Beat It!

QUESTION:  My sister-in-law purchased this item at a Goodwill Store in Maine.  It measures 14 1/2 inches from end to end, and the wire part is probably 3-4 inches across. Can you tell me what it is?

ANSWER: Though what you have looks like a rug beater, it’s size says it’s a feather pillow fluffer. These are similar to carpet beaters but smaller.

From colonial times until the latter 19th century, houses has wood-plank floors and area rugs that allowed housewives and servants to easily clean them. While the floors could be swept and washed, the rugs had to betaken outdoors and beaten, thus the invention of the carpet beater, a   tool of cleanliness and torture which played a major role in housekeeping right up to the 1980s.

Most carpet beaters consisted of a handle to which the makers attached a wire or wicker pleated or knot-like loop which they often coiled or intertwined. Some had wooden handles, others did not. Early beaters had clunky designs which made it awkward for the user to beat a carpet without going into contortions. Later, makers developed more ergonomically raised handles which allowed the user to stand at an angle to beat the carpet. Shapes of carpet beaters ranged from simple arcs, triangles, rectangles, and circles to more elaborate flowers and fanciful designs like rabbits, hearts, houses, geese, and teddy bears.

Nineteenth-century country stores and later mail-order catalogs displayed a variety of carpet beaters, selling for as little as 10 cents each. Typically made of wood, rattan, cane, wicker, spring steel, or three millimeter coiled wire, the Sears Roebuck catalog offered premium versions for 45 cents each as late as their 1903 catalog. Thrift-minded rural dwellers often twisted their own beaters, attaching their creations to odd pieces of wood or pieces of old broom handles. Manufacturers such as  Woods, Sherwood and Company and the Johnson Novelty Company sold millions of them from the Civil War period to well after World War II.

Most housewives and servants beat their carpets in the backyard, limiting cleaning to good weather. Where they lived in apartments or tenements, they hung their carpets out of windows or over fire escape railings to beat them. Passers-by often had to change their route to avoid walking through a cloud of dust and dirt.

Later, companies began making less expensive beaters from rattan. These conjured up exotic locales for housewives who donned their headscarves and aprons to beat their carpets into cleanliness and their children into submission.

Housewives beat everything from carpets, rugs, clothes, cushions, and bedding, as well as their children, the former to clean them, the latter to punish them. Mothers in the Netherlands and northern Belgium used carpet beaters to discipline their children by making them bend over and spanking them on their behinds, leaving a distinctive pattern on their child's bare backside. And since they beat their rugs in their  backyards, they tended to do the same when punishing their children, thus drastically increasing the embarrassment quotient for them. This disciplinary use caused the carpet beater to become not only a symbol for good housecleaning, but also for conservative family values and child rearing, as well as a symbol of the dominant position of the mother in Dutch families.

Another side effect of the carpet beater was its ability to produce intense satisfaction in the user, especially if the person suffered from repressed rage. Wielding these wand-like devices enabled housewives to vent their frustrations on their carpets and bedding rather than their families. Perhaps that’s why there’s more family violence today with the proliferation of electric vacuum cleaners.

The modern vacuum first appeared back in the 1870s, but it wasn’t until the first decade of the 20th century that several different companies claimed they had invented the modern electrical vacuum cleaner. And while the electric vacuum cleaner took a long while to catch on, the arrival of hand carpet sweepers signaled the demise of the carpet beater, and by 1908 carpet beaters had all but disappeared from the sales catalogs. But with the onslaught of the Great Depression, carpet beaters once again gained popularity.

A variation of the carpet beater was the smaller "pillow fluffer" used to fluff feather pillows.

Carpet beaters have become a popular collectible. Before eBay, carpet beaters sold for $20-40 in antique shops and in shows. But now on eBay even the rarest ones go for just a few bucks.

Lighting Up the Night

QUESTION: The other day I was going through some old things that belonged to my father and came across what looks to be an almost brand-new Coleman lantern still in its box. Since I’m not much of a camper myself, I wondered if people collect these lanterns and if they have any value.

ANSWER: According to your photo, your lantern looks to be one made in the late 1940s. Soldiers who had fought in World War II and had used special field stoves designed and made by the Coleman Company were familiar with their products. So as they settled down to have families, they saw the need for vacations. Car camping became very popular, as these new families loaded up their station wagons and headed out to explore America.

Anyone who has gone camping knows the glow emitted from campgrounds as campers sit around their tables having dinner by the light of a Coleman lantern. Promoted as the "sunshine of the night," these lanterns have long since become essential gear to car campers.

The incandescent electric light, invented in 1879, was a long way from reaching rural America in 1900, when William C. Coleman, an itinerant salesman, first sold indoor pressurized gasoline units, which he called Efficient Lamps. Coleman had poor eyesight, and the standard lamp of that time burned kerosene and produced a smoky, flickering, yellowish light. The steady white light produced by his new lamp enabled him to read even the smallest print. Two years later he bought the manufacturing rights for the lamp, and by 1905 he had begun producing them in his Wichita, Kansas, factory.

By1909, Coleman had improved his 300-candlepower, portable table so that it provided light in every direction for 100 yards and could light the far corners of a barn. Single-handedly, he changed the way farmers worked and thus increased their productivity. His lamp became a staple in rural America, eventually transforming the local company into a national one on which people depended.

Coleman’s initial lamp featured decorative brass or nickel-plated elements that arched up around the lantern´s glass shade, providing an upper loop for hanging or grasping the lantern for barn use. Later, he designed ones with bulbous bases that could sit on tables. And like other lamps at the time, some had colorful glass shades with elaborate designs around the edges.

Coleman’s first lamps for indoor use differed from oil lamps. Each had a pressure tank that acted as its base, replacing the oil lamp's fount or reservoir. In place of the oil lamp's chimney and wick, Coleman’s lamp used a generator, which vaporized air-forced white gas. The burning vapors ignited a mantle of loosely woven fabric. Both of these features helped Coleman lamps produce 20 times more light than oil wick lamps.

By 1914, the first self-contained, portable Coleman lanterns for outdoor use—the ones so familiar to campers today—appeared on the market. He enlarged the fount so that it stored two quarts of white gas, enclosed the generator and mantles in a wind- and bug-proof glass globe, and added a bail for easy carrying and hanging.

Coleman designers continued to improve their lanterns and by the 1930s, many came with housings in   different colors. The tops of some of the lamps of this period had a green finish which eventually became the signature look of Coleman products. The company also supplied lanterns to the National Forest Service, some of which bore the familiar “NFS” insignia.

From the 1940s on, Coleman lanterns featured a forest green finish combined with shiny nickel-plated brass elements. The upper and lower parts of one of the company’s most popular and long-running lanterns, the Model 200A, produced from 1952 through 1983, are bright red.

Most people use Coleman lanterns for camping. They’re as prized now as they were decades ago for chasing darkness from a campsite. When night falls, a few strokes on the pump primes it for action. And at the touch of a match the lantern throws its magic circle of light in a 360-degree arc.

Starting in 1901, Coleman has produced close to 50 million gas lanterns. The long history and the range of styles and models makes the Coleman lantern a popular collectible that’s affordable for most collectors. A Coleman lantern can sell today for $20 to $400, depending on its age, condition, and rarity.

Superman Returns Again...and Again...and Again

QUESTION: When I was a kid, I had a Superman lunchbox. Over the years, I forgot all about it, but recently, as I was going through some boxes in my attic, I discovered it again. If I remember correctly, it’s from 1954. Can you tell me anything about it and does it have any value or should I just put it out with the trash?

ANSWER: You had better take a closer look at that old lunchbox before you toss it out. This particular metal lunchbox, which includes a thermos bottle, depicts Superman doing battle with a robot and inclusive of the original thermos. One like it is presently for sale on eBay for $2,150. The lunchbox, considered rarer than most, joins other Superman collectibles, many of which have gone up in value in recent years. This is particularly the situation when it comes to rare Superman comic books. Depending on their condition and scarcity, the classic ones often fetch big bucks. The 64-page first edition from 1939, containing The Complete Story of the Daring Exploits of the One and Only Superman, including the four Superman stories from Action Comics No. 1-4, sold at auction for $26,000.01 a few years ago. And just the Action Comics #1 sold for $1 million in February 2010.

American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster created Superman in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio. Detective Comics, Inc., later D.C. Comics, bought the rights to the Superman story and debuted him in June of 1938 in Action Comics #1. At the time, America needed some type of hero, even a make-believe one. The Great Depression, a devastating Great Plains drought, and a swelling uneasiness about Nazism had wrenched people's spirits. The arrival of the "Man of Steel" offered a welcome fantasy for kids disheartened by the country’s dismal state of affairs. Over the decades, he subsequently appeared in various radio serials, television programs, films, newspaper strips, and video games.

Widely considered to be an American cultural icon, Superman helped to create the superhero genre and establish its primacy within the American comic book. The character's distinctive blue, red and yellow costume, is said to have been influenced by such comic book characters as Flash Gordon and that of circus strongmen.

Rocketed to Earth as an infant by his scientist father moments before his home planet’s destruction, he was discovered and adopted by a Kansas farmer and his wife, then raised as Clark Kent who later became Superman’s alter ego.

Siegel and Shuster envisioned their character as one who would right wrongs, fighting for social justice and against tyranny. In the original stories, Siegel and Shuster made Superman rough and aggressive. The character attacked and terrorized wife beaters, profiteers, gangsters. Later writers have softened the character and instilled a sense of idealism and moral code of conduct. Although not as cold-blooded as the early Batman, the Superman featured in the comics of the 1930s is unconcerned about the harm his strength may cause, tossing villainous characters in such a manner that fatalities would presumably occur, although these were seldom shown explicitly on the page. By late 1940, editor Whitney Ellsworth instituted a code of conduct that banned Superman from ever killing again.

Today, Superman is commonly seen as a brave and kind-hearted hero with a strong sense of justice, morality and righteousness. After all, he’s the hero of a younger age group. Young people got hooked on Superman's exploits right away. Tales of his origin, superhuman powers and good-over-evil conquest' adventures were just part of the enticement. His, alter-ego as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent with love interest Lois Lane added human interest to the stories as well.

With the release of the next Superman film, there will be another deluge of Superman collectibles. Currently, there are nearly 131,000 Superman items up for auction, in both vintage and newer examples. There’s a huge array of Superman collectibles available to collectors, ranging from toys, games, dolls, lunchboxes; jewelry, clothing and watches to electronics, wall art, statues, records and DVDs.

The earliest paraphernalia, a button proclaiming membership in the Supermen of America club, appeared in 1939. By 1940 the amount of merchandise available increased dramatically, with jigsaw puzzles, paper dolls, bubble gum and trading cards available, as well as wooden or metal figures. By 1942, the character of Superman had been licensed to appear in other media, and the popularity of such merchandise increased. A surge of popularity seems to occur after the opening of each Superman film. The most popular Superman items on eBay seem to be from 1954, 1967, 1978, 1984, and 1998. 

Lunchboxes appeared from 1954 onward. A number of companies, including Adco, Hallmark, Thermos, King-Seeley, and Aladdin made them in either metal or plastic. While most are rectangular, there are some working-man dome-style ones.

Postcards From the Attic

QUESTION: My grandfather collected postcards for years. Now I have his collection. While it’s great to look at, I have no idea of where to start finding out about the hundreds of cards he collected. Can you please help me?

ANSWER: To begin, deltiology—postcard collecting—is one of the fastest growing hobbies in the world. Most people collect postcards for four reasons: (1) Nostagia. Many older collectors seek out pictures of “the good ole days” or "the way it used to be.” Younger ones seek out the places or characters from their childhood. (2) Cost. Many items have soared in price, but postcards can still be obtained for from 10-cents to $10 each. (3) Investment. Postcards that sold for 10 cents less than 10 years ago now bring $1 to $5 and more. (4) Art and printing. The art on a postcard often determined the printing process and vice versa, from the lithochromes of the 1890's to the photochromes (photo cards) of today.

There are still many millions of postcards packed away in attics. Many, neatly tucked away in albums for the last 90-100 years, are in pristine condition. When postcards sold for 1 cent to 10 cents each, not very many people thought it worthwhile to search a dusty attic for them. Today, that’s all changed.

You’ll find postcards for sale at garage sales, flea markets, antique shops, and stamp shows. The most popular ones are the “hometown views.” Many show main streets with gas lights, trolleys, horse-drawn vehicles, store signs, sidewalk sales, bustles, hoopskirts, knickers, hightop shoes, and Model-T Fords. Those who collect for nostalgic reasons love these.

Then there are those from family vacations and foreign tours. Those who travel frequently often bring back views of the places they’ve been on postcards to put into albums either in place of their own photographs or in addition to them. They could pick up free cards from motels, hotels, resorts, and restaurants and, of course, purchase many scenic view cards of popular vacation spots. In fact, the act of sending picture postcards to the folks back home began as an American pastime.

And you shouldn’t ignore the greeting postcards, sent by Victorians in the latter part of the 19th century to express holiday and birthday greetings.

Postcard collecting was a huge craze in the early 20th century, with peak years running from about 1907 to 1913. People used these cards to keep in touch with friends and family, much as people use Facebook today. Couples courted using postcards and strangers met other strangers in foreign countries. By the end of the peak period in 1913, people had sent over 968,000,000 postcards. If even a fraction of all those cards have made it into the hands of dealers, the supply would be overwhelming. In fact, because so many have come into the market, the price for most postcards remains relatively reasonable.

Most collectors seem to collected cards for their pictorial value and not as much for their condition. During the peak years, many seemed willing to pay a few cents for old cards, focusing on topics like bridges and courthouses which are of little interest today. And with over 120 different topics to choose from, it’s no wonder that the hobby has grown so much.

Many collectors refused to consider any card made after 1920. They especially liked photographic postcards for their historical significance. Mid-20th-century roadside and local views have now increased in popularity and price. And it’s become difficult to find city views from the 1940s and 1950s.

Dating used postcards is simple—just check the postmark on back. However, it can be harder to figure the date of unused ones. Early cards from before 1900 to 1918 have good detail and no border.

Those with a white border date from 1919 to 1932. Most of the cards were view cards which were often pale with low contrast. Paper stock at the time had a coated surface, resulting in a dull, flat  appearance. 

Linen texture-cards dominated the market from 1933 until the early 1950's. The majority of view cards from this era are boring and unattractive, especially those featuring scenery because the linen texture actually took away from the picture. Real photos of tourist areas were also fairly common. Photographic cards from this time are generally glossier and more contrasty than earlier ones and have titles in white letters close to the bottom of the picture.

As with postage stamps, the condition of a postcard falls into one of six categories—mint, near mint, excellent, very good, good, and fair. Cards in the last condition aren’t considered collectible unless they’re very rare.

To find out more about your cards and to maintain and grow your collection, you might want to join one of over 70 postcard clubs in the U.S. Most of these clubs issue bulletins that have valuable postcard information, stories, and pictures. Even if a club isn’t close enough to make it convenient for you to attend meetings, it’s worth joining, if only for the bulletins and membership rosters, so that you can begin trading with other members.

The Sleeping Chayre

QUESTION: Recently I purchased an old wingback chair at a local antique shop. It seems very old to me since it has ball and claw feet, plus it’s upholstery looks good but older in style, leading me to believe it had been done long ago. But I’m puzzled about the springs supporting the upper pillow. Perhaps they were also added at a later time. Can you tell me more about this type of chair and how old this one might be?

ANSWER: Unfortunately, your wing chair isn’t as old as you think. It dates from the Great Depression of the 1930s and would be considered a Colonial Revival piece. What led you to believe the chair was older were its ball and claw feet, made popular by Thomas Chippendale in the mid-18th century in England.

The Chippendale style of furniture remained popular until the end of the 18th century when interest in it disappeared until the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. The fair inspired furniture makers to re-create the styles of the American Colonial Period until all such furniture became known as Colonial Revival or just “period” furniture. Chippendale created chair designs for comfort, unlike the still, but stylish designs of Federal ones. His wingback chair offered the ultimate in comfort.

But where did the idea for a chair with wings originate? As early as the 17th century, people living in cold weather areas gathered by their fireplaces on crude wooden benches to keep warm. As the century progressed cabinetmakers added high backs with small wings to these benches. While they were functional, they were far from comfortable.

Furniture historians believe they originally intended the wings to prevent drafts from reaching the upper body of those who sat in these chairs. The chairs also prevented the immense heat a roaring fireplace fire from affecting the makeup of ladies who might be sitting too close to it. Makeup then was clay-based and tended to run when heated.

Unlike other chairs, wingbacks offered a greater level of comfort and beauty. With the onset of the 18-century, chairmakers began incorporating upholstery into their wingbacks. Chippendale molded the wingback design by adding elegant frames such as oversized wings and scrolling arms to offset the upholstery. However, most of his designs did not have a pillow seat. Instead, the upholstery was stretched over the springs and small amount of padding. The “knees” of the chair were also chunkier and lower to the ground than those of Sheraton and Hepplewhite.

Also called fireside chairs, wingbacks allowed a person sitting by the fireside to catch the heat while eliminating cold drafts from creeping around their back or sides, so chairmakers developed a new kind of chair known as the “Sleeping Chayre.” Not only did this chair have wings, enabling the sitter to stay warm, it’s back could also rachet to different angles for sleeping.

This led to an unusual use in the 18th century. Respiratory diseases were rampant back then, and people commonly believed that it was better for the sick person to sit up to prevent fluid from accumulating in their lungs. So wingback chairs eventually found a home by the fireplace in American Colonial bedrooms.

It was often common to find two of these chairs—one for the master and one for the mistress of the house—facing a small round table by the fireplace in the master bedroom of the house. Colonial couples often took their supper, known back then as “high tea,” in the warmth and comfort of their bedroom rather than in the drafty dining room downstairs.

Towards the 19-century, chairmakers generously stuffed wingbacks with horsehair for an added dose of padding. Covered in velvet or needlework to imitate contemporary French styles, they sported bright patterns and ornate fabric embellishments.

On the Wings of Memories

QUESTION: My father traveled a lot by plane for his business. He got in the habit of keeping a souvenir from each flight. I now have his collection of decks of playing cards, postcards, timetables, flight wings, dishes, silverware, and flight bags. Do people collect these items?

ANSWER: When commercial airline flights became more available to the general public in the late 1940s and 1950s, it was still a big deal to fly. Passengers dressed in their Sunday best for even the shortest flights. Because it was a treat, airlines served meals on china plates, often with silver flatware in First Class, handed out playing cards to keep their passengers busy in the days before movies aloft, and gave little mementos and games to children.

This practice continued well into the 1980s when airlines began phasing out some items, started using stainless steel instead of silver for flatware and plastic instead of china for plates. But for at least four decades, and even before that, they promoted themselves by placing their logos on ashtrays, dishes, flatware, napkins, baggage tags, flight bags, blankets, eye shades, games, toys, menus, pins, and posters—to name just a few items.

There are lots of collectors of airline memorabilia. Propelled by personal memories of a first flight or perhaps a first transAtlantic flight, passengers began taking home all sorts of airline items. Add to that, the up-in-the-air status of particular airlines from time to time and the demise of so many of the original carriers has caused much speculation in the airline collectibles market.

Searching for the term "airlines" on eBay results in over 71,000 ongoing auctions. This general
also includes offerings such as current flight vouchers, tickets, and luggage.

Some of the hottest items sought by collectors are dishes and silverware featuring an airline’s name or logo. It became fashionable for airlines to have these types of items used in First Class produced  by top-name designers and manufacturers such as Lenox and Royal Doulton. That was in the day when chic stewardesses placed linen tablecloths over First Class seat-back trays and served wine in fine crystal goblets. Nothing was too good for their passengers, especially wealthy ones who were used to the best.

Also, the older the memento, the more valuable. Likewise, the more owned, or conversely, the more limited the airline's history, the more significant the interest. If an airline was short-lived, it’s items are particularly popular.

Another item that isn’t around much anymore are flight bags. In the early days of jet travel in the 1960s, every participant of a group tour that flew to their destination received a flight bag with the airline or tour operator’s logo on it. One from Pan Am from the 1960s is now up for auction on eBay for a starting bid of $69. One used by a Pan Am flight attendant is going for $80.

For many people, a flight on the Concorde was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A rare lady’s compact with the Concorde logo is going for nearly $100 on eBay. And a pair of British Airways Concorde salt and pepper shakers, made by Royal Doulton, has a starting bid of $35.

First Class menus are also popular airline collectibles. A United Airlines menu from 1964-65, featuring the tag line “Official airline of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair,” is going for $20 on ebay. And four B.O.A.C. menus from the 1960s are going for $100.

The great thing about collecting most of these items is that they’re relatively inexpensive. While rarer airline items can sell for double and triple figures, most sell for prices in the single or low double-digit range.

For more information, read Up, Up and Away at TheAntiquesAlmanac.com

Do NOT Delete

QUESTION: I was rooting around in my attic recently and came across an old Commodore 64 computer that belonged to my late husband. Does this have any value or should I just recycle it?

ANSWER: Before you give that old computer the heave-ho, you might want to read on. It’s been 30 years since the Commodore 64 first appeared on the market. In that relatively short time, personal computers—better known as “PCs”—have turned the world upside down and inside out. In fact, most people do very little without computers today, and businesses, especially, couldn’t operate without them.

As technology progresses, people, especially nerds who grew up with computers, seek out their first computers. Like most parents, they always fondly remember their first. And in the retro movement, twenty- and thirty-somethings are also trying to discover the computers from before they were born. In fact, someone out there collects just about any pre-1990 computer, but it’s the ones from the 1970s that are hot.

With 17 million units sold during its long lifetime, there are probably more Commodore 64 computers stashed away in closets and attics than any other model. Some say the Commodore 64 was the best-selling single computer model of all time. Collectors can usually find one or two available on eBay for anywhere from $10 to $300, with some in their original box.

Of all the early computers, the Apple models are the overall favorite among collectors. The most sought after one is the Apple I. Of the 200 assembled in a wooden cases in 1976, only 35 still exist. When they first appeared, they sold for $666.66 and even at that price, Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak struggled to drum up interest in their new creation. Originally, they had planned to sell the Apple 1 as a bare circuit board that electronics hobbyists could turn into a working computer by soldering in the chips themselves. But it was only a modest success. In today’s Apple IPad world, it’s become the most famous collectible computer, bringing in $15,000 and $25,000 when one goes up for sale.

With over 5-6 million sold, the Apple II isn’t that rare. Originally selling for $1,298, today about the most a collector will pay for one is $250. Some call this model one of the greatest PCs of all time. Of all the ones that appeared on the market in 1977, it was definitely the most advanced. The hottest one today is the plain-vanilla II model.

Garage sale and dumpster divers have no trouble finding discarded computers. But the more valuable ones, like the Apple Lisa, are harder to come because of their age and collectability. By 1983, Jobs and Wozniak had refined their computers with a graphical interface—that is users were able to display fonts, illustrations, and photos on the monitor. This put the Lisa way ahead of its time with a hefty price tag of $10,000 to match. It even came with a mouse, a feature that wasn’t to appear regularly until the MacIntosh. Unfortunately, this computer was also temperamental and thus failed in the market. Its historical significance makes it one of the most valuable computer collectibles, valued at $10,000,  the same amount it sold for 29 years ago. To add to its mystique, Jobs and Wozniak ordered 2,700 unsold Lisas buried in a Utah landfill in 1987.

In February 2005, Christie’s held an “Origins of Cyberspace” auction which offered old documents detailing the foundations of computing. The auction drew a lot of attention to vintage technology and placed value on items once used only by geeks. Unfortunately, that attention caused vintage computer prices to skyrocket, thus pricing a lot of collectors out of the market. 

Cover-featured in a famous issue of Popular Electronics magazine as a do-it-yourself project, the Intel 8080-based Altair wasn't the first microcomputer, but it was the first one that truly caught on, spawning an entire industry of clones, add-ons, and software suppliers. Bill Gates, through his company Micro-Soft, developed the first operating system for that computer, launching a company that operates to the present day. And because the Altair was such a big seller, it isn’t as valuable as some of the other early computers, however, models in good condition do sell today for over $2,000.

The first clone of the Altair was the IMSAI 8080 which sold for $600 in 1975 and has a value nearly that now. It’s main selling point was its compatibility with the Altair 8800. It’s probably most famous today as the computer that Matthew Broderick used in the 1983 movie “War Games.”

Two of the most popular computers to catch the eye of consumers and now collectors are Radio Shack’s Tandy TRS-80 Model 1, which hit the stores in 1977 for $599, and the TRS-80 Model 100, which appeared in 1983 for $799. The TRS-80 became the first computer sold in shopping malls while the second became the first popular notebook computer, with nearly 6 million sold, making Radio Shack the world's leading computer retailer for a while. Both sell today on eBay for $25 to $250.

Last but not least is the IBM PC, first coming on the computer scene in 1981 at a staggering price of $1,565 and now worth between $50 and $500. More formally known as the IBM 5150, it foretold the end of the early days of the Computer Age. The PC revolutionized computing for the average consumer, becoming the first to use hardware and software made by third-party companies. After it’s introduction, no computer company, except Apple, had a monopoly on their wares. And in its January 1983 issue, Time Magazine named it the “Machine of the Year.” And today, in all of its many forms, that machine still is.

Is It Real or Repro?

QUESTION: My grandmother had a pretty little light yellow and pink glass cruet which I now have. Can you tell me anything about it?

ANSWER: Your grandmother’s cruet is made of what’s called Burmese glass. Frederick Shirley of the Mount Washington Glass Company patented the mixture for this type of glass in 1885 and produced it until about the mid-1890s. Over in England, Thomas Webb also had a license to make Burmese glass and did so until about 1900.

Authentic Burmese is a heat-sensitive glass, made so by adding a small amount of gold—roughly 1/20th of an ounce—to the glass mixture. In its molten state, Burmese is a soft yellow color, made possible by the addition of uranium oxide. However, reheating the piece creates pink highlights, especially on the rims. Varying the amount of gold in relation to other ingredients affects the range of intensity of the pink highlights.

During the 1970s through the early 1990s, reproductions of Burmese glass pieces appeared in Italy.. Now, some 20 to 35 years later, many people unknowingly confuse the Italian reproductions with the 19th century originals. This is especially a problem with these items when sold in online auctions, where misrepresentation is often a problem.

One of the most widely reproduced items of Italian Burmese was a cruet, which is now commonly mistaken or deliberately misrepresented as being original Burmese. The only authentic cruet form made by Mount Washington in the late 19th century has a relatively short-ribbed body with a matching Burmese ribbed mushroom-shaped stopper. The easiest way to tell an original is by the solid, smooth-surfaced applied handle, firmly attached to the cruet’s body. Reproduction cruets have thinner handles that aren’t attached to the body very well and are narrowly ridged or reeded. Original handles are sturdy, perfectly round in cross section, and smooth with no reeding.

Another way to distinguish originals Burmese cruets from Italian reproductions is their spouts. Original Mount Washington cruet spouts feature a standard straight-ahead shape. But the majority of reproduction spouts are trefoil or three-lobed. New stoppers also vary considerably, but none feature the ribbed mushroom shape of the original. Also, the bases on original cruets have a well-defined standing rim while most reproductions have a perfectly smooth base.

To trick unknowing buyers into purchasing reproductions as originals, some dealers and online auctioneers tout them as being Webb Burmese from England, but even though Webb had a license to make Burmese, no one has ever seen a piece on display.

Remember, first and foremost, Mount Washington glassmakers blew their 19th century Burmese pieces and smoothly ground the pontils—the point where the blowing rod joins the piece. Italian reproductions often are of pressed glass, thus have no pontils. 

When held to a strong light, reproduction Burmese cruets shows colored swirls and streaks not found on originals. The Mount Washington glassmakers created original Burmese from one homogeneous mass. The color change in original Burmese comes from reheating this solid mass. But the Italian glassmakers who created reproduction pieces of Burmese did so by mixing molten yellow and pink glass together. This causes a line of what appears to be clear frosted glass along the edge of the rim of a reproduction Burmese cruet.

Originally, glassmakers gave the surface of their Burmese glass a soft look by dipping their pieces in acid. Italian reproduction makers gave theirs a soft finish by sand blasting.

Reproduction glass is the hardest to distinguish from the original. The pieces often exhibit no marks or signatures and most glass shows little signs of age. The difference is in both the original mixture and the process to make and finish the pieces.

What you have is an excellent example of an authentic Mount Washington Burmese glass cruet. Today, you’ll see these listed for anywhere from $200 to over $5,000 online, depending on the condition and pattern.

Water, Water Everywhere

QUESTION: I discovered this unique water bottle at a local antiques co-op. While most antique water decanters are solid cut or pressed glass, this one comes apart into two pieces. A metal ring, with a rubber gasket to make the seal tight, screws onto the base. The mark on the bottom edge of the top section reads: Perfection Bottle Co., Wilkes-Barre, PA Pat March 30-97. What can you tell me about this type of water bottle?

ANSWER: You, indeed, have found a unique water bottle. Though a revolutionary idea, this type of water bottle appeared in stores for only a few years.

From the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, water bottles were standard items in many American Victorian households. They appeared on dinner tables either alone or with matching glasses and in bedrooms often with a glass that set upside down over the top of the bottle. They also could be found on the nightstands in hotel rooms and steamship cabins, and on tables in railroad lounge cars.

At first, manufacturers made them of elegant cut glass, but that was too expensive for the average person. Some turned to using pressed glass in a variety of patterns which lowered their cost.

However, cleaning these crystal beauties posed a serious problem with hygiene. The bottle’s narrow neck made it hard to get a brush down into it, making it almost impossible to clean the inside surface of the bottle’s bulbous interior. But that changed in 1896 when William B. Fenn came up with the idea of a separating water bottle—one with pieces that could unscrew for easy cleaning. On March 30 of the following year, he applied for and received a patent for it.

Fenn’s separating water bottle had an ingenious design. He made the neck and base two separate pieces, with the bottom edge of the neck fitting inside the top rim of the base. A rubber gasket formed a waterproof seal between the two parts and a metal ring screwed over the joint to lock the pieces in place.

Even though Fenn used glass for his original design, he stipulated in his patent that any material, including ceramics and porcelain, could be used for the bottle, itself, and any metal could be used for the joining ring as long it wouldn’t corrode.

It took nearly three years for Fenn's" bottle to be available to the public.,Priced at $4.50 each when they first came on the market in 1900, they were well beyond the means of the average person. Realizing he had to do something to increase sales, Fenn redesigned the pattern on the bottle so that it could be pressed instead of cut. Suddenly, the price per bottle dropped to 50 cents per bottle, or 34 cents each for a dozen, making the Fenn water bottle affordable for everyone.

Fenn’s invention was so successful that he decided to expand production. By October,1902, consumers could purchase a decanter and stopper in four sizes—half pint, and one, two and three-pint versions. And during 1903; He expanded the line further to include other glass containers, such as   syrup pitchers and cruets, as well as bitters, cologne, and barber bottles, each with a different pattern.

The separating water bottle came in three models—the Royal, with a delicate design imitating cut crystal, the Imperial, also sold in two and three-pint capacities but without a pattern, the Optic, with a succession of single, convex protruding, vertical panels with rounded tops and bottoms, and the Colonial, featuring nine rounded panels with flat bottoms around the base. Each came in two and three-pint sizes, except the Colonial which also came in a half-gallon size.

In 1903, the Perfection Water Bottle Co. and the Sterling Glass Co. combined to create the Perfection Glass.Co. of Washington, Pennsylvania, with William Fenn as one of the initial investors. But the new company was only to last until 1907 when it closed its doors for lack of sales.

Portable Portraits

QUESTION: I’ve noticed photographic portrait cards of Civil War soldiers at flea markets and antique shows. Are these good to collect or do people buy them just to add ambiance to their antique decorating?

ANSWER: The portrait cards you’ve been seeing at flea markets and antique shows, known as  carte de visites, are, indeed, highly collectible, especially if they’re photographs of someone special or famous.

Parisian photographer, André Adolphe Eugène Disderi, patented the first carte de visites, literally meaning “visiting cards,” in 1854. Each card, onto which the photographer pasted a small albumen print,  measured 2-1/2 x 4 inches. They became all the rage for several decades during and after the Civil War, both here and abroad. However,  Disderi's format didn’t become widely used until nearly five years after he patented it.

But once his format caught on, it became an international standard. For the first time, people could exchange portraits, which they could then place into matching slots in specially made carte de visite photo albums. It didn’t matter where the recipient lived since they could purchase these albums everywhere. Another advantage to carte de visites was that people could mail them to each other. Usually each print came with a special mailing envelope, making it easy for the sender to just address it and pop it into the mail. Earlier daguerreotype and ambrotype photographs, both done on glass plates, required the sender to package them in bulky boxes with sufficient packing to prevent breakage during shipment. And because of their small size, carte de visites were also somewhat inexpensive. 

Before the advent of carte de visites, people exchanged elaborate calling cards with their names engraved in decorative fonts. During the decade before the Civil War, it was the custom for a person to present his or her calling card whenever they visited someone. Life was very formal at the time, and no one received anyone they didn’t know without a calling card. Most people had a small basket or box in their parlor in which visitors could place their cards. A few photographers created and sold special photographic calling cards, but these weren’t standardized.

Using Disderi's method, a photographer could take eight negatives on a single 8 x 10-inch glass plate using a sliding plate holder and a camera with four lenses. That allowed him to make eight copies of the person’s portrait each time he printed the negative. This reduced production costs and allowed photographers to sell carte de visites at a reasonable price.

People were slow to purchase these new photo cards. However, legend says that after Disdéri published Emperor Napoleon III's photos in this format, the cartes gained widespread popularity.

Historians believe C. D. Fredericks introduced the carte de visite to the U.S. in New York late in the summer of 1859.  After carte de visites of Abraham Lincoln went on sale, they caught on like wildfire as soldiers and their families posed for them before war or death separated them. Carte de visites of famous people, like Ulysses S. Grant, became an instant hit, as people began collecting celebrity portraits of the time.

Civil War photographs are extremely collectible and have crossover appeal to collectors of both military and early photographs. From 1861 to 1865, the most method of portraiture was the tin-type and the carte de visite.

John L. Gihon of Chestnut St. in Philadelphia, was a portrait photographer who captured images of soldiers and prisoners at Fort Delaware off the shore of Delaware City, Delaware. His carte de visites eventually led to the production of early baseball cards for the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1870s. He died of an illness at only 39. Gihon charged his customers $2.50 for a sitting and six cards.

These little portraits were very important to Civil War soldiers. Since those, especially the Confederate prisoners, at Fort Delaware had to make do with what they had, they, usually officers, often borrowed pieces of uniforms, especially hats, and props, including swords, belts, sashes, from others confined with them so that they would appear as finely dressed as possible.

Prices of collectible carte de visites vary on condition, pose and subject. A carte de visite of surgeon Robert Hubbard, 17th Connecticut Infantry Volunteers, sold at auction for $374. Hubbard enlisted as surgeon of the regiment in August 1862 and became the acting medical director during the Battle of Gettysburg. He resigned in Dec. 1863.

A carte-de-visite of Dr. Mary Walker, taken by noted London photographer Elliott & Fry sold at auction for $1,380. She graduated from Syracuse Medical College in 1855 and was an author and early feminist who gained distinction during the Civil War as a humanitarian, surgeon, and spy. Congress awarded her  the Congressional Medal of Honor in January 1866 on the personal recommendation of General Sherman. She refused to part with it when Congress revoked it for “unusual circumstance” in 1917. Dr. Walker died in 1919, but it wasn’t until 1977 when President Carter officially reinstated the award.

Collectors can find a variety of carte de visites both at flea markets and antique shows and in some antique shops and online. Prices vary from a few dollars to several thousand. They’re great items to collect, especially if a collector can find the special albums to hold them, often sold with their carte de visites removed.

What's Cookin'?

QUESTION: My great-grandmother died recently and my husband and I now have the task of disposing of her monstrous, cast-iron kitchen stove, which we understand belonged to her mother. Is it worth moving the stove to our place or should we just call a junk dealer to remove it?

ANSWER: Depending on the ultimate condition of your great-grandmother’s stove, you may find that it’s worth far more than you imagine. You have two options: Clean it up, restore it, and use it in some way in your house or sell it. Either way, there are a few things you need to know about old kitchen stoves before you decide.

Colonial life centered around giant smoking, inefficient fireplaces. The walk-in Colonial hearth dominated the most important room in the house—the kitchen. Housewives or their servants continually added fuel to the cooking fires throughout the day. After supper, cooks kept the fading embers alive until the following morning, when they began the daily routine of stoking, feeding, and cooking once again.

During the 1790s, a Massachusetts-born physicist named Benjamin Thompson (aka Count Rumford) discovered how inefficient these fireplaces were and set out to invent a better solution. The Rumford stove had shallower fireplaces and a more streamlined chimney that forced out smoke but not heat. It featured one fire source that could heat several cooking pots and enabled the cook to regulate the heat individually for each pot. It was more of a fireplace insert than a stove and required modification of the huge hearths. These became  status symbol among the wealthy. Even Thomas Jefferson had several installed at Monticello.The downside about the Rumford stove was that it was meant for large kitchens.

Foundries began producing small wood-burning kitchen stoves, complete with ovens, in the early 19th century. Forty years later, makers produced full-sized kitchen stoves by the thousands. The size of kitchen stoves increased the manufacturers offered such options as warming ovens, extra surface burners, shelves, water reservoirs, and decorative panels of enamel or porcelain.

Historians refer to this style of six-and ten-plate wood-burning, box stove as a laundry stove because housewives or servants could place wash kettles on the flat, top surface. Some laundry stoves, such as the one invented by J.T. Davy, featured hooks for six flat irons around the belly of the stove. These, plus a putting one on the loading plate, enabled the laundress to heat seven irons at once.

British inventor, James Sharp patented the first successful gas stove in 1826. During the 1910s, gas stoves appeared with enamel coatings that made the stoves easier to clean. Most households had gas stoves with enclosed ovens by the 1920s. However, the slow installation of gas lines to most households delayed the progress of gas stoves. By World War I, the new gas stoves permanently replaced fireplaces for cooking.

If you’re planning on selling your great-grandmother’s stove, check the porcelain areas carefully. While you can easily clean it with a strong kitchen degreaser, you cannot replace any part that is badly cracked or missing. The only thing you can do in that case is to paint the damaged area with white or colored porcelain repair paint. But this only works on small areas.

Monumental monstrosities like your great-grandmother’s kitchen stove, are some of the most sought-after antiques. They helped raise and bake bread and simmered soup for hours on cold winter days. Today, the old time kitchen stove has come to symbolize the concept of "home."   

Still Crazy After All These Years

QUESTION: I recently purchased a crazy quilt at a country antique show. I love the intricate designs, but, otherwise, don’t know much about it. Can you tell me more and perhaps tell me how I can take care of it? It’s in pretty good condition, but I can see that it’s somewhat delicate.

ANSWER: Your crazy quilt is the result a fad that began here in the United States over 100 years ago, roughly from 1875 to 1900. As with many country quilts, it became a way for women to use up their extra scraps of cloth or fabric from worn-out clothes, but crazy quilts also were a form of self expression, much like samplers were a 100 years before that.

Victorian women created crazy quilts like giant jigsaw puzzles, made of irregular pieces of silk, satin, velvet, or plush fabric sewn onto a solid backing of a lighter material, then decorated with embroidery stitches. Many became sentimental diaries stitched with names and legends while others took on the look of nostalgic stitched scrapbooks filled with memorabilia commemorating events, story book characters, garden flowers, even family pets. Women often made them as gifts to a bride or to someone recovering from a severe illness. Others made them in memory of a loved one who had recently passed.

Scraps for these elaborate quilts often came from ball gowns, opera capes, or the parlor curtains. But women could also buy packages of scraps from the Montgomery Ward or Sears Roebuck catalogs. The Singer Sewing Machine Company used crazy quilts as a symbol on their trade cards. Women's magazines of the day offered directions for making crazy quilts as table covers along with patterns for decorating them. Silk manufacturers promoted the use of their scrap waste in making crazy quilts. Magazine publishers also offered booklets on making crazy quilts as premiums in exchange for  subscriptions to their periodicals.

The word crazy in this case actually means irregular, odd, bizarre, strange, or unusual, and perfectly describes these quilts. Some look like a haphazard collection of odd bits of cloth and memorabilia while others are more like abstract works of silk art in shimmering colors reflecting light.

Since crazy quilts are more often tufted rather than quilted, they should be called "throws." Victorian housewives often threw them over parlor tables and pianos, as well as sofas or beds. They were the perfect complement to the ornately carved overstuffed furniture and bric-a-brac of every sort adorning  table tops, etageres, and mantels in the Victorian parlor.

Some historians believe the Victorian crazy quilt may have originated as a result of the popularity of Japanese prints or screens after the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. Others wonder if their fractured designs may have been taken from the pattern of an uneven pavement or cracked ice, a popular decorative border used from the late 1870s through the 1880s.

Likewise, women often copied the patterns painted and embroidered on crazy quilts from Japanese ones. Many crazy quilts display a cranes standing in pools of water, owls and peacocks perched on gnarled tree branches, kimono clad figures, butterflies and cherry blossoms, hanging lanterns and spider webs.

And since not every woman was artistically talented, makers of crazy quilts could purchase pre-stamped patches or would trace designs from magazines. The Ladies Home Journal offered as a premium to readers bringing in 16 new subscribers a “Crazy Patchwork Outfit,” consisting of 12 pre-stamped pieces of silk, one box of stamping powder, twelve skeins of embroidery silk, and a glittering array of two dozen spangles and two yards of tinsel cord.

Women's magazines also offered how-to instructions for the three basic embroidery stitches---the outline, Kensington, and plush. The outline stitch, also known as the stem stitch, formed a thread line as in a drawing. The Kensington stitch enabled crazy quilt makers to fill in their outlines using various colors. And the plush stitch produced areas of cut silk thread like a pile carpet.

Quilt makers used embroidery stitches not only along the edges of patches to decorate them and at the same time hold the edges under and in place but also to make designs. Those who lacked embroidery skills could purchase pre-embroidered appliques. Some crazy quilt makers further embellished their creations with painted designs on the fabric after they assembled their quilts. Sequins, beads, spangles, metallic braid, and ribbon were also popular forms of embellishment.

Crazy quilts are as durable as regular quilts. They won’t survive daily folding and shouldn’t be used as throws where they’ll be handled a lot. But they can be mounted on a frame or encased in plexiglass and hung on a wall. Both dry cleaning and wet cleaning damages them, so the only safe way of cleaning them is to use a low power vacuum held well away from the fabric which has been covered with some sort of mesh screening—an old window screen will do—to prevent the fabric from being sucked up and damaged.

Unlike regular quilts, women who made crazy quilts usually signed them. Many have been passed down through generations in a family.

Prices for crazy quilts range from $50 for an average small one to as much as $1000 for a large exceptionally stitched one. Because their prices are relatively low in comparison with fine 19th-century quilts, many most likely remain hidden away in attic trunks waiting to be discovered.

Samples or Toys?—That is the Question

QUESTION:  Can you tell me anything about these two small pieces of Chippendale furniture?
Could they have been for little girls to play with?

ANSWER: Your pieces of furniture seem too detailed and too small for say a 6-8-year-old girl to play with. But it’s quite possible that they were samples that a salesmen carried with them to show shopkeepers or rural customers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

A salesman would leave items like these in a shop to use as display pieces. General stores needed to carry a lot of items and didn’t have room for full-sized furniture. This finely made armchair and birdcage table, made in the Chippendale style, would have given customers a good idea of their detailing and construction.

Itinerant sales representatives would loan miniatures of their company’s products with country store owners to promote their wares. A shop owner might receive a sample for display if they had enough sales of particular items to warrant it. Most of these samples were 1/4- to 1/3-scale models and were very expensive to make. Therefore, companies only made a small quantity of each.

A salesman sample was in essence a complete, and often working, scale model. Companies used them especially to show off large heavy items like ice boxes, washing machines, furniture, and the like. Each featured the same materials and hardware as the original, only in scaled-down size.

A customer could study the sample, and if he or she wanted to purchase it, they’d give the store owner a deposit, and the owner would order the item from the manufacturer by mail or telegram. The customer would pay the balance of the price when they picked up the item. People who lived in the vast Midwest often had to travel long distances to towns to do their special shopping. Usually, they shopped for many of their needs from catalogs. And sometimes salesmen would stop by to show them samples of their wares. This was especially true if they sold farm machinery, cooking stoves, or washers.

Samples of mechanical items like cooking stoves, for example, featured authentic nickle plating and functional fireboxes, plus a manufacturer’s nameplate. These usually distinguish salesman samples from toys. Toys of the same mechanical items, often made in Germany, were as finely detailed as the samples but had nameplates or other markings from the toy manufacturer. Or none at all which makes distinguishing them from salesman samples more difficult.

Some collectors argue that a salesman sample has to have a case or box that the salesman would have carried it in on his rounds. However, most salesman samples didn’t have cases.

There are two types of salesman's samples on the market today—ones that worked and ones that didn’t. Obviously, as technology progressed through the 1880s and 90s, and through the turn of the century, machines became more prevalent and large ones required salesman samples. Cooking stoves could weigh in at 500+ pounds and took up too much room in shops to be practical. In fact, many homeowners bought them directly from the manufacturer. But no matter if they worked or not, the goal of all salesman's samples was to sell a product. Those salesman's samples that actually worked were more common before 1920. Using a scaled-down sample of their weighty product was a very cost-effective way for the machinery companies to do business.

However, the differences between salesman samples and toys aren't always so obvious. Children’s toy furniture, for example, was smaller than salesman samples and usually not nearly as well made. The samples were the real thing in a reduced size, so they used all the same woods and hardware. Fine pieces like this armchair and table would have possibly been commissioned by a wealthy family and would have been signed by the maker. Salesman samples, on the other hand, had to look as good or better than the actual piece of furniture because people didn't change furniture as often as they do today, so they bought quality pieces that would last.

It’s important for collectors of salesman samples to be wary of imitations. Prices for them can reach astronomical amounts mostly because sellers overprice toys which they sell as salesman samples. And as with all antiques, it’s buyer beware.

Waffling Around

QUESTION: I recently purchased an old electric waffle iron at a garage sale. Are these things collectible and can I still use it?

ANSWER: Mmmmmmm. Just the mention of waffles reminds me of the smell of them baking on a cold Sunday morning, then smothered in butter and warm maple syrup, and perhaps topped with strawberries and whipped cream. But I digress...

Depending on the age of your electric waffle iron, it has the potential to be collectible. Small appliances like this are just coming into their own as collectibles. However, if you plan to use it, you had better have the appliance checked out and the wire replaced with a higher-voltage cord by a certified appliance repair dealer. Once that’s done and the waffle iron cleaned up, you should be able to enjoy delicious old-time waffles whenever you like.

Before the waffle iron became electrified, the making of waffles had an interesting history. Traditional waffle irons consisted of two hinged metal plates, molded to create the honeycomb pattern, which the maker held over a wood fire to bake the batter poured between them, one side at a time. Knowing when to turn the iron took skill learned by trial and error since these early waffle irons had no temperature controls.

Some historians believe the waffle dates back to ancient Greece, when Athenians baked obelios—flat cakes held between two metal plates—over hot coals. The word waffle evolved from wafer, one of the only foods early Catholics could eat during fasting periods because they contained no milk, eggs, or animal fats. Monks were the only ones making these wafers until the late 12th century, when lay bakeries began making a tastier version which they called waffles.

Eventually, waffle iron makers molded the plates with religious symbols and the familiar honeycomb pattern, which was supposed to represent interlocking crosses. In 1270, an special guild to train the street vendors who sold waffles came into existence.

Peasants soon began making their own flour and water waffles, although some started adding eggs and honey to make them lighter and sweeter. Even Geoffrey Chaucer mentions waffles in his Canterbury Tales: "He sent her sweetened wine and well-spiced ale/ And waffles piping hot out of the fire."

Waffles became a staple of the Dutch diet by the 1620s and early immigrants brought them to New Amsterdam, eventually to become New York..

But the waffle wouldn’t achieve nationwide appeal until Thomas Jefferson brought a waffle iron back from France in the 1790s as a souvenir. He had his cook make and serve them at the White House, which helped popularize "waffle parties."

It wasn’t until 1869 that Cornelius Swarthout patented the first waffle iron in the U.S.. What made his waffle iron unique was that he joined the cast iron plates by a hinge that swiveled in a cast-iron collar.

Soon after the invention of electricity came the electric waffle iron. Lucas D. Sneeringer eventually designed the first electric heating elements that used a built-in thermostat to prevent overheating, a common problem with early versions. With his revolutionary design and General Electric funding, the first electric waffle iron rolled off the assembly line on July 26, 1911.

While the first electric waffle iron did the job—the process of making waffles this way is a relatively simple one—it didn’t look very pretty. So designers set about making the exterior of the waffle iron more attractive. Other innovations, like an iron that could cook two waffles at the same time, soon followed.  Charles M. Cole invented the first twin waffle iron in 1926, but it wasn’t until 1939 when Karl Ratliff designed the "Twin-O-Matic" for the New York World's fair that it really caught on with the public.

By the time the New York World’s Fair rolled around, Art Deco design had influenced everything from dishes to utensils and small appliances. Some waffle irons, like the Hotpoint waffle iron by Edison General Electric, became works of art in themselves. Some resembled flying saucers, having lost their legs and taking on a lower, sleeker look. One of these was General Electric’s Diana, designed by August Propernick. Toastmaster and Sunbeam soon got in on the act and began producing their own electric waffle irons.

It’s said that in the Midwest, the waffle iron holds a special place in marriages. It seems that the nuptials aren’t complete until a  relative gives a waffle iron to the happy couple. As long as the waffle iron remains intact and in use at least once a year, the marriage will prosper. If the couple neglects the waffle iron or lets it fall into disrepair, then so will same happen to their marriage.

Fiesta Fun

QUESTION: My aunt had a large collection of Fiesta dinnerware which she left to me. I added a few pieces that I found at flea markets over the last few years, but now I want to sell it. Is this pottery worth much and where would be the best place to sell it?

ANSWER: Depending on what pieces you have, your collection of Fiesta dinnerware could be worth a small fortune. But before you get dollar signs in your eyes, there are a few things you should know about it.

The style and bright colors of Fiesta dinnerware look very 1950s. But actually it appeared during the Great Depression in the mid-1930s. Englishman, Frederick Hurten Rhead, designed the simple Art Deco shapes while chief engineer Victor Albert Bleininger fabricated the colorful signature glazes. Both worked for the Homer Laughlin China Company of Newell, West Virginia.

Originally, the company offered 37 different affordable pieces, ranging from candle holders and ashtrays to large serving dishes, each in five bright colors: red-orange, yellow, green, cobalt blue, and ivory. It added turquoise in 1939 for a total of six basic colors..

Homer Laughlin pioneered a whole new concept in dinnerware with Fiesta. When it first introduced the dinnerware at the annual Pottery and Glass Exhibit held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in January 1936, its line was the first widely mass-marketed, solid-color dinnerware in the country. It was also the first dinnerware that consumers could purchase by the piece instead of in complete sets, as was the custom at the time. This allowed customers to mix and match, perhaps choosing a different color for each place setting, or have all their dinner plates one color, their cups and saucers another, and so on. This concept became instantly popular with the public, and soon Fiesta dinnerware became a runaway hit.

At its introduction, Fiesta dinnerware consisted of the usual place settings of dinner plates, salad plates, soup bowls, and cups and saucers, plus occasional pieces such as candle holders in two designs, a bud vase, and an ash tray. A set of seven nested mixing bowls ranged in size from five to twelve inches in diameter. The company also sold basic place settings for four, six and eight persons. But the idea from the start was to create a line of open-stock items from which the consumer could pick and choose based on their personal preference.

The Homer Laughlin Company quickly added several additional items to their line and eliminated several unusual items—a divided 12-inch plate, a turquoise covered onion soup bowl, and the covers for its set of mixing bowls. The Fiesta line eventually consisted of 64 different items, including flower vases in three sizes, water tumblers, carafes, teapots in two sizes, five-part relish trays, and large plates in 13- and 15-inch diameters.

But with the onset of World War II, the company was forced to reduce the number of items in the Fiesta line as public demand declined and companies cut back non-war related production. By the end of the war, Homer Laughlin had reduced the items in its Fiesta line by one third.

The design of the original dinnerware pieces remained unchanged from 1936 to 1969. However, the company did change its colored glazes to keep up with home decorating color trends. It introduced four new colors—rose, gray, dark green, and chartreuse, replacing the original blue, green, and ivory. Yellow and turquoise continued in production.

By the end of the 1950s, sales again dropped, so the company reduced its offering of items and changed the glaze colors once again. This time, it introduced a medium green, to distinguish it from other green glazes which the company had produced. This shade of green is in high demand by collectors, and certain pieces in this color command extremely high prices.

Homer Laughlin removed the original red-orange color, the most expensive glaze to produce, before 1944 because it contained uranium oxide which the government needed to construct the atom bombs. Therefore, red pieces also usually command a premium price in today’s collectible market.

By 1969, the company restyled the finials on covers, handles on cups, bowl contours and shapes to give them a more contemporary style.

Fiesta dinnerware became popular once again as baby boomers began establishing their own homes. Not long after Homer Laughlin discontinued the brightly colored dinnerware line in January 1973,  collectors began buying up what remained at garage sales and second-hand shops. Prices for it hit the roof and by the mid-1980s, prices of Fiesta items reached $100 for scarcer pieces.

Generally, serving pieces such as casserole dishes, carafes, teapots, and water pitchers almost always have higher values than normal place setting pieces. As mentioned earlier, certain colors are also priced higher, no matter what the piece.

It’s also important to look on the back of each piece for the familiar “Fiesta” backstamp,
followed by 'HLC USA', 'MADE IN USA' or 'H.L. CO. USA.' You may also discover some pieces with the word 'GENUINE' stamped near the Fiesta signature.

As far as selling your collection, you might do better selling off the pieces individually. If the pieces are from the 1930s and 1940s, you might want to consider sending them to a good auction house where you'll most likely get a better return on them.

A Key for Every Character

QUESTION: My grandfather had an old Corona portable typewriter which he left to me. It’s a small machine with the No. 3 on the rim below the space bar. I believe the serial number is 125512. I’ve looked for some information on it but haven’t found much. Can you tell me more about it?

ANSWER: Your typewriter dates from the second half of 1917 and is part of a long line of machines created to make writing easier. It began in 1714 when Queen Anne of England granted a patent to Henry Mill for a writing device that enabled the blind to write. Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri created his own version of a typewriter in 1808, along with carbon paper to provide the ink for his machine.

In 1829, William Austin Burt patented a machine called the "Typographer" on which he produced a letter to Secretary of State Martin Van Buren. But even in the hands of its inventor, this machine was slower than handwriting, preventing Burt and his promoter John D. Sheldon from ever finding a buyer for their patent. The typographer used a dial, rather than keys, to select each character and resembled the squeeze-style label makers of the 1970s. It wasn’t until 1843 that Charles Thurber invented a machine that operated in way similar to modern typewriters.

Rev. Rasmus Malling Hansen of Denmark invented the Hansen Writing Ball in 1865. It went into commercial production in 1870 and became the first commercially sold typewriter. He made a porcelain model of the keyboard and experimented with different placements of the letters, attaching the letters to short pistons that went through the ball and down to the paper to achieve the fastest writing speed. By placing the letters so the fastest writing fingers struck the most frequently used letters, Hansen made his Writing Ball the first typewriter to produce text faster than a person could write by hand.

In 1867, Christopher Latham Sholes invented the first practical typewriter. Commercially known as "The Type-Writer," it had a moveable carriage, a lever for turning paper from line to line, and a keyboard similar to that of a piano with two rows of black walnut keys with letters printed in white—capital letters only along with numbers 2-9, a comma and a period. Sholes also created the QWERTY keyboard layout to prevent frequent jamming of frequently used letters.

Philo Remington of the Remington Arms Co. manufactured the first marketable Sholes machine in 1874. He sold only eight the first year at $125 each. And after four years he had only sold 5,000. Three businessmen bought and reinvigorated the company under the name of the Remington Typewriter Co. in 1878.

The history of the Corona typewriter is similar to these other early models. The four Smith brothers—Lyman Cornelius, Wilbert, Monroe, and Hurlburt—opened the Smith Premier Typewriter Company in 1886. They produced the first typewriter to use both uppercase and lowercase letters using a  double keyboard. The advertisements for their new machine proclaimed that it had "a key for every character."

During 1906, the Rose Typewriter Company of New York City marketed the first successful portable typewriter. The Smith brothers bought the company in 1909, renamed it the Standard Typewriter Company, and moved its headquarters to Groton, New York. And with the success of their Corona model No. 3 in 1914, the firm became the Corona Typewriter Company.

By that time, the design of the mechanical typewriter had become standardized. While there were minor variations from one manufacturer to another, most typewriters had keys attached to a typebar that had the corresponding letter molded, in reverse, into its striking head. When the operator struck a key briskly and firmly, the typebar hit an inked ribbon, making a printed mark on the paper wrapped around a cylindrical platen mounted on a carriage that moved left or right, automatically advancing the typing position horizontally after the operator typed each character. The carriage return lever advanced the paper vertically for each line of text as it rolled around the platen.

Until recently, antique dealers considered old typewriters worthless, but prices of them on eBay have begun to climb. Of course, higher prices only appear for the most unique models in excellent condition. A Corona No. 3 model from 1917 ranges in price on eBay from about $50 to $190 without its case and $400 for one with its case.