A Penny a Pack

QUESTION: I recently discovered what looks like a toy slot machine while browsing in a local thrift shop. But instead of different types of fruit in the window, it shows packs of cigarettes.  The machine is painted bright red and blue with silver accents. An emblem showing a sophisticated lady smoking a cigarette appears on the front under the window. What can you tell me about my new toy?

ANSWER: To begin with, your little slot machine isn’t a toy. It’s what’s called a trade stimulator, an item certain businesses used to stimulate business.

Trade stimulators were countertop machines used to encourage shoppers to indulge in a game of chance. They became popular in American saloons during the 1880s. Eventually, cigar, confectionery and general store owners saw their potential for generating business and began using them. Produced in a wide range of designs, these little machines originated around the same time as slot machines. Players inserted a coin and pulled a lever. If they got a winning combination, they won prizes of cigars, cigarettes, candy and other goods. When certain states prohibited gambling, business owners could use these machines without fear of prosecution.

The Groetchen Tool & Manufacturing Company in Chicago, one of many companies that manufactured these little machines, produced a variety of models of trade stimulators from 1936 through 1948. This particular one is known as the Liberty Bell or just Liberty. It stood 10 inches tall, 9 inches wide, and 10 inches deep and weighed about 14 pounds. The Liberty dispensed tokens for l or 5 packs of cigarettes. The three reels in the Liberty Bell have pictures of seven different brands of cigarettes. On the front cover of the slot machine is the image of a sophisticated lady smoking a cigarette that’s almost Art-Deco looking.

Many of these trade stimulators used tokens rather than coins, also known as mints. In many cases, players could exchange these tokens, especially ones marked “mints” for cash "under the counter." Other tokens displayed the words “candy” or “cigarettes” and could be exchanged for them.

J. H. Keeny & Company, which made amusement and gambling machines in Chicago, also produced the tokens used in trade simulators. In the 1960s, the Mills Novelty Company bought J.H. Keeny & Company.

Some machines also disguised themselves as vending machines by giving winners cigarettes or cigars rather than mints. For only one cent, the customer could play the machine by inserting the penny and pulling the handle. If they would line up three of a kind on the reels than the machine dispensed a special token good for a pack of cigarettes at the lower right side of the machine.

To further hide that a machine gave winners cigarettes, some tokens had different numbers of stars rather than saying “2 packs” or 5 packs.” Groetchen also made a trade stimulator machine called the Ginger, which appeared on the market in June of 1937 and took the star tokens. The stars disguised the gambling nature of the machine. As with the mints tokens, it was probably possible to exchange tokens for cash, at least at some businesses.

So what’s a Liberty Bell Penny Cigarette Slot Machine worth?  The "Liberty" Trade Stimulator dates from the early 1940's. The basic model of this machine came in many different configurations, and model types. Many still exist today. This trade stimulator still holds it's own with an average value of $200 in today’s market, despite surviving in great numbers.

During the peak of popularity for trade stimulators, a lot of companies copied each others’ models and gave them different names. However, collectors today are well aware of the many reproduction trade stimulators that have been flooding the market. Even though some began to appear as early as the late 1970’s, most came on the market in the mid-80’s.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Step Right Up and Try Your Luck

QUESTION: I just inherited my mother’s collection of carnival glass. I always admired it while growing up, but she never really told me much about it. Now that I have it, I’d like to continue collecting, but I have no idea where to begin. Can you give me some background on carnival glass and also some tips on growing and maintaining my mother’s collection?

ANSWER: Carnival Glass is pressed glass—glass that has been formed by being pressed into a mold while in a hot molten form—that has had an iridescent coating applied. As it cools, it takes on the shape and detail of the mold. Once removed from the mold, and while still somewhat hot, the glassmaker sprays it with metallic salts in liquid form which gives it an "oil-on-water" multicolor appearance. He then refires the piece.

The Fenton Glass of Williamston, West Virginia, first produced carnival glass, which it called "iridescent ware," in 1907. The company called its first line Iridill and labeled it "Venetian Art."  They wanted to mass-produce a product that could compete with the expensive, iridescent art glass made by Tiffany and Steuben. Though half a dozen companies, including Northwood, Imperial, Millersburg, Westmoreland, Dugan, and Cambridge, originally made it, Fenton did so longer than any of the others.

Competition became so fierce between makers that new patterns appeared regularly, so each company ended up making a wide range of patterns of most types adding up to a panoply of choice.

Its eye-catching multicolor shimmer seems to change colors when viewed at different angles. Over the years, carnival glass has been dubbed "Taffeta," "Cinderella," and "Poor Man's Tiffany," as it gave the average housewife the ability to adorn her home with fancy vases and decorative bowls a prices she could afford.
   
But this new type of glass didn’t catch on with the public the way Fenton had hoped, especially since they tried pricing it higher than their regular pieces without the carnival finish. Unfortunately, most consumers didn't see carnival glass as quality glass and refused to pay higher prices for it. Other glass manufacturers soon began making carnival glass using the same iridization techniques. This overloaded the market and soon prices plummeted. To get rid of their excess inventory, carnival glass makers at first began giving it away to carnival owners to use as prizes, but later sold sample pieces to them in hopes that winners could then purchase additional items in the same or a similar pattern. Together all the manufacturers produced over 2,000 different patterns.

This new market for carnival glass was a boon for Fenton, which produced iridescent ware in 150 patterns up until the late 1920s. Carnival glass sold for pennies at five-and-dime stores, and businesses could buy it wholesale at minimal cost. This allowed movie theaters and grocery stores to give it away as premiums. For example, Imperial Glass struck lucrative deals with companies like Woolsworth's and Quaker Oats.

Fenton's earliest patterns included Waterlily and Cattails, Vintage, Butterfly and Berries, Peacock Tail, Ribbon Tie, Wreath of Roses, Thistle, and Diamond and Rib. Among Northwood's first glass patterns were Waterlily and Cattails, Cherry and Cable, and Valentine, but Grape and Cable became their most popular. Millersburg collectors look for Hobstar and Feather, Blackberry Wreath, and Rays and Ribbons.

Collectors call the most popular color of carnival glass “marigold,” although the companies, themselves, didn’t call it that. Marigold has a clear glass base and is the most easily recognizable carnival color. The final surface colors of marigold are mostly a bright orange-gold turning perhaps to copper with small areas showing rainbow or 'oil-slick' highlights. The highlights appear mostly on ridges in the pattern and vary in strength according to the light.

Carnival glass is highly collectible. Prices vary widely, with some pieces worth very little, while other, rare items command thousands of dollars.

However, identifying carnival glass can be a challenge. It involves matching patterns, colors, sheen, edges, and thickness from information contained in old manufacturer's trade catalogs, other known examples, or other reference material. Many manufacturers didn’t include a maker's mark on their product, and some did for only part of the time they produced the glass. Since many manufacturers produced close copies of their rivals' popular patterns, carnival glass identification can be difficult even for an expert.

By 1925, carnival glass started to fall out of favor with Americans, and many U.S. glass companies quit producing it during the Great Depression.

For Every Meat There is a Turn

QUESTION: I love old mechanical things. Recently while rooting through a box of old junk at a monthly flea market, I came across an unusual item. It looks like a round can from which protrudes a cylinder. On the end of the cylinder is an odd-shaped ring and in the side of the can is a hole with a place to insert a key. Can you tell me what this is and something about it, if that’s possible?

ANSWER: It looks like you’ve found an antique spitjack. However, some of its parts are missing.

Today, you can go to any supermarket and purchase a fully roasted rotisserie chicken or turkey breast. But back in the 18th century, that wasn’t possible. All meats had to be slow roasted on a long pole called a spit over the fire in a huge, walk-in kitchen fireplace. And to do that evenly, it took man or woman power. Wives, children, servants, or slaves had to stand by the fire and slowly turn the meat until it was done. This had to be one of the most boring jobs in the 18th and early 19th centuries, so no one enjoyed doing it.

Roasting meat on a spit dates as far back as the first century B.C.E. During Tudor times, someone even came up with an ingenious way to have a dog provide the power to turn the spit—the dog ran in a treadmill linked to the spit by belts and pulleys. But it wasn’t until the 18th century that things got a little easier for cooks. It was then that the weight or clock jack came into being.

Descending stone, iron, or lead weights powered most of the spit-turning mechanisms, or more commonly spitjacks, used by Colonials and their British counterparts. In England, cooks referred to them as weight jacks, but in America, they came to be known as clock jacks because they used a clockwork mechanism to wind a spring used to turn the spit.

Earlier jacks of this type had a train of two arbors or spindles. Later ones had a more efficient train with three arbors. Those made and used in England had a governor or flywheel set above the engine as opposed to being located within the frame and to one side—to the right for a two train works and to the left for one with three trains. These weight jacks also contained a flywheel within the frame, usually at the
in a bell-like arch at the highest part of the frame.

In 1792, John Bailey II, an American clockmaker, patented the first steam-driven jack. However, the Turks used a mechanism similar to Bailey’s jack back in the mid-16th century.

Another type of roasting jack, the smoke jack, appeared in the early 17th century. This jack moved by the flow of the smoke from the fire over the sails of a horizontal wheel which lay sideways. By placing the wheel in the narrowest part of the chimney where the motion of the smoke was the fastest and where the greatest amount would strike the sails, the mechanism would slowly turn the spit, thus roasting the meat. But this type of jack had its downside since the speed of the jack depended on the draught of the chimney and the quantity and strength of the fire in the fireplace.

The type of jack you purchased is called a bottle jack because of its bottle-shaped hydraulic lifting device. A brass shell contains the clockwork motor. Introduced in the late 18th century, it replaced the earlier and simpler dangle spit. When the cook set the weights, the spit turned, eliminating the need for manual labor for approximately 30 minutes, after which the cook would have had to readjust the weights. Bottle jacks continued to be made and used until the early 20th century.

If your jack had all of its parts and was in better condition, it would sell for around $400.

A Cabinet for Chocolates

QUESTION: We recently purchased a Vassar Display Cabinet. It’s in perfect condition with all original glass, shelving, doors, etc. The top was to contain blocks of ice, and there’s a small door at the very bottom where the ice would drain when melting. Is there anything you can tell me about it? I've found very little on the Internet.

ANSWER: You’re the proud owner of a commercial refrigerated chocolate cabinet that would have been used in candy and chocolate shops. At the turn of the 20th century, Vassar Chocolates was one of the top brands of gift-boxed chocolates, similar to Whitman’s today.

But to fully understand your cabinet and the contents it held, we have to look at the background of two companies–the company that made the cabinet and the company that made the chocolates.

The O.D. Royer Manufacturing Company began making refrigerated display cabinets in 1901—a patent date of March 26, 1901 appears on the brass handles on the box doors. They were unique because of their see-through sides. These enabled store and shop owners to display a variety of perishable goods, including chocolates and cheeses. The company moved from Downing, Wisconsin, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, before 1900. However, your cabinet has “Vassar Chocolates” painted on the front. And since Vassar Chocolates weren’t made until 1912, this dates your cabinet to that time.

The iceboxes that Royer Manufacturing made had double panes of glass about one inch apart, something that’s quite common today in double-pane insulated windows. Royer used flax straw to insulate the top ice compartment. It included a beveled mirror on the side opposite the doors. As in today’s pastry and deli display cabinets, the door side probably faced the store clerk for easy access from the back of the cabinet, while the mirror side faced the customer, making it seem as if there were more goods on display than were in the cabinet. As with other iceboxes of the time, the framework and exterior paneling are of oak.

Vassar Chocolates, a type of fudge bon-bon, sold loosely and also packaged in gift tins, were a hot item when they appeared in 1912. The Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company of Kansas City made them along with a variety of other candies and crackers. 

Established in 1902 by Joseph Loose, his brother Jacob, and John. H. Wiles, the company became the second largest manufacturer of crackers in the country by 1912. It had factories in Kansas City, Missouri, Boston, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Dallas, Texas, and Seattle, Washington, employing nearly 2,000 workers and competed successfully with the National Biscuit Company until the 1930s.

Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company produced not only Sunshine Biscuits, but Vassar Chocolates and a general line of crackers, cakes and fine confectionery, and sold them within a 15-state area surrounding Kansas City. By 1912, it had become the largest combination cracker and candy factory in America, and its facilities for handling business, and also looking out for the welfare of its employees were second to none.

Joseph Loose envisioned a factory which would be filled with sunlight, and Loose-Wiles adopted the name Sunshine for their products. Soon they began expanding and opened new plants in Boston and then New York. In 1912 Loose-Wiles opened their "Thousand Window" bakery on Long Island, which remained the largest bakery building in the world until 1955. When sales began to slump in the 1940s, Loose petitioned the company’s board of directors to change the name to the Sunshine Biscuit Company in 1946, and in 1996, Keebler purchased it. In 2000, Kellogg purchased Keebler. The product it’s best known for is Cheeze-It Crackers.

So how did the chocolates get the name Vassar? It’s no small coincidence that the Vassar Girls, as the students of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, were commonly known, began making chocolate fudge in the late 1880s.

“Nearly every night at college,” said the Vassar girl in a newspaper ad, “some girl may be found somewhere who is making ‘fudges’ or giving a fudge party.” These fudges became known in fashionable circles as Vassar chocolates. Though mystery shrouds their origin, students at Vassar handed down the recipe from year to year. It’s most likely that the recipe, which would have become well known by the turn of the 20th century, would have been easy for Joseph Loose to procure. He added the Vassar name to his chocolate fudge bon-bons to give them class. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Determing Value

This is the 200th post of this blog. And being so, I thought I’d break away from my usual question and answer format and discuss a topic for which I receive lots of questions—value. I routinely tell everyone that I don’t do valuations. I do that because value is one of the hardest things to determine without lots of expert information. That’s why certified appraisers are in such high demand. But they’re expensive, so most people seek free value advice.

Value of any kind is subjective. It depends on several things—age, rarity, authenticity, trendiness, and historical association. Just because an item is old doesn’t make it valuable. Take glass from ancient Rome. At over two 2,000 years old, you’d think it would be worth a fortune. But the truth is there’s so much of it around that it isn’t worth as much as you’d think.

Throughout history, people had as much junk as we have today. But they didn’t value things in quite the same way as we do today. For ordinary people, old furniture was just old furniture. Old dishes were often mismatched. Let’s face it, they didn’t have “Antiques Roadshow” to make them think that just about everything was valuable.

To determine an item’s value, you first have to determine its age. The type of wood used in furniture, particularly the secondary woods used for the inside of drawers, is an important clue of age. If you see a  circular saw pattern in the wood on a piece of furniture, you know it was made after 1840.

Not everything rare is valuable either. An old book by an unknown author might be extremely rare. But to be valuable, someone must want to buy it. Nevertheless, rarity is a key determinant of value. Start by considering how rare an item was when it first appeared on the market.

Think in terms of different levels of production. At the bottom are mass-produced items made of ordinary and usually cheaper materials. At the top are unique items made of the finest materials. Generally, if an item was rare and valuable when it was made, it'll be even more rare and valuable today. Previously expensive objects will still be expensive today.

When an antique or collectible is in demand by collectors, it’s price can skyrocket. And when prices climb, fakes and forgeries abound. Some forgers use as much skill producing fakes as if they were making an original. Fraudulent antiques lie in wait for the uninformed. A good example is the myriad of fake Chippendale furniture coming out of Indonesia.

Perfectly round wood in a piece of furniture, for example, is a tell-tale sign of a forgery, because wood becomes distorted with age. Look carefully at ceramics to see if someone painted the decoration on top of the glaze after the firing.

When it comes to collecting antiques, condition is prime. Did you know that the patina on fine furniture----produced before 1830—is one of its most important features, and too much cleaning and restoration can ruin it? Did you know, for example, that the value of a rare book can drop by more than 100 percent if it doesn't have its dust jacket?

Another thing that influences value is how typical an item is. Collectors are always looking for representative examples of a given period, craft or style. When an item sparks a collecting trend, prices always go up.

Finally, an object’s association with someone famous automatically increases its value. That’s because more collectors want to own it. And that’s the bottom line with value. The more people who want to own an object, the more its worth. And an item is only worth what the last person paid for it.

I hope you find this post as useful as the previous 199. I’ve enjoyed writing this blog and plan to continue bringing you insightful information about antiques and collectibles. For more in-depth articles, please visit The Antique Almanac, my new monthly E-zine on antiques and collectibles. You’ll never know what you’ll learn next.

The Bluebird of Happiness

QUESTION: Some time ago, I purchased six dinner plates, each with a large bluebird design on it, from a church sale. I love the bold design on these plates and have yet to see any others like them. On the back is the mark of the Buffalo Pottery. I thought they only made restaurant china. What can you tell me about my plates.

ANSWER: What you bought is commonly known as bluebird chinaware. The large, bold bluebird on your plates is one of over 50 different variations made by as many potteries. And while Buffalo Pottery did make a lot of restaurant china, they also made some for home use.

Bluebird china was everyday dinnerware. It was mostly made in America, beginning in the late 19th century. It featured  a decal of a bluebird, often with flowers or other designs incorporated into it.  Potteries made this china to be functional, and being so, it often broke from daily use. In many cases, started  out as a grocery store premium, perhaps a free gift received after collecting the required number of stamps. People could also buy complete sets from the Montgomery Ward Catalog and from Sears Roebuck & Co.

By the mid-1920s, bluebird china was available everywhere. But its popularity didn’t last long since by the end of the decade, manufacturers had begun phasing it out. By 1930, it had all but disappeared.

While many Ohio potteries, especially those in the vicinity of East Liverpool, made bluebird china, collectors prefer that made by the Homer Laughlin China Company. The pottery most often decorated its Empress dinnerware, which it introduced in 1914, with bluebirds. The company also decorated some of its other dinnerware shapes with bluebird decals, include Cable, Hudson, Kwaker, Newell, Republic, Riviera, and Tea Rose.

Homer Laughlin usually used a design showing two or three chubby bluebirds surrounded by differing shades of pink flowering apple blossom branches. Other potteries also produced china with the same motif which seemed strange. As it turns out, Ohio Valley potteries all bought their decals from the same company, Meyercord Decal, in Chicago.

Other potteries outside of Ohio also made their own versions of bluebird china. The most important of these was the Buffalo Pottery of New York. Many collectors seek out pieces by Homer Laughlin with decals showing bluebirds in flight that the company used on its wares. The bluebirds found on Buffalo Pottery wares appear to fly in flocks across the surface of each piece. Buffalo also sold bluebird dishes to restaurants.

The Larkin Soap Company first introduced a butter tub with a drainer and pitchers, both sporting bluebird designs, as a premium in its 1918-1919 catalog. Larkin’s catalogs from 1919 to 1922 featured a bluebird tea set consisting of tea plates, cups and saucers, sugar and creamer. Larkin also offered special pieces, like a baby dish, that could be specially ordered.

Another bluebird variation popular with collectors is the Flying Blue Bird pattern produced by Knowles, Taylor & Knowles of East Liverpool, Ohio. While the bluebird decals used by Homer Laughlin depict a small, pale blue, plump bird, KT&K's bluebird decals show large, bold birds in rich dark blues that seem to be circling around the china's outer edges. KT&K put their bluebird decal on pottery from their white Nina line, making the bluebirds stand out even more.

In order to compete with American bluebird china makers, European potteries began adhering bluebird decals to their dinnerware. This was odd since bluebirds aren't native to Europe.

There are many variations of the bluebird designs. D.E. McNicol Pottery, also of East Liverpool, made calendar plates with a finer, stylized bluebird floating between each month's calendar page on the plate's rim. The Edward J. Owen China Co. of Minerva, Ohio, often used a decal showing one or two bluebirds in flight among flowering rose branches.

As far as the value of bluebird china, shape doesn't seem to enter into it. Plates are common and sell for around $35 while rare large pitchers sell for lots more. Collectors especially seek the larger pitchers. A 6 3/4 inch water pitcher, made by the Buffalo Pottery, can sell for as high as $200.

And finding items in good condition is also a challenge since people used this dinnerware. Items like egg cups, salt and pepper shakers, and complete tea sets are particularly hard to find.

China decorated with bluebirds was especially popular because of what the birds represented. The 1920s was a time of optimism and the bluebird became synonymous with that. Bluebirds became a symbol of rebirth and renewal as well. Bluebirds and happiness seem to go together.

A Penny a Light

QUESTION: I love quirky old machines. Recently, I purchased a penny vending machine that I think held matches from an online auction. The seller couldn’t tell me much about it, but it’s in pretty good condition. It looks like it stood on a counter or table and stands 13½ inches tall. The machine seems to be made of cast white metal, but the slot that the penny drops through is made of wood. Unfortunately, the machine came with no label on it, so I have no idea who made it. An unusual feature is a cigar tip cutter which sits at the front of the base. Can you tell me who made this vending machine and how old it is. 

ANSWER: From what you described, I’d say you have a Sellem match vending machine, most likely produced around 1912 by the Northwestern Corporation of Chicago, which also produced a varied line of gumball machines.

Northwestern released 70 different machines under the Sellem name, starting in 1911. In addition to the Sellem match vending machine, the company also produced stamp vending machines and another type called Penny Matches.

The Sellem line was the deluxe model of the Northwestern match vendor line. The top, front and base are all made in the beautiful Art Nouveau style from cast iron, not white metal as you supposed. Two dolphins decorate the front of this machine. The Sellem was the firm’s  only model to have a cigar cutter and matchbox holder, both of which enticed customers to the machine and reminded them to buy a box of matches.

The Sellem came in two models. The A model had frames attached to the machine's sides and top that contained advertising panels and the more common B model, which seems to be what you have. The company also made a third version for a private match company, called The Scup. The Sellem dispensed small cardboard boxes of matches. The front of the machine had a holder that would hold the last box dispensed. These machines originally came in white, green or antique silver, and sometimes had brass-colored accents. 

Back in 1912, you would have most likely found your machine sitting on a table in the smoking lounge of a fine hotel. It was the custom of gentlemen at the time to smoke cigars after dinner. When a gentleman inserted a penny, it would drop through the wooden piece and allow the push bar to go back and forth. The machine also had a removable match loading compartment which often is missing on ones appearing for sale today. The cigar tip cutter was an added feature that enabled smokers to prepare their cigar before lighting.

Sellem vending machines sell for between $300 and $400. However, a fine one sold at auction for $960, but that’s rare.

Bent Into Shape

QUESTION: I recently purchased two bentwood chairs at an antique shop in a nearby town. Both have woven cane seats and the number “14" pressed into the wood under the rim of the seat. I bought them to use in my kitchen. The cane is in good condition and the chairs are stained a dark brown. Can you tell me anything about these chairs—who made them and how old are they?

ANSWER: You made a great purchase. Your chairs are commonly known as “bistro” chairs, and while most people think they date from the early 20th century, they actually date back to the mid 19th century.

Michael Thonet (pronounced “toe-net”), a clever and creative cabinetmaker from Boppard am Rhein, Germany, invented the process for bending wood and as a result created the first pieces of bentwood furniture. He originally made your chairs in 1859, however, his company, which is still in existence, made over 50 million by 1930. So yours could date from the early 20th century.

Thonet, the son of master tanner Franz Anton Thonet, started out as a carpenter's apprentice in 1811. Eight years later, he opened his own shop. In the beginning, he carved his pieces from European beechwood.

In the 1830s, Thonet began trying to make furniture out of glued and bent wooden slats. His first success was the Bopparder Schichtholzstuhl, or Boppard layerwood chair, in 1836. The following year, he purchased the Michelsmühle, the glue factory that made the glue that he used. However, he failed to obtain the patent for his new process in Germany and England in 1940, so he tried again in France and Russia the next year, but again failed.

The steam engine appeared on the scene around the time that Thonet's was experimenting with his bending process. He discovered that he could bend light, strong wood into curved, graceful shapes by forming the wood in hot steam. This enabled him to design elegant, lightweight, durable and comfortable furniture, which appealed strongly to style trend at the time. His pieces were a complete departure from the heavy, carved designs of the past.

At the Koblenz trade fair of 1841, Thonet met Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, who was enthusiastic about Thonet's furniture and invited him to his Vienna court. During 1842, Thonet presented his furniture—particularly his chairs—to the Imperial Family. On July 16 1842: Metternich granted Thonet the right "to bend any type of wood, even the most brittle: into the desired forms and curves by chemical and mechanical means." The Prince granted him a second, nonrenewable 13-year patent on July 10, 1856 "for manufacturing chairs and table legs of bent wood, the curvature of which is effected through the agency of steam or boiling liquids.”

When his first factory in Boppard establishment got into financial trouble, he sold it and moved his family to Vienna, where in 1849, he opened a new factory called the Gebrüder Thonet. In 1850, he produced his Number 1 chair, which he intended to sell to café owners. 

He received a bronze medal for his Vienna bentwood chairs at the London World's Fair in 1851, at which he received international recognition. At the next World's Fair in Paris in 1855, he received the silver medal for his new and improved bentwood chair design.   In 1856, he opened a new factory in Korycany, Moravia because of the country’s ample supply of beechwood.

By 1859, he developed his most famous chair—the Number 14, known as Konsumstuhl No. 14 or coffeehouse chair No.14—for which he finally received a gold medal at the 1867 Paris World's Fair.

Thonet produced his No. 14 chair using six pieces of steam-bent wood, ten screws, and two nuts. He made the wooden parts by heating beechwood slats to 212 °F, pressing them into curved cast-iron molds, then drying them at 158 °F for 20 hours. The chairs could be mass-produced by unskilled workers and disassembled to save space during transportation—an idea used today by the Swedish company IKEA to flat-pack its furniture.

The firm’s later chairs used eight pieces of wood and also had two diagonal braces between the seat and back to strengthen that particular joint.

Today, a pair of these icon chairs with a table is selling on eBay for nearly $1,000.

An Antique That Lasts a Lifetime

QUESTION: I love to cook. And I love to cook in my cast-iron skillet. I’ve had this skillet for nearly 50 years and it never fails me. I bought it at a second-hand store to use for camping, but I liked it so much, I began using to cook with in my kitchen. The name stamped into the bottom is Griswold. I’ve seen others like it at flea markets and would like to know more about it. What can you tell me about the company?

ANSWER: While other antiques may last as long or longer as a cast-iron skillet, few can be used regularly and still retain their value. Your skillet is a real classic. And if you take care of it and use it regularly, it should last another 50 years.

Cast-iron skillets have been around since 1642. The first one made, a small, three-legged covered pot that held one quart came from a foundry in Saugus, Massachusetts. The thing weighed 2 1/4 pounds, so the lady of the house probably developed some pretty heft biceps. From then until the early 19th century, cast-iron cookware had great value, so people took care of it and guarded it as a prized possession. 

However, cookware made of it was brittle, prone to rust, grainy, unfinished and difficult, if not impossible, to repair if cracked. It was also "reactive." Acidic foods, such as vinegar, tomatoes, and citrus, re-acted with the iron and changed the flavor and color of whatever the cook was preparing. The solution seemed to be to season the it. A non-stick surface wasn’t natural to cast iron. It had to be created by seasoning or curing the piece. A cook would repeatedly coat a pot’s inside surface with animal fat and place the utensil in a 250- to 300-degree oven for two to three hours. After wiping away any excess fat, he or she would lightly rinse it with hot water, using no soap, then thoroughly dry and store it in a dry place. Many people never ever put a used piece under water. Today, cast-iron cookware comes pre-seasoned.

By the 1840s, open hearth cooking had been replaced by the cast-iron stove which enclosed the fire in iron and shielded the cook from an open flame. Cooks placed their pots directly on solid iron plates—not open grates—that formed the top of the stove. In later models, foundries  cut deep holes into the top and made the iron plates removable. With this innovation, a pot could be placed into the hole for a snug fit and was as close as possible to the flame. Stove manufacturers found it to their advantage to add a line of cast-iron cookware that perfectly fit the removable iron plates or “eyes” of their stoves.

By the mid-19th-century, foundries that made cast-iron stoves also made cast-iron cookware— also called hollowware. The Selden brothers, John and Samuel, operated a foundry in Erie, Pennsylvania, where they manufactured butt hinges and other household hardware. In 1863, they added cast-iron cookware to their expanding product line. Because of the areas widely known foundries, they marked their earliest skillets, muffin pans, and Dutch ovens with one word, “Erie.”

In 1868, Matthew Griswold joined the Selden brothers. Unlike his partners, Griswold believed in patenting the products developed in the foundry. He patented just about everything. The name "Selden and Griswold" appeared on many cookware items shortly after 1868. At Samuel's death in 1882, Griswold bought out the remaining family members and changed the name of the company to his own. He cleverly kept "Erie” on some of Selden's most popular pieces, but added “Griswold” above it.

The Griswold Manufacturing. Company and its predecessors produced superior cookware in an industry dominated by inferior, low-quality goods. In the late 19th century, cast iron was often made by prisoners. The top of the Griswold line was "extra finish ware"—cooking utensils with a polished exterior, a milled interior, and top edges so tight that the connection between the pan and the lid was a waterproof joint that even the thinnest knife couldn’t penetrate.

Women noticed the difference. Unlike the products made by its competitors, pieces made by Griswold were thin and lightweight. After centuries of super heavy pots and pans, Griswold overcame cast iron's weight problem.

Women also noticed the company's distinctive trademark. Griswold featured a cross, a sign of quality, on most of its products. Over the firm’s long history from 1850 to 1957, Griswold Manufacturing Company produced over 180 cast-iron items. Included in the "non-cookware category" were cast-iron ashtrays, burglar alarms, fire. sets, gas heaters, sadirons, mailboxes, pokers, display racks, shovels, spittoons, sun dials and tobacco cutters. They introduced gas stoves in 1891, kerosene heaters in 1895, and parlor stoves in 1900.

Today, the cast-iron skillet dominates most Griswold collections and is nearly always the first piece a new collector buys. Good luck with your skillet and keep cooking.

Beauty in the Glass

QUESTION: I have always loved paperweights. I don’t mean the kind with advertising on them but the ones with floral designs that seem embedded in them. I started buying them here and there, but I want to give some direction to my collection. How and when did these beauties originate? And can you give me some suggestions on building a collection?

ANSWER: From the beginning, people treated paperweights like works of art and not just as something to hold down paper. Early collectors included Queen Victoria, Oscar Wilde, Truman Capote, Eva Peron and King Farouk of Egypt. Today, there are over 20,000 paperweight collectors worldwide. But not all of them are famous celebrities. Some of them are ordinary people like you.

So what got them into collecting paperweights? People purchase paperweights for several reasons. Some just enjoy their beauty and may buy several as accent pieces for their home. Others purchase them because they remind them of one that a loved one had when they were a child. And still others buy them to collect as an object of beauty and value. And though collectors today still purchase paperweights in antique shops and at auctions, many more use the Internet as their primary source.

To begin with, the Paperweight Collectors Association divides paperweights into several periods: Classic, from 1840 to 1880, Folk Art and Advertising, from the 1880s to World War II, and Contemporary, after World War II.

While several hundred glass factories operated in France during the Classic period, the factories of Baccarat, Clichy, and St. Louis produced the highest quality paperweights. In the latter half of the 19th century, British glassmakers George Bacchus and Sons, Walsh-Walsh and Islington Glass Works also made paperweights. Although they’re considered to be of lesser quality, the factories in Belgium, Bohemia, Germany and Venice all made paperweights during this time.

Venetians glassblowers on the island of Murano made some of the earliest paperweights in the 1840s. They gathered scraps of leftover glass, as well as chunks of aventurine quartz, which they picked up from the floor with a ball of hot glass at the end of their blowpipe. They then covered this with an additional layer of clear glass and fashioned the mass into a smooth cylinder. The glass was of poor quality and the scraps it contained looked like a jumble.

Around the same time in Bohemia, in today’s Czech Republic, glassworkers improved on the Venetians’ techniques. Instead of a jumble, the Bohemians used the scraps to produce millefiori (multiple floral) effects, in which they organized the ends of the pieces of scrap glass with their cross sections facing out so that viewers could see patterns in the paperweight.

To this, the Bohemians added the artistry of the French, who really brought the art of the paperweight into full flower—no pun intended. In fact, it was these floral paperweights from the mid 19th-century that began to attract collectors. The flowers seem to be suspended within these paperweights and were like nothing else produced at the time.

Baccarat, the most famous paperweight maker, also used millefiori, whose cross-sections revealed stars, spirals, and shamrocks. The company produced both "plain" millefiori paperweights and those organized in concentric circles, with their ends interwoven like garlands.

The firm also produced mushrooms, in which a bundle of glass canes seems to sprout like a mushroom from within the weight, and carpets, whose wall-to-wall patterns look like those in antique Persian rugs.

The French added three-dimensional flowers encased in glass. At Baccarat, flower choices included pansies, primroses, wheatflowers, clematis, buttercups, and, of course, roses. The artisans also froze fruits, such as strawberries and pears, in glass.

Numerous other paperweight makers, such as Clichy, whose trademark rose appears in some 30 percent of all the paperweights produced by the company, and St. Louis, whose crown paperweights were its trademark, existed in France during the 19th century.

In England, the George Bacchus & Sons Glass Company, located in Birmingham, made paperweights with interiors that resembled stars and ruffles. Collectors hold its concentric paperweights in high regard, as well as those whose interiors appear to be blanketed with drifts of snow.

The New England Glass Company, the forerunner of the Libbey Glass Company, produced the first American paperweight for the Great Exhibition in London. This pictorial weight, dated 1851, featured Victoria and Albert. Both the New England Glass Company and the Boston and Sandwich Glass Works were key paperweight producers from the 1860s until they closed in 1888.

The 1920s saw a boom in paperweight technologies in the Czech Republic, where faceted, flower-filled paperweights had become popular. Baccarat revived its millefiori output shortly after World War II.

Today, the tradition continues. Because the techniques used in creating paperweights have been unaffected by technology, collectors are drawn to them today more than ever.

Building a paperweight collection is all a matter of personal taste. Buy what you like, old or newer. Some people collect only milleflori designs while others collect only paperweights made by one company or within a certain time period. One thing is for certain, paperweights make a great collectible for people who live in apartments or condos as they don’t take up much room.

Music From the Past That Captures Your Heart

QUESTION: I’m now the proud owner of a beautiful 19th-century music box that has been handed down for generations ever since my great-grandfather owned it. It’s a real beauty and still plays. I can tell it needs service, but I have no idea where to take it. The type of box I have has a metal cylinder inside with little pins stuck into it. As it turns, the mechanism plucks the pins to produce the music. I also have several different cylinders for it. On the inside of the lid is a label that says “Made by Nicole Freres of Geneva, Switzerland.” What can you tell me about my music box? Also, can you tell me where I should take it to be serviced?

ANSWER: You have a unique cylinder music box made by the prestigious Geneva company of Nicole Freres in 1862. This particular music box reproduces the sound of a piano forte using a two-comb movement, combined with a two-per-turn format on its larger cylinder that enables it to play a dozen operatic tunes with elegant sound. The musical mechanism sits in a beautiful rosewood case with intricate inlays.

When people think of mechanical music, most think of music boxes. The early ones like the one you have appeared at the beginning of the 19th century and lasted until about the time of World War I. However, people tend to lump all types of mechanical music devices into the general music box category. What you have is far beyond the type used in jewelry boxes and other novelties. It’s the forerunner of the phonograph and of all the other music players on the market today.

Mechanical music is a live performance of music, played by a machine, without any human intervention, except for winding it up, plugging it in, or turning it off. The invention of mechanical music devices allowed people to enjoy music before electricity, when the only option was to attend a live performance or to create their own music.

Mechanical music goes back to the 14th century, with the invention of the carillon, which automatically played music on tuned bells actuated by hammers on levers by way of a pinned drum. Primarily used in churches to play hymns, the drum could be programmed to play different song selections by moving the pins from one location to another.

The mechanical pipe organ appeared in the 15th century. This instrument, through valves actuated by pins on the drum, allowed selected pipes to play organ music mechanically. During the 16th century, the mechanical pipe organ gained widespread popularity in Europe, and soon expanded beyond churches and public buildings. It became a must-have novelty for aristocratic society. Eventually, cabinetmakers built   desks and cabinets to encase carillons or pipe organs. These mechanical devices became so trendy for the well-to-do that heeled that famous musicians of the day, including Beethoven, Handel and Mozart, actually wrote pieces specifically for them.

It wasn’t until the late 18th century that mechanical music experienced any change. In 1796, Antoine Favre, a Geneva clockmaker, patented a device to make carillons play without bells or hammers. His invention paved the way for cylinder boxes, which had a comb of hard steel with a series of teeth or tiny  tuning forks, which graduated from long and thick to short and thin. Pins placed on a rotating cylinder, which when moved laterally, plucked these teeth and produced different tunes.

Clockmakers began constructing cylinder boxes in the late 18th century and continued making them well into the late 19th century. Over time, the mechanical music industry saw many advances in technology. Eventually, they developed over 20 different musical effects by changing the size, placement, tuning, and arrangement of the pins on the cylinder. Most cylinder boxes reproduce music of either a mandolin or a piano forte. The first produces a softer more folksy sound while the second produces a louder bolder sound simulating an early piano. Most mandolin cylinder music boxes played only 4 to 6 tunes while the piano forte version played 12.

And although the cylinder music box revolutionized the mechanical music industry, it had its limitations.  While interchangeable cylinders allowed for the playing of different tunes, it was a cumbersome process to change them. In the late 1880s, all that changed with the introduction in Germany of the disc musical box. This revolutionized the industry because instead of the slow and delicate process of inserting pins in cylinders, the discs could be stamped out by machine. Also, it was easy for people to change the discs on the machines, making it possible for them to hear the latest tunes.

While the 19th century also saw the development of many other forms of mechanical music, none could hold their own against the evolution of the phonographic record player and by the 1920s, interest in music boxes had subsided.

What makes mechanical music devices unique is their blend of art, history, music, and mechanics. Although they can’t be compared to other collectibles, condition, rarity and market demand still affect the price. They also take a good deal of maintenance to keep them running well and, thus, enabling them to hold their value. Only a professional music box restoration expert can make sure that a box is kept in good condition. However, finding one may be a challenge but worth it since a cylinder box in excellent condition can sell for four figures.

The First Home Improvement Companion

QUESTION: At a community book sale recently, I was going through a box of old magazines and discovered a copy of The Craftsman, a magazine from the early 1900s. It looked interesting, so I put it with the rest of the items I intended to purchase and bought it. As I was going through the books and such I bought a few days later, I noticed that the publisher was Gustav Stickley. Is this the same person who made Mission furniture? Also, what can you tell me about The Craftsman?

ANSWER: It is indeed the one and the same person. And The Craftsman magazine was Stickley’s pride and joy and the first of its kind to discuss home improvement and design.

Gustav Stickley was one of the most important figures in the Arts and Crafts Movement in the United States. He was a furniture maker who became a leader in the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts Movement as well as in the production of objects suitable for use that followed its principles. And although he wasn’t a craftsman himself, he successfully inspired craftsmen to carry out his concepts.

Also, he knew the value of publicity in selling his products and his ideas. He used his magazine, entitled The Craftsman, which he edited and published during the 15 years he was active in the Movement, as his main means of promotion.  At its peak, The Craftsman reached 60,000 subscribers and featured articles and essays on Stickley's many interests and concerns.

Gustav Stickley often referred to himself as "the craftsman" and used the term "craftsman" in many ways. The furniture he sold was Craftsman—not "mission"—furniture, his version of the Arts and Crafts movement was the Craftsman Movement, and his monthly magazine was The Craftsman.

He published the first issue of his magazine in October 1901 in  Eastwood, New.York, where he had located his furniture factory. Later he moved The Craftsman to Syracuse and finally to New York City. The premier issue emphasized the work and ideas of William Morris through an article entitled “William Morris, Some Thoughts Upon His Life.”

Irene Sargent, professor of art history at the University of Syracuse, served as Stickley's principal editor. She wrote many of the articles in the magazine’s early years. A very persuasive person, Stickley was able to obtain contributions from such notables as Louis Sullivan, Jacob Riis, Leopold Stokowski, John Burroughs, and Jane Addams. They covered a wide variety of subject matter, from architecture to art and nature, as well as the concepts of social reform prevalent at the time.

Though he was an idealist, Gustav Stickley had to eat. The Craftsman offered him lots of advertising  space for his growing furniture business. Thirteen pictures of furniture made by Stickley's company, United Crafts, included a round table, an armchair, and a settle, followed an article entitled “An Argument for Simplicity in Household Furnishings” in the first issue. The Craftsman also showed readers how to use the furniture in its many illustrations of room settings. Over the years, Stickley added metalwork, lighting fixtures, textiles and other items to his product line, and also to The Craftsman.

He often commented on the Craftsman ideal. Stickley believed an ideal kind of life encompassed beauty, economy, reason, comfort, and progress. It didn’t satisfy him to merely achieve this ideal in furniture but he felt that consumers must also have the right kind of houses in which to place the furniture. He no sooner began  designing Craftsman houses than he realized that people wanted Craftsman fabrics and accessories of all kinds. In other words, he believed in the concept of total interior design.

While early issues had somewhat smaller covers, ones beginning in 1913 had larger ones measuring 8 by 11 inches. Stickley printed all of them on brown or tan stock and usually featured a wood block decoration in two or more colors, initialed by the artist. Each issue consisted of 100-140 white and glossy pages, and later ones had as many as 175 pages.

Plans for Craftsman houses, some small and simple, others more elaborate, attributed to Stickley as the architect, although he had no architectural training. People built many of these houses using Stickley’s plans.  The Craftsman also featured short fiction and poetry, as well as the work of famous photographers.

Besides articles about Stickley’s products, The Craftsman often included ones about other makers of Arts and Crafts objects. For example, a 1903 article, “An Art Industry of the Bayous: The Pottery of Newcomb College” by Irene Sargent, documents the early history of Newcomb pottery. Photographs of the pottery school and examples of early high glaze pieces accompanied it. There were also essays devoted to philosophical, political and social commentary, usually promoting the simple life

The magazine also offered all kinds of practical and how-to advice, from gardening to leather tooling to embroidery to purchasing household appliances.

It also included advertisements by manufacturers whose products are now greatly valued by collectors, for example, Rookwood pottery, Heisey glassware, Handel lamps, and Homer Laughlin china.

Unfortunately, Stickley overextended himself and in 1915 had to file for bankruptcy. But The Craftsman was the first periodical to emphasize the importance of harmony in a home’s interior, harmony which was to be created through attention paid to walls, floors, windows, textiles, small objects and furniture.

Ashes to China, Bones to Beauty

QUESTION: I have a beautiful vase that’s been in my family for years. It seems to be made of delicate porcelain and is decorated with a fish-net type of design that’s raised off its surface. The vase has a green circle with a crown on top and Lotus Ware printed around the outside. Inside are the initials K.T.K. Co. with a crescent and star. Can you tell me more about this piece?

ANSWER: What you have is a piece of Lotus Ware, a short-lived but highly prized type of bone china made by Knowles, Taylor & Knowles of East Liverpool, Ohio. Produced for only a few years in the 1890s, many collectors consider it to be the finest bone china ever made in the United States. The term "Lotus" comes from the translucent pearliness of the glaze, which Isaac Knowles had once observed resembled the glowing sheen of a lotus blossom.

Lotus Ware was a dream of Isaac Knowles. His firm, founded in the 1850s and lasting until the 1930s, consisted of Isaac Knowles, Col. John Taylor, his son-in-law, and his son, Homer Knowles. Isaac Knowles wanted to produce fine bone china that would rival the best imported from England. He had been a longtime producer of Rockingham pottery, yellow Queensware, and ceramic canning jars. So in 1870 he decided it was time for a change and brought his son and son-in-law into the firm. Within 10 years, Knowles, Taylor, & Knowles was not only the largest pottery in East Liverpool, but did all its decorating in-house. .

What is bone china? Literally, it’s fine china ware made from bone ash, which results from burning animal bones that are crushed into a fine white powder. English porcelain makers discovered this combination of ingredients about 1750. Strong hard porcelain chips fairly easily and unless specially treated, is usually tinged with blue or gray. Bone china, on the other hand, is strong, doesn’t chip easily and has an ivory-white appearance, perfect for fine china. The bone ash greatly increases the translucence and whiteness of the porcelain. And though it costs less to make it than porcelain, makers charge a premium for it.

Fortunately, East Liverpool had a stockyard that could supply the needed bones to make the ash. This probably had a lot to do with the decision of Knowles, Taylor, and Knowles to make bone china. And even though the company did well, Isaac Knowles had a vision to create something rare and beautiful—art in porcelain.

Trucks hauled in large quantities of bones from the slaughterhouses and dumped into them into large vats to boil away any meat. Workers dried the remains in kilns, which burned the bones to a powdery ash. They then mixed the powdery ash and the porcelain formula together to form the porcelain composition.

After first casting bases, bowls and other items in the casting shop, workers took the bisque ware to the kilns to be fired for the first time.

After the firing took place, workers transferred the pieces to the decorating shop to be decorated partially or totally by hand. There skilled artists gilded the ware or applied hand-painted designs. Once decorated, workers transported the ware to the kiln room to be fired again to make the design permanent. After cooling, they finally transferred the pieces to the warehouse for shipment.

Knowles employed a type of decorating unique to Lotus Ware which placed flowers, leaves, stems and filigree—open works of elaborate designs—on the pieces of china. The person responsible for this was Heinrich Schmidt, a German artist who had previously worked at the Meissen factory in German. He was a bit of an eccentric and saw himself as an artist, keeping the recipe to make the clay slip he used in his head. He also insisted on working in a room without windows in order to foil pottery industry spies.

Schmidt originated his own floral decorations and open work designs. When he was ready to put his clay flowers on a Lotus bowl, he would first center the bowl on a whirler and then trace out his particular pattern on the bowl with a undulating movement, much like one would trace an imaginary lead pencil around the bowl. His instruments were a rubber bag and copper tube similar to that used in cake decorating. He produced the stems, leaves and flowers of his patterns with remarkable skill, using a small piece of plaster of Paris, a little bit thicker than a lead pencil and shaped like a petal, to give a more realistic impression to his flowers. This was always done after the petals had reached the proper hardness. He sometimes indented the stems of his floral designs, and attached leaves to them, using a sharp tool to give a roughened and more natural effect.

Schmidt first worked out his patterns on a small plaster mold. He would do a quick penciling of his design on the mold and then etch it out slowly with his cornucopia bag. These minute indentations served to support the moist clay while the clay was drying. When the drying process was complete, the open work would be removed from the mold by a slight jolt on the plaster form fro the hand.

He would next take the open work designs into his hand and apply a little fresh slip to its outer edges. Then he would attach the design to the vase or bowl he was working on. If too much pressure was applied, the pattern would be crushed and rendered useless.

Another method Schmidt used, called `jeweling," featured a jewel and swag type decorative chain placed on the item of Lotus Ware making it appear as if the jewel and chain had been hung on the piece. The "fishnet" design was also commonly used on many pieces of Lotus Ware along with the molded patterns of shells and lily pads.

The bodies of Lotus Ware pieces are translucent and fragile with a gloss or matt finish in white or in a light and deep olive green color Most of the Lotus Ware decorating reflects the Art Nouveau influence of the era, with its flowing styles and applied decorations.

Discovering who decorated a piece of Lotus Ware has always been a challenge, even for the most knowledgeable collector. Unless a piece has been signed and the artist is known to have worked at the firm at that time of the decorating and signing, it’s mostly speculation as to who did the decorating. Since the company paid artists by the piece and not by the hour, it’s probably certain that they didn’t mark the pieces they decorated.

Only two marks are known to exist on Lotus Ware. The first shows a circle with a crown on top and the words “Lotus Ware” printed around the outside. The initials K.T.K. Co. with a crescent and star are inside the circle. The second is similar but with the words Knowles, Taylor & Knowles spelled out.

Today, only about 5,000 pieces of Lotus Ware survive.