The Home Girl Hidden Almost 100 Years

I recently found this cardboard print behind a circa 1920 framed photo. I believe originally it was just a novelty item, a small print of a pretty girl. At some point, the print was cut at the bottom to fit a small gold metal frame and she became the background cardboard "filler" for a photo of my grandmother. R. C. Co., N. Y., The Home Girl, 1978, is printed along the bottom. I'm guessing "1978" is the print number, since it's obviously not the year. I googled the company name and found that they sold portraits and prints like this, in various sizes, from the late 1800s through the early part of the 20th century. Perhaps you could also order The Home Girl in a larger size for your wall. I was quite pleased to find her and will probably frame her by herself. Just in time for Valentine's Day, I think she will be quite pleased to be "out front" for the first time in almost one hundred years, don't you?

Smiling Elephants Cigarette Case by Volupté

This is a cigarette case by Volupté, an American company from Elizabeth, New Jersey. The company was founded in 1926 and closed its doors in the mid 1950s. The case measures approximately 5 1/4 x 3 inches, and is inlaid enamel over a gold-tone metal. The design is Persian- or Indian-inspired, with what I think are Ibis or Antelope, Peacocks and other birds and the cutest "smiling" elephants! The colors are subtle teals, ochers and a bit of scarlet, with a white wash in the filigree background. The edges are also engraved and washed with the subtle white enamel. The whole case is only 3/8 inches deep, and when closed, the cutline is barely visible between the top and bottom. The workmanship is exemplary, and having been kept in a drawer, away from sunlight all these years, the case appears as new. 

It's really terribly sad that American companies no longer manufacture much at all, as the quality of my vintage domestic collectibles is second-to-none.

As Modern As the 1920s' Tomorrow

As promised, the sixth of my vintage Christmas light ornaments, the dirigible. Thanks to the wonders of age-old Elmer's Glue, it's almost good as new. Well, it's as good as an unbroken 80+ year old piece of glass and metal could be! I'm wondering now if these lights could actually be a bit older than the 1920s. Was this a subtle piece of United States "Great War" propaganda, an airship in red, white and blue with the American flag on the side?

Vintage Christmas Lights—The Grape's Wrath?

These vintage Christmas lights must have had a separate string of wiring that they plugged into. They date to the 1920s or early '30s and were on my mother's trees as a child. They're approximately two- to three-inches tall, or wide, in the case of the fish. There is one more, a red, white and blue dirigible, but it's drying right now. When I opened the box (not original) it was in three pieces. These lights are quite heavy glass, and it was easy to glue the pieces together. I'll scan it in a day or two and post. It's a pretty unique piece, as are all of these. Isn't the doll just a bit bizarre? I bet a tree covered in these lights was quite a sight to behold.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

I haven't been as careful with some of my vintage belongings as others. On the other hand, these ornaments are now so fragile, I smashed a few just lifting them out of their cardboard holder. No matter. The colors are still fun, and I have no problem owning broken things. I'll probably use these in a piece, stuck into a grouting mixture, much like some people do with ceramics.

The ornaments in this post were marketed under the brand name "Shiny Brite" by the Max Eckardt and Sons, Company, of New York (45 East 17th Street), in the 1930s through 1962. Mine date to the late 1940s. Some of the pictured ornaments aren't the originals to the boxes, the little figurines etc, but they've come to "live" in these cardboard holders through the years so I leave them.

BTW:

Although my Thanksgiving and Christmas cactuses (cacti!) bloomed early this year, I have a few stragglers that made an appropriate entrance today. The porcelain basin and pitcher in the background dates to the 1860s and was a wedding present to my mother's paternal grandparents. I used a "film grain" filter on this shot of the flower.

Charming Vintage Product Tie-Ins

"This is not a food container" is printed right next to the coin slot chimney of this Log Cabin bank!

I long for the highly-styled radios of the past like this Emerson promotional item, and I still miss Howard Johnson's fried clam strips.

M Y   C O L L E C T I O N — It's probably apparent by now that I really like vintage products that are produced by mainstream American companies. These coin banks are all circa 1950s. The Log Cabin bank at the top is made from tin. The coin slot is in the "chimney" and is able to be taken off to get the change out. The bottom two are made out of plastic, an Emerson Radio on the left, and a Howard Johnson's Restaurant on the right, and they needed to be broken to get the money out. Thankfully, they've never been used as I'm sure no one in my family relished the thought of breaking such cute items.

Who knew that B&M produced anything but baked beans? This is a nicely-packaged folder of recipes to use with their extensive array of products, listed on the back, above. A quick typesetting note regarding the list of products printed on the back of the folder: Notice that the list is typeset in four justified paragraphs, resulting in irregular and awkward intercharacter spacing and "B&M" frequently on the line above the product it's associated with. Using a 'bulleted list" style, where each product is listed separately, would have been easier to read and better looking, in this designer's opinion!

Gourmet Lima Bean recipes, and what the heck are "Fish Flakes?"

The Burnham & Morrill Company of Portland, Maine, otherwise known as B&M, produced this packet of 25 file-card size recipes in 1936. There are recipes printed on the front and back, quite a cache of product enhancing suggestions! They were given to my mother by a neighbor, "Miss Ives." as the inscription reads in the interior. That would have been my mother's junior year in high school, so perhaps the woman thought my mom should start preparing for marriage so as to not become an old maid, lol. My mother wouldn't get around to gettin' hitched until 1950 when she was 32 years old. My parents then lived in Japan and Germany for the next ten years, which might explain why this packet of recipes is untouched with the exception of the inevitable fading of inks and slight darkening of the paper. 

"No Wire Coat Hangers!"

Circa 1920s wooden children's clothes hangers. Joan Crawford would have approved! 

M Y   CO L L E C T I O N — I really adore the painted faces on these hangers and the muted "baby" colors used to denote the boy's and girl's. There were no young boys in my family during the 1920s or the 1930s. I'm guessing this was a set, and most likely a baby gift for my aunt Hoohoo, nee Gloria Isabel, born in 1925.