Communicating with the Dearly Departed

QUESTION: I recently saw a Ouija Board for sale at a Saturday flea market at my local fire company. It brought back a lot of pleasant memories. When I was a kid, one of my friends got a Ouija Board.  Every Saturday afternoon, we would play with it for hours, asking it questions about life and potential relationships. I realize it was only a toy, but can you tell me how Ouija Boards originated and how come they became so popular?

ANSWER: Although Ouija Boards gained popularity from the 1960s to the 1980s, they actually originated in 1890 during the Age of Spiritualism.

The year was 1890 and the age of Spiritualism was in full swing. Founded on the belief that people could communicate with the dearly departed, the movement often depended on "mediums" who fell into a trance and spoke for the dead, or unconsciously wielded pens or pencils to spell out messages termed called "automatic" writings. Ordinary people gathered around the kitchen table and invited the disembodied to rock it to spell out coded messages, or employed a "dial plate" imprinted with numbers and letters and fitted with a free-floating pointing device a spirit might manipulate to deliver a message from the other side.

But each of these conduits to the Netherworld had its limitations. Tables were cumbersome, mediums were difficult to find, and automatic writing was as impossible to read as a doctor's prescription. Then a popular refinement to automatic writing called the “planchette"—French for "little plank"—came into being. This palm-sized, heart-shaped piece of wood supported by three wheeled casters, usually made of bone, had a pointed end with a hole in which a person could insert a pencil. This allowed the device to glide over a piece of paper leaving a trail of legible notes from the dearly departed.

In 1886, an article appeared from the new Associated Press about the “talking board,” a new phenomenon taking over the spiritualists’ camps in Ohio, with letters, numbers and a planchette-like device to point to them. Charles Kennard of Baltimore, Maryland read it and sensed there was money to be made. In 1890, he gathered together a group of four other investors—including Elijah Bond, a local attorney, and Colonel Washington Bowie, a surveyor—to start the Kennard Novelty Company to exclusively make and market these new talking boards. None of the men were spiritualists, but they knew a great business opportunity.

The first "talking board" produced by the Kennard Novelty Company would not only field answers from the Other Side, but also become the canvas for a unique form of American pop art for the next 70 years. Regardless of being named after a fabled Moroccan city spelled "Oujda" or "Oujida" or maybe from the French and German words for yes and no, "oui".and ja," its title became "Ouija" in English. Over time, the boards themselves became pure Americana.

By 1892, the Kennard Novelty Company had seven factories—two in Baltimore, two in New York, two in Chicago, and one in London. And by 1893, the other two original investors kicked Kennard and Bond out. By this time, William Fuld, who started as a worker a the new company and rose to become foreman and a stockholder, was running the company. In 1897, Bowie leased the rights to manufacture the Ouija board to William and his brother Isaac.

Fuld ran the company for the next 35 years, and it was his Ouija Board that exists in one form or another today. After he died from a fall in 1921, his children took over the business, manufacturing the family boards until 1966 when they sold out to Parker Brothers.

Almost before the ink could dry on Kennard's original patent, shops across the country began turning out almost exact copies of his talking board with enough variation to satisfy the law. Others simply borrowed the basic design elements of the original and added graphics that ranged from cartoon-like to grandiose. Through the 1960s hundreds of companies manufactured talking boards, their designs often reflecting the times.

Popular board themes included the Middle East, Egypt and the Zodiac, but board makers placed all sorts of emblems and icons on their creations. There was a Mitchie Manitou board that celebrated an arcane spirit of the Algonquin Indians, a Halloween board with witches, an Age of Aquarius board in the 1960s, and a New Age board in the 1970s. Artistry aside, the appeal of the talking board remained its dual nature as a parlor game, a toy, and a device for communicating with the dearly departed.

As a parlor game the talking board was the hula-hoop of its time. The instructions on the back of most boards said that two persons—ideally of the opposite sex—were to sit across from each other in a quiet, darkened room, supporting the board between them on their knees, and hope for something magical. And for some, that undoubtedly happened.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about western antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook. 

A Piece for Every Food

QUESTION: An uncle of mine collected Victorian silverware. All the pieces he had—some 400–were from the same pattern, Renaissance. One day, he invited me over for lunch. And to my surprise, he laid out two place settings of this beautiful silverware. Not only did we use the usual fork, knife, and spoon, but we also used numerous serving pieces. Why did the Victorians use so many different pieces of silverware? Did people try to outdo each other by seeing how many different pieces they could use at a single meal?

ANSWER: Today, some people break out their silverware service for eight or twelve for holiday meals and special occasions. It naturally goes with the “good china.” But in the second half of the 19th century, wealthy Victorians laid out as many as eight to ten pieces at each place setting! How could they afford to do this? Well, for one thing, they had lots of money, and secondly, they had servants to wash and polish all those pieces.

By the 1850s, table etiquette in the English-speaking world had begun to undergo dramatic changes, thanks in part to Queen Victoria. But the invention in 1830 of a silver plating process for applying, or electroplating, a coating of pure silver to a base metal, usually copper or a zinc alloy, sealed the deal.

Up until this time silver had been sterling, solid silver that was 925 parts pure silver per thousand—coin silver, solid silver made from melted down coins and containing varying amounts of pure silver, and Sheffield plate, a process that fused two sheets of sterling silver to either side of a core sheet of copper. Sheffield plate, named for the region of England, near Birmingham, where it was manufactured, was a process suited for household items, such as bowls, goblets, cups, and trays, but not suited for eating utensils.

Although Victoria's reign began in 1837, it wasn’t until the late 1800s that the opulence, extravagance, and rigidly adhered to social rituals and etiquette associated with the Victorian era reached their height. By 1850, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, both in England and America. Manufacturers could produce silverware somewhat inexpensively thanks to silverplating, and Queen Victoria set a new standard for social mores that centered around the home and family.



For centuries, flatware, or what most people called silverware, had consisted solely of spoons and ladles of varying sizes and materials, simple forks, and cutlery, or knives. People used forks with two or three tines to hold food for cutting and used knives to spear their food and transfer it to their mouths for eating. Queen Victoria soon changed that.

She frowned upon the use of the knife for spearing food. In order to discourage this practice, she encouraged silverware manufacturers to blunt the sharp ends of knife blades. The fork, until this time used primarily for holding food in place while people cut and speared it—much like our present day carving forks—became the utensil of choice. The rule became, never use a knife if a spoon can be used, and never use a spoon if a fork can be used. By the late 1800s, manufacturers were producing forks for every conceivable use—dinner forks, luncheon forks, salad forks, dessert forks, pastry forks, fish forks, oyster forks, berry forks and ice-cream forks, to name a few.

They also produced a variety of spoons—teaspoons, five-o'clock spoons (slightly smaller than a regular teaspoon), coffee or demitasse spoons, chocolate spoons, round cream soup spoons, bullion spoons (smaller than cream soup spoons), dessert spoons, cereal spoons, and more.

However, people still needed knives for cutting, so silverware makers produced dinner knives, luncheon knives, breakfast knives, fruit knives and butter knives. To emphasize the lesser role to which the knife had been relegated, matching knives, especially those with hollow handles, became less common than today. Victorian-era place setting knives, with the exception of butter knives and spreaders, usually had solid and plain or pearl handles, as well as handles of wood, bone, and ivory.

But it was the Victorian serving pieces where the extravagance and opulence of design was the most apparent. In addition to the traditional serving spoon, serving fork, gravy ladle, butter knife and sugar spoon that are staples of today’s silver services, Victorian silver manufacturers produced such items as asparagus servers, berry spoons, cucumber servers, fish servers, oyster ladles, soup ladles, preserve spoons, salt spoons, toast servers, tomato servers, and waffle servers, among many others. These  pieces were large and ornately decorated. They often heavily embossed the bowls of serving spoons and the base of the handles of serving forks and knives.
   
Once word of the electroplating process spread to the United States, a bevy of small silver manufacturers sprang up, primarily in Connecticut. Companies such as Oneida, Reed and  Barton, William Rogers, 1847 Rogers Brothers, and Wallace, became prominent and produced some of the most collectible silver flatware of that era. Ironically, the first patterns produced in any amount were silver plate. Later, in response to customer requests, they produced some of the same patterns in sterling. Later on, they made different patterns in sterling to distinguish them from silver plate.

Makers gave their silverware patterns names rather than numbers to identify them, the idea being that names would be easier to remember than numbers. They also thought that the names, themselves, would evoke an image of gracious living. Pattern names such as Moselle, Renaissance, Berkshire, Vintage, New Century, Orange Blossom, Grenoble, and York Rose are reminiscent of that refined era.

There are probably as many different ways of collecting and reasons for collecting as there are patterns and pieces in Victorian flatware. The next time you watch a TV series like “Downton Abbey,” notice the table settings. The prop department went out of their way to make sure that everything was exactly right and even instructed the actors in the proper etiquette for the time.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about western antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook. 

One Person's Trash is Another's Treasure

QUESTION: I’m new to garage and yard saling. Last year, I went out every Saturday but all I came home with was junk. I collect a number of things and am always looking for additions to my collections. Can you give me some tips on how to make my bargain hunting trips more successful?

ANSWER: It’s Spring time and along with the flowers blooming are the yard and garage sales that seem to pop up everywhere. Fifty years ago—yes, that’s how long they’ve been going on—there weren’t that many and people had lots of interesting things to sell. But today competition is fierce, not only from other garage and yard sales but from eBay and other online sales sites. So what’s the secret?

While garage and estate sales are great venues for bargain hunters, there are sometimes way too many bargain hunters for the number of bargains out there. It used to be—and generally still is—that the contents sold at garage sales represent items the seller has outgrown physically and/or emotionally. On the other hand , the articles offered in estate and moving sales typically reflect an array of accumulated household goods spanning one to three generations. Both of these types of sales have become American institutions.

Whether you’re an antiques collector or just like decorative arts, collectibles, books or toys, chances are you’ll find something in these sales that fits your fancy.

To be a successful bargain hunter requires organization and planning. Those who just hop in their cars and head for the nearest neighborhood sale are likely to be disappointed. But the experienced garage saler is another animal altogether. If you’re looking for items to add to your collections, make a want list before you go so that you can spot an item you want when you get there.



This will help you stay focused in your pursuit of bargains. It’s way too easy to get sidetracked when encountering unexpected bargains at sales. Before you know it, you’ll have spent all the money you brought along. Remember, garage and estate sales don’t take credit cards.  Prioritize your stops according to your interests. If you’re after antiques and collectibles, go through the Garage Sale ads in the classifieds or look at yard sale and neighborhood sites on the Internet. Highlight those sales that emphasize antiques and collectibles. Garage and estate sales in established or older neighborhoods usually offer the best selection of these items while those in newer developments offer contemporary items like clothing, cheap furniture, and kids’ toys.

When setting up your schedule, decide if you’re making a full day of it. If so, plan accordingly. Pack up your vehicle the night before with equipment to make your bargain hunting easier. Besides a measuring tape, veteran garage salers take along the classifieds ads relevant to the day's tour, a map, magnifying glass, snacks, a variety of fresh batteries, packing materials, boxes, and a sufficient amount of cash in small bills. Check the weather forecast and oordinate your attire around it. Wear comfortable shoes and layered clothing, especially if the weather forecast is uncertain. Also carry a   transparent shopping bag—it prevents anyone from accusing you of stealing—and a fanny pack. The lesser amount of gear and clothing accessories you have to deal with, the easier it will be to shop.

Most sales start between 8 and 9 A.M., although some begin as early as 7 A.M. Although the early bird catches the best bargains, don’t show up at a sale way before the start time and pester the seller. An old trick is to tell the seller a story about your sick aunt and how you have to get home to take care of her or some such fiction. This or similar ploys are usually used by pickers who want to get the “pick” of the goods. Another trick is when they show up early as the seller is setting up and distract the seller by constant questions, hoping that the seller will give in and sell them something—anything to get rid of them. The larger the sale and more important the sale's items, the larger the number of buyers and the earlier the attendees will arrive.

As soon as you arrive at a sale, take a quick overview of it and decide where you want to head. Don't be timid as far as asking where particular items are located if you can't find them. The sooner you get to the items you want, the quicker you can claim them.



Generally, all sales are final. Therefore, always inspect your goods carefully before you purchase. Concentrate on items in good, complete and working condition. If the article is electrical, ask to plug it in at an available outlet so you know it works. Battery- operated items lacking batteries can be tested by those that you have brought along.

Shoppers like bargains and often want to barter. Sometimes, this works, especially at garage sales. If you think an item is too expensive, it doesn’t hurt to propose a lower price or ask what the seller’s best price might be.




Another option in finding bargains is to return on the second day of the sale, if it’s a two-day affair. Usually sellers will reduce the prices so that they can get rid of their items. Of course, you risk the possibility your treasure may have already been bought by someone else. Leaving a reasonable offer with your name and phone number is another way if you feel the object's price is beyond your means. It gives the seller an alternative if the piece hasn’t sold by the end of the sale.

When buying furniture, appliances and/or other bulky items, try to arrange for a timely, later pickup convenient with the seller. Always retain a receipt that identifies you as the new owner and present this information on your return. If you can fit in some of the piece's components, take them the day of the sale, as this will ultimately lighten your final load and prevent the seller from selling your purchase to someone else—believe it or not, this happens. And when you go to pick up your purchase, don’t’ rely on tools or manpower on the part of the seller. It’s up to you to provide both the proper gear and muscle called for.

In the end, chances are when you unpack the treasures from your day's hunt, you’ll discover you not only saved some money, but you also made some outstanding purchases. After all, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about western antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook. 

History on the Dining Table

QUESTION: Ever since I began collecting antiques, I’ve always been fascinated by the beautiful Staffordshire transferware designs on dinnerware. Recently, I saw several stunning pieces at an antique show. These featured American battle scenes and images of historical sites. I thought transferware had only bucolic scenes of the English countryside. Why did English potters produce this type of ware and when was it popular?

ANSWER: That’s a very good question. In fact, most Americans today probably don’t know that English potters were some of our country’s staunch supporters, even risking near treason to do so.

It was bad enough that American soldiers defeated the British in the Revolutionary War, but then on December 14, 1815, the British military conceded defeat to the Americans for a second time. Josiah Wedgwood, a prominent 18th-century English potter, had proclaimed the American Revolutionary War a serious mistake for Britain. He and his fellow potters of the Staffordshire district felt no better about the War of 1812. After all, with the destruction,   blockades, and hatred it generated, warfare was bad for business since the Americans had always been good customers.



To make amends, the Staffordshire potters promptly began decorating their dinner services, tea sets, and assorted crockery with scenes of American military victories guaranteed to make   Americans proud while leaving British generals and admirals glowering in disgust. To add to the victories, the potters exported dinnerware with images of America's war heroes, elder statesmen and favorite politicians. With these, the potters of Staffordshire won back the hearts of their American customers. Historical Staffordshire became the success the potters had hoped for—an economic victory where the British military had failed.

Historical Staffordshire wares were popular, durable, mass-produced in quantity and reasonably priced. They reached a wide audience and offer today’s collectors with fascinating glimpses of America’s past.

Although the Staffordshire potteries produced mugs, pitchers, foot baths, and chamber pots, dinnerware and tea services dominated production of historical Staffordshire ceramics. The potteries first produced it in pearlware and later in a number of durable white wares. Both pearl and white wares were almost as white as porcelains but were rugged enough to survive rough oceanic voyages. Artists decorated the earliest of these with printed transfers in deep cobalt blue that had become popular in the United States. A wider range of colors followed in the 1830s. Running short of military victories and notable personages, the potteries turned to more peaceful subjects, such as individual buildings, towns, idyllic landscapes, and the newest advances in Victorian transportation.

Staffordshire potteries manufactured historical dinnerware from about 1820 to 1860, reaching the height of its popularity between 1820 and 1845.

Printing scandalous portraitures to promote sales was nothing new to the Staffordshire potters. Putting pots before principle was an old habit. Britain’s politicians had long been lampooned and her military heroes hailed on transfer printed pots and mugs to promote sales at home.

During the War of 1812, industrious British engravers supported the cause of American freedom with near-treasonable anti-government images of cringing British lions emblazoned with insulting, anti-English slogans. These could be slipped out through the neutral Netherlands and taken to shore by any number of unrecorded vessels navigating up lesser traveled American waterways.

The designs on historical Staffordshire wares were examples of an early mass- production technique of the growing Industrial Revolution, transfer printing. England's potters developed the technique during the 18th century and perfected it in the 19th century. Industrialization provided British potters with the most rapidly growing stock of earthenware bodies in history. Transfer printing allowed them to quickIy produce large numbers of identically decorated wares from this stock for the first time in potting history. Together the new, white earthenware bodies and the printed patterns would provide a popular, quality ware at a fairly low price, a ware many families of modest means could easily afford.



The quality of the transfer printed pattern, however, was crucial. The artwork determined whether the ware sold well or not. Artists created transfer printed patterns, some of whom had great skill while others didn’t. The largest pottery manufacturers hired their own artist engravers. Smaller companies purchased their patterns from engraving firms. The transfer printing process perfected by Sadler and Green of Liverpool in 1756 allowed a potter to duplicate a pattern by transferring it from an engraved and pigmented copper plate to a ceramic vessel using a specially treated paper.

Artists copied artwork directly from books of the day and from competing engravers' portfolios. They created illustrations for dining services featuring different central prints on each piece, all following a common theme—a "City Series" or a series of "Picturesque Views" for example. Since the central print varied from plate to plate, the artists created a standard border design  to identify the pieces of a single service. Most Staffordshire potters identified specific border designs as their own unique trademarks. In most cases that view was respected. However, smaller companies did copy these designs from time to time.

Women did the meticulous work of correctly placing the inky paper carrying the pattern onto the bisque pottery and for joining the seams of the borders and designs. Most took great care in doing this since they were aware of the Victorian ideal of the "perfect finish." Many of the historical Staffordshire prints how these ladies tried to achieve that ideal. Their printed patterns appear seamless although they placed most of them using several pieces.

However, hastily engraved, copper plates provided transfers that were often larger than the  pottery on which they were to be placed. These oversized patterns, once transferred to their papers, had to be cut and trimmed to fit the smaller vessels. The trimming often led to virtually illegible inscriptions as the women cropped the letters away. While the images frequently remained whole, the words suffered as few of the women trimming the prints could read. They trimmed that which had little meaning to them. Not that it mattered too much because many of their customers couldn’t read either.

And while housewives used historical Stafforshire ware for serving guests and at holidays, eventually the transfer images evolved into peaceful bucolic scenes and souvenir plates.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about western antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

It's About Time

QUESTION: I have inherited a very plain tall clock made in Philadelphia. How can I tell how old it is?

ANSWER: To tell the age of a tall-case clock, or grandfather clock as it’s more commonly known, you need to first look at the dial. The early ones at first showed 24-30 hours. Owners wound them at the end of that time by pulling the driving cord down.

In the earliest clocks—those dating from the 17th to early 18th centuries—the hour circle appears in a silvered ring with a doubled circle appearing within the numeral circle.

Many old clocks have only an hour hand. Some have both an hour and a minute hand. Even though clockmakers had used minute hands since 1670, most clocks, except the most expensive ones, didn’t have them. Early tall-case clockmakers gave their hands a fine finish and often made them the most decorative part of the clock. The hour hand was often the most elaborate and the second hand, if the clock had one, was sometimes long and graceful. Later, when clockmakers introduced white dials, the hour and minute hands became even more ornate and some even had a smaller second hand.

Originally, tall-case clockmakers made their dials of metal with a matt center circle. By the mid-17th century, they added ornamentation around the edge of this matted center, engraving birds or leaves to form a border showing the days of the month. They brightly burnished this date ring as well as the rings surrounding the winding holes. Silvered dials, containing no separate circle for the hours and minutes, appeared in 1750. Instead of a matted center circle, these dials featured an engraved overall pattern in the center circle. Many early tall-case clocks also had a small separate dial showing the days of the week.

Dials remained square until the beginning of the 18th century, at which time clockmakers introduced the arched dial. Dutch clockmakers found good use for this extra space, filling it with decorative figures and animated devices such as a see-saw or a shipping rolling at sea. They also added a moon dial, thereafter common on many tall-case clocks, which displayed the phases of the moon under the dial’s arch. English clockmakers, mostly in Yorkshire, went one step further, creating a globular rotating moon dial.

Clockmakers usually only made the works of tall-case clocks. They subcontracted the making of the cases to coffin makers, who used this as supplemental income when business was slow. During the second half of the 17th century, casemakers employed walnut to build mostly plain cases. The Dutch introduced marquetry to the fronts of the clock cases, using woods of different colors and grains.  Mahogany didn’t come into general use for tall-case clocks until about 1716. At first, casemakers imported it from Spain, then after that supply ran out, from Brazil.

Before 1730, the doors of most tall-case clocks were rectangular, but around that time casemakers included an arch in them to match the arched dials. The earliest clocks didn’t open with a door. Instead, the entire hood–the top part of the clock–slid backwards revealing the works.

For more information, read “Grandfather Time” and also visit the Web site for Bowers Watch and Clock Repair and read about the works of tall-case clocks in their clock section.


To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

Somewhere to Dream

QUESTION: My husband and recently purchased an antique four-poster bed from around 1810.  The dealer called it a tester bed. It originally had a canopy which needs to be replaced. Can you tell me what a tester is and something about the origins of this type of bed?

ANSWER: Initially the wooden frame of the bed was far less important that the trappings of textiles that surrounded it. Most any reference to a bed centuries ago actually meant the mattress and whatever cloth materials people piled upon it.

During medieval times there was no particular room set aside for sleeping quarters, thus the bed became almost a room within the household. Some of the more elaborate bedsteads had both a room and sliding panel walls. Occupants could climb inside and stuff them-selves off from the rest of the chilly and drafty residence.

Gradually, heavy curtains replaced the side panels of the "bedroom," but the basic roof remained. The solid roof, known as a tester, retained the name even though the roof covering eventually became one of cloth and curtains as the sides had been.

Basically, a bedstead and two posts supported the roof of these early beds. Over the decades makers adopted a style which incorporated four posts which supported the full tester canopy.

Early in the 18th century, during the Queen Anne period, wealthy homeowners often covered their four-poster beds with velvet and other textiles so extensively that they obscured the basic woodwork. Cabinetmakers used back panels less and less. As the century progressed, the rear posts remained covered with curtains while the front posts became more visible. As a consequence, bed makers carved and decorated the front posts more elaborately.

Some of the most impressive four-poster  beds reached heights of eight feet or more, complete with a sweeping array of curtains and canopy. Cabinetmakers made sturdy frames from mahogany or walnut. People could close panels of curtains at night for more warmth and security. Matching coverlets and bases then totally enveloped the grand bed in a sea of cloth.



Wealthy homeowners continued to import fabric for their bed coverings from Europe in the 1750s and 1760s. But with the increase in leisure activities and attention to developing social graces that characterized the time, fancy needlework done by women and school girls often supplied the decorative detail.

By the dawn of the 18th century, the finest bed available was the Chippendale bed. The Chippendale and those similar in style displayed predominantly high foot posts which were handsomely carved and ended elegantly with ball and claw feet. By contrast, cabinetmakers sometimes didn’t carve the head posts and instead left them plain to be extensively decorated by fabrics. Elaborate decorating of the beds gradually increased as owners opted for serpentine headboards and reeled posts in lieu of additional drapes.

By the 1800s, the lavish use of fabrics on beds had diminished considerably and the wood itself had more of a prominent role in the overall design. Almost without exception, cabinetmakers carved or decorated posts. In addition, homeowners began placing their beds in separate rooms designed for sleeping, usually on the second floor of their houses, instead of in parlors or various other locations in their homes.  .

The rise of the Empire period in the 1820s had an impact on a vast assortment of furniture, including the bed. Scrolled headboards were very fashionable, and posts were decorated with acanthus leaves and detailed beading. Mahogany remained one of the most popular woods of choice.

It wasn’t unusual for the well established to spend more for their bed furnishings than on the actual wood structure, itself. They preferred bright colors over white and added  fine linen-like textiles in shades of red, blue, yellow and green. Many also used generous amounts of silk and lace, along with woolen cloths.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

Condiments Anyone?

QUESTION: Can you tell me something about a Victorian rotating castor with 5 or 6 little "doors" decorated with hunting animals. Turn a knob and the doors open to reveal places for condiment bottles which are missing. What metal is this made of, and who would typically have owned it.  The story goes that our great grandfather was in the Civil War and brought it back to Illinois/Minnesota as a souvenir after the war. It’s in excellent condition and is currently owned by my 95-year-old sister who plans to give it to one of her grandchildren one day.

ANSWER: Just about every Victorian dinner table had a castor, filled with jars and bottles of condiments, sitting in its center. The revolving castor set was one of the most widely used pieces of Victorian tableware. It was such an important part of the table setting  that no matter how humble, a family would have one sitting in the middle of their table. But castor sets go back even further.

While castor sets holding just salt and pepper shakers have been around since the 17th century, the American Victorian version, the type most collected today, appeared in the early 19th century. A castor set held condiments. It usually contained shakers for salt and pepper, bottles for vinegar and oil, a mustard pot, and a spice shaker of some sort. Manufacturers usually made these castor sets in white Britannia metal, then silver plated them. During the latter half of the 19th century, they began to use the newly developed quadruple-plate process. Though some fancy castor sets came with cut or etched glass  cruets and spice holders plus figurines—some even had a bell to ring for a servant—most were utilitarian but decorative and graced tables of Victorians in all social classes.

One bottle had a hinged lid with a slot for a spoon. This was for mustard. Other bottles could hold soy sauce, spices or “castor” sugar which was a pounded sugar—not powdered sugar and not granulated sugar—which cooks made by pounding loaf sugar with a mortar and pestle.

Though castor manufacturers produced bottles made of plain or etched glass, people could also purchase ones made of more expensive cut glass designs, available in blue, amber and cranberry after the American Civil War. Manufacturers also offered buyers a choice of handles and cruet styles. And some also had an open or closed revolving frame.

There were several different types of castor sets. The simplest included perhaps only salt and pepper shakers and a container for sugar. Breakfast castors generally included three or four bottles while dinner castors, the most elaborate, consisted of a silver or silverplate frame which held five or six cruets.

In 1860, castors became more elaborate and had bottles of pressed glass. Pressed glass bottle patterns ranged from Bellflower to Daisy & Button, Beaded Dewdrop, Beaded Grape, Medallion Bull's Eye, Fine Cut, Fine Rib, Gothic, Hamilton, Ivy, Honeycomb, Palmette, Powder & Shot, Thumbprint, Roman Rosette and Eugenia.

The rotary castor, in which the bottles fitted into holes on a circular platform which stood on a tall cone-type base, was patented in 1862. Makers often decorated its center handle with elaborate openwork design in one of several styles to go along with furniture of the time. Eastlake castors were some of the most popular. In the 1870's, they added heavy grape and beaded borders. One of the rarer types was the closed castor set in which the bottles sat behind closed doors.

In addition to pressed glass of blue, canary or crystal, makers used Pomona art glass, opalene twist, imported, decorated ruby glass and cut crystal glass. The glass containers had a fancy plated cover and decorated tongs were fastened to the stand.

The castor set became old fashioned in the early 1900s. By World War I, castor sets had fallen into disuse.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

50 Shades of Veneer

QUESTION: At several antiques shows I’ve attended recently, I noticed some beautifully decorated veneered boxes from the 18th century. At one of them, I also saw a hall table with a top decorated with a floral marquetry bouquet.  I know nothing about how veneering is done, nor do I know how it originated. What can you tell me about this intricate work?

ANSWER: Today, the art of veneered marquetry and veneer decoration is almost non-existent. But back in the 17th,18th and early 19th centuries, it was all the rage.

Early furniture makers recognized and appreciated beautiful woods and wood grains for their beauty. Veneering, the process of gluing thinly cut layers of precious wood to surfaces of less exotic wood, goes back to ancient times and became popular during the Renaissance, when inlay designs were common forms of furniture decoration.

But there was a problem early on with cutting large enough slabs of wood to the desired thinness in order to cover entire surfaces with single sheets of the more precious wood. So cabinetmakers cut small pieces of wood and glued them to the carcass of a piece of furniture in patterns and designs that took advantage of the beauty of the wood grain and variations in color.

By the 17th century, veneering became an art, and the decorative use of thin sheets of wood could be found on many examples of European furniture. The French were the style-setters in marquetry inlay, and British and other European craftsmen soon followed suit.

There were two advantages to using veneers. The first reduced the cost of a piece of furniture or a box by applying an exotic and expensive wood to a less expensive domestic wood. The second advantage was that the tensile strength of the surface of a piece could be increased many times when the cabinetmaker laid a veneer cross grain to the under piece of wood. The layer of glue between the two surfaces also added to the strength of the finished piece.

The aesthetic advantages of the use of veneers in the decoration of cabinetry  increased, also. The cabinetmakers, using thinly cut sheets of the same piece of wood, could repeat the grainings and markings in order to form interesting patterns. This use of the natural design in wood required artistry as well as craftsmanship. By using veneers judiciously, cabinetmakers could inlay designs and decorations of different kinds and colors of wood, thus producing interesting motifs and styles.

Before the 19th century, specially trained veneer cutters, skilled in slicing the layers of expensive wood to uniform thickness, cut veneers by hand. They then sold these sheets to furniture makers and box makers who used them in decorating the many kinds and styles of decorative furniture and boxes that developed in the 17th and 18th centuries.

At the beginning of the19th century a steam-driven saw, registered in London, that made it cheaper, faster, and easier to cut large, thin, uniform slices of wood to be used for veneers. After the invention of the special saw, wood could be cut in many different ways to take advantage of the variations in grainings.



The different designs that could be obtained in veneered wood depended on the type of wood used and the way in which the log was cut. The earliest methods of cutting veneers by hand produced only vertically cut grains. This vertical slicing achieved a pattern which was circular and was known as "oystering." Other types of graining commonly used in the 19th century were "crotch," cut from the area of the tree where two limbs fork out, the "burl," a growth on the tree trunk and a particularly attractive gnarled design, and "bird's-eye," which was formed by the deep growth of buds most commonly found on the maple tree. Many other patterns could be obtained by the expert cutting of the wood in different cross sections and the employment of the saw in cutting circular sections around the log.

Woods often used in producing veneers were chestnut, poplar, walnut, elm, birch, rosewood, ebony, satinwood, sandalwood, sycamore, box, yew, olive, pear, teak, tulipwood, laurel, and many other similar exotic woods. Mahogany was and still is the most popular veneer wood. It was strong and hard and had figurations in the various cuts of its grain that were unmatchable for their beauty. Mahogany also takes a high polish extremely well.

A large variety of boxes were made of veneered wood in the 19th century. British box makers, especially, produced a great many veneered boxes. Often, they made elaborate boxes to protect valuables against damage, and more often, theft. Sometimes, they made elegant boxes simply as a means of displaying the contents to its best advantage.


To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

Victorian Cottage Charm

QUESTION: I have a four-piece bedroom set that I believe may be Cottage Victorian. My mother bought it in a second hand store in Pennsylvania over 56 years ago, when I was around 8 years old. I still use it, but I have considered letting it go. But before I do anything with it, I want to learn more about it. Can you help?

ANSWER: Your bedroom set is in exceptionally good condition. It’s made in a style known as Cottage Victorian. What’s also interesting is that you have the entire set. And because it has been in constant Victorian furniture became popular in the United States, particularly along the East Coast, after the Civil War. Pieces began appearing in workshops and then homes of the wealthy in places like Martha's Vineyard, Cape May, and the Berkshires. But the popularity of these items didn’t remain exclusively with the upper class. As the middle class grew, equally elegant, but relatively reasonably priced versions began to appear in the homes of the nation’s growing work force, particularly in Pennsylvania and New England.

Homeowners purchased Victorian Cottage furniture in mostly bedroom "suites,"sold as coordinating groupings consisting of a double bed, a washstand, a dresser or vanity with an attached mirror, a small table, a straight chair and a rocker, and often a wardrobe. In this case, the set consists of four pieces. Cabinetmakers used pine or other inexpensive wood, then painted the entire piece with several layers of paint. The finished sets were colorful and whimsical. But not all sets were painted.

Cottage Victorian beds have high, decorated headboards, some as high as six feet. Finials and medallions constituted what little carving there was on most pieces. Most of the decoration took the form of painted flowers, fruit, and other plants, featuring a large painted bouquet-like medallion in a central panel on the headboard and a smaller, matching one on the foot-board.

Originally, local cabinetmakers, most of whom didn’t have any formal training, built these pieces from designs in pattern books, but towards the last two decades of the 19th century, manufacturers began to mass produce them. This set is one of those.

Those made by untrained cabinetmakers had decoration applied to them in a primitive, folk art sort of way. More expensive sets featured scenes of sailing ships or local wildlife. The same decorative motif appeared on all the pieces of a furniture suite. Those that were painted had a background color of tan, pale blue, pale green, pink, mustard yellow, and sometimes chocolate brown.



One of the biggest misconceptions was that Victorian homeowners loved the appearance of natural woods in their furnishings. That preference didn’t appear until the early 20th century. Cottage Victorian furniture was usually painted to brighten people’s dark, oil-lamp lit homes. As a result, many pieces of painted furniture have been stripped and finished to the often not so beautiful bare wood by well-meaning dealers and collectors.

Cabinetmakers fitted drawers and cabinet doors with wooden knobs instead of metal hardware. Even the boldly colored paint, didn’t have the look of value to it. Those pieces of Victorian Cottage furniture that have survived intact usually have a crackled surface from age-shrinkage, with flakes in spots due from dryness.

Manufacturers produced sets like this one as cheaply as possible. Made usually of pine with machine turned legs and finials, they featured as little structural decoration as possible. Even painted motifs were kept to a minimum to reduce the time it took to do them. Some even feature stenciled designs, so that the maker didn’t have to pay more for trained artists.

To the untrained eye, Victorian Cottage furniture looks as if it should be sold as junk or stripped to the bare wood. But this style of furniture has a charm all its own.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

And the Band Played On

QUESTION: Recently, I visited the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey, where they have a fine collection of old music boxes. I love the tinny music that they played. And as sophisticated as music playing devices are these days, I still enjoy the romantic sound of those old machines. What can you tell me about their history? I know they’re highly collectible, but it would take a small fortune to be able to collect them.

ANSWER: Music boxes come in all shapes and sizes, from the tiny ones inside jewelry boxes to the gigantic band organs found on old carousels. I believe the type you’re speaking of are the ones produced for home use.

By definition, a music box is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth, called lamellae, of a steel comb.

In 1796, Antoine Favre-Salomon, a clockmaker from Geneva replaced the stack of bells of a carillon by a comb with multiple pre-tuned metallic notes in order to reduce space, and together with a horizontally placed pinned barrel, produced more varied and complex sounds. This he called carillons à musique, French for "chimes of music." Slivers of steel, shaped, polished, tapered, and screwed into position so that the projections in a rotating cylinder could pluck at its free extremity was capable of emitting a pure musical sound at an acceptable pitch and volume for its size. Some of the more deluxe models also contained a tiny drum and/or bells in addition to the metal comb.

The typical table music box had six interchangeable cylinders. It could have been any size from that of a hat box to a large piece of furniture, but most were tabletop models.  Artisan clockmakers produced clockwork mechanisms to power them. For most of the 19th century, Switzerland was home to the majority of music box makers. Jérémie Recordon and Samuel Junod opened the first music box factory there in 1815. There were also a few manufacturers in Bohemia and Germany. By the end of the 19th century, some of the European makers had opened factories in the United States.

Manufacturers made the cylinders of metal and powered them by a spring. In some of the more deluxe models the cylinders could be removed to change melodies, thanks to an invention by Paillard in 1862, which Metert of Geneva perfected in 1879.

But the cylinder music box was, at best, a cumber-some device, and expensive. From the beginnings of today's music box technology, the music box underwent a progressive improvement in Germany and later in the United States.

In 1870, a new type of music box appeared in Germany that played changeable flat discs instead of cylinders. Invented almost simultaneously in London by Ellis Parrand and in Leipzig by Paul Lochmann, it revolutionized devices that played music. The worldwide center of the industry was in Leipzig and Berlin. In the last decades of the 19th century, however, mass-produced models, such as the Polyphon, made use of interchangeable metal disks instead of cylinders. The cylinder-based machines rapidly lost popularity. By 1895 more than 3,000 people were employed in Leipzig, and exports from there went to many parts of the world.

The term "music box" also applied to clockwork devices which had a removable metal disk or cylinder that was only used to program them without producing the sounds directly by means of pins and a comb. Instead, the cylinder or disk worked by activating bellows and levers which fed and opened pneumatic valves which, in turn, activated a modified wind instrument or plucked the chords on a modified string instrument. The Orchestrion could do both at the same time, essentially combining a music box with a player piano.



One of the earliest music boxes to be sold in America was called the Symphonion. It employed steel discs, had a patented fly wheel, speed regulator, side dampers, and double comb arrangement. One winding would allow it to play for 30 minutes. The Symphonion won awards at shows in Chicago in 1893 and Antwerp, Belgium in 1894. Prices ranged, depending on the degree of sophistication, from $4 all the way up to $300.

There were many variations of these large music machines, usually built for the wealthy of the pre-phonograph 19th century. Some were called the Symphonium while others were called the Concert Regina Music Box machine. Both variations were as tall as a grandfather clock and both used interchangeable large disks to play different sets of tunes. Both were spring-wound and driven and both had a bell-like sound. The machines were often made in England, Italy, and the US, with additional disks made in Switzerland, Austria, and Prussia. Early "jukebox" pay versions of them existed in public places.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, most music boxes were gradually replaced by player pianos, which were louder and more versatile and melodious, when kept tuned, and by the smaller gramophones which had the advantage of playing back voices. Escalating labor costs increased the price and further reduced volume.

But the invention of the phonograph, the First World War, and the economic crisis in the 1920s made the luxury music box completely disappear.


To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.