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.