A couple of weeks ago, we went to an antique show in Maryland that is a favorite of ours, and for me the coolest thing there was the metal Disney sign. It was for sale from one of my favorite dealers at the show. He told me that he purchased the sign at a California flea market in about 1970, when he was living there. I suspect that it probably didn’t cost him much at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if the person he had purchased it from picked it out of the trash. That is how it made it to the East Coast. I did a little research and found that Walt Disney Productions moved to their Burbank studios in 1940, so the sign cannot be older than that – or newer than 1970, the date it was purchased by the dealer. The clue to the actual age of the sign is with the cute little character decals all over it. The decals could have been added later but I doubt it. I think it was Disney’s way of adding a little magic to everything they did, including this mundane sign. There are characters that you don’t see much anymore such as the tortoise from The Tortoise and the Hare (1934) or Hiawatha (1937). The newest characters that I see are Uncle Scrooge and Bongo, the bear who appeared in Fun and Fancy Free. Both date to 1947.

Based on all of this, I think the sign dates to about 1950 – give or take a couple of years. If that is the case, Walt Disney Productions would have been working on such projects as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. This sign may have stood guard when Davy Crockett was being filmed and when Disneyland was in the planning stages. It is also when the great man himself – Walt Disney- was still in charge of his kingdom. There is no shortage of vintage Disney items out there, but I suspect it will be a long time before I see another one of these. Leave it to Disney to find a way to say “Go Away” and make you feel happy about it.

The post Vintage Disney “No Trespass” Sign – Finding a Nice Way to Say “Get Lost” appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I make no secret that I am on an endless quest to recapture my childhood. Was childhood really better in the 1950’s and 1960’s than it was (or is) for later generations? Most of us who were alive at that time would say yes. Most of you who were unfortunate enough to be born later would probably disagree. Of course, you would be wrong, but there’s not a lot you can do about it.

Besides playing with all our “Made in USA” toys, we had a lot of time to go outside and “run around”. Parents weren’t quite so worried that every waking minute of childhood be taken up with some organized activity designed to make you outstanding enough to get into an Ivy League school. Since we also didn’t have video games to keep us quiet, we were encouraged to go outside and entertain ourselves.

This well-worn pair of PF Flyers has been preserved for over half a century.

Anyway, running around is actually the point of this article. Running around in PF Flyers that is! Brand loyalty meant something in those days, and when it came to “sneakers,” you were most likely a “Keds” or “PF Flyers” kid. I was definitely in the latter category.

PF Flyers were manufactured by the tire company B. F. Goodrich and first introduced in 1937. PF stood for “Posture Foundation” which meant there was a wedge inside the shoe that more evenly distributed your weight. The promise was that you could “run faster and jump higher” with a pair of “PF’s” strapped to your feet. I totally believed this to be true! Putting on a new pair of PFs felt like you were walking on a cloud, and running as fast as you could to test out your new superpowers was part of the routine. Unfortunately, one of the more negative realities of growing up in the 1950’s and ‘60’s is that dog poop seemed to be everywhere. Once, while racing down the street, I managed to find a fresh pile with my brand new sneakers. What a mess!

I found this vintage and well-worn pair of boy’s sneakers at a flea market last year. Why they got saved is anyone’s guess. They are marked Hood PF Flyers. I found out that BF Goodrich purchased Hood Rubber Company in 1929 and the Hood named was used until the late 1950’s on some PF Flyers. I also found a reference indicating that the Hood name was used in 1962. I think it’s safe to say these sneakers date from the late 1950’s to the early 1960’s.

Of all the things I have collected, I think these old sneakers represent the essence of boyhood in the middle of the twentieth century as well as anything. After all, no matter how humble your upbringing, just about everyone had a pair of worn out sneakers at some point in their youth.

PF Flyers sponsored The Mickey Mouse Club, and here’s a cool cardboard counter-top display piece from the 1950’s.

Here’s another PF Flyers cardboard advertising display for another, lesser-known Disney show called Adventure Time.

Based on the girl’s hair style as well as the style of shoe, this cardboard Keds advertising display piece probably dates to the 1920’s or 30’s.

This large pin-back button shows “Leave It to Beaver” star Jerry Mathers promoting Keds, the main competition for PF Flyers.

PF Flyers are once again available thanks to the company New Balance. At least there’s less dog poop to worry about these days.

The post Vintage PF Flyers – Superpowers for Kids appeared first on The Collector Gene.

My apologies on the flash flare. This thing wasn’t easy to photograph!

It probably isn’t much of a secret that circuses would sometimes exaggerate in their advertising. A case in point is the subject of this article. Were the Giraffe-Neck Women from Burma really the “Greatest Educational Discovery of the Century”? I doubt it.

Were their necks really THAT long? I doubt that too.

Nevertheless this circa 1930 Ringling Brothers poster has great imagery and if I were a kid back then I would be pestering my parents to drag me to the circus ASAP!

Sometimes you have something so long that you start to take it for granted. This poster has been in our collection since 1975 when we purchased it at an antique show in Atlantic City. A dealer was selling off the contents of the “Merle Evans Circus Museum”. We purchased this and several other circus posters for five dollars each. This was by far the best one, so we had a frame specially made for it and it has been hanging on the wall in various locations ever since. Merle Evans, by the way was the band director of the Ringling Brothers circus for many years.

I haven’t checked values recently but I think it was a really good investment.

I wish I had bought more.

The post Giraffe-Neck Women from Burma Circus Poster appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I purchased this skull a few years ago at a Pennsylvania flea market.  I walked into the market with $52 in my wallet, which doesn’t usually go a long way at an antique flea market.  So of course I found this piece in the first booth I went in, and it was priced at $50.  Needless to say, I was frustrated.  I really liked the skull, but buying it would wipe me out before I was even finished my first row of dealers.  We were also going to check a few more flea markets and shops later that day, which made it even tougher to fathom spending all of my money immediately, especially on an object I knew nothing about.

At first I left it on the table and walked away figuring I would probably go back to buy it after I made sure that there was nothing I wanted more at the flea market.  However, a few minutes later and about half way down the second row of the market, I realized that I didn’t want to risk it.  I really liked the skull, and I knew I would be upset if someone else bought it while I was walking around.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted it.  I cut back to the dealer’s booth again and bought it, and I have had no regrets about blowing all of my money in the first booth I went in at the flea market that day.  There was nothing else I wanted more, and in my opinion this piece would have been hard to top.  A lot of people like to collect what they know, but I find that the objects I tend to like best in my collection are the objects I didn’t know I needed until I saw them.  Some of the fun of collecting, to me, is finding an object you love, and then finding out you love it even more as you learn more about it.  The Le Macabre skull did that for me.

The Le Macabre skull is made out of plaster, with the name of its place of origin, Le Macabre, Meard Street SOHO, stamped into its forehead.  It is just about life-sized, though it is stylized and kind of elongated if you look at the skull from its side.  The back of the skull is flat and hollow, and the eye sockets are hollow as well.  It has a little metal hook imbedded in the plaster so you can hang it on the wall.  The skull is probably from the 1950’s, which is part of what made it appeal to me, and for some reason I like skulls, so it had double appeal.  The damage to his chin was there when I bought him, and even though I could totally restore it myself, I haven’t done it yet.  I don’t know why. Maybe sometimes I like to think that he received his battle scar in some really epic way and it is a part of his history.  He is a very intriguing advertising piece, and the more I learn about him, the more I love him hanging on my wall.

One of the biggest mysteries with the Le Macabre skull is this: How did it end up in the United States?  Le Macabre was a coffee and espresso bar in SOHO London.  This I knew when I bought the skull because it is stamped on his forehead, and I got an original postcard from Le Macabre with it.

I love this postcard.  The imagery is great, and it adds a sense of humor to the skull plaque.   I have it framed and hanging under the plaque on my wall.  None of this, however, explains why these two pieces crossed the pond and ended up in New Jersey, and the more I research Le Macabre, the more I still don’t understand how these two ended up here.

When I first went to research this piece on the internet back when I bought it, the only information I could find out at the time was that Le Macabre existed from the 1950’s through the 1970’s, and that it offered a place for London jazz musicians and rock musicians to perform.  There was also some reference to Orson Wells hanging out at Le Macabre, which I thought was pretty cool.  Le Macabre had coffin shaped tables and skeleton murals on the wall, but there was never any mention of skulls like mine hanging in the bar anywhere.  I was happy to know that Le Macabre played an integral part in the early history of jazz and rock n roll in England, but there were no pictures to help me understand what part my skull played in the bar.  Were there more than one?  Was it for decoration or a souvenir?  For several years I just assumed that I would never fully understand the skull plaque, but that was okay because I liked it, and I liked that it represented pre-British invasion rock and jazz in London.

It wasn’t until late last year that I decided to research my skull again, and a lot more information has surfaced on Le Macabre thanks to two British news reels, one from 1958 and one from 1959, that have since been posted to the internet.

The first newsreel I found in the internet was the 1958 newsreel called “It’s the Age of the Teenager”, and I couldn’t believe what I saw when I watched it.  If you go to the 00.32 minute mark right in the beginning of the film and look behind the bartender’s head, you will see a skull just like mine hanging on the wall!  Mystery solved!  Well, sort of.  If you keep watching through the rest of the “Le Macabre” section of the film, you will see several other skulls hanging up throughout the joint.  Some are used over light fixtures, and others are just hanging on the wall as decoration.  I still can’t believe that these films exist, and that through them I could finally learn in some capacity why my skull plaque exists.  The rest of the film is an interesting look at British teenagers in the 1950’s.  It doesn’t spend too much time in coffee bars outside of Le Macabre, but it is definitely worth watching and kind of funny by today’s standards.  Follow this link to the website for Pathe to watch the filmstrip.

The 1959 strip is in color and called “Look at Life: Coffee Bar”, and it shows Le Macabre at about the 07.01 minute mark.  If you look towards the ceiling in one of the early scenes, you might catch skulls like mine hanging up near the ceiling.  They are covering light fixtures that will make the eyes glow when they are lit.  The whole news reel is a rather interesting look into the rise of the coffee bar in London and its clientele and significance.  It is fascinating and worth watching if you want to learn more about the “coffee craze”.    Apparently there were dozens of coffee and espresso bars in SOHO in the 1950’s, but there were so many that it became difficult for them to thrive with all of the competition.  The “coffee craze” in London was certainly not a point in history on my radar before buying the Le Macabre skull, but this is why I love buying pieces of history that I know very little about until I get them home to research them.  You never know what you will find out.   Look at Life: Coffee Bar

Of course, there are still a lot of things I do not know about this skull and about Le Macabre.  I still don’t know if they sold these skulls as souvenirs or if my skull was salvaged when Le Macabre shut down in the 1970’s.  Are there many other skull plaques still in existence out there?  I have never seen another one, but then again, I am nowhere near London.  If anyone out there has any more information about this skull or Le Macabre itself, please share it on the comments section of this site.  I would love to know any information that I can get.

It is very rare to buy an object with very little information and to find out as much as I did from the Le Macabre skull plaque.  Most of the time you aren’t that lucky, and you are left to speculate as to the purpose of an object.  I certainly never could have dreamed that somewhere along the line someone, and in this case more than one person, would post video evidence of my find in its original context.  When we first started this website almost a year ago, I was planning on writing about the Le Macabre skull. However, because I knew very little about it, I was just planning to post a picture and what little bit I knew in hopes that somewhere along the line a person who knew more about it would comment on the site and I would have an answer.  Then the internet surprisingly answered a few of my questions for me.  It has been a fun ride so far figuring out the origins of Le Macabre and the little piece of it I hang on my wall and look at every day, but I have a feeling there is still a lot to learn.

Article Update:

Hey everyone!  This is the first time I have had the opportunity to update an article after gaining some valuable information on its subject matter from another passionate collector.  Hopefully this will be a trend!  Since posting my article about Le Macabre and my skull I was contacted by Del Fuller, another fan of Le Macabre who was actually fortunate enough to visit Le Macabre before it closed in the 70’s.  He and his friend Keith Ryan have supplied me with the following images of other Le Macabre memorabilia and were generous enough to let me share it with the internet.  Please enjoy!

This is a different post card made to promote Le Macabre.  Skeletons and naked ladies were kind of Le Macabre’s thing.

This is an original menu from Le Macabre.  They used the same image from my postcard on the cover.  It is kind of fascinating to see how they made changes to the menu by just crossing things off and adding other things in.

This is a smaller skull than mine measuring about 3″ by 2 1/4″.  We aren’t quite sure of its practical purpose, but it was used on the tables at Le Macabre and has “Saturday 17^th Jan 1959″ written in ink on the bottom.
We still aren’t sure as to whether they sold Le Macabre skulls or if patrons just swiped them, making Del, Keith, and I lucky enough to own what we have.  Either way, it is a fascinating place, and I am so grateful to learn from other collectors and fans about the objects I am passionate about.

The post The Le Macabre Skull appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I really liked the Nashville store.  First of all, it’s in a great old brick factory building, the Marathon Motor Works.

We were heading into Nashville on I-40 from west to east, and our GPS took us through the city, past Fisk University, for quite a few blocks.  Getting back on I-40 was very easy.  The whole Marathon Motors complex looks like something being re-purposed into a trendy shopping area.  Next to the Pickers’ store, for instance, is a candy store.

Unlike the Iowa store, which had an intimate feel to it, the Nashville store is quite a bit larger.  I’d say it has close to three times the square footage.  If nothing else, it has very high ceilings.  Whoever arranged the stock did a great job.  It was almost like walking around through a really cool museum of wacky retro stuff.  (And, since the prices were astronomically high, just like in the Iowa store, we knew we couldn’t afford anything, so it WAS like visiting a museum.)  This is the view when you first walk into the store.

One of the recognizable things was the huge Piggly Wiggly head.

There was a fabulous canvas circus sideshow sign up on the ceiling.  Who wouldn’t pay money to see a pig with an elephant’s trunk?

There were great advertising pieces, funky one-of-a-kind things like the giant bib overalls or the 1940’s slacks with the first names of Big Band music greats (Benny, Bing, Frankie, Dina, etc.), rusty bicycles and motor parts, and manikin heads sporting hats, helmets, and goggles.

As we did in the Iowa store, we searched for something small and affordable.  It was tough.  They had a lot of 1990’s music trade magazines that were supposedly picked from Mickey Gilley.  Priced at $5, they fit the bill.  We also found a wire basket with a handful of paper items in it for $5 each.  There was an ad for the Chile pavilion at the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo.  (That’s the same exposition where William McKinley was shot by an assassin.)  Five dollars didn’t seem too outrageous at all.  Those were our “old” finds.

As with the Iowa store, there were plenty of t-shirts, hats, magnets, shot glasses, metal signs, paper fans, playing cards, etc., etc. for sale.  (I particularly liked the baby onesie that said, “Future Picker” on it.)   I’m sure sales of those items are the main source of revenue for the store.  There definitely were a lot of shoppers – or at least “lookers” – at this shop.  There were two counters for sales, one to the front left side of the store and one in the back, staffed by pleasant young people who looked like they could be college students.  Based on what the young man who waited on me said, it sounds like Mike shows up about once a month at the store.

We’re glad we’ve seen both of the American Pickers’ shops.  If you’re a fan of the show and ever get to LeClaire, Iowa or Nashville, Tennessee, do stop in.  Then, when you watch the shows, you’ll have a reference point when they show interior/exterior shots.  Believe me, things never look the same in person as what you imagined.

The post Last Travel-Log from the Road – 10/4/12: Antique Archeology-Nashville Submitted by Carol appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Before writing about the Now and Then Second Hand Store in Orange, CA, I left off with a blog about Abilene, KS.  We visited a few other antique malls in Kansas and made some purchases, but I’m going to jump to the state of Colorado.

Florence, CO: We had never heard of Florence, Colorado, but we picked up a little booklet that listed Colorado antique shops, and we noticed that it billed itself as the antique center of the state.  When we looked at the map, we realized that it would be within a few miles of our planned route.  Naturally, we made that slight detour, and we’re glad we did.  Not only were there multiple shops to check out, but we happened to visit on a Friday, the first day of an antique street fair.  Below are photos of a few of the things we found.

The larger doll pictured is a 1940’s composition Madame Alexander doll in what appears to be her original clothes.  She cost $5 at the street fair, a real bargain.  The smaller doll is an inexpensive hard plastic doll from the 1950’s.  Normally, I wouldn’t buy a doll like her, but she’s dressed in a really nicely detailed felt cowgirl outfit, so I look upon her as an appropriate souvenir of our trip.  Discounted 40%, she ended up costing about $9.

Jim has been doing very well finding political items on this trip.  Florence came through for him.  He bought a very nice Benjamin Harrison pin in porcelain with a metal border, dated 1888, for $75.

Leadville, CO: This old mining town is at the highest elevation of any town in the U.S., and we were flying high with some of our purchases.  The very first shop we went into was the winner.  It was an old hardware store that retained all of its original fixtures, so the atmosphere alone was worth soaking up.  We walked out with two pieces that we liked a lot and felt were reasonably priced.

This cardboard sign advertising KC Baking Powder has some condition problems and likely had something else hanging from it, but we love the image of the baker and we will find a place for it in our kitchen.  Best of all, it only cost $25.

As those who know us know, we love to decorate for Christmas, and we love our Christmas tree with genuine Victorian/turn-of-the-century ornaments.  I was hoping to find something to add to our collection, and Leadville came through.  Pictured is a beautiful blown glass, hand-painted little girl’s head ornament.  According to the shop owners, it came out of a local estate.

Virginia City, NV: Once again, an old Western mining town came through for us.  Tourism is what’s keeping Virginia City alive.  Mixed in with the bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops are several antique shops.  We checked them all.  At the last one, Jim was very happy to find three nice political/advertising pinback buttons priced at $35 for all three.  Best of all, he doesn’t already have any of them!

The largest button is the most unique.  It pictures Spanish-American War hero Admiral Dewey advertising soap.  There’s also a nice Bryan-Sewall jugate from 1896 and a McKinley Club of NY button.  It isn’t often that you find one of these nice vintage buttons at the average antique mall, let alone three.

We did do a little antiquing in California, principally in Orange, and we did purchase a few things.  However, I have no photos, so we’re going to move on to Arizona.

Prescott, AZ: While staying in Sedona, we took the recommendation of an antique dealer we know and went antiquing in Prescott.  Prescott is a neat town.  It was the original capital of the Arizona Territory, and there’s an interesting museum complex, the Sharlot Hall Museum, to tour.  The downtown business district, which surrounds the courthouse square, is vibrant and alive.  About two blocks of it are devoted to antique shops.  We can’t share Jim’s favorite find yet because it’s still wrapped up in paper in the back of the car, but he was very happy to find an original political cartoon that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in October 1950.  It shows President Truman wearing the “cloak of secrecy” in regard to a meeting with Douglas MacArthur on Wake Island.

The other find we made there was an oyster tin right from our own neck of the woods.

These photos show the front and back of the Captain Jack’s Cape May Oysters tin.  The back mentions the Maurice River, too.  Actually, we like the back better than the front of this tin.  Not only is it in better condition, but the graphics are more interesting.  And we found it in Arizona – how weird!

We didn’t do any antiquing in New Mexico – none!  We did stop briefly in Amarillo, TX, and we did buy a few small items there.  Oklahoma was yielding a handful of small items, too, until we hit a shop in Shawnee, OK at the very end of the day.  We were very pleased with the cardboard standee advertising sign for Remington rifles that we found for $40.

The sign is in overall very good condition for its age.  On the lower left corner, it looks like there might be a tiny “31” and that might indicate that it dates to 1931.  It sure looks like it’s from that time.  What better gift for little boys than a rifle?

North Little Rock, AR: One frustration we’ve been having in particular on the return portion of our trip is encountering “antique” malls that have very few genuine antiques in them.  They have faux antiques and decorator items, but that’s not what we’re looking for.  When we saw an ad for the Twin City Antique Mall that asked the question, “Are you tired of antique malls that don’t have antiques in them?”, we knew that was the place for us – and it was.  We came out with several items that we were very happy about.

Jim has a couple of these Roosevelt Bear plates already, but this was a different one, and it was priced at only $25.  The inscription underneath says, “Teddy and Rosa on their way to the White House.”  Above the bears it says, “We want to see our President Who’s always on the square and whose good rule of living is bear always and forbear.”  It goes without saying that this plate dates to Teddy Roosevelt’s tenure in the White House.

This interesting bisque ashtray and match holder caught our eye.  A cheap souvenir from Galveston, TX, most likely in the 1930’s, it shows a nattily dressed skeleton sitting in an armchair.  It isn’t meant to be a Halloween decoration, but in our house it probably will be.  We thought it was a good buy at $25.

The last thing we bought at Twin City was a cardboard advertising sign for a product called Papsin.  We liked the graphics and the fact that it was hand-painted by a commercial artist from Fort Smith, AR.  He even signed it on the front.

Whew!  That was a lot of catching up to do.  We still have several states left to cover.  One more blog might do it.  Of course, it might not get done until we actually get home.

The post Travel-Log #8: Broad Summary (Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas) – Submitted by Carol on 10/3/12 appeared first on The Collector Gene.

There was the familiar 1950 Nash out front.  And there was the shop itself.  Ten minutes before opening, the small parking area was already filling up with fans of the show like us.  Most were out-of-staters, and most were at least middle-aged.

Suddenly, the “closed” sign was turned around and said, “open.”  Then the garage door opened and a young female employee (No, not Danielle.  Apparently she only works after hours.)  wheeled out the familiar little electric car.  I was busy snapping pictures, but Jim was already inside the shop.  It’s divided into two sections.  The original office portion of the old garage is where they sell all sorts of souvenirs:  caps and t-shirts, shot glasses, tote bags, banks, magnets, etc.  Were they reasonably priced?  No.  A basic postcard of Mike cost $3.  T-shirts averaged about $22.  Did we leave with some items?  Of course.

The work area of the garage is where the antiques are sold.  Did we recognize items that were picked on the show?  Yes, we did.  Were they expensive?  Yes, they were.  Do not expect bargains at Antique Archeology.  Remember the huge pile of moon landing souvenir felt pennants that were picked a couple of seasons ago?  You could buy one for $40.  Remember the toy metal police cars that were picked earlier this season?  Several were out for sale at $100 each.  Some items in this area were very familiar but were marked “not for sale.”  High up on a shelf were those goofy Laurel and Hardy heads that Mike and Frank wore a season or two ago, but no one was taking them home.

We did, however, find one little thing to purchase.  In a basket were a few dozen small metal license plates that had been cereal premiums in the 1950’s.  They were priced at $10 each.  We knew this was a little more than they were worth, but they were in good condition.  And they were small, which is a prerequisite for almost everything we purchase on this trip.  We had hoped to find an Iowa plate, but, alas, had to settle for our home state of New Jersey.

While we didn’t score any bargains at Antique Archeology, we didn’t expect to.  We scored an experience.  American Pickers has become a cultural icon; even people who never go out hunting for antiques love this show.  We appreciate what Mike and Frank have done for antique collecting.  More and more people, especially younger people, are discovering the fun of “the hunt” thanks to them.  Frankly, I don’t blame them for cashing in on their fame while they can.  If you’re ever in LeClaire, Iowa, be sure to check out their shop.

That said, make sure you don’t leave town without checking out some of the other shops, too.  We would especially recommend the Big River Antique Mall at 423 N. Cody Road on the other end of town.

This antique mall contained some really fabulous stuff, particularly when it came to antique advertising items.  They were pricey, to be sure, but the quality was outstanding.  There were plenty of moderately-priced items as well.  We left the shop with two items that we liked a lot and that we felt were reasonable in cost.

The first was an adorable bobble-head clown.  He’s in excellent condition and was marked “Japan” on the bottom, so he probably dates to the 1950’s.  And he only cost $18.

The other item we purchased was a cardboard sign that advertised the Marx Brothers movie, Animal Crackers, which would date it to the 1930’s.  It would have been used on a bus or trolley.  Most of these signs would have been tossed out shortly after use.  This one, while not in perfect condition, seemed like an excellent buy at $16, and it’s small enough that we might actually be able to find a place to display it when we get home.

The post Travel Log #2: LeClaire, Iowa 9/7/12 Reported by Carol appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This cardboard sign is 13.5 by 18 inches.  It dates to about 1905.  For more information about the history of Dr. Swett’s Root Beer and to see some great photos of other pieces of Dr. Swett’s advertising, go here.

The post Smile: Dr. Swett’s Root Beer appeared first on The Collector Gene.

That brings us to my favorite sign.  It isn’t very big and it hasn’t traveled very far in the last one hundred and forty years or so, but you have to love a sign extolling the virtues of manure.

Yes, that’s right M-A-N-U-R-E!  To be specific – The Mapes Manures – Highest Grade in The World!  If you don’t believe it, just read the sign.  After all, it is made from bone and genuine Peruvian Guano, which is mega-mounds of bird poop.  Today we would call that environmentally friendly.

To be fair, guano isn’t exactly the stuff you wash off the hood of your car.  It is the excrement and urine of sea birds.  It can also be found in bat caves, too, (Holy crap Batman!) but the bird stuff is better.  In the relatively dry climate along the Peruvian coast and on the nearby Pacific Islands, literally mountains of guano would form over time.  In the middle of the 19^th century, it was one of the best sources of fertilizer as it was full of the nutrients needed to grow things.  It was also odorless.  The elegant clipper ships, which were being replaced by steam vessels by then, often ended their days hauling guano.  Its use as a fertilizer faded by the early 20^th century.

Indeed, James Jay Mapes (1806-1866), who had a farm near Irvington, New Jersey, was a pioneer in developing fertilizers and their use.  The claims of “farms doubled in fertility” wasn’t exactly without merit.  He patented his fertilizer in 1859.

Carol and I found this sign in a little antique shop about fifteen years ago.  The shop was located about twelve miles from our home.  We were told it was found in the closet of a house owned by a one hundred-year old woman who had recently passed away.   She actually lived in a town about five miles from us.  That would put it about three miles from where Joseph Hurff, the purveyor of the bone and bird poop mix, once lived, and about two miles from where we now live.  An 1870 map of our local township shows the location of his farm in Sewell, New Jersey. It turns out he was actually at the forefront of an agricultural revolution.

One clue to the age of a sign is the use of periods.  In the 19^th century, they put a period after just about every grouping of words, even if they didn’t make a complete sentence.  That practice also faded in the early 20^th century (along with the use of guano).  Determining the actual age of the sign is tricky.  It could be as early as the 1860’s or as new as the 1880’s, but I personally think it is closer to the earlier date.

Anyway, when you think you have a bad job, just think of the poor guy in the 19th century working at the fertilizer factory grinding bone and mixing it with piles of bird poop!  I wonder what the human resource department told him!

The post It’s a Sign of the Times – The Nineteenth Century That Is appeared first on The Collector Gene.