Ladies furiously fanning, and other ephemera

We began our school Winter Break last night. After three days of hectic busyness and two half days with the kids so teachers could conference with parents, we were released to go home and enjoy our days off. We return to school Wednesday after a four-day weekend.

LOL it's hard for me to call this winter break, and I keep accidentally saying 'Spring Break'. This is because it's been 70 degrees outside or warmer! It's been that warm all week. This morning I went out to enjoy the pre-dawn and listen to peepers and roosters and faraway dogs in the still darkness. It was 62 degrees.

One thing I enjoy doing at the start of any long weekend or school break is after school on the Friday, heading up to Ila to The Special Store. This is a second hand store stuffed with beautiful things, at rock bottom prices. Everything from tchotchkes, to vintage jewelry, to art, mid-century modern furniture, books, vinyl albums, fine bone china and mostly anything else you can think of. The store rotates its inventory depending on which estate sale they have obtained it from.

For me, it's like going to a museum and looking at beautiful things. I love looking at beautiful things. Even better, given their prices, I can afford to purchase beautiful things. Or funky things, or unexpected things. It's all a delight. Let me share what I found yesterday.

I got a 55 year old church fan, a 100-year-old field guide to mushrooms- in German, a small spiral notebook/journal, a calculator, a craft item I'll give as a gift, two gardening/yard things- one a hand painted mock birdhouse, and a large plant pot holder, a pack of 10 foam bookmarks I'll use with my small reading group, and 3 packs of decorative cocktail napkins.

All for $10.

The collection includes several articles I needed (garden items, calculator), some I will be able to give as gifts (bookmarks, craft beads, journal, napkins) and a couple I just like because I like them (fan, mushrooms). It's all good.

Let me share about while I was there.

I had a nice chat with the nice lady who staffs the place. Then as I put the mushroom field guide on the counter and went about shopping, an amateur mycologist came in and saw the book. He was so excited. Then he noticed it was in German. He found me in the next aisle, saying, lol,

"Fraulein, do you know this book is in German?"
Yes.
Do you read German?
No.
Then why...
Because I like vintage books and I like mushrooms. Win-win.
He looked at me like people normally do, like I wasn't normal, lol.

But then he went on and showed me thru the book which mushrooms are which and told stories about when he went mushroom hunting. I told him about well-known New England Mycologist Sam Ristich (who used to be my landlord).

I enjoy shopping there not only to look at beautiful things, but the history. The fan was just charming. I liked to imagine ladies furiously fanning in church, before air conditioning came in. It's fun to think of the history you're holding in your hand, where it has been, and what happened to the people who last held it.

Thirdly, the other part about shopping at the Special Store is the fun I have when I get home. I like to learn things. I was holding what I suspected to be an interesting and important book, and a very old church fan.

How did I know the fan was old? The telephone exchange on the back: LIberty 8-4176.  Time to research!

I spent a good hour learning about the old telephone company (which I grew up with) Bell Telephone, nicknamed Ma Bell.

The Bell System was the system of companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by AT&T, which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly.

In the 1950s after WWII, Ma Bell realized that the telephone exchanges were going to have to be expanded. Each central office could only handle 10,000 subscribers, and after the War, the influx of people returning home and the acceptance of the phone as a normal appliance caused a plan to be formulated to expand to all numbers. They proposed moving away from the word-exchanges to an all-number dialing exchange, the one we have now with 7 digits and area codes. Previously, they had chosen exchanges with easy to pronounce words that would not likely be misunderstood, such as BUtterfield (memorialized in the Liz Taylor movie Butterfield-8) or PEnnsylvania such as the one memorialized in the 1945 song Pennsylvania 6-5000.

Wikipedia explains the named Pennsylvania exchange served the area around Penn Station in New York. The two letters, PE, stand for the numbers 7 and 3, making the phone number 736-5000, not including the later area code 212 for Manhattan. The number is best known from the 1940 hit song "Pennsylvania 6-5000", a swing jazz song.

Americans identified themselves in relation to the phone exchange, and also identified each other.

However, the American public so loved their alphabetic word phone exchanges that this proposal to go to all numbers was met with heated hate.

This plan was vehemently opposed by many groups that popped up. There was even a legal injunction for a while. The man who'd proposed the all number dialing, John Karlin, was once called 'the most hated man in America." But in the end of course, all numbers prevailed.

The link above goes to Karlin's obituary in the NYT, revealing an interesting and accomplished man to be sure. America should know about him. Here is just a snippet:

But his research, along with that of his subordinates, quietly yet emphatically defined the experience of using the telephone in the mid-20th century and afterward, from ushering in all-digit dialing to casting the shape of the keypad on touch-tone phones. And that keypad, in turn, would inform the design of a spate of other everyday objects.

It is not so much that Mr. Karlin trained midcentury Americans how to use the telephone. It is, rather, that by studying the psychological capabilities and limitations of ordinary people, he trained the telephone, then a rapidly proliferating but still fairly novel technology, to assume optimal form for use by midcentury Americans.

I learned all that as an internet detective wanting to discover the age of the fan I was holding. Given the exchange on the back, it seems it was made between 1958-1965, no older because all-number dialing came in then.

I also had fun researching the Mary Carter Paint Store, touted on the back of the fan as "World's Largest Operation of its Kind".

This store has an interesting history. It was a successor to a store founded in 1908, and became the Mary Carter Paint store in 1958. Owner James Crosby diversified into land and real estate development, and ten years later dropped the paint store and became Resorts International. Resorts International. Crosby opened the first legal casino in Nevada in 1978, and expanded to Paradise Island Bahamas, Atlantic City and so on. It's funny that a paint store became one of the largest real estate development conglomerates in the world. Even Donald Trump briefly held the company, then Merv Griffin bought it.


The Paint Store was the subject of a FTC lawsuit because of the advertising on the back of the fan. Most fans had some sort of printed advertising on the back. On mine, it states that every second gallon is free. Case Law online explains,

Respondent paint company had a practice of advertising that for every can of paint purchased the buyer would be given a "free" can of equal quality and quantity. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordered the paint company to cease and desist from the practice as being deceptive under 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act since the paint company had no history of selling single cans of paint; it had been marketing two cans; and had misrepresented by allocating to one can what was in fact the price of two cans. The Court of Appeals set aside the FTC's order. 

It's so fun to research about American history. The store had three versions, one with Jesus as the Good Shepherd (the one I got) one of The Last Supper, and one with two small children praying.

Portland State university History Portland State University history has a synopsis of the church fan:

The church fan is a familiar icon of the Southern black religious experience.  Cut out of heavy paper and stapled onto a wooden handle, the fans provided some measure of relief during services that could last several hours in a hot and humid climate.  Following the advent of air-conditioning in the 1950s, the fans all but disappeared from white congregations, but remained in many African-American congregations, having become rooted in church culture.  The fans commonly featured an advertisement for a local funeral home on the reverse side, underscoring the role of the church played in the local community beyond a place of worship.

Here is another take on the history of church fans as described through one North Carolina man's historical collection.

Collection of church fans represents Southern hospitality

"Aunt Susie would come down from Raleigh, and my mother would serve her a piece of her pound cake," McNeill said, remembering his 5-year-old self holding a fan printed with an image of Jesus ascending into heaven. "And I fanned Aunt Susie while she nibbled her cake. So Southern hospitality then was a sweet tea and a sweet Jesus."

Since then, the Bladen County and part-time Wilmington resident's fascination with the instrument of church air conditioning and funeral parlor advertising has grown to a 30-year collection of more than 150 church fans from the turn of the century to modern times.

"I see my fans as historical artifacts, vanishing relics of the American South," McNeill said. "Part of the appeal is nostalgia."

McNeill’s oldest fans are woven straw, grass and reed fans, some rainbow-hued, from African-American churches. Many have religious images – Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus as a shepherd holding a lamb, a 1950s child kneeling with her white-gloved hands pressed in prayer. 

"I have many different interpretations of The Last Supper, which seems to be a common theme in fan iconography," he said. "Another thing I’ve noticed in my collecting is that the image of Jesus has evolved from a Renaissance image of him with a long beard to a more modern Jesus with a trimmed, short beard."

One public misconception about church fans is that only funeral homes advertised on the backs of them. But McNeill has fans advertising tobacco houses, tire dealers and auto repair shops. Some list three- and four-digit phone numbers.

See, I'm not the only one...

For mere pennies, I entertained myself for hours. I learned about American culture and history, and I have a small piece of it to hold onto. Way cool.

This has gotten long so I'll stop here and make another essay tomorrow about the mushroom book and botanicals in general. Have a  wonderful Saturday!


Further Info:

Second Hand Stores-

Here’s Why You Should Definitely Be Shopping At A Thrift Store

10 reasons why thrift stores are awesome

Phone exchanges-

Reminiscences of the old letter exchanges

Look Back, Chicago!

Church Fans-

Fannin' the Heat Away

A time when hand fans cooled church-goers

Material History of American Religion Project: Church fans

My almost rare book find

I got some good finds at the Second Time Around store again! In the craft section I found two sweet little stamps that I liked very much, for .75. I'd bought a couple others last month and used them this past weekend. They work good. See?

I tried them out on my 90 lb weight Strathmore paper in the Visual Journal, another find from the same store earlier this year. The paper soaks up quite a lot of material, as I'd also found when using acrylic paints, but the stamps with ink still showed up very well. I'd purposely used little ink, or a lot of ink, or pressed hard, or pressed lightly to see how the paper reacted to the material being added to it. This page will be a background for collage at some point.

Here are the two stamps I'd found today. They are so cute!

I really like the pears.

I also found a Spurgeon Morning & Evening devotional in paperback for .75. A plain blue book with no dust jacket intrigued me and as I opened it I saw that it was a "Room Design" book. The book had luscious pictures of all manner of well-designed spaces. it was $1. I put it in the cart immediately!

Also in the craft section were stickers of a graphic geometric nature, which I decided I'd use as borders for some journaling. The book that got me really excited was Dune by Frank Herbert. I looked at the inside page and the publication date was 1965 and the edition looked like a first! I knew this would be worth some serious money! It was only $1 so I put that in the cart also. I'm always looking for good books for kids with high quality photos of animals and the Snakes book filled the bill. That it was only $1 also was a bonus.

I hurried home and looked up the Dune book online I began to get very excited because 1st edition Dune would sell for between $1,000 and $4,000. Was my ship about to come in?

No.

It was a 'Book Club Edition', albeit a first edition with perfect dust jacket, but the Book Club editions don't sell for nearly as much as the straight first editions. The one I got is still worth between $40 and $60, a pretty good return on $1. IF I decide to go thru the hassle to selling it somewhere.

As I mentioned I did some collage this past weekend, the stamps were one of them. I did another three pages using the camera and phone stamps along with some boats I had which will all be future background pages to a finished collage. I also did this patchwork paint blob on the Strathmore paper which I noticed soaked up the acrylic paint quite a bit. This also will become background for a future piece.

My Fabriano journal was not left untouched last weekend either. That journal is larger and the paper isn't as thick. It is smoother too. Whether you're brushing on paint or glue, the brush will glide more easily over the Fabriano paper than the Strathmore paper. Here is my collage. It's called "Tea Time". (I couldn't resist the camera stamps lol).

I went for a short walk after school and of course I took my camera. Here are a very few pics of the scene. It was a sunny day in the upper 60s and the shadows were getting long by the time I arrived home at 4:30. I love that hour when the shadows are prominent but the light is golden. So of course I made the pics be B&W. LOL.

Have a good rest of the week everyone, even if it isn't as exciting as momentarily mine has been with the ALMOST rare book find!

A charming find at the second hand store

On the way home from school yesterday, the last day of school I might add, I decided to stop at the Second Time Around store. This is one of these stores where you can buy anything from kitty litter to a lawnmower to a vintage Swedish poetry book- in Swedish. You never know what they'll have. Which is why I like the store, an endlessly entertaining and thrilling inventory.

I try not to stop there too often, I really don't have a lot of extra money to be throwing away. But the occasional under $10 spending spree is sometimes necessary to maintain sanity.

I found some terrific treasures! Five sharp knives for $2, and knives were something I'd needed. Anthony Bourdain's seminal book, Kitchen Confidential, for 50 cents. Hey, can't go wrong with that. A small purse for $1, and it was clean. A vintage hard cover Methodist Hymnal for $1. I plan to use the pages for collage etc.

And this: a vintage Kodak Vigilant Six-20 collapsible camera, complete with instruction manual and surprise ephemera! It was $4. Wow.

The Kodak Vigilant Six-20 medium format camera was manufactured between 1939-1949 and originally sold for US $38 (about US $642 in 2016). There were several variations of shutter/lens combinations probably due to the war and scarce materials, and also that the technology at that time was rapidly advancing. My particular version with the Dakon lens was manufactured between 1946-1948.

My father had given me my first camera, a 1930's Olympus. I am sorry I got rid of it, or rather, I don't know what happened to it. I was fond of that ole camera. These are the first two photos I took with it:

I also owned at one time a Russian Lomo camera, which I loved. I gave that one away. I do like old cameras.

My Kodak isn't rare so it is not worth much money, I looked that up. I just like the vintage look, the heft and weight, the ephemera, and the charm of finding a magnificent machine like this at a second hand store next to the hammers. Here is the Kodak I found yesterday, pretty cool:

The ephemera I mentioned. The pouch the Vigilant came in also held these, a guide to taking snapshots under different conditions, the manual, and a ticket to the photo-sub.

The photo-sub at Silver Springs is a Florida attraction and has been designated a historical landmark. It was founded in 1852 alongside the clear artesian waters springing up from the waters under Marion County FL. In this HuffPo article from 2013, we learn that

Just east of Ocala, Silver Springs is one of the world’s largest artesian springs, gushing up to 550 million gallons of clear water to form the Silver River, a 4½-mile shorty that feeds the Ocklawaha River and eventually the St. Johns. Glass-bottom boats were invented and launched here in the 1870s, and in the 1920s a pair of developers created what became the theme park — and what many call Florida’s first tourist attraction. Animal exhibits, rides and a water park joined the glass-bottom boats, from which visitors still eye fish and fossils beneath the surface, and turtles, alligators and myriad birds above it.

The photo-sub to which the ticket refers was another attraction developed for the pleasure of shutter bug tourists. From this 1956 magazine touting the Springs,

Adapted for taking moving pictures, the "photo-sub" has a well in the forward section. Glass windows in the well permit the photographer to follow the movements of swimmers, and to portray, with fidelity, the great variety of underwater life in Silver Springs.

And here is the photo-sub. You see out one of the portholes, one of the swimmers had approached right up close, giving the photo-riders a great photo-opp.

The little trip down nostalgia lane sparked by the discovery of the Vigilant Kodak was fun. I learned a lot about cameras and lenses of that period as well as the history of the Silver Springs attraction. Second hand shops...you never know what you'll find!

PH Leonard porcelain hand painted dish, another second hand store find

I wrote in December that I love funky second hand stores because you never know what you will find. At a place down the road from me, I'd found a vintage 1800s book with marbled covers in Swedish and it turned out to be a book of plays by Sweden's most notable playwright. The second hand store isn't a fancy place where one would expect to find such things. But there it was amid the used clothes and wrenches and dented furniture, this little gem.

Yesterday I went back to the store. I hadn't really planned on it. But I was at the Dollar Store and I became so frustrated that I left without acquiring all the things I had on my list. The Dollar Store in my town is one of the fleet's smaller stores, and when they receive the truckload of merchandise in which to stock the shelves, it's impossible to navigate the aisles. And the workers take a long time to unpack it, like days. Aisles were literally blocked by their towering carts of boxes. I gave up and left.

However when one needs kitty litter, one needs kitty litter. You can't skip it. So I went back to the second hand store in hopes there would be some on sale. Looking for that all-important box of clay crumbles, I came across a dish. It was pretty, with what looked to be hand-painted roses, and I guessed it might be porcelain. It was strange to see this delicate dish amid the heaver dishes like stoneware jumbled there on the shelves. Yet there it was. I picked it up to look for a mark and sure enough, a potter's mark was on the back. It was:

A porcelain looking dish with a potter's mark, and only $3? Okey dokey, you had me at roses.

When I got home I started looking up the name of the importer on the mark. It turns out that the importer was PH Leonard, and he imported Limoge china from France and Porcelain from Bohemia. From various descriptions of his business I found on vintage sales sites,

P.H. Leonard, Vienna, Austria. Leonard was a New York importer well known for importing high quality Bohemian, Austrian and French porcelain during the last quarter of the 19th century. It appears that the P.H. Leonard firm went bankrupt sometime around 1898-1900.

This is from a description of a plate that looked like mine except for the mark, though in addition to the mark I'd posted above, there was a red A in script on the back

Circa 1891, Very fine, detailed hand painted and gilded plates with an exceptional reticulated (pierced) border which is both gold gilded and enameled with tiny rich blue designs. The flowers are pink roses on an off white background that has hints of pale blue, lavender and green. Marked Vienna Austria and signed with the initials A.I.D. All four plates are in very fine original condition. 5 3/4" in diameter.

All 4 plates on the above site were selling for $100 so one plate would likely be $25, which is consistent with the sites on ebay and etsy and antiques places I saw for sale. So we're not talking retirement money here, but simply the charm of the hunt and a pretty, vintage item to add to my collection.

This screenshot from Google Books is from a book titled New York's Leading Businesses, 1885. It describes PH Leonard's business as one of the leading businesses of the era.

It's nice to have a pretty little dish. It's nicer to come home and research it and discover another piece of Americana. I don't need a huge home or a fancy car, a few fine touches here and there will do. And the charm of the discovery makes it all the more pleasing. It was a nice way to end the week.