Estate Finds - Little Treasures

An estate sale in an overloaded house is always fun for me...I love to dig!  

On Friday Kathy and I attended just such a sale in Illinois.  

After going through the house at least three times, we unearthed some fun finds.  

My first purchase was the shabby velvet painting of Kewpie, who I introduced to you in my last post.

On my third foray into one of the bedrooms I found a box with a pink silk baby bonnet, coat & dress. Tucked carefully in the bottom of the box was this sweet dress.

I thought it was adorable and it got more interesting when I saw the label. I have not been able to find any references anywhere to this line of clothing relating to the Quints; 

if anyone has info I'd love to hear from you.

Two WWI trench art rings that I purchased were made from French coins.  

They are each engraved "World War 1914 - 1918"

I adore anything that reminds me of the beach so had to buy a big box of shells & sea creatures. I also purchased a bunch of travel scrapbooks from the 1950s & 60's. 

I suspect that these were collected on one of those trips.

*Update 12/6.  See the brown starfish? It's g-o-n-e.
Heard Gracie crunching on something and went to check.
She was by the stack of suitcases where this was sitting and
there was not even a crumb left of the starfish. And,
she had the green one on the floor and was about to devour it as well.
????

The green starfish is my favorite.

 This toy iron is perfect in Christmas colors.

 

A match safe is attractive on this side...

...and on the reverse. 

Corrosion adds just the right touch of shabbiness to this elegant pen & pencil set.

Several old books with interesting covers came home with me, including this 1870's primer.

A keeper for sure, this is the oldest paintbrush I've ever found.

That's a sampling of what I brought home.  Can't wait for the next fun sale; they are few & far between around here.

RPPC Ships At Sea - Dating Real Photo Postcards

Real photo postcards, (RPPC), are great fun. I love to get out my loupe and see what details I can spot. Recently, some postcards of WWI era ships caught my eye. For those unfamiliar with RPPCs, a brief history: In 1903, Kodak came up with a camera that used postcard-size film, allowing pictures to be printed directly onto postcard backs. Photographers traveled and documented the people, buildings and events they ran across. Ordinary folks who owned a camera would snap all manner of photos of the family, the animals or the farm and have multiple copies printed to send to all the relatives.

Real photo postcards, also known as RPPC, became the Facebook of the day and were most popular up until the 1930s. It was a way to let your out of town relatives know what was going on in your life, see how much the kids had grown, or view the home you'd just built.

It's not uncommon to find RPPCs that were never mailed with no date stated. The good news is that it's fairly easy to verify a time frame for them, thanks to the stamp box. Many companies produced the paper that the cards were printed on. The mark on the back indicating where to place the stamp usually had the company name. The stamp box might be changed over time, and at the respected postcard site Playle.com, there's a comprehensive list showing RPPC stamp boxes with the dates they were produced.

As a fan of "the ocean", Deadliest Catch, and most anything having to do with big water, I find these RPPCs of ships in heavy seas fascinating. Waves crash over the bow and some give such a true sense of the rolling deck that it nearly makes me queasy! I'm no student of naval history, but it's fairly easy to tell that these date from the WWI era. Just to verify, I headed over to Playle's.

The stamp box is from AZO. The center reads "Place Stamp Here" with "AZO" forming the square. In each corner is a triangle. On the top the triangles both point up, and on the bottom they both point down. Using Playle's reference , I can see that this stamp box was used by AZO from 1910-1930. History tells me that these lean toward the early side of that date range.

Next time you run across an undated real photo postcard, give it a closer look. Note the details; any clothing, signs, or vehicles which will help establish the time period. If you get stuck or just want to verify your hunch, head on over to Playle's to find the stamp box. Enjoy the photos!