Collecting Vintage Napkin Rings

Napkin rings are ideal to begin collecting. They don't take up much display room, are functional, plentiful, affordable, useful and the design variations are endless.

They first appeared on the dining tables of the upper crust sometime in the 1830's, probably in France. Throughout the Victorian era, they were widely in use on all but the poorest dining tables.

The beauty of collecting rings is they don't have to be matched sets. The original purpose was to identify who the napkin itself belonged to. Each member of the family had their own ring, with a distinct design or engraved with their initial.

At the end of the meal, the napkin was folded and put back inside the ring. Table linens were only washed with the once weekly laundry and you used the same napkin all week.

Place setting purists only use napkin rings for informal dinners, the theory being that the ring denotes a used napkin and that's probably not going to make your guest feel all that comfortable. I take the liberty of assuming my guests know I gave them a clean napkin and go against the purist rule.

My rings are silver plate but you can find them spanning all eras from the 1830's on, and in a wonderful range of materials. From the Victorian era to Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts era to the 21st century, they have been made in everything from sterling silver to glass, bakelite, French Ivory and wood.

Foral designs were popular with the Victorians and in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco eras.

I've picked up most of my napkin rings for around $5 each. Figural rings are more expensive unless you find one like my horse ring that has had a tragic tail bobbing.

Some appeal to me because of the shape.

Some commemorate a special event, such as a world fair or coronation. I snapped up this one from the 1937 coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth for $6.

My favourite ring has the crest of the SS Duchess Of York set with enamel. The ship was part of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Co. fleet. She was one of three sister ships named after duchesses and nicknamed The Drunken Duchesses for the rather rambunctious handling of the ocean waves. Someone brought this napkin ring home as a souvenir before WWII saw the Duchess Of York pressed into service. She made two trips from Britain bringing evacuated children to safety in Canada.  Then, she ferried Canadian troops overseas, brought injured service personnel and German POWs back to Canada. Sadly, the Duchess of York came under enemy fire and sank off the coast of Spain in 1943.

If you are my guest and I give you that napkin ring, you will know you have a favoured spot at the dining table.

I just realized all the napkins are in the rings upside down in these photos. The pointed end of the napkin goes toward the guest. We're already breaking one etiquette rule by using rings at a formal dinner so let's not compound our offence!

I have eight vintage, silver plate rings so far and on the hunt for many more just to seat my immediate family.

Each one will come with its own story and I hope our happy gatherings around the table will add much more to their history.

Happy collecting!

I'm sharing this with: Show & Share

Vintage Sealer Jar Meets Vintage Sewing Supplies

What are you going to do when a friend brings you a whole case of vintage sealers that she has taken the time to date?  Why, you match them up with collectibles from the same year!

A little rummaging in my stash of hoarded junk fabulous vintage sewing supplies yielded metal sewing machine bobbins, wooden spools of thread, Bakelite buttons and snaps and hooks still on the cards. I never could bring myself to get rid of these goodies, so carefully saved by generations past.

Marilyn has dated this jar as 1944. World War II is still raging and the folks at home are struggling to make do, with what they have, under rationing conditions. I remember my Auntie Kay talking about taking her sister's winter coat and making it over into a coat and leggings for her own little girl. Her sister wouldn't be home for awhile to need it as she was serving overseas as an RCAF nurse.

A bit of vintage lace wrapped around the neck of the jar makes a pretty backdrop for a scrap of fabric stencilled with the date. Of course, I used teal coloured paint in honour of September being ovarian cancer awareness month.

I think it's a lovely way to organize this little collection and I hope it conveys my appreciation to all those clever ladies who kept the home fires burning and the children clothed, without taking a thing away from those who were so valiantly serving their country.

Well, to be honest, my RCAF aunt wasn't all that thrilled to come home and find her sister had chopped up her good coat for a snowsuit. The reason I know the story is because she was still complaining about it twenty years later!

Thanks for the jars, Marilyn. I had fun with this project!

I'm joining the parties at - Make It Pretty Monday

What Is A Sugar Castor?

The best thing about taking the dessert as a dinner guest was getting to use my new to me sugar castor. I found it in a consignment shop for under $20. The top is silver plated and the the body is cut crystal.

You may have seen sugar castors at thrift shops and yard sales and not been sure what they are used for. They are intended to sprinkle caster sugar on pastries, berries, etc. at the dinner table.

The detachable top is perforated to allow for easy sprinkling of the finely powdered caster sugar.

I'm not making typos here when I say castor for the shaker and caster for the sugar. The shaker gets it's name from castor sets that graced dining tables and usually held oil and vinegar bottles, mustard pots, salt and pepper shakers and sugar castors. No Victorian dining table would be complete without one of these beauties.

Caster sugar is finely ground, white sugar and is sometimes called confectioner's sugar. Because it is finely ground, it dissolves quickly and is often used in meringues and perfect for adding sweetness to desserts at the table without the grittiness of regular table sugar. I'm not saying this stuff is good for you, just that it's gooood!

In fact, caster sugar is so good I may have been a little heavy handed when I dusted these lemon squares.

Even we healthy eating gals have to have the odd guilty splurge, don't you think?

I'm sharing this with What's It Wednesday

A Dandy Little Cream Ladle

If we can ever get it to stop snowing here it will be yard sale season. Yes, it snowed in Ontario over the Easter weekend, but it has to warm up sooner or later. Doesn't it?

If you are lucky enough to have warm weather, here's something to look for at yard sales. I have a fondness for glass milk bottles and actually transfer my milk to one. It stays so much colder in glass bottles.

I also have a fondness for ladles and would have bought this little one even if I didn't know what it was. A friend had shown me hers and I recognized this as a ladle to skim the cream from milk in glass bottles.

It has Cream Top embossed on the handle and a patent date of 1924. Canadian patents registered before 1989 were good for 17 years so I can date this ladle pretty closely.

Since I had the ladle, the friend found a cream top bottle to go along with it for me.  The cream would rise to the top of the bottle and you could either stir it into the milk or skim it off for coffee cream, heavy cream or whipping cream. This bottle shape kept the cream nicely in the bubble on top. Oh, how I wish you could buy milk like that today!

All I needed was a paper top and this little bit of daily life from the past was complete.

I paid $6.00 for my ladle at an antique show, but if you know what you are looking for you will come across one for much less at thrift stores and yard sales.

Happy hunting and keep your fingers crossed for me that the weather starts to feel like spring soon!

I'm sharing this with Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop, What's It Wednesday

It's All Art

A few years ago I stumbled on this delightful piece of art tucked away in the back of an antique store.

It's the costume designer's sketch from a Stratford Festival 1957 production of Hamlet.  I loved all the notations on fabric, design and accessories.

It was a great reminder of the summer my university age cousin held a summer job at the festival as Christopher Plummer's dresser.  I was still in grade school and it was a memorable occasion when my aunt and uncle took me to Stratford, Ontario and my cousin gave me the full back stage tour.  I fell in love with theatre that day and couldn't wait to see my first live play.

Last year, one of my granddaughters, that has had a hard time finding her place to shine, had the good fortune to attend that same theatre on a school trip.  The play was Romeo and Juliet and my granddaughter became Juliet, heart and soul, over the next few weeks.

I scrambled to put together a Juliet costume for her last Christmas.  I'm not really a sewer so it wasn't great, but she was very happy to parade around in it calling, "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?", to any audience she could find.

In October, she got to put that practice to good use when she won a small part in a television show The Murdoch Mysteries.

She loved every minute of her day on the set.  From wardrobe to filming, she was in heaven! ~

Even a ten hour day didn't tire her and she begged to stay longer to watch the other actors working when her part was done. ~

For now, the sketch will continue to hang on my dining room wall, but I have a feeling it will someday go to our budding thespian. ~

While she dreams of gracing the Stratford Festival stage, I'll be dreaming of the thrill of sitting in the audience for her performance.  What a full circle that would be!

I'm sharing this find with What's It Wednesday, Thursday Favorite Things, Inspire Me Monday, Share Your Cup Thursday

Identifying Victorian Era Majolica

Those of you that are collectors of antiques know that you get a sixth sense about whether an item is real or fake.  Having parents that ran an antique store, attending auctions for forty years and living with antiques in my home are a big help in developing that eye for authenticity in me.  I can still be fooled by a good reproduction piece of furniture or a line of pottery that I've never dealt with.  It's a big field and we can't know it all!  We each get our areas of speciality.  Majolica was mine.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Victorian majolica brings a consistently good return on resale and it's worth keeping an eye out for it when you are thrifting and at yard sales.  It's also really fun pottery to collect!

Could you find a prettier pottery basket for roses? 

You need a little understanding of how majolica was made.  Light coloured clay was pressed into a plaster mould.  The mould drew the moisture out of the clay and the soft "greenware" piece was removed from the mould.  Pressing the clay into the mould made for heavier pieces than we see today done with a slip process. So, you want the piece you are looking at to be fairly heavy. Majolica was then fired in a kiln to harden it and dipped or painted with a clear lead or tin glaze, that was left to dry.  This glaze gives it a depth and shine that is not found on most reproduction pieces.  When the glaze dried, workers hand painted the vibrant colours on the pieces and it was fired in the kiln again. Although majolica was mass produced in factories and the decorators were following a pattern, each one is unique in the slight differences from painter to painter.

The first thing I look for is crazing that is not uniform.  Some reproductions have tried to copy the crazing that comes from age and exposure to temperature changes.  The repro crazing always looks too uniform and repetitive to me.

The crazing on this pitcher is random, indicating the piece is genuine. ~

I check out the usual indicators of a pottery piece that is antique.  The base will show wear and, if unglazed, will have darkened with age.  Repairs done with staples are another good sign.  That type of repair hasn't been done in over 90 yrs.  The colours that were in vogue during the Victorian Era are a good sign as well.  Although some pieces were in dark browns and greens, most sported jewel tones, aquas, pinks, yellow and robins egg blue.

This bowl bears all the desired trademarks. ~

A sure sign of vintage majolica is applied handles.  They were solid clay and attached after the piece came out of the mould.  Reproduction and newer pieces, made in the style of majolica, will have hollow handles. You can see they are hollow by looking inside the piece for the opening or searching for a small vent hole in the handle itself.

You also should not be able to feel or see the pattern on the inside of the piece.  Pressing the clay into the mould gave it a smooth surface inside.

Of course the easiest way to identify a manufacturer and year it was made, is a backstamp.  ~

The premier English potteries marked their pieces, as well as the larger American potteries but a great many smaller potteries did not.  There is a great difference in quality in the pieces as well.  A George Jones elaborate centrepiece from Britain will be finely executed and worth thousands of dollars.  A humble jug from a lesser known pottery may be worth $30 to $40 dollars.  Many of the pieces you come across will show the wear and tear of years of use.  The odd nick or chip doesn't mean it doesn't have value.  A hairline crack is okay as long as you can't feel movement when you press on it.  If it moves, it's cracked right through.

Remember the basketweave and ribbon handle bowl my dad gave to me?  He paid less than $10 for it and it lists for $325 to $350 dollars. ~

Not a bad return on investment and worth keeping an eye open for don't you think!

Nothing Says Victorian Era Like Majolica!

In the 1800's the middle class had arrived and they wanted to share some of the elegant trappings of the wealthy.  A second level of society had leisure time and funds to decorate their homes with upholstered furniture, draperies and china.  That leisure time also inspired a growing interest in nature.  Bird watching, entomology and botany were all the rage.

At the Great Exhibition of 1851, Mintons Ltd. introduced a line of clear, lead glazed pottery that was a riot of colour and nature inspired designs.  Fish and coral danced across fish serving pieces.  Strawberries hung from vine handles on fruit serving spoons.  Cauliflowers poured tea and vases were shaped like bird nests, complete with modelled birds clinging to the side.  It was whimsical and eye catching and every sample piece had sold out by the end of the exhibition.

It's worth familiarising yourself with this style of pottery, so you can spot it at garage sales and thrift shops. It's highly collectible and the pieces I have bought and resold have earned easily 10 times or more what I paid for it.

When you are starting out with majolica, it's handy to have a guidebook to get an idea of styles and values. I began with The Collectors Encyclopedia of Majolica, by Mariann Katz-Marks. ~

Every time money gets tight around here, I sell off my collection.  Majolica has saved my butt more than once!

Without a doubt, the ladies who lived in my house in the 1800's had majolica pieces on their dinner tables and in the parlour.  This little grape and vine pitcher holds buttercups on my bedroom dresser. ~

A miniature vase has relief blossoms and leaves applied to a cobalt blue background. ~

A favourite of mine is a piece styled as a woven basket with a raised ribbon twined around the handle.  It was a gift from my dad and safe from the auction block! ~

The little pansy shaped butter pat is safe as well as it belonged to my grandmother. ~

The star of the show in my house is a large bowl.  It is doubly collectible to me because it has a staple repair to one handle.  That kind of repair hasn't been done since the early 1900's.

The colours are vibrant.  The outside has a design with Persian influence and a beautiful gladiola graces the inside of the bowl.  To me it screams Victorian sentiment and fascination with travel and the natural world! ~

The value of antiques fluctuates wildly with economic trends and fashion, so I always hesitate to call any of them a sure thing.  I do know that majolica has been a consistent money maker for me for over 20 years.  It has been collectible enough for fakes to show up on the market and I'll give you some tips on recognising the real thing on the next post.

Who knows?  You just may stumble across a Minton, figural centrepiece at a yard sale and pocket yourself a few hundred dollars!

I'm sharing this with:  Cottage Style Party

His Master's Voice Salt & Pepper Shakers

I've shown you before the set of His Master's Voice salt and pepper shakers that I keep under a glass dome in my dining room.  They have a special place in my heart because my grandfather designed them for the RCA Victor company.  They were given away as premiums to RCA Victor customers.

Nipper, the RCA Victor mascot, is still one of the most recognised logos worldwide.  I wonder if Francis Barraud had any idea that his painting of the little dog that had belonged to his brother and then came to him on his brother's death, would make Nipper one of the best beloved dogs of all time? He did the painting in 1898, three years after the dog had passed away.  Nipper used to sit by the gramophone, head cocked to one side, listening to the sounds that came from the horn.  The painting was eventually sold to RCA Victor to use as a logo and the rest is history.

The salt and pepper shakers are very collectible and worth watching for at yard sales and thrift shops. But, you have to beware of copies.  They have been reproduced many times, sometimes under licence for RCA Victor and sometimes as knockoffs to trap unsuspecting collectors.

Let's take a look at the original ones that my grandfather, Jesse William Wyatt, modelled.  By original, I mean the very first set that came off the production line!  The glaze isn't perfected on these and were from a test run. ~

The ears are black.  The black collar denotes pepper and the brown is salt.  I see that order reversed by experts from time to time, but I can tell you for certain that my grandfather marked them as such.

When you see brown ears, you know they are not original. These ones were made in Korea. ~

Each time they take a mold off a set of dogs, instead of from the original model, some detail is lost. My grandfather studied anatomy and was a stickler for showing skeletal and muscular structure as well as it could be shown in a mass produced piece of ceramics.

Later, licenced sets are collectible but aren't very well made.  You can see how much the design has degenerated in these copies from the 1950's. ~

The quickest way to determine if a set is original is to look for detail on the chest and shoulders of the dog. ~

I'm afraid you won't ever find a set like these ones.  My dad left them to my sister when he passed away. My grandfather took three trial sets off the line and inscribed the names of his three sons on them, along with the date of 1938, where it would normally say RCA Victor.

This set belonged to my dad. ~

I'm pretty sure my sister would notice if I switch my set for her signed set.  Instead, I'll return them to her and thank her for letting me share this bit of collectible history.

Happy hunting music memorabilia collectors!

I'm sharing this with - What's It Wednesday, Cottage Style Party, From Dream To Reality, Tuesdays With A Twist

ps ~ My cousin has just told me there were four sets of signed shakers.  My grandfather did the fourth for himself.  All four sets are still in the hands of family members.

Buying Bits Of History

I'm a history lover and that is why I buy antiques.  Each piece was part of the life of someone who lived long before me.  I wonder what their lives were like, who they loved, what they were passionate about, what trials and heartbreak they endured.

At an antique show, I happened upon this little bit of history.  It's a ticket to a concert, given in 1914, to raise funds for the starving Belgian people during the first world war. For a mere quarter this darling was mine! ~

The minute I saw that ticket, I thought of Rilla Of Ingleside.  L.M. Montgomery wrote the book in 1921, when the horrors of the great war were still fresh.  Anne's youngest daughter comes of age during the war and learns to leave vanities and frivolous behaviours behind to support loved ones and country.

She leads her local Junior Red Cross as they put together a basket social and concert for Belgian Relief. ~

Who were the Rillas that planned this event in Port Perry, Ontario?  

"Just for a few minutes, while I've been writing of Jim's and the concert, I've forgotten Ypres and the poison gas and the casualty lists.  Now, it all rushes back, worse than ever.  Oh, if we could just know that Jem is alright!"  ~ Rilla Of Ingleside

I've tucked my ticket into a corner of the old medicine chest I use for a spice cabinet. ~

I imagine I'm packing my luncheon treats into a napkin lined basket, to be raffled off to raise funds for such a wonderful cause.  Rationing has meant I've had to save coupons for quite some time for the eggs and sugar in that little cake!  Then I'll pop the ticket in my pocket and head off to the Scugog Town Hall. ~

I do so hope Kenneth Ford wins the bidding and he's the one I sit with for the evening!

Ninety-nine years after someone paid 15 cents for that ticket, I bought it for 25 cents.  I'd call that quite a bargain!

I'm joining the party at:  Thursday Favorite Thing Hop

Auction Love

This weekend my favourite auction house held a sale.  I only had to stick to two rules.  NO MORE CHAIRS and NO MORE LAMPS!  I can proudly tell you I didn't buy a single chair, though there were some beauts there.  Lamps?  We'll get to that in a bit and I'm counting on you to back me up.

In order to get this glass dome and pedestal ~

I had to buy what is called a box lot.  I have no idea what I will do with the wooden pieces.  Glass domes are scarce as hens teeth and expensive.  I bought this whole shebang for $5. ~

I've always wanted an alabaster lamp.  My Auntie Kay had one on the bedside table in her spare room and, as a little girl, I thought it was the most elegant lamp I had ever seen.  Although I have bought them for my shops, they always sell and one never came home with me.

When I walked in that auction house, the mother of them all was staring me in the face! ~

All eighteen inches of lamp base whispered my name!  And then, it shouted my name!

It begged me to look at the glorious detailing. ~

 A toothbrush and pipe cleaner will whisk away the dirt. ~ 

Maeve will provide the perfect foil for all that alabaster loveliness. ~

But, it is in the evening when my lamp will take my breath away! ~

Yes, I paid $70 for a lamp I didn't need.  Honestly, though, wouldn't you have done the same?

I'm sharing this with ~ What's It Wednesday, Transformed Tuesdays, Show And Tell Friday, Feathered Nest Friday