Check out our big "After Christmas Sale" at The Velveteen Rabbit Antiques.
01/02/2010
Be sure to check out all the new items we are listing to our website today...You just never know what treasures you may uncover!
How did the Christmas Tree Trimming Tradition Come to be?
December 19, 1843…..
That's the day Charles Dicken's short story "A Christmas Carol" was published.
According to historian Ronald Hutton: Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, in contrast to the community-based and church-centered observations, the observance of which had dwindled during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The holiday, remade as a family-centered rather than community-centered festival, carried its own set of contradictions: the practice of gift-giving created the possibility of commercialization, and the shift from community to familial focus further eroded the traditions of communal religious observance.
June 26, 1870……
That's the day that President Ulysses S. Grant declared Christmas (December 25) to be a federal holiday.
December 22, 1882……
That's the day that a man named Edward H. Johnson completed the wiring of his Christmas tree with 80 red, white and blue electric incandescent light bulbs - each the size of a walnut.
Johnson was the vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company (the predecessor of today's Con Edison electric utility) who lived on Fifth Avenue in New York City, which was one of the first areas of the city wired for electricity.
The event didn't gain much publicity, however, until he did it again in 1884. And the practice didn't really spread, because it took a while for electricity to spread across the United States.
In 1895, U.S. President Grover Cleveland sponsored the first electrically lit Christmas tree in the White House. Also in this year, the first commercially produced Christmas tree lamps were manufactured in strings of multiples of eight sockets by the General Electric Co. of Harrison, New Jersey. Each socket took a miniature two-candela carbon-filament lamp.
By 1900, many business owners had started stringing up Christmas lights behind their windows in an attempt to attract customers, and the trend gathered speed as the years went on and more and more cities and small towns acquired electricity.
Then came the Great Depression, and in 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed moving the Thanksgiving holiday date back a week, in order to extend the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy (since buyers typically did not begin their shopping until after Thanksgiving.). However, statistics showed that the extra week made no difference, and in 1941 Thanksgiving was moved back to the fourth Thursday in November.
The celebration of Christmas as a commercial event really took off in the 1930s, as retailers did their best to help boost the economy - and save their own stores - by encouraging people to shop for toys for their children.
Christmas lights
All that history now brings me to the point of this essay - a history of the Christmas collectibles that sprung up from the 1930s to date, in particular Christmas lights.
A typical lighted tree of the early 1900s cost more than $300, far beyond what the typical homeowner of the day could afford - the cost included the generator and the services of someone to do the wiring.
Battery-operated lighting strings were soon made available, manufactured by the Edison Decorative and Miniature Lamp Department.
The first sets of pre-wired sockets (called festoons), were introduced by GE in 1903. General Electric's first offering of Christmas lights cost $12.00 for a set of 24 lights, which were enough to light a medium sized table-top tree. The average wage for the time was a 22¢ per hour, ($13.20 per week in 1903, when an average work week was six 10 hour days).
GE attempted to patent their festoon idea, but were denied. They quickly faced a handful of competitors: The Electric Porcelain Manufacturing Company, the Jaeger Miniature Lamp Manufacturing Company and the Heinrich Electrical Novelty Company.
As the American Christmas light industry grew, so did the products offered. The shape of the bulbs varied (from simple bulbs to bird or fruit shapes!), as well as the size, the amount of bulbs and their arrangement, and the wiring scheme. Their packaging was wide and varied as well.
In 1920, carbon filament lamp sets were replaced by tungsten lightbulbs. Flourescent light bulbs appeared in the late 1940s. During World War II, packaging and sets became more toned down...after the end of the war Japanese imports became the norm... the history of America can be discovered in the chronological history of the packaging and design of Christmas lights!
There are decades of collectible Christmas lights available from estate sales, antique shops, and of course from The Velveteen Rabbit Antiques.
December 19, 1843…..
That's the day Charles Dicken's short story "A Christmas Carol" was published.
According to historian Ronald Hutton: Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, in contrast to the community-based and church-centered observations, the observance of which had dwindled during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The holiday, remade as a family-centered rather than community-centered festival, carried its own set of contradictions: the practice of gift-giving created the possibility of commercialization, and the shift from community to familial focus further eroded the traditions of communal religious observance.
June 26, 1870……
That's the day that President Ulysses S. Grant declared Christmas (December 25) to be a federal holiday.
December 22, 1882……
That's the day that a man named Edward H. Johnson completed the wiring of his Christmas tree with 80 red, white and blue electric incandescent light bulbs - each the size of a walnut.
Johnson was the vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company (the predecessor of today's Con Edison electric utility) who lived on Fifth Avenue in New York City, which was one of the first areas of the city wired for electricity.
The event didn't gain much publicity, however, until he did it again in 1884. And the practice didn't really spread, because it took a while for electricity to spread across the United States.
In 1895, U.S. President Grover Cleveland sponsored the first electrically lit Christmas tree in the White House. Also in this year, the first commercially produced Christmas tree lamps were manufactured in strings of multiples of eight sockets by the General Electric Co. of Harrison, New Jersey. Each socket took a miniature two-candela carbon-filament lamp.
By 1900, many business owners had started stringing up Christmas lights behind their windows in an attempt to attract customers, and the trend gathered speed as the years went on and more and more cities and small towns acquired electricity.
Then came the Great Depression, and in 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed moving the Thanksgiving holiday date back a week, in order to extend the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy (since buyers typically did not begin their shopping until after Thanksgiving.). However, statistics showed that the extra week made no difference, and in 1941 Thanksgiving was moved back to the fourth Thursday in November.
The celebration of Christmas as a commercial event really took off in the 1930s, as retailers did their best to help boost the economy - and save their own stores - by encouraging people to shop for toys for their children.
Christmas lights
All that history now brings me to the point of this essay - a history of the Christmas collectibles that sprung up from the 1930s to date, in particular Christmas lights.
A typical lighted tree of the early 1900s cost more than $300, far beyond what the typical homeowner of the day could afford - the cost included the generator and the services of someone to do the wiring.
Battery-operated lighting strings were soon made available, manufactured by the Edison Decorative and Miniature Lamp Department.
The first sets of pre-wired sockets (called festoons), were introduced by GE in 1903. General Electric's first offering of Christmas lights cost $12.00 for a set of 24 lights, which were enough to light a medium sized table-top tree. The average wage for the time was a 22¢ per hour, ($13.20 per week in 1903, when an average work week was six 10 hour days).
GE attempted to patent their festoon idea, but were denied. They quickly faced a handful of competitors: The Electric Porcelain Manufacturing Company, the Jaeger Miniature Lamp Manufacturing Company and the Heinrich Electrical Novelty Company.
As the American Christmas light industry grew, so did the products offered. The shape of the bulbs varied (from simple bulbs to bird or fruit shapes!), as well as the size, the amount of bulbs and their arrangement, and the wiring scheme. Their packaging was wide and varied as well.
In 1920, carbon filament lamp sets were replaced by tungsten lightbulbs. Flourescent light bulbs appeared in the late 1940s. During World War II, packaging and sets became more toned down...after the end of the war Japanese imports became the norm... the history of America can be discovered in the chronological history of the packaging and design of Christmas lights!
There are decades of collectible Christmas lights available from estate sales, antique shops, and of course from The Velveteen Rabbit Antiques.
12/29/2009
The Dazzle & Glitz of Collecting Old Costume Jewelry
A bit about Costume Jewelry.......
"Dazzle! Sparkle! Glitter! Flash!" That's the name of the game when it comes to costume jewelry.
Although fake, faux or costume jewelry had been in use long before the 1930s, it was in the 1930s that it really came into its own.
What's costume jewelry? Well, while the wealthy could afford to adorn themselves with jewelry made of the precious metal of gold, and with precious jewels such as diamonds, sapphires and rubies, the vast majority of people could not. So the manufacture of faux jewelry began to meet the need of people who wanted nice ornaments but did not have a lot of money to spend.
Originally, faux jewelry was made to look like the real thing - real diamonds instead of glass, and so on. But because the designers weren't working with items that cost a lot of money, they were able to really go to town on their designs without fear of losing a great deal of money if a design failed. As Carol Prisant, author of Antiques Roadshow: 20th Century Collectibles put it, " Only the fact that the fake was just a little more fabulous than the genuine might give the game away."
Costume jewelry is made from a variety of materials. Rhinestones and Czechoslovakian glass provided the jewels, brass or brass alloys the metal settings. Silver, a precious metal but not that precious, was also often used. Art Deco made use of marcasite – jewelry composed of hundreds of dark, finely cut bits of crystallized iron sulfide, usually set in silver. Bakelite was the material of choice for colorful pins, bracelets, rings and necklaces during the 1930s.
What are rhinestones, by the way? You've heard of the Rhinestone Cowboy, and many people will remember Liberace's rhinestone roadster or his "platinum mink coat and rhinestone costume"...and even the later Elvis Presley was no slouch when it came to the faux gem. A rhinestone is a "diamond simulant" made from rock crystal, glass or acrylic. Originally, they were rock crystals gathered from the river Rhine. Around 1775, an Alsatian jeweller had the idea to use them to imitate diamonds by coating the lower side of the glass with metal powder.
Costume jewelry was not meant to last...as soon as the style went out of fashion many women through the jewelry away and purchased the latest design. However, quite a lot of this jewelry still survives and can be purchased at garage sales, estate sales, on Ebay, and so on. The care of this jewelry is all important.
Glass and base metals scratch easily, so don't throw everything together in a drawer or jewelry box. Each piece must be separated. Display the pieces on a half-inch of upholstery foam, which will help absorb moisture. Perfume and hairspray can also damage jewelry, so put on your jewelry after you've finished styling your hair, and don't put perfume on your skin near your jewelry.
The heyday of costume jewelry was from the 1930s to the 1960s - that's when the major designers were in business.
In the 1930s, it was all about Art Deco. Designers such as Marcel Boucher and McClelland Barclay came to the fore.
In the 1940s, the idea of imitating "real" jewelry was abandoned, and the "retro" look came into style - bold colors and large pieces. Designers included Hattie Carnegie and Joseff of Hollywood.
In the 1950s, gaudily colored rhinestones took over, as well as matching sets, or "parures" – necklace, earrings, pins and bracelet. Designers included HAR (the Hargo Jewelry Company of New York) and Miriam Haskell.
The 1960s brought in the era of "flower power." and jewelry for the "space age." Designers included Kenneth Jay Lane and Schiaparelli.
There were literally dozens of designers in each decade, with many overlapping into succeeding decades as well. The history of these designers is a fascinating one, and as fun to learn about as it is to wear or collect their fabulous creations!
Please visit The Velveteen Rabbit Antiques for all your vintage jewelry needs.
A bit about Costume Jewelry.......
"Dazzle! Sparkle! Glitter! Flash!" That's the name of the game when it comes to costume jewelry.
Although fake, faux or costume jewelry had been in use long before the 1930s, it was in the 1930s that it really came into its own.
What's costume jewelry? Well, while the wealthy could afford to adorn themselves with jewelry made of the precious metal of gold, and with precious jewels such as diamonds, sapphires and rubies, the vast majority of people could not. So the manufacture of faux jewelry began to meet the need of people who wanted nice ornaments but did not have a lot of money to spend.
Originally, faux jewelry was made to look like the real thing - real diamonds instead of glass, and so on. But because the designers weren't working with items that cost a lot of money, they were able to really go to town on their designs without fear of losing a great deal of money if a design failed. As Carol Prisant, author of Antiques Roadshow: 20th Century Collectibles put it, " Only the fact that the fake was just a little more fabulous than the genuine might give the game away."
Costume jewelry is made from a variety of materials. Rhinestones and Czechoslovakian glass provided the jewels, brass or brass alloys the metal settings. Silver, a precious metal but not that precious, was also often used. Art Deco made use of marcasite – jewelry composed of hundreds of dark, finely cut bits of crystallized iron sulfide, usually set in silver. Bakelite was the material of choice for colorful pins, bracelets, rings and necklaces during the 1930s.
What are rhinestones, by the way? You've heard of the Rhinestone Cowboy, and many people will remember Liberace's rhinestone roadster or his "platinum mink coat and rhinestone costume"...and even the later Elvis Presley was no slouch when it came to the faux gem. A rhinestone is a "diamond simulant" made from rock crystal, glass or acrylic. Originally, they were rock crystals gathered from the river Rhine. Around 1775, an Alsatian jeweller had the idea to use them to imitate diamonds by coating the lower side of the glass with metal powder.
Costume jewelry was not meant to last...as soon as the style went out of fashion many women through the jewelry away and purchased the latest design. However, quite a lot of this jewelry still survives and can be purchased at garage sales, estate sales, on Ebay, and so on. The care of this jewelry is all important.
Glass and base metals scratch easily, so don't throw everything together in a drawer or jewelry box. Each piece must be separated. Display the pieces on a half-inch of upholstery foam, which will help absorb moisture. Perfume and hairspray can also damage jewelry, so put on your jewelry after you've finished styling your hair, and don't put perfume on your skin near your jewelry.
The heyday of costume jewelry was from the 1930s to the 1960s - that's when the major designers were in business.
In the 1930s, it was all about Art Deco. Designers such as Marcel Boucher and McClelland Barclay came to the fore.
In the 1940s, the idea of imitating "real" jewelry was abandoned, and the "retro" look came into style - bold colors and large pieces. Designers included Hattie Carnegie and Joseff of Hollywood.
In the 1950s, gaudily colored rhinestones took over, as well as matching sets, or "parures" – necklace, earrings, pins and bracelet. Designers included HAR (the Hargo Jewelry Company of New York) and Miriam Haskell.
The 1960s brought in the era of "flower power." and jewelry for the "space age." Designers included Kenneth Jay Lane and Schiaparelli.
There were literally dozens of designers in each decade, with many overlapping into succeeding decades as well. The history of these designers is a fascinating one, and as fun to learn about as it is to wear or collect their fabulous creations!
Please visit The Velveteen Rabbit Antiques for all your vintage jewelry needs.
What a perfectly wonderful day to browse our online antique & collectible shop while partaking of a hot cup of cocoa.....
http://www.thevelveteenrabbitantiques.com
Have a fabulous Tuesday!!12/28/2009
There are a few very important things to consider prior to starting a vintage or antique Christmas ornament collection:
What type of tree will they be displayed on?
Depending on what you are trying to accomplish as far as circa or theme goes, will determine what type of tree will be used. There are German feather trees, firs cedars & spruces, the scotch pine & other evergreens, as well as retro aluminum pom pom and other artificial trees.
What is your budget?
There are tons of affordable vintage & antique ornaments and decorations that can still be found in shops, yard sales, and auctions all across America, but some of the antique & more sought after ones can commend a much higher price tag depending on condition & rarity. Until you can become a lot more informed and educated on the new reproductions on the market, I would stick with the more common ornaments and work your way up. Unfortunately, as in any good collecting niches, there are a lot of people out there that will sell you fake or reproduction goods full well knowing that they are just that...FAKE (Buyer Beware)
What kind of ornaments do you want to collect?
There are an assortment of glass, wax, paper & cardboard, wire wrapped & metal ornaments, with the largest variety being molded or blown glass.
Condition...Condition....Condition!
You would like to find old glass ornaments that are free from cracks and have the original metal caps if possible. The interior mercury or silvering should not be blotchy or see through, and the paint or decoration on the exterior should be in excellent condition as well. If possible try to stay away from heavily fake snow flocked ornaments, as they are almost impossible to clean without destroying the exterior paint and or decoration.
With paper ornaments, look for ones that are free from creases, stains, or tears and have no missing flakes off of the brightly colored graphics. When looking for metal ornaments, look for ones with no rust. There will most likely be some tarnishing which is considered fairly common, and a slight bend is not so bad as this can be bent back.
Telling "The Old" From "The New"
Most of the new glass ornaments today have gold colored metal caps and a heavier glass or plastic like feel to them. The "old" glass ornaments are almost always paper thin and have hardly any weight to them at all. The "old" ornaments are considered pre-WWII 1930's and prior, and the "newer" are considered post-WWII 1940's to 1950's. After a while of collecting these little holiday treasures, you will easily be able to tell the difference between the old and the new, but I always highly advise getting some reference material to hone up on your skills.
Have fun, and please visit The Velveteen Rabbit Antiques for all your vintage holiday decoration needs!
What type of tree will they be displayed on?
Depending on what you are trying to accomplish as far as circa or theme goes, will determine what type of tree will be used. There are German feather trees, firs cedars & spruces, the scotch pine & other evergreens, as well as retro aluminum pom pom and other artificial trees.
What is your budget?
There are tons of affordable vintage & antique ornaments and decorations that can still be found in shops, yard sales, and auctions all across America, but some of the antique & more sought after ones can commend a much higher price tag depending on condition & rarity. Until you can become a lot more informed and educated on the new reproductions on the market, I would stick with the more common ornaments and work your way up. Unfortunately, as in any good collecting niches, there are a lot of people out there that will sell you fake or reproduction goods full well knowing that they are just that...FAKE (Buyer Beware)
What kind of ornaments do you want to collect?
There are an assortment of glass, wax, paper & cardboard, wire wrapped & metal ornaments, with the largest variety being molded or blown glass.
Condition...Condition....Condition!
You would like to find old glass ornaments that are free from cracks and have the original metal caps if possible. The interior mercury or silvering should not be blotchy or see through, and the paint or decoration on the exterior should be in excellent condition as well. If possible try to stay away from heavily fake snow flocked ornaments, as they are almost impossible to clean without destroying the exterior paint and or decoration.
With paper ornaments, look for ones that are free from creases, stains, or tears and have no missing flakes off of the brightly colored graphics. When looking for metal ornaments, look for ones with no rust. There will most likely be some tarnishing which is considered fairly common, and a slight bend is not so bad as this can be bent back.
Telling "The Old" From "The New"
Most of the new glass ornaments today have gold colored metal caps and a heavier glass or plastic like feel to them. The "old" glass ornaments are almost always paper thin and have hardly any weight to them at all. The "old" ornaments are considered pre-WWII 1930's and prior, and the "newer" are considered post-WWII 1940's to 1950's. After a while of collecting these little holiday treasures, you will easily be able to tell the difference between the old and the new, but I always highly advise getting some reference material to hone up on your skills.
Have fun, and please visit The Velveteen Rabbit Antiques for all your vintage holiday decoration needs!
Lots of new antiques & collectibles just listed!
Visit our online antiques shop for all your vintage holiday decorating needs!
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