Pam’s Pictorama Post: One evening a number of weeks back I was scrolling through my beloved Instagram account (I sometimes think I am the only one who loves their IG account this much, but mine is a endless source of cat videos, antiques and vintage jewelry and I turn to it for gentle relaxation and entertainment), when I spotted this nifty item.
A sister version was also up for sale, both featured on a favorite account, @marsh.and.meadow. I scooped her up immediately. I of course now regret not purchasing both, although even she seemed like an odd indulgence at the time. (As seen below, I have a good chance at rectifying that mistake if I so wish.)
Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection although this similar one would make a solid state ashtray. For sale on eBay at the time of publication.
She was being sold as an ashtray and I bought her as such, given that I had a recent need for an ashtray and had fallen short. (This was a very good reason for purchasing her I thought.) However, once I had secured her I quickly realized that I could not have people putting cigs and joints out in her tummy, and decided that she is strictly decorative – being even a bit small for pins and bobs. As you can see, she now lives on our bookshelf, drifting along under Little Nemo in Slumberland and two (especially beloved by Kim) ancient volumes of Dumas.
Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection although I love her little blue swim shoes and she’d make a better ashtray!
I think our girl could fairly be called a flapper, with her hair back in a scarf. She appears to be in a swimsuit of the day (the top more implied than defined), a towel or scarf over one arm, a splendid black and white spotted kitty in the other arm. The glaze is a nice pearlescent under the towel. Her feet are in little black swim shoes.
This similar version is available on Etsy at the time of publication.Very pearly and a bit more racy.
The person painting her personality on gave her red bow lips, a faint blush and gold hair. How nice that she has drifted through the decades, forever in her stylish (for the day) swim togs with kitty.
She is marked Made in Japan and while a quick Google search did not turn her up precisely I found some kissin’ cousins which I have shown here, although no real information. Slightly later versions start to veer to the somewhat racier, with better defined paint and strategically (smoking) placed cigarette holding.
Her mark of origin shown on her tiny feet!
All these shown are available on either Etsy or eBay at the time of posting so if you need your own you are in luck. Or maybe I will scoop another up in an attempt to finally fill my ashtray need.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Recently my friend Mel directed me over to a small auction that was primarily devoted to space ships, but had a small number of Felix items and I guess a very few people paying attention to them. Today’s very unusual item came to me via that auction along with a lovely stuffed Felix I will share soon as well.
Schuco produced Felix perfume bottle. Always very pricey! Not in my collection.
Felix bottles are a category unto themselves and to my knowledge include a soda bottle, a plastic bath bubble bottle, a popular perfume bottle and an even more available early bath salts bottle. The perfume bottle has a mohair outside (as above, produced by the toy company Schuco, which makes you wonder a bit about the quality of the perfume in question) and looks like a toy, while the bath salts one is made of clear glass and painted. The paint is usually worn off on the latter and there is a very similar Bonzo Dog – oddly and weirdly almost interchangeable if you aren’t paying attention. (As below and not in my collection – yet!)
My new Felix bottle is in what I think of as his Romeo pose, on one knee, hands clasped to his heart. You can imagine his impassioned cat-on-a-fence type tune. There are no makers or brand markings at all. In all of my searching around I have never seen the likes of him.
The white of his face appears to have been repainted, fairly well, but still is generally something that turns me off entirely. I can’t say the style of him is a favorite either – why the two tooth look I wonder? Again though he is so unusual I decided he had a place here at Pictorama and I am pleased with a having acquired him.
Powder stopper. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
I have never however seen this item before in all my looking, nor when I did a dedicated search after finding him. He is made of a heavy molded glass (seam in the bottom) and stands about five inches high, and he’s a slightly off-model Felix with that sort of gap-tooth grin. The brass-esque cap comes off to reveal a powder shaker top. (Felix arrived well packed, but in a tsunami of powder which had remained in the bottle until he traveled! I guess the seller figured I would want it powder and all. Only a vague scent to it if you are wondering. It is sort of getting all over everything despite my best efforts to contain it.)
I like to imagine a dressing table somewhere, maybe in the early 1930’s with Felix atop where each morning a bit of powder was shaken out of him. So beloved however, he has made it down through almost a hundred years to be with us today. And stay tuned – while I was writing this I found another bottle I had to have. More to come…
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This odd item came to me via a collector and reader who sold me a cache of items recently. Neither of us knows exactly what this is or how it worked, but the piece on the end appears to be a pin cushion. Therefore I think it was some sort of sewing implement which probably held a spool of thread on the other side.
Felix himself has leather ears. There are small holes on each side which I assume held spindly arms. In addition there are tiny metal loops below those holes which held something too. I have guessed this and that, but really don’t know what those may have been for. The other logical piece I can think of would be something to help you thread a needle (I use those gizmos on the rare occasions I sew a button, and did even before my eyes became middle aged), but no idea how that would have worked. As I contemplate it, I cannot vouch for the practicality of using it, but as a non-sewer it is hard for me to say.
This item is made of wood and has no makers mark, but to me it looks commercially made. It is without question old. I can cheerfully attest to never having seen anything like it despite looking at (literally) thousands of Felix items over time. A dedicated search did not turn up anything. Now that I own it perhaps they will start to show up – that happens sometimes.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
As a companion piece I offer an items one sees often, a Felix yarn winder that wandered into the house about a year ago. I see these frequently and although the Felix head seems a bit off model it does bear an official Pathe emblem in the middle. (I believe this came to me via my friends in Texas @curiositiesantique and a shout out to them!) I assume that wool winding on such an item is somehow better than just using it as it comes in those long lumpy skeins. Felix Keeps on Knitting we are informed.
Although I have written about sewing (I have a small collection of old needle packages and I wrote about them here and here) once or twice before I don’t seem to have documented my generally ham handedness for sewing. My mother had a sewing machine, a very substantial and insanely heavy, 1960’s table model, which I swear I never saw her use. (It seems that my sewing disability was passed to me via my mother who, to my knowledge, has sewn nary a button that I can remember.) My sister Loren took it over and produced some very credible items, although in somewhat typical fashion she wandered away from it once conquered.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
I personally never met a bobbin that I didn’t snarl and often destroy which was hard on me in the Home Ec of my junior high days. (I’m assuming Home Economics is one of those things that disappeared or at least has been renamed over time. It sounded dated even to my young 1970’s ears. Still, as I consider this I would encourage everyone to be taught the basics of cooking, rudimentary nutrition and maybe how to sew on a button. Useful life skills.) I mean, me and ten minutes trying to fill one of those things and it was a solid web of disaster. Whole machines were out of commission after me; amazing how fast it could all go wrong. I was also known to freakishly break a needle for landing directly on a pin.
I can only volunteer that I was only marginally better in Shop class which I migrated to once I had the opportunity, hoping to get away from the world of sewing machines. It’s amazing that I paint, draw, cook and lead a generally useful life despite all this. The attempts to teach me these allied skills having failed miserably.
I did do a bit of hand sewing while still very young. I achieved adequately well on cross stitch samplers, but tended toward large looping and uneven stitches for actual sewing. Despite multiple efforts and instructors knitting utterly confuses me and my brain refuses to accept whatever pattern is required to turn yarn into sweaters and scarves. I have never sewn a hem.
In college a roommate taught me how to sew a button on properly and I remain in her debt as it is a skill called for on a regular basis really. I don’t know what bit of hand-eye coordination so eludes me, but I have learned to accept it much as I accept my brown eyes and prematurely gray hair, and over time I have made the acquaintance of a good tailor.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I have a strange relationship to matches. I tend to burn myself on lighters and cardboard matches often fail me. I would have made a very lousy smoker – or perhaps conversely my skills would have improved over time. It seems unlikely at this age that we will ever know. Perhaps it comes of being a well behaved child who accepted her parental advice not to play with matches – I didn’t and as a result I never really got the hang of using them.
Among other things, living with a gas stove means the occasional lighting of a pilot light and at some point I invested in a box of wooden matches for this and other fire lighting jobs. The tiny wooden sticks have a timeless quality. As you strike one you have the comfort of knowing you could easily have done exactly the same 100 years ago.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
This nifty black cat stands by a pot which I believe was designed to hold the spent matches more than those awaiting use, although I guess you could have gone either way. It entered Deitch Studio earlier this week from Great Britain. I was in East Hampton for work on Fourth of July weekend when I noticed it in an idle IG scroll of a jewelry account I frequent, @therubyfoxes. I was in the middle of too much to execute the purchase and asked Mia to hold it for me and I was pleased to buy it later – and even happier with it when it arrived.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
It shows pleasant signs of some wear from years of use and probably sitting near a stove. I would describe it as being made of pot metal. Meanwhile, it’s a fang-y black cat if you look carefully, exclaiming for attention, mouth open. He or she sports a yellow bow around the neck. Kitty’s back is arched, although not really threatening, and tail is looped over on his or her back.
In a way it would be nice if this could sit in my kitchen, but there is no space in that crammed corner for such an item to be displayed effectively. Instead it joins the cat congregation on the shelves in the living room, matchless, although perhaps eventually it could find a place on my desk and graduate to paperclips instead. Either way he’s another great black cat find.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s a sunny Sunday after a dreadfully rainy sleety snowy Saturday here in New York City. So I sit down to write with the sense of optimism that prevails on a sunny day after a rainy one.
Meanwhile, I have had this item in my possession for months now where it has perched on my desk, waiting to see what role it will play and what it will contain. I spotted it in a background shot of items being sold by @missmollystlantiques and she was willing to sell it to me. I especially like its glass top where the 2 cent price is posted. 2 cents!
Top view of the tin.
Pictorama readers know I cannot resist a good box. My post on a Krak-R-Jak Biscuit (also purchased from Miss Molly, the post can be found here, as I am one of those folks who still mails cards. The appeal of a box is like catnip to me – I’m equally bad about cabinets. (A post on one display case I bought a few years ago can be found here.) Things that can contain things seem like a win-win to me and I can always justify their purchase in my mind. For some reason I am convinced I always have space for them.
Snatched this up from an article about the early expansion in the popularity of chocolate after WWI.
This is probably pretty close to the earliest wrapper of my candy bar eating past.I will say that their Quik for making chocolate milk was my top favorite in that food category.
Frankly it has been a very long time since I have eaten either, the chocolate I am more likely to encounter these is a wider variety. Bags of Lindt, both milk and dark chocolate, have come my way as gifts recently; my mother has boxes of sugar-free chocolates at her house (surprisingly good, especially if you stick to the nut filled and caramels), the occasional organic bar from Whole Foods crosses my path. In fairness it should be noted that my diet does not allow for the unabashed eating of chocolate however, having found that eating chocolate leads to ultimately eating more chocolate, leading to more of me.
The best remaining side view of the box.
Despite my childhood loyalties, this tin tickles me. Your 2 cents could buy you a plain or almond “block” of chocolate – two sizes shown on the side of the tin, nuts making the smaller (fatter?) bar. Sadly only one of the painted sides is still in relatively good shape, jolly red and yellow paint. For some reason the magic of reaching into the glass top container and pulling out a chocolate bar is still evoked when I look at it. Perhaps that is why I have had trouble filling it with any of the mundane flotsam and jetsam of my desk. I am thinking I may take it to mom’s house in New Jersey where I am still constructing a home office for the days I am there. The accumulating pens and post-its may take up residence there, but the images on the tin tickling a desire for a treat.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This Christmas my cousin Patti handed me this little book which had belonged I believe, to her grandfather, my great grandfather. Although Patti largely stays with my mom these days, she also has an ancestral home nearby which disgorges the occasional family tidbit. (Past Patti posts highlighting our history, some family photos and including a lovely pair of earrings – which incidentally I was wearing Christmas Day – can be found here and here.)
The back of this little missive declares that it was Compliments of Bowman Hotels. A quick search reveals that Bowman Hotels were part of the Biltmore-Bowman chain, Biltmore being a more recognizable name for me.
New York Biltmore Hotel, via an early postcard in the Columbia Library collection.
A Canadian by birth, John McEntee Bowman learned the hotel business working at Holland House in New York and in 1913 purchased his first Biltmore hotel ultimately building it into one of the most recognized hotel chains in the world. (However, it would appear John died in Manhattan, at the age of 56 after an unfortunate gallstone operation.)
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Biltmore hotels, both a part of this empire and others which have evidently just taken the name, proliferate worldwide even today. I have fond memories of joining folks for drinks at the Biltmore in Santa Barbara, a beautiful spot overlooking the ocean, back in the in pre-pandemic years.
Historic photo of the interior of Biltmore Hotel NYC.For sale on eBayat the time of publication.
Among the Manhattan hotels at the time those would have been the Biltmore, Roosevelt and the Commodore. These all exist today in one form or another – evidently the only original piece of the Biltmore remaining is the clock made famous by J.D. Salinger and William Shawn who would meet there, creating the notion of meet me under the clock at the Biltmore.
Sadly it seems that the Roosevelt has fallen victim to the pandemic economy. For years I went to a monthly fundraising meeting held there, fairly intact in the early 90’s, and was only vaguely aware of its former storied grandeur. It was decidedly tatty then and underwent (at least one) renovation which in turn moved our meetings elsewhere. These hotels all had a choice proximity to Grand Central Station and the wider 42nd Street area making their real estate attractive even in the decades to come.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Twelve hotels existed in 1923, the year of copyright, and are listed at the beginning of the book. These ranged from Los Angeles to Havana and also included the still extant Westchester Biltmore Country Club, where I was also a guest once. The Atlanta outpost was noted as now building.
I don’t know if Mr. Bowman et al produced these complimentary books for all the cities this chain was eventually to reside in – if there are extant copies of The Sidewalks of Chicago for example, I was unable to find them. A few copies of this pocket-sized volume are available online with prices ranging widely from $19-$89. (The most expensive does have a sporty blue leather cover, most appear closer in appearance to mine.) Clearly folks held onto them as useful beyond their stay for their maps and other information.
Meanwhile, the Little Leather Library had a larger life of its own. Cheerful leather volumes of everything from Sherlock Holmes to Browning and Speeches and Addresses can be found in these editions. Special cases for your collection or perhaps sold as sets can be sourced online.
Boxed set of Little Leather Library. Not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
To be clear, Sidewalks of New York, only portrays the sidewalks of Manhattan; it does not touch on the other four boroughs. The book is designed as a self walking tour of Manhattan, highlighting areas from the Financial District, Greenwich Village, the fashions of Fifth Avenue and the theatre district. It doesn’t go much further north, mixing some historic highlights with contemporary points of pleasure.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
It was written by Bernardine Kielty (1890?-1973) who appears to have been a biographer of artists and historic figures (her biography of Marie Antoinette turns up repeatedly) but perhaps best know for editing a large compendium of short stories in 1947 in a volume that is still praised today. (I may have to read that if I can find a copy although they seem a bit dear.) Her papers were left to Columbia University and are notable for her correspondence with numerous other writers of the day ranging from Somerset Maugham to Isak Dinesen.
About Greenwich Village she writes probably the section of the city most anticipated. It has come to connote Bohemia, New York’s Latin Quarter, with cellars full of wild eating places; attics full of artists; Batik shops and radical book store; long haired men and determined-eyed women.
The map of Greenwich Village, understandably useful, is gently dogeared in my copy as below – although my image of my great grandfather in no way includes frequent trips to the Village and the need to find his way around.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
In fact I am a bit fascinated by the idea of my great-grandfather having reason to stay at any of this luxury line of hotels (let alone have a need to find his way around Greenwich Village) and have to deeply suspect that the little book came to him another way. For a hard working Italian immigrant who owned first a deli at the Jersey shore, which later morphed into a bar and restaurant across the street, a stay at any of these hotels seems somewhat unlikely. (I have written about that side of my family in a post here.)
This book is well worn by some owner however, it’s cover cracked down the center from use, the spine bearing signs of time in a pocket, leather rubbed away. In the introduction Kielty writes, New York, to many people, is a Mecca. They come to the city, expectant and eager, convinced they are going to see life in its most vivid form…They conjure up pictures of theatrical contrast – of the magnificently rich and the piteously poor; and some of them wonder curiously about the quaint spots, those oases in the busy city life, where history peeps through. Despite all of our contemporary drama, still true today.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s a rainy dawn of 2022 here in Manhattan today. We’ve been on a gray and wet jag the last few days and it is a weepy sort of a day. It seems unlikely that the sun is going to make an appearance and make a New Year’s Day walk look attractive, even later today. It is, frankly, not the most promising of New Year’s Days. Therefore, let’s grab a hot cup of coffee and bury ourselves in a bit of trivial loveliness in true Pictorama style.
My opening salvo for the year is this t-shirt I purchased recently. I had a shirt post not that long ago when I found a few very Waldo-esque ones. (That post can be found here. I model again today.) Those t-shirts both hailed from Japan as, I believe, does today’s interesting acquisition. I don’t buy a lot of t-shirts and am more partial to the variation with sleeves which I find more useful as an item of clothing. The baseball shirts have made an excellent addition to my running wardrobe in particular. I find I am a with sleeves or entirely sleeveless kind of girl as far as fashion goes so t-shirts are a bit out of my daily wearing line. (Kim lives in them of course.) I did make an interesting Felix t-shirt purchase which I wrote about not too long ago and it can be found here so I guess shirts are making an inroad into my collecting.
Felix t-shirt in the Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
I found today’s shirt on eBay and grabbed it up for a fairly nominal sum. It is somewhat worn, but I am glad someone saw the value in putting it up for sale online because it entertains me and I glad to have snagged it. It is also a bit large for me or Kim, so I do think it is more of a collectible for us than a fashion apparel statement.
Checking online I did find that these were oddly enough, at one time, sold by Walmart. (They are out of stock now.) It does not appear that they produced them however, but I allow it is possible. The actual shirt comes from the Dominican Republic, but not clear it was printed there, so the trail goes more or less cold. (For those readers who can translate the Japanese I am curious, although I somehow suspect it won’t tell us much more about the history of this shirt. Is it nonsense? Please share if you can translate it.)
This zooty cat fellow has a natty bowtie, a somewhat toothy grin, and clutches positively bulging money bags – errant dollar bills falling out of them and flying around. We are urged to Claim Your Cash Now, 24/7 and assures us it is Fur Real. We are also urged, in English, to call 555-pay-purr now. I don’t know much about the use of English in Japan, but I am curious why this tips so heavily toward English.
T-shirt, Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
At first I wondered if it was sort of a check cashing establishment, but that wouldn’t be claiming cash, would it? Perhaps loans? Claiming seems a bit off for that too, but closer perhaps. Perhaps some sort of lottery or gambling? I like the pun on pay-purr and paper but don’t quite understand it. You will leave these folks with some paper money clearly.
As an aside and talking about Cash, I will mention that Kim and I returned from New Jersey on Christmas Day in style via a car service that goes by Rides with Cash (@rideswithcash on IG and rideswithcash.com). Cash turns out to be an adorable Australian Shepherd who divides his time between the front seat with his Dad and the passengers in back during the ride. He was wearing a jolly Santa suit and spent a fair amount of the ride looking adoring up at Kim with his head in Kim’s lap, enraptured. If it hadn’t been so dark I would have taken photos – but it made the trip go quickly and I hope to cadge a ride with them again soon.
Kim Deitch t-shirt, Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
When it comes to t-shirts of course the ones Kim has made are among the most beloved in my collection (I wrote about this one above in a post here) and as noted, these recent additions have a come hither appeal for their vaguely Waldo with a dash of Felix quality.
So, as we gingerly take our first baby steps into this New Year on behalf of Pictorama and Deitch Studio I send you these best wishes for a prosperous and happy New Year.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s post is about a little object I have had in my mitts for several months now. It came to me via someone I follow and have purchased from on Instagram, Mia (aka http://@therubyfoxes) and I have written about other purchases from her here and here) lives in Britain and at least at this time the object hails from that part of the world. I share it today as pretty much as an object from my personal cabinet of curiosities and welcome all comers with any information or worthy speculation.
There were two slightly different ones and Mia kept the mate. I chose mine because it had a vaguely feline sensibility which I thought suited the Pictorama collection best, hers is a bit more squat and canine, shown below. (She was nice enough to send a photo this morning – I had snatched him via a story on her account so no way to save the photo.) It is more similar than I remember.
Mia’s sibling version of the object. Many thanks to her for popping this photo over to me this morning!
These appear to be made of bone and the base and ring looks to be silver. A careful look and the grooves where the collar goes around the neck convinces me that these were designed to be in these silver holders with a loop for a chain, ribbon or twine. He sports a tongue which sticks out between his carved teeth. There are deep holes on either side of his mouth and I am not sure where the maker was heading with that. The eyes are perched atop of the head with tiny pointy ears. I thought there was a vague suggestion of a tail, but when I rubbed it I realized it is just the natural coloration of the bone, no carved indentation.
The allover etched designs seem to be the same on both. Whatever their hoodoo it is consistent. I do hope they do not mind being separated, but I believe the US is glad to have one on its shores. I like to think of it having a partner over at Mia’s house in her own cabinet of wonders.
At first I was thinking maybe it was a chess or other game piece, until I realized that the apparatus for hanging and wearing it was integral to the design. Kim had a good suggestion this morning and reminded me of Billiken’s. (He purchased one for me made of mother of pearl which I wrote about here. The creation story is a good one indeed.) The god of things as they ought to be according to Wikipedia (a concept I paused a moment to contemplate), Billikens are good luck and I have christened these likewise. There is something sort of Billiken-esque about them.
Billiken, possibly amber, not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.Bone Billiken, not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
In fact a search of bone Billiken on Google turned up some credible relatives and I am reminded that Sandy over at http://@Curiositiesantique (or http://www.getcuriosities.com) came across a Billiken for sale I remembered as bone, but is amber she thought (see above), although there was a bracelet of small bone ones as well. However, these I found on Goggle are a bit closer to the mark of our mystery charms. (Also above.) Oddly, there are a number of Alaskan and Inuit carved figures that turn up under the search of Billiken bone images – not sure how all things Billiken can be true if there are early Inuit ones. Hmmm. More mysteries.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: The Halloween season is upon us and brief morning trips to run in the park have revealed some serious dedication to decorating for the holiday. I used to enjoy seeing the townhouses near the Met decorated for the season – some would really pull out all the stops and put on a show. I am less often over there now, but one townhouse near Carl Schurz Park is really throwing down the holiday gauntlet with this tableau of a chain of skeletons climbing down the front of the house from the attic!
Decorated townhouse near East End Avenue, taken this week.
The Mansion Diner, on the corner of 86th Street and York Avenue, has long dedicated themselves to decorating their entire building for the holiday. They were a little late getting them up this year and I wondered if, short handed, they would skip it, but the decorations appeared earlier this week.
It’s interesting that I only rarely had reason to frequent The Mansion pre-pandemic, but now it is a regular stop for breakfast sandwiches post run and frequent meetings with a Board member from work who lives around the corner. I spent the summer eating ice cream outside while talking with him about work, Frank Sinatra being piped out loudly for our listening pleasure.
The Mansion Diner on the corner of 86th and York, also earlier this week.
But if part of your collecting gig is black cats this is a great time of year. I think I have mentioned that my collecting has blossomed thanks in part to an online dealer from the Midwest, Miss Molly (@missmollysantiques). My friendship (consumership?) started with purchasing a black cat jack-o-lantern head. (You can see that post here and the kitty below.) Overtime I have also purchased photos from her (the most recent of those can be found here). And she nicely gives me a heads up on cat items before posting them, but once in awhile it is the stuff around what she is posting that catches my eye and she sold me the wonderful Krak-R-Jak Biscuit box that sits on my desk. (That is a sort of oddly outrageously popular post that can be found here.) I have a rather spectacular Nestle chocolate tin box to share in a future post as well, but today we are talking Halloween.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
The fact is my yen for these early paper mache cat JOL’s goes way back. I remember visiting a store in Cold Spring, New York that had a huge collection, but very expensive and utterly out of my reach. (Fall is a beautiful time to visit that area, an hour and a half or so up the Hudson, right on the water. It is a picture perfect little river town and Kim and I spent one night there for our “honeymoon” there, 21 years ago this past week.) I had resigned myself to never owning one, but the internet has become a great equalizer and prices are lower – and I spend more money!
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
All this to say, recently she came up with this cat jack-o-lantern and it entered my collection as my second such item. Like the first one I purchased, the paper inserts remain intact. It is hard for me to imagine safely putting a candle in these, but I guess that was the idea. There is no evidence of this on the inside, but there is a wire on the top for hanging it and that would have been jolly indeed.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
He shows some signs of wear, especially the tips of the ears, which I guess if you were hitting the hundred year mark you would too. It is a common design and I assume it is a black cat sitting on a fence post, green eyes and red mouth glowing. His fur and whiskers are embossed. (The molds that these were made around must have been great – would love to see one of those.) He would be just the right combination of scary and wonderful. I get the vague idea that these are German in origin, although upon reflection, do the Germans even celebrate Halloween? It would seem that it is a recent development (according to Google), so perhaps these were German American companies? Anyone who knows how all that works give a shout and let me know.
Meanwhile, Halloween is the seasonal gateway to fall and then winter. I have already started eyeing warmer running togs and dreading those very cold mornings to come. Nonetheless, I think I probably have a few more Halloween collectible posts in me this season. More from Pictorama to come.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This bracelet came up on Instagram recently – a photo on the site of @Marsh.and.Meadow, aka Heather and her young daughter Opal (clearly a budding collector of discerning taste), acquired on an antiques road trip recently. Let me say that as someone who does not drive (or have access to a car) the idea of a trip driving through the mid-West looking for antiques is sort of heavenly. There is an alternate universe where I too get to do this on a regular basis. (In that world we also live in a house which we fill with interesting stuff of course.)
I spotted this bracelet and I really wanted it. The sales at Heather’s site are amazingly fast and furious and if my internet is having even the tiniest slowdown I am not in the running. In the long run this probably saves me a lot of money and generally I am philosophical about it. However, on this occasion I broke my rule and got her to break hers and sell me the bracelet in advance.
The bracelet is slightly larger than a child’s size and just fits my wrist. As an aside I will mention that everyone on IG seems to be tiny – a world of people smaller than me. Endless rings that tempt, siting atop ring fingers in photos that it turns out I can barely wear on my pinky, vintage clothing from tiny people in earlier times that I won’t even attempt. Again, this saves me a lot of money in the end – how many pinky rings can you own – but occasionally frustrates me at a towering 5’9″ with appendages that match.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection
The Trylon and Perisphere are featured on the bracelet and you take it on and off with a hook from one side of the emblem. The sun is rising behind them and a tree grows to one side, a building of classical design behind it, a lot going on in that tiny scene. The gold tone is worn on the inside of the bracelet, but the outer rim is ornate and in good shape. My reaction is that I would have been simply gob-smacked to have acquired this in 1939 as part of my visit to the Fair. I have to assume that in its day it was a bit rarified and somehow I imagine that I never would have been able to own it back then, making it ever more appealing.
I have never run across this bracelet before, although I am sure they proliferated and that they are available. (A quick search on Google shows an abundance of other styles of bracelets – charm bracelets appearing to be the predominant, and one image of this style.) Somehow this one made its way out to the Midwest and now it has come back to New York City, its ancestral home.
World’s Fair display at City Reliquary Museum in Brooklyn as seen on a recent visit.
Folks devote whole sites to the ’39 World’s Fair so I am largely thinking only of my own intersection with it. I was introduced to the Fair and its history by a former boyfriend who was fascinated by it. Under his tutelage I learned about it, watched films on it, learned to spot the occasional item related to it in our junk hunting, and of course visited the remains of it in Queens more than once. The latter is endlessly interesting, the hulking disintegrating remains of those temporary pavilions no one could bring themselves to demolish, the mosaic floors of some. I always look for them when driving to the airport – a last very New York view before departing.
Ring not in Pictorama collection – but could be, available on Etsy.
My Dad, a native New Yorker, attended both the ’39 and ’64 World’s Fairs and frankly neither made much of an impression on him it seemed. (As I remember he seemed mystified as to why I would care.) Yet without question the ’39 Fair continues to capture the imagination of many. Our world of today and its technology has long outstripped the vision of 1939 so why does that now antiquated vision appeal? While there are other fairs of the past (the Chicago World’s Fair of ’33 and the Louisiana Exposition among them) the ’39 World’s Fair stands out. It was an event that sent ripples out into the decades to come in a way that could neither be anticipated, nor replicated.
When I think about the events during my life that will punctuate history I think of the creation of the internet and computers, but also of 9/11 and Covid. Designed by business leaders to help pull New York City out of the Depression, the ’39 World’s Fair was born on the cusp of the advent of WWII and they had no idea it that their creation would live in the imagination of history the way it did. I just read that there was very little actual science at the World of Tomorrow, mostly the smoke and mirrors of commerce and serving up hope for what would come next for a world beat up from years of the Depression. It is so interesting to me that folks held onto those trinkets which were a reminder that a new world was just around the corner.
Pam's Pictorama 