Checkerboard

November, 2019

In This Issue

Editor's Note: A well-received article entitled, "Antique Stove Advertising", written by Christina Champion, was published in the June, 2019 issue of PastTimes. Since there was much more to share, we are pleased to offer some additional photos in the Gallery below. Our thanks go to Christina for sharing her outstanding collection with us.

Mark your calendars! The 2020 AAAA Convention will take place at the Embassy Suites in Columbus (Dublin), Ohio from July 8 to July 11. It is shaping up to be another blockbuster event. As always, you will be kept busy with morning-to-night scheduled activities, such as seminars, Room Hopping, Silent Auction, Favorite Advertising Exhibit, banquet meals, raffles & games, and of course, lots of fellowship with old and new friends.

The Convention registration fee is $125.00 per person, which covers all Convention activities from Wednesday evening through Saturday morning, including two hearty plated banquet dinners, one lunch buffet, and for hotel guests, three made-to-order breakfast buffets and a hotel reception each evening with free snacks and beverages/cocktails.

AAAA has pioneered the practice of collaborating with other collector groups at our recent conventions and this event will be no exception. Our Graniteware friends will be with us once again this year and another group, known as "Treasures for Little Children" (TLC) will be joining us for the first time. TLC is a national organization for collectors of children's playthings. Check out their web site to get a sense of that this group is all about: www.treasuresforlittlechildren.com. They have some members in common with AAAA and they seem like kindred souls who will add to our already robust synergy.

If you have never attended an AAAA Convention at the Embassy Suites, you will LOVE it! All of the rooms are spacious two-room suites with a refrigerator/microwave/sink area. There is a privacy door separating the bedroom and the living room, which means sellers can set up all of their inventory for sale in the living area and relax in their separate bedroom. Better yet, the living room areas have floor-to-ceiling windows facing the hallways so buyers can "window shop" your room whether you are there or not.

AAAA has negotiated a heavily discounted guest room rate of $132 per night for a room with a king or two double beds, plus 17.5% taxes. In order to obtain the AAAA discounted rate, it will be necessary to register for the convention through AAAA.

Is it too early to register? On the contrary, this is a great time for sellers especially to register since the early birds will get the best room assignments. We set a recent attendance record last year and would like to beat it this year!

Easy and secure on-line registration with credit card payment is once again available. To register for the Convention, just click the icon below.

For those without email or internet access, the traditional paper form is still available. To download the form, click the icon below.

A flier that describes the 2020 AAAA Convention is available by clicking the icon below. Please download this document and forward it to all of your collector friends and acquaintances that might be interested in attending.

Click here to ask any questions you might have about the 2020 AAAA Convention.

By Peggy Daily

For those who enjoy niche collecting, Pacific Coast Borax Co and Boraxo offer some enjoyable times and items. I started collecting this genre because I have used its main product--Boraxo--for more than fifty years to wash my hands and face. I found that it helped teenage problem skin wonderfully (although it's never been advertised as such) way back in 1967.

Francis Marion "Borax" Smith left New Richmond, Wisconsin with his brothers in 1867 and went west to California to seek his fortune. He found boron mines, which burned blue, near the California Nevada border and Death Valley in 1872 and staked a claim. After founding and merging with several companies, he started Pacific Coast Borax in 1890. It remained Pacific Coast Borax till 1954 when it became US Borax Co. It was then purchased by Dial Soap Corporation around 1990.

The famous twenty mule team is the company's well-known trademark appearing on its tins, crates, posters, fans and boxes. I have a number of old Boraxo containers including a perfumed black and brown Boraxo holder from the 1920s, one of the famous black, white and red ones from the 1950s, one from 1968 (red and white and very pop art/mod in design), one from the 1970s, and one from the late 1990s. Most of my Boraxo containers are full and I find the older product was a bit superior in quality to what the company puts out now.

A fun piece is a repro poster (seen below) from the style of the 1920s with a giant Bill Borax Jr standing with buster brown type shoes and the twenty mule teams circling round his feet.

My collection includes a 5 lb box of Boraxo from the 1950s, a 1 lb bag from the 1920s (great graphics and stuffed to bursting) and an empty tin of waterless crème cleanser entirely in orange and white. I also have, just for fun (as I have no place to put it up), a 1950s gas station Boraxo dispenser. Like the Larkin Soap Company, around 1910, Pacific Coast Borax sponsored a "redeem your coupons" campaign for furniture, dishes, clocks, statues and curtains'. I have a pamphlet that states one can furnish one's house entirely with items from Pacific Coast Borax! I have a NASCAR Boraxo shirt (also from ebay) and I do, just for fun, own a little stock in Dial Corp. 

Perhaps the  nicest item in my collection is a 1924 mining stock certificate for 10,000 shares signed by F.M. Smith himself (seen below). I bought this piece on eBay for $28. Smith died about 1932.

The company sponsored Death Valley Days on radio and TV and also General Electric Theater, featuring Ronald Reagan as host. Therefore, there are crossover collectibles from these television shows as well.

My next project, if possible, will be to acquire a wooden crate with the red and black logo. It's rather specialized to collect just one small company but I find it fun. Happy Collecting!  

If you attended either the 2017 or 2019 AAAA Conventions and visited the Ice Screamers' Exhibit, Show & Sale, you probably noticed the multitudes of scoops or "dishers", as they are often called. If seeing those fascinating utensils sparked an interest in this area of collecting, then you must check out an outstanding web site: www.scoopcollector.com. Click on the "Blog" tab and you will be presented with numerous scholarly snippets on topics related to scoops, each with many professionally-taken photos. The examples included are among the most desirable, rare, and unique in this field of collecting. No doubt, you will leave the site much better informed about these fascinating little utensils than when you started. (Photo above is from the scoopcollector web site.)

Over the years, delivery vehicles have taken on some pretty unusual stylistic features. Feast your eyes on the photos below and imagine these modes of conveyance tooling down your street. Our thanks go to Gordon Addington for providing these entertaining images to AAAA!

A long-time collector will be looking at liquidating 50+ years of collecting antiques to include lots of advertising items; 500+ boxes full; two 10 x 20 storage containers in Janesville, WI area; one 10 x 20 storage container suburb of Chicago; house loaded to the gills in Chicago suburb; lots of advertising signs, advertising clocks, spool cabinets, apothecary country store jars, collar cases, two very large country store cabinets with glass doors and drawers, time clocks, genuine cast iron barber pole, traffic light, fire pull box from Chicago with many fire helmets, country store scales, glass fire extinguishers, five foot leaded glass ice cream cone lamp from California store, plantation desk, hall trees (actually walls – one from Blackstone Hotel Chicago), cash registers, iron lattice post office walls and wood post office window; jewelers desk, authentic roll top c-curve desk, cutter sleigh, cutter sleigh table, slag glass lamps, two country store 1890’s grain bins, 1890’s 8 ft country store display case; post office boxes, antique concrete yard ornaments, vintage yard furniture, wicker furniture, huge fabulous cigar store two-piece cabinet with glass doors, fabulous barber shop corner cabinet to name just a few. The list goes on.  Pictures can be sent. Inquire at: [email protected].

How many new members have you signed up under the new AAAA Membership Recruitment Program?

The new AAAA Membership Recruitment Campaign provides you with an incentive to bring NEW members into AAAA. Recruit just one NEW member and you will receive 6 months of AAAA membership (worth $20). Recruit two NEW members and you will receive a full year of AAAA membership (worth $40). For EACH new member that you recruit beyond two, you will receive $20 in "Buyers Bucks" that can be used just like cash at AAAA Conventions.

 

To receive credit for your efforts, simply have the new recruit write your name in the designated space at the bottom of the AAAA Membership Card. You can use the printed Membership Cards that we have made available from time to time (please be sure it is the current form) or you can download a PDF version of the current form for printing or emailing by clicking here .

 

Membership Coordinator Amy Vehling will manage this campaign and will announce awards just prior to the AAAA Convention in July 2020. If you have any questions, please contact Amy at [email protected] .

In this column are those sought-after items of desire that seem to be elusive. If you know where any of these items can be acquired or if you have one available, please click the link to reply directly to the seeker. To place a listing in this column, click here . There is no fee for AAAA members. Up to three listings per member are permitted.

Advertising Thermometers Pin-Up Girls: Only 1900 to 1960 with or without the calendars. Any information on these thermometers would be welcome since I can not find any books, articles catalogs or anything relating to these advertising pieces. Trades and purchases sought. To reply, click here.

Looking for 3 vintage tins: American Eagle "Oriental Mixture" tobacco (dimensions approx. 6.5" long, 2 3/4" wide, 1.5" tall; 1 Gal. Indian Head Hydraulic Brake Fluid; and Packham´s Caramel Toffee. Any offer is welcome. To reply, click here.

Morton Salt, older items, and also Pacific Coast Borax, especially a crate or box. email [email protected] or call Peggy Dailey 612-522-9211

Comic Book-Related Advertising Items: Must be from before 1980. To reply, click here .

Clarke’s Vegetable Sherry Wine Bitters, Sharon, MA & Rockland, ME: All sizes, variants, smooth/pontil base. Especially need labeled Clarke’s any size! Also, any Clarke’s ephemera…trade cards, almanacs, newspaper ads, etc. Charlie Martin Jr., 781-248-8620. Email: [email protected]

George Petty: Advanced collector looking for unique or rare items. Photo’s, store displays and non paper items. NO Esquire pages. Pete Perrault. To reply, click here or call (502) 290-7661.

Ice Cream Advertising: Mr. Ice Cream desires better graphic ice cream advertising including: postcards (Advertising and RPPC), trade cards, letterheads, billheads, booklets, poster stamps, blotters, magic lantern slides, pinbacks, watchfobs, and pocket mirrors. Allan Mellis, 1115 West Montana St. Chicago, Illinois 60614-2220. [email protected] To reply, click here.

Wanted Top Condition: “Totem” (25 count) square upright cigar tin , Continental Cubes tobacco tin (medium size kidney shaped slide lid) 6” tall, Continental Cubes tobacco tin (larger flip lid pocket tin) 5” tall, Convention Hall Coffee tin (Kansas City tin) one pound GREEN and/or YELLOW version, Bob White tobacco tin small box (Ginna) size 3” by 4” by 2.5”. To reply, click here.

Stock food, poultry food, veterinary advertising wanted.  Posters, medicine packages, give-aways. Email [email protected] or call (256) 520-5211.

White Plastic 7" Tall "Pole Sign" Thermometers advertising local/regional gasoline/oil/service station brands such as: SPEEDWAY 79; SUPER 98; TOPCO; ROCKET; HANCOCK; BELL; OKLAHOMA. NOT the major national brands like Texaco. Peter Capell. To reply, click here.

Singer Sewhandy Model 20-Green-regular paint, not hammertone. To reply, click here.

National Biscuit Company, Nabisco, Uneeda Biscuit, Uneeda Bakers, Muth Bakery, NBC Bread toys, signage, tins, containers, displays, historical items. Please Email [email protected] or call (937) 205-2232.

Early Cigarette Rolling Papers: Pre-1940’s - American, Zig Zag, Braunstein Freres, Bambino, and Ottoman papers wanted. To reply, click here.

Antique/Collectible Banking and Financial System "Give-a way" and advertising items. Specifically from Pennsylvania. Alarm devices and such. To reply, click here .

Unusual one pound peanut butter tins . Tin litho or paper label. To reply, click here .

Marshmallow Tins, Smaller than 5 Pound Size. To reply, click here .

American Cookie, Biscuit and Cracker Tins and Boxes . To reply , click here .

Columbian Stove sign made by the Keeley Stove Co. in Columbia PA To reply, click here or call 717-572-3108.

 

VITAMINS advertising, displays, signs, bottles, and anything related: Hadacol is an example. Most would come from the 1930’s thru the 1970’s. Also anything related to cod-liver oil and WEIGHT-LOSS, REDUCING, ANTI-FAT, and OBESITY ITEMS. To reply, click here .

 

Early tin signs lithographed by Tuchfarber, Wells and Hope, Worcester Sign Company, Sentenne and Green, etc. I can pay more for good condition, but would be interested in any condition. Don Lurito  [email protected] also in the directory. To reply, click here .

 

Dwinell-Wright Co. Royal Ground Spice Cardboard Spice Boxes. One side displays horizontally. Approximately 3.75" by 2.25". Any type of spice is OK. To reply, click here .

 

ENSIGN Perfect and ENSIGN Perfection vertical pocket tobacco tins to enhance my collection. Feel free to contact me at 614-888-4619 or [email protected] to see if you can help fill the voids.

 

Tall 1 lb. Mallard Coffee Can - Shows duck taking off. To reply, click here .

 

Chewing gum packs, sticks, wrappers, full boxes, lifesavers, candy bar wrappers, displays, and boxes.  Anything candy related. To reply, click here . 

 

Pre-1900 advertising items related to: barbed wire, farm fence gates, tools for erecting or mending wire fences, and farm fences. Only primary material please--no ads from newspapers, etc. Larry W. Love. To reply, click here .

 

Armour Foods Signs, Cardboards, Store Displays, Die-Cuts Wanted. To reply, click here .

 

Cigar advertising tip trays, pinbacks, or any unusual cigar advertising items. Harry Cohn: To reply, click here .

     

Edmands Coffee Company, Edmands Tea Company, 1776 Coffee, American Beauty Tea, Japan Tea, Devonshire Tea, (imported by Edmands, Boston/Chicago):  Any items such as tins, signs, paper, or anything else related to the Edmands family of companies in Boston is desired. To reply, click here .

The AAAA Checkerboard is a monthly e-newsletter that is made available to all AAAA members at no cost. The mission of the Checkerboard is to increase knowledge about antique and collectible advertising among AAAA members. The Checkerboard also provides news and updates about AAAA. It is produced each month with the exception of the four months per year when the award-winning PastTimes print newsletter is published. Paul Lefkovitz ( [email protected] ) serves as the Editor of the AAAA Checkerboard. Copyright, 2019, Antique Advertising Association of America