxes have been made. Also, the illustrations on the box seem to follow those on other Palekh boxes. Boxes exported out of Russia usually have a paper sticker on the bottom indicating that the box had been made in the USSR, or for later ones, Russia. These labels often fall off, but this box also has a mark in Cyrillic script. 

Russian lacquer art developed from the art of icon painting which came to an end with the collapse of Imperial Russia. The icon painters, who previously had been employed by supplying not only churches but people's homes, needed a way to make a living. Thus, the craft of making papier-mache decorative boxes developed. They lacquered the boxes, then artists hand painted them, often with scenes from folk tales, such as the tale of the Firebird, or of Prince Igor, or of Swan Lake.

Princesses dance, czars scowl, knights do battle, horses fly, suns smile, Father Frost puffs icy wind, and lovers embrace on glossy black backgrounds of lacquered papier-mache, surrounded by spectacular borders of gold filigree. Vivid reds and yellows dominated these scenes, with greens and blues and ivories typically reserved for highlights and details.

In finer boxes, artists often applied paint over gold or silver, producing a luminescence reminiscent of traditional Russian icon painting. The brushwork could be astonishingly intricate and detailed and beautifully rendered in the kind of stylized realism associated with European miniature paintings of the Middle Ages.

Artists in four villages—Fedoskino, Palekh, Kholui and Mstyora—made these lacquered boxes. All except Fedoskino lie in the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, Ivanovo region of central Russia, and have been deeply rooted in the 17th- to 19th-century icon painting tradition, which lasted until the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The latter two villages, both north of Moscow, were for centuries an important home of traditional Russian icon painters, whose gilded portraits of-melancholy saints and dolorous Madonnas were the essential art form of czarist Russia. After the 1917 revolution, however, the new Bolshevik government banned religious art, and the icon makers turned to legends and folk tales and poems for their subjects.

The papier-mache process, used to make these lacquer boxes, took about six weeks to ensure that it wouldn’t warp, didn’t expand and contract with temperature, and had a linseed oil base which rendered it impervious to moisture. The papier-mache, itself, consisted of cardboard covered with flour paste which workers then shaped, coated with warm linseed oil, planed, and sanded. Artists applied clay, oil, and soot as an undercoating that they smoothed with a pumice stone, then lacquered and primed in preparation for the artist.

Although black was the most common color for a background, artists also used red, blue, green, and white backgrounds. Red was the most challenging background to paint on a lacquer box because the other colors don’t come forward. By contrast, a black background wasn’t only dramatic, but also the easiest color with which to work.

The crafting of Russian lacquer boxes dates back to the 18th century and the reign of Peter the Great. Originally used for holding snuff, these boxes have evolved into many different shapes and sizes for holding things like jewelry and money.

By the mid 18th century, tobacco became affordable for ordinary people, and the need for a box to hold the snuff became necessary. The wealthy had stored their snuff in boxes made out of ivory. gold, and other precious materials, but inexpensive lacquer boxes became a good alternative for poorer folk.

In 1795, while traveling to Germany, Pyotr Korobov came across the factory of Johann Heinrich Stobwasser in Braunschweig. Korobov became intrigued by the lacquer items produced there and took supplies back home to the village of Fedoskino to make his own. 

Decorated snuftboxes, made in Fedoskino in great quantities in the early 19th century by Piet:Vasieiievich Lukutin, were probably the finest of all old Russian lacquer boxes but today are extremely rare. Lukutin's boxes were durable, but the processes he employed in producing a perfect material for his lacquer work from compressed sheets of cardboard were lengthy and painstaking. Evidently Lukutin realized that the success of "japanning" depended upon the quality of the papier-mache itself. He gave his boxes numerous coatings of lacquer laboriously hand polishing them between applications. He obtained a fine patina by first soaking his boxes in vegetable oil and hardening them in low-heat ovens for a long time.

Artists decorated the earliest Lukutin boxes with themes similar to those used by English and German decorators at the time. They used landscapes and skylines as well as genre subjects. They also decorated boxes with mother-of-pearl. Toward the middle of the 19th century, they began decorating the boxes with Russian folk motifs. From 1828 on, the Lutkin family marked the boxes with the Imperial eagle and the various initials of the members of the family in charge of the factory at the time. They continued to run the business successfully until it closed in 1904.

The styles of decorations of papier-mache boxes in the village of Palekh differed from those decorated at the old Lutkin works. In 1917 some of the artists and craftsmen of the lacquer industry formed cooperatives and revived the art before it became lost. But it wasn’t until Ivan Golikov applied icon painting techniques to lacquered papier-mache in 1922 that many of the icon painters of pre-Revolutionary days began work in Palekh decorating lacquer boxes. Painted in egg tempera rather than the oils used in Fedoskino, the Palekh style is fanciful and somewhat less realistic than those of the original village. The artists of both Kholui and Mstyora also used egg tempera paint.

Another difference was the subject matter they painted and how they painted it. Fedoskino was known for realistic impressionistic scenes, while the other three focused on relic paintings that were less realistic. Originally, Palekh made relic paintings for the rich: Kholuy and Mstyora made relic paintings for the middle class and poor.

Palekh boxes appeared at the beginning of the 20th century almost always on a black background. Along with historical subjects, Palekh's artists also painted contemporary themes and scenes of rural life, such as threshing, harvesting, and hay-mowing. Their depictions of humans tend to have much longer bodies than those of Kholuy or Mstyora. Palekh lacquer boxes almost always have a hand-painted golden border design. But it was the artists Ivan Gofikov and his brother-in-law Alexander Glazunov who really made Palekh famous for its lacquer boxes which had the most sophisticated decoration, considered unrivaled in composition, color, and execution.

Tourist guides frequently tell their tour groups that a signature on the bottom of the box indicates that a master painted it. However, in reality most lacquer boxes came from small factories where signing another artist's name was no more difficult than painting in his style. Instead of checking for the signature of an artist, buyers should consider the quality and detail of the artwork_ Many of the lacquer boxes produced in the former Soviet Union have exceptional detail and command astronomical prices, yet have no signature. Box sellers rather then the artists themselves have perpetuated the signature myth of the signatures.

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 50,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Federal America" in the 2026 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.

An Unlikely Result of the Black Death

 

QUESTION: My family is German by descent. And being so, my grandfather assembled a collection of German beer steins. He left them to me. Rather then just have them sit on a shelf, I’d like to grow the collection. I don’t know anything about antique or even vintage steins and would like to know more before I purchase additional ones. How did steins originate? When were the first ones produced? And how can I tell if a stein has value? 

ANSWER: Those are all good questions. I’m glad to see that you’re interested in curating your grandfather’s collection rather then just packing the steins away or selling them off. 

Believe it or not, German beer steins have a very unlikely and surreal origin. Originally, the Germans produced beer steins to combat health issues that triggered the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death which killed over 25 millions Europeans. Around the same time, hoards of flies began invading central Europe in the late 1400s. The fly invasion, combined with the plague, resulted in Germany passing sanitary laws that required all food and beverage containers to have lids to protect people from the insects.

Strict laws enforcing sanitation on the ingredients, transport, and quality of beer led to a great improvement in the taste of German beer. This made men value beer steins, thus wanting to own their own unique steins. The beer stein became a status symbol and display piece for German families each displaying its family crest.

Beer steins are a popular symbol for both Germany and beer. They come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and materials, including earthenware, metal, pewter, wood, ivory, ceramic, porcelain, crystal, creamware, silver, and glass. Most have handles, a hinged lid and are decorated or hand-painted.

The decorative elements of beer steins may represent traditional motifs, regalia, a coat of arms, or depict a person’s occupation. Some are embellished with three-dimensional artwork and touch on a theme. You may also find a collectible series of beer steins with themed artwork or antique steins with engraved dates to commemorate a special occasion.

The earliest antique German beer steins date to the 14th century, a time when earthenware was being improved, Germany was making new and improved brews, and Europe was ravaged with the bubonic plague.

From the 14th to the 17th centuries, German potters added salt, cobalt oxide blue, manganese oxide purple, and chocolate salt glaze to their steins. To go beyond simple decoration, they applied relief decorative shields, as well as historical, figurative, and Biblical scenes.

Beer steins evolved as a result of the laws passed in several German principalities stating that covers had to be on all beverage and food containers. The laws, and others related to sanitary conditions, were in reaction to the fear that a recurrence of the bubonic plague, also called the Black Death, would be caused by several invasions of flies throughout Central Europe in the mid to late fifteenth century. Up until that time, most common folk drank beer from mugs made of porous earthenware or wood. The well-to-do and upper class drank from glass, pewter or silver vessels, called beakers or tankards.

Stein is a shortened version of the word steinzeug krug, which means stoneware, tankard, or jug in German. A stein was just one of a variety of beer drinking vessels. The word transformed into staene, meaning jug in Old English. The English version, stein, appeared in 1855. In common usage, stein referred to any beer vessel with a hinged lid and handle.

Germans originally drank beer in mugs, but once the sanitary laws passed, these mugs came with a hinged lid with a thumblift. This ensured the mug could not only stay covered but could also be used to drink out of using only one hand using the thumblift.

Once the 16th century began, regulations regarding the quality and transportation of German beer resulted in better tasting beer and a variety of steins. The improved beer brought patrons to taverns, as well as the desire to own a personal stein.

By the mid-17th century, German beer and stoneware beer steins were in high demand. The elite members of the German society wanted elaborately decorated steins made of silver, pewter, or glass which were made in Bavaria, Koblenz and Koln.

As personal steins became more popular, Germans wanted durable but inexpensive containers out of which to drink their clean beer. Stein makers began searching for better materials. Eventually, they created stoneware which proved to be a superior material that was chip-resistant and non-porous. It was the perfect component for a container that needed to meet sanitary conditions.

Artisans began decorating tankards with scenes depicting towns throughout southern and Western Germany, like Heidelberg and Rothenburg. They also created artistic scenes that captured biblical, allegorical, and historical events.

By the late 18th century, the covered-container laws had run their course, but because the Germans had covered their beverages for three centuries, lids became an integral part of all steins. 

The 18th-century trends continued to rise in popularity. The Bavarians had over 4000 breweries, and stoneware production increased into the late 1700s.

European porcelain started affecting stein-making in the 1720s, but these steins were expensive, so only wealthy Germans could afford them.

Just as steins improved, so did the beer. Most people considered beer to be an effective medicine. It was also safer to drink beer than water due to its sanitary production process.

As wars and rebellions decreased the wealth and power of the aristocrats, so stein makers began looking to the middle class as their target market and made products to fit their lifestyles.

Cylindrical pewter steins became popular, and especially those with stamped or engraved folk art designs. The wealthy still preferred porcelain beer steins with Baroque decorations. But by the early 19th century, most Germans preferred pewter steins for everyday use.

By 1850, beer steins featured Renaissance motifs and relief decorations. They also had inlaid porcelain lids. 

Stoneware became popular once again after 1850. Makers used molds instead of the expensive and labor-intensive handbuilt process. Although more affordable and convenient, the molded tankards were no longer considered authentic German beer steins, as they were being mass-produced.

Moisture-absorbing plaster molds helped porcelain stein producers make unique shapes and the lithophane scenes that are commonly found on the bottom of porcelain steins.

Classically trained artists from the Mettlach factory introduced Renaissance motifs into their line of relief steins. They experimented with clay and glazes, which led to colorful mosaic and etched beer steins. People loved these beautiful creations so much that even laborers were willing to spend their week’s pay for one of them.

The German beer steins produced from the mid-19th to early 20th century saw a resurgence in the popularity of stoneware steins decorated with Renaissance designs and motifs. These steins were made using clay from the Koln area, which has a distinctive white color. They were 

decorated in the Renaissance style, often having relief decorations and colored them colored them using a gray salt glaze, topped with lids of inlaid porcelain

The 20th century witnessed a decrease in Classical designs. Instead, people favored scenes depicting towns, social scenes, military commemorative, and occupational emblems. These kinds of motifs felt more common but personal to the individual. To meet the demands, pottery makers entered the scene and started making stoneware and glazed pottery beer steins.

The newest art style, Art Nouveau, grew a small but dedicated audience in early 1900, but by 1910, the political and economic landscape turned the stein-making industry upside down. World War I demanded that the materials used to make beer steins be converted for ammunition production. 

The first molded steins were made in the region of Westerwald by Reinhold Hanke. Once molds were used and beer steins were being mass produced, the beautiful highly detailed carved relief work of the early steins was no longer unique.

Beer steins come in a range of volumes, from one ounce to eight gallons. Steins most commonly fall in the 16.9-ounce range. Steins can sell for under $50 or over $5,000, but many sell in the $100 to $500 range.

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 50,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Halloween Horrors" in the 2025 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.

Trick or Treat

 

QUESTION: Ever since I was a kid going trick-or-treating in my neighborhood, I have loved Halloween. A few years ago, I started buying some vintage Halloween items that I found at garage sales and flea markets. These were a mix of masks, candy containers, and noisemakers. I’d like to grow my collection, but don’t know enough about Halloween collectibles and if they’re worth collecting. Can you help me?

ANSWER: Halloween items are definitely worth collecting, especially those from the 1920s to the 1950s. It’s October, Halloween season and the prime time to purchase these collectibles. 

Supposedly, trick or treating began with the poor begging for food or the poor begging for soul cakes in return for their prayers for the dead in Scotland. American Halloween traditions followed many of those practiced in the United Kingdom, such as going from house to house in costume and singing in return for food. Whoever answered the door could prevent a trick from being played on them by giving those in costume some kind of treat.

The Halloween tradition of trick or treating wasn’t widespread in the United States until the 1930s. Because of sugar rationing during World War II, the practice nearly died out, but bounced back in the 1950s focusing on children.

Halloween collectibles hold a special charm. They reflect the historical evolution of Halloween celebrations, as well as showcase unique craftsmanship and design. These items attract collectors for their nostalgic value, rarity, and the stories they tell about past Halloween traditions.

The peak period of Halloween collectibles centering around trick-or-treating extends from the 1920s to the 1950s and 1960s. They can be broken down into several main categories that include costumes and masks, noisemakers, papiér-mache lanterns, and candy containers. But unlike modern mass-produced items, vintage pieces have historical significance, craftsmanship, and most importantly—rarity. Limited production amplified this effect. 

The legend of the most familiar Hallowe'en symbol--a lighted pumpkin--comes from a tale of an old Irish miser named Jack. Jack made several pacts with the devil. He also tricked the devil. When he died, he could not get into Heaven for his sins and because he had tricked the devil, he could not get into Hell. The Devil gave him a coal and Jack placed it in a hollowed out turnip, which lit his way as he wandered the earth until Judgment Day. These lit up turnips of ancient times were also said to help ward off evil. Pumpkins, native to America, were plentiful and took the place of turnips.

 Jack-o-Lanterns are at the top of the Halloween collectibles market. German-made papiér-mache Jack-o-Lanterns, made before World War II, represent the pinnacle of Halloween collecting. These high quality hand-painted masterpieces, primarily from the 1900s to the 1930s, combine artistry with extreme rarity. Selling for : $100 to $1,500, they don’t come cheap.

Next come Beistle Company’s embossed die-cut decorations which represent some of the most recognizable vintage Halloween imagery. These three-dimensional decorations featured classic motifs like black cats, witches, and grinning pumpkins. Though beginning prices for them start at $20, they can reach into the hundreds for rare pieces. 

Vintage tin Halloween noisemakers from the 1920s to the 1950s feature colorful lithographic designs that captured the era’s artistic style. These functional decorations served as both party favors and collectible art pieces. They normally sell for $25 to over $200 for exceptional examples made by T. Cohn, Kirchhof, and various German toy companies.

Noisemakers were fun and inexpensive toys. They came in all varieties and many different styles featuring the usual Halloween themes and symbols—witches, black cats, ghosts, pumpkins, owls, devils, and more. Popular American makers were Kirchhof, T. Cohn, Bugle Toy, U.S. Metal Toy, and J. Chein and Company, as well as various German toy makers. Noisemakers range from paper to metal. Earlier examples of metal ones featured handles which were wooden at first, replaced later by plastic. 

In the Celtic tradition it was believed that souls emerged on Halloween night as they traveled to the afterlife, so revelers donned costumes to avoid recognition by the dead. Most mid-20th-century costumes consist of witches, ghosts, mummies, devils, angels, cowboys, and princesses among other time honored favorites such as cartoon characters and superheroes. Vintage costumes were often handmade out of crepe paper, so many didn’t survive the night. The Dennison Paper Company's Bogie books and other crepe paper books had lots of ideas and illustrations of costumes that could be made with crepe paper. Finding these vintage crepe costumes, which were often discarded after Halloween, can be a challenge.

Popular costume makers included Collegeville and Ben Cooper. Both packaged costumes in a box with an outfit and a mask.

Vintage commercial Halloween costumes, especially those from the 1920s through the 1950s, are especially popular. Manufacturers often used unique fabrics and designs that reflected the era’s fashion trends. Collectors seek original costumes in good condition, particularly those with original tags or packaging.

Next to papiiér-mache Jack-o-Lanterns, Halloween masks are among the most sought-after collectibles. People in the mid-20th century often made masks from papiér-mâché or latex. Collectors look for intricate designs, original paint, and unique features that reflect the era’s style. Collectors particularly value masks from well-known costume  manufacturers like Ben Cooper or Collegeville.

Candy containers from past decades, often designed to look like pumpkins, witches, or ghosts, are items that add a touch of whimsy to Halloween collectibles. People used these containers, typically made from tin or cardboard, to hold candy and often decorated them with brightly colored, distinctive designs.

With Halloween collectibles, condition is everything. A papiér-mache Jack-o-Lantern in mint condition can sell for over $1,000, while the same piece with significant damage might only bring $50. Pieces in good to excellent condition should have no cracks, tears, or missing pieces. Colors should be vibrant. If a piece is still in its original packaging, the value can often triple. 

Collectibles that have historical significance or are associated with notable manufacturers or designers can be particularly valuable.

Ensuring the authenticity of antique Halloween collectibles is essential. Verified provenance, original tags, or packaging can help confirm an item’s authenticity and contribute to its value. Be cautious of reproductions or heavily restored items that might not hold the same value as original pieces.

Vintage Halloween collectibles worth money follow predictable market cycles that smart resellers exploit. Understanding these patterns can significantly impact profitability.

Halloween collectible prices typically increase 30 to 50 percent from August through October, the peak selling time, as collectors prepare for seasonal displays. This “October Effect” creates clear buying and selling opportunities: The months to buy are November to February.

Pre-1960s Halloween items command premium prices because so few have survived. These delicate pieces—crafted from paper, cardboard, and early plastics—were meant for temporary seasonal use, not long-term preservation.

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 "Halloween Horrors" in the 2025 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.