Tea Caddies

Tea was a popular eighteenth-century drink. It was considered so valuable it was stored in tea caddies which were often kept locked. Tea caddies were made of porcelain, silver, or, for the less well-to-do, painted tin. Caddies were made with a flat or domed top, and the style continued into the commercial packages used in […]

Tobacco Cans

Another specialized type of can that is much in demand is the tobacco can. Most of the tobacco cans collectors are interested in were made to hold pipe tobacco. Some tins were made to hold chewing plugs, snuff, cigars, or cigarettes, and there were also containers to dispense or display tobacco in stores. Tobacco was […]

Spice Tins

All types of spices were put in tins soon after the Civil War. Large store bins held spices in bulk, and small tins held them in ounces. The earliest examples were japanned and stenciled. Later, lithographed designs and paper labels were used. Many spices were packaged for wholesale grocers and labeled with the company name. […]

Gunpowder

The gunpowder flask is probably the earliest tin container used in America that can still be found. A gunpowder can with the paper label “Kentucky Rifle Gunpowder Hazard Powder Co. founded 1843” is one of the earliest gunpowder containers known. Early tins had paper or stenciled labels. Later the tins were either printed with a […]

Talcum Powder

The talcum powder sprinkle-top can has become a specialized area of collecting. Mr. Mennen started it with his sprinkle-top can in 1883. These cans can be dated by the baby on the side. The child seems to be more attractive in later years. Many other firms marketed talcum powder in a variety of sprinkle-top cans. […]

Coffee Cans

Coffee has been a popular drink since the late seventeenth century. Originally, green beans were sold, and the consumer had to roast and grind them before making the beverage. By the nineteenth century, there were stores that roasted and ground coffee. The first unground roasted beans or ground coffee was sold in paper bags, and […]

Bottles

Remember that any bottle made before 1900 or any specially shaped bottle, like a pickle bottle or a figural liquor bottle, is a collector’s joy. Many bottles, including milk bottles, soda bottles, candy containers, canning jars, and ink bottles from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, should be saved. Protect the labels; they add value even […]

Biscuit Boxes

The first biscuit tins were made in England during the 1830s. Thomas Huntley, a baker, had his brother Joseph, a tinsmith, make some boxes to ship biscuits by stagecoach. The tin container kept the biscuits fresh. The brothers founded a firm that is still working. A method of transfer printing directly on tinplate was patented […]

Baking Powder Cans

Phosphate baking powder was first sold in the United States by the Rumford Chemical Works in 1857. Horsford self-rising bread preparation, a self-rising flour for pancakes, and Rumford yeast were also made about the time of the Civil War. Royal Baking Powder was first made in 1873. Baking powder was first marketed in glass, but […]