Little Gems Worth Their Salt

Open salts, salt cellars, salt dips – by any name, these charming little additions to formal dinner tables are highly collectible and very attractive. Remembered most commonly as being part of fine Victorian dining, they’ve actually been around for centuries. They can be made out of glass, porcelain, or silver (these had glass inserts), they can be found in just about any color or shape including round, square, triangular, footed, or in novelty shapes.

In their day, one of these diminutive pieces was placed at each person’s place with its own tiny silver spoon, while a larger version called a Master Salt remained in the center of the table. While some people took pinches of salt with their fingers and sprinkled it on their food, the more refined way was to use the accompanying silver spoon.

Originally salt was not as finely ground as it is today. Salt of bygone eras came in large crystals, and it was only toward the end of the 19th century that salt was ground into the finer version we know today, which led to the birth of the salt shaker. Although some people continued using open salts into the turn of the century, they pretty much vanished from the dining table by the Depression Era.

Most open salts being manufactured today are made of glass as collectibles, and some companies are even using the original molds. The Open Salts Info website identifies the following marks as reproductions; check out the website for images and more info:
~ Avon
~ HFM (Henry Ford Museum)
~ MMA (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
~ MET (also Metropolitan Museum of Art, but this reproduction is from the 1930s)
~ Sandwich (Sandwich Museum Gift Shop) - old salts have “Lafayet”
~ Acorn or SM (Sandwich Museum) – old salts have “B. & S. Glass Co." (Boston and Sandwich Glass Company)
~ BMR (Bennington Museum Reproduction)

On the Open Salts Info website you can also find information about the National Open Salts Convention, collectors’ clubs, subscribe to their newsletter, find open salts for sale, and much more.

From personal experience, some of the most expensive open salts I’ve seen sell at auction were beautifully hand-painted porcelains; of course, there are some rare and intricate glass examples that can cost quite a bit as well. Reproductions still make for an affordable and very pretty collection, but if you’re a purist and only want original pieces, you can still find affordable examples in cut and pressed glass as well as porcelain.

You can find salts and other wonderful period pieces at Collector's Cottage.

A Rainbow of Depression Glass

Completely contrary to the sound of its name, Depression Glass is quite beautiful and the colors you can find it in are almost endless. The name simply stems from the time period during which it was manufactured – from the early 1920s until the end of World War II, which spans the Depression Era and then some.

The majority of Depression Glass you see most often will probably be in the more common colors made: pink, amber, green, yellow, clear, and blue. Almost every other color imaginable was used also, but these were not as popular. Therefore it stands to reason that these colors with lower production numbers, like lavender and orange, command much higher prices today than the more popular shades. And because yellow and amber were far more popular in their day than pink, green, and blue, they are usually the most reasonably priced pieces found today.

Much like Nippon in its day, Depression Glass was not a high-priced commodity and could easily be found for under $1.00 a piece; in fact, some pieces sold for as little as 14 cents. It was not uncommon to find whole barrels and pieces sold by the dozen for just a few dollars, and it’s mind-blowing to think that some of these same pieces today can individually bring hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Oh, to stumble upon an attic or basement containing an unopened barrel of Depression ware!

There are two distinct categories of Depression Glass: Elegant and Depression. And within those categories are quite a number of different patterns, so it’s not unusual to find collections focused on particular patterns, colors, or styles of glass. The difference between Elegant and Depression is the care with which it was finished: Elegant glass required an extra step in manufacture, where a person would actually finish each piece by hand to remove mold marks, to acid-etch or cut patterns into the glass, or to grind the bottoms of objects the bottoms to make them perfectly even. While Depression Glass was not considered to be a high quality glass, their patterns made them very attractive and appealing.

Between 1923 and 1939, there were seven major producers of Depression Glass including: Indiana Glass Company; Hocking Glass Company, Federal Glass Company, U.S. Glass Company, Jeannette Glass Company, MacBeth-Evans Glass Company and Hazel-Atlas Glass Company. According to an excellent, highly-informative article by Joyce Krupey, 92 patterns are attributed to these seven producers. If you want to find out about the different patterns made, which companies made them, the years they were manufactured, and lots of other information about specific patterns, I highly recommend reading Krupey’s article.

The National Depression Glass Association is a very active organization with a comprehensive website covering just about every aspect of Depression Glass, collecting, glass clubs, and much more. It has several other wonderful articles about different aspects of Depression Glass, including milk glass, crystal Depression Glass, and an entire article about the well-known Iris & Herringbone pattern. It’s a great start to understanding this highly collectible field.

Visit Collector's Cottage for a variety of patterned glass.

Postcards: Windows To The Past

Postcards are more than just a method of communication, they’re little bits of history. They show buildings and cityscapes as they appeared in the past; they provide images of clothing worn and lifestyles in bygone eras; they give a running progression of transportation methods through the decades. We see holidays celebrated, landmark events commemorated, and important people venerated. Vintage and antique postcards truly are windows to the past.

This is part of the allure of collecting postcards. If the card was mailed, it has the extra added interest of containing a postmarked old stamp. In addition, many collectors have told me that they also enjoy reading the personal messages written on the back, which give insights into the lives (and sometimes loves!) and travel habits of people from all walks of life.

Postcards also are a very popular and very manageable collection. Because they’re small and thin, hundreds can be kept stored together in a single box; they can also be displayed in acid-free photo albums, or even framed and hung as wall décor. Organizing is easy and is usually done by category. Besides the regular flat cards, there are fold-out postcards that open up to reveal an accordion-style length of pictures.

Many postcards are quite inexpensive, but some of the examples in certain categories, like Halloween, can run into the hundreds of dollars for a single postcard. In order to afford those coveted pieces, many collectors build a nice collection of less expensive cards, then sell off duplicates or others that they no longer want and gradually acquire the postcards of their dreams.

If your collection includes some old unused postcards, you’ll probably interested in attaching a date to them, which is a bit more difficult without a postmark to guide you. According to the web site Postcard Values, the first commercially produced postcards appeared in the United States in 1893 and were sold at the Columbian Expedition in Chicago. Here are the date guidelines given by Postcard Values:

~ “Private Mailing Card, Authorized by Act of Congress on May 19, 1898” appeared on the back of American postcards up until December 24, 1901.
~ A postcard without a line down the back to divide the sender’s message from the recipient’s address indicates that the postcard was printed before 1907. No messages, only addresses were permitted on the backs of postcards until March of 1907.
~ Old postcards that say Printed In Germany were made up until 1915, when WWI caused German presses to close.
~ A white border around the picture on the postcard dates it between 1915 and 1930.
~ Linen paper with vivid colors was used for postcards between 1930 and 1944. However I have seen some linen postcards from the 1950s as well.
~ Postcards with shiny, color photographic images were made from 1945 to the present. There are postcards with actual photographs, but most of these are black and white and usually you’ll find the type of photographic paper used on the back of the card.
~ Some unused postcards include the stamp price in the stamp area; this will give you a clue as to when the postcard was printed. See the Rate Chart at Postcard Values for this information.

There are plenty of postcard shows around the country; start attending these and you’ll not only become quite educated in the subject, but you’ll also find hundreds of thousands of selections at your fingertips. There are also postcard collector WebRings online so you can chat and exchange information with other people who share your passion. And check out the informative website, About Postcards here at Blogspot for more specific information about particular types of postcards.

You can find all kinds of ephemera at Collector's Cottage - stop by for a visit!

Small Talk on Butter Pats

What’s only 3 inches around, beautiful to behold, and highly collectible? The answer: butter pats! These small treasures make a rich and interesting collection, yet they won’t break the bank or overwhelm your breakfront.

Butter pats were always used in the formal table settings of well-to-do Victorians as well as on the tables of royalty. Several different types of butter shapes would be used in a butter dish, from a small square of butter, to a molded elegant shape like a rosette, to a pat of butter stamped with a butter stamp that showed the family crest or other significant image.

Although butter pats were first made in the mid-1800s, they reached the height of popularity in the Victorian era between 1880 and 1910. Made by some of the most elite porcelain houses in the world, butter pats came in a wide range of shapes, colors, and patterns. Some were made as part of entire dinner sets, while others were made as sets of their own that could be coordinated with existing dinnerware. In addition, “blanks” of butter pats (as well as other types of porcelains) were available for ladies to paint on their own, a lovely and cultured pastime of the era.

After the Victorian era, dinner services and flatware sets became less complex and leaned more toward simplicity, with fewer specifically-defined objects and more pieces serving multiple purposes. Butter pats gave way to bread-and-butter dishes, which are twice the size of the butter pat. While there are still some companies that make butter pats today, the demand is a fraction of what it was a hundred years ago; though they can be made for retail sale, these pieces are more likely to be found in high-end hotels and restaurants.

With so many styles, patterns, and manufacturers to choose from, you might wonder what the most sought-after butter pats are (this, as we know from all areas of collecting, can change from time to time). Mary Dessoie (butter pat collector and founder of the Butter Pat Patter Association) writes in her informative article, “All Buttered Up For Collecting!”, butter pat aficionados are paying premium prices for butter pats no longer in use by international airlines, who would use the diminutive plates in services for first- and business-class customers. Also in demand are butter pats from diners, hotels, railroads, and steamship lines.

As collectibles, butter pats can be very affordable, with many pieces costing $10 or less. But don’t get too cozy with this price – as with any collection, most people start small and then move on to more valuable pieces. Dessoie writes that in 2003, a circa 1889-1915 Wabash railroad butter pat marked “Greenwood China, Trenton, NJ” sold at auction for $1,525, even with a chip on the piece’s face. Hand-painted portrait pats with well-dressed Victorians are also highly collectible, as are salesmen’s sample pats that were used to show prospective buyers the colors and style of a manufacturer’s china patterns.

Dessoie’s article also states that a single butter pat in the Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica pattern, considered the world’s most prestigious pattern and one of the last luxury 18th century services still being produced today, can sell for $550 with a wait time of up to one year. Another article by Dessoie, entitled “Advertising Miniatures”, gives more examples of higher prices fetched by some types of butter pats. In this article, she also informs new collectors of how to spot fakes so your collection will be authentic.

But don’t let those higher priced pats discourage you – price is not the issue with personal collections. Beautiful butter pats by Staffordshire, Spode, Limoges, Royal Doulton and many other manufacturers are easily found, as are specific patterns like Blue Willow and Geisha Girl and more general styles such as flow blue, chintz and majolica. The most interesting collections have examples of many different types of pats. The old adage holds true in all areas of collecting: Buy what you love, and you’ll never be disappointed.