Burma-Shave Highway Advertising

Remember Burma-Shave signs? These sets of small wooden signs advertising shaving cream first appeared by the side of the road in 1925. Each sign had one line of a humorous rhyme. They were placed about every one hundred feet or so. They disappeared about 1964. Mail Pouch tobacco used the painted barn as a huge […]

The Apothecary Shop and Drug Store

The apothecary shop was the place to buy medicine in the years before the twentieth century. Bottles, cans, wooden boxes, and paper packets held the medicines. The owner dispensed the requested medicine, and there were no required prescriptions from doctors. The apothecary shop became a drug store by the end of the nineteenth century, and […]

Aunt Jemima

The Pearl Milling Company first used the Aunt Jemima symbol on its ready-mixed pancake flour in 1889. Quaker Oats Company began using it in 1926. Aunt Jemima’s appearance changed through the years. A live Aunt Jemima appeared at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. She was played by a former slave, Nancy Green, a thin woman […]

Cabinets

The store cabinet used to store thread or dye may have been refinished, repainted, rehardwared, and reworked, and then found a place in the living room in the 1960s. Today the collector prefers a cabinet that is in good original condition. Old store spool cabinets had very narrow drawers, often with glass on the front. […]

Coffee Mills and Grinders

Until about 1860, coffee drinkers roasted and ground coffee beans at home. Coffee mills were found in grocery stores during the second half of the nineteenth century. The large Enterprise No. 1 Store Mill, patented in 1870, had one side wheel. The two-wheel model was made in 1873. The large floor-model store grinder or the […]

Package Design

Design is the key to dating almost any type of antique or collectible. Styles were copied years later, but a piece of Art Deco designed in the 1920s could not date from an earlier period. Some knowledge of how design in packaging works will help with the study of packaged items and signs. Most packages […]

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. […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]