Vintage Paper Images - Sneak Peek for 2013

Due to my partial European heritage I celebrate "Old Christmas" 

which is the 12 days of Christmas from Dec 25 - Jan 5 with the celebration of 

the Epiphany on Jan 6th; as well as the traditional American holiday.

 Part of my personal "celebrations" includes something vintage.

I always treat myself to some vintage finds at the Holidays and thought I'd give you 

a sneak peek of what new treasures I'll be posting about in 2013.

There were lots of great vintage finds available for sale this Holiday season. 

Some I was lucky enough to purchase including one win on eBay today! 

Other treasures will continue to remain on my wish list for later down the line.

You win some - You loose some but that's just the way of it.

So here were my Christmas purchases for this past year - 2012. 

Eventually I will get them all scanned in and posted so you 

can have nice working copies of them for your collection.

1899 Dennison Catalog

I've added another vintage Dennison to my paper doll collection.

This one is the older since it was published in 1899 and it has 6 wonderful pages of examples 

on how to "dress" the articulated ballerina and prima donna dolls they use to sell.

Those dolls are the L&B beauties I blogged about back in October 2012; so if you want to 

download those vintage paper dolls start with the post - HERE

There are 12 posts in all with lots of Vintage L&B paper dolls for you.

I'll be scanning an posting the doll pages from the 1899 catalog later on in 2012, so you can enjoy new ways on how to decorate the dolls as they were intended back c1900.

I also found many of the other c1900 projects most interesting, so I'll have to post those as well.

I also hope to explore more of my other 1905 Dennison catalog with you too.

I previously posted some of the doll page information back in 2010 which you can see - HERE

Of the two catalogs I have to say that the 1899 is the best regarding the vintage L&B paper dolls.

It just has so much more information about them; which leads me to believe that while they were still selling the dolls in 1905 they may not have been as popular as they were in the late 1880's & the 1890's and the gentleman I purchased the 1899 catalog from informed me that an earlier 1898 catalog contained the same doll pages as this one but an earlier 1894 catalog was different in content, so it looks as I need to continue trying to find the older 1890 and possibly 1880 catalogs.

*****

The rest of my purchases were vintage images and Victorian Scraps I could not resist.

Vintage L&B Beauties

I've been hunting the 4 L&B lady heads as seen in the lower portion of the photo for some time and happened upon an eBay auction for 3 of them and lucky me I got them and they came all the way from France to boot  Oh-la-la!

As you can see from the three ladies on top they are not as vibrant in color as those still attached and I'm not sure if this is due to "fading" from age or if the three I purchased were printed at a later time than the sheet of 4.  It was not uncommon for L&B to produce dies in different sizes and I have found the print quality of others to change depending on if they were printed prior to or after 1900.

I'm still thrilled to have them in my collection and will be scanning them and 

doing some digital magic to get them looking similar to their vibrant cousins below.

Eventually I hope to add a crisp and vibrant attached set of 4 similar to this reference photo.

Time will tell.

*****

I lucked up and got these amazing Victorian scrap pocket watches from 

the same seller in France as the above 3 ladies.

They are petite with the watch faces being only 1 inch across

Fancy Paper Pocket Watches - Victorian Scraps

I fell in love with these pocket watch scraps and didn't think I had a chance of winning

 them since a similar auction by the same seller went for over $50 in November.

This shows that eventually luck has to swing your way if you keep at it.

I got them at a super deal and paid just under $10 total to the seller 

for them along with the three L&B beauties and shipping from France.

The detail on these are wonderful and I had never seen any as fancy as these in the past.  I know L&B made a variety of watch face scraps and I have my suspicions that they may have made these as well but I'm not 100% sure.  I hope to one day see an entire attached sheet with makers mark so I'll know for sure but if any of you out there know who made these - please clue me in, would ya?

There were two other auctions with similar watch scraps I thought you might like 

to see even though I did not win either of these two auctions.

Other auctions I did not win for similar watches

I totally missed the October auction and the November auction was already too high 

when I found it; then I lucked up and won my auction in Dec for just under $5.00.

I got 7 small fancy pocket watch scraps with no duplicates, so really the only thing 

I missed out on was getting the larger images along with my mini watches.

I'm going to keep an eye out on this seller and who knows I may luck up in the 

New Year and get some more to add to the collection. They are just that cool!

*****

Last month I was posting about vintage Christmas scraps  

- regarding the variety of "Santa" images that were made c1900.

Well one of those image sheets has been on my with list for close to 2 years;

 and I finally worked a deal with the German seller to get my "Mystic" Santa heads.

I'm still waiting on their arrival from overseas and hope to see them soon.

Mystic heads - 7796 A&M (Albrecht & Meister)

 I'm not sure if these were intended to be Santa heads or not but I like the idea of using them in that way.  These images could also be used with: mystic, sawammie, fortune teller, pasha or wise men themes.  Any way you look at it they just look like a bunch or fun.

This will be my first A&M (Albrecht & Meister) image that I'm aware of, so I'm excited 

about seeing how it is compared to L&B and some other vintage scraps I have in my collection.

Seeing as they were German made, I'm sure they will measure up just fine.

I did splurge quite a bit to get this set but according to the seller in Germany, 

it's a very rare set to find intact so I'll consider it an investment in 

preserving a paper treasure from the past - final negotiated price $90.00.
( update 6-25-2013 - sadly these were lost in the mail and to date have not arrived)

*****

OK - another of my favorite paper collectables are toy theaters or anything to do with a toy theater and I stumbled upon this fun find a few weeks back that now has me searching for more of it's kind.

According to the seller other issues of the Philadelphia Press had scenery and plays that could be used with the theater you see below - so it looks like I need to hunt a bit to find the "extras" but at least I have the staging ground.

Uncut Art Supplement from the March 1, 1896 "Philadelphia Press" - Uncle Sam Theater

I was so pleasantly surprised by the quality of this vintage newspaper insert but then again the quality of paper items made in the late 1800's seems to be much nicer than what you find today.

I thought it was a fair purchase at $40.00 including shipping charges.

I'm sure it was bonuses such as these that inspired several to purchase this paper over another paper.

For instance this theater was created to have 3 plays to go with it. One that came out in the same issue as the theater and then one each on the next two Sundays. 

This tri-fold "theater" is made of a light weight cardboard or heavy duty cardstock.

It's about the thickness of what cereal boxes are made of .

The center portion with the stage measures 10" wide  x 7 1/2" tall 

and each of the "wing" sides are 6 wide  x 7 1/2"tall.

The size was just perfect since in it's folded state it's slightly smaller than a sheet of paper 

and can be placed easily into a standard sheet protector pocket for safe storage.

It will also lend itself to a manageable size to scan which is always an important 

consideration for me when I purchase vintage images like this one.

My thought is to present it in July since it has such a patriotic theme.

*****

Between the theater above and the acrobat below I believe I'll soon have 

a growing 1890's newspaper supplement collection going - grins.

I just won this auction today so it will be about a week 

till I get to see this gem up close and personal.

The Boston Sunday Globe for Jan 19, 1896

presented as it's Scientific Art Supplement a set of 3 Acrobats.

This red one below is the assembled "American" acrobat from that set.

Assembled "American" Acrobat from the Jan 19, 1896 Boston Sunday Globe Supplement

Just in case you are wondering why this acrobat looks a bit odd???

The person that originally assembled him a long time ago, has his thighs upside down.

When I get him in I'll probably disassemble him, scan his parts and then re-assemble him correctly.

I'll probably wait a little while before posting him since I hope to add the other two acrobats so I can post them all together. We'll see how it plays out over the next month or so.

If I'm lucky, I'll one day have a full set of assembled acrobats and an 

original uncut sheet but so far I've had a very nice start to 2013!!!

From my reference archives here is what an uncut sheet and 

what the other two acrobats look like assembled.

These images came from "The Strong" HERE and HERE

Basically you cut out the parts, connect them by knotting string at the joints 

and then use toothpicks through the hands to get them to work.

The funny thing is an uncut sheet of them sold in 2011 for under $20.00 which is about what 

I paid for the one assembled acrobat.  Back then I was concentrating on buying 

L&B ladies and passed the acrobats over thinking they were just printed on newspaper. 

I did not realizing they were a newspaper supplement printed on a much heavier stock.

Oh well - live and learn... and I'm always learning!

My Latest Interest

I truly am fascinated with the Sunday Art Supplements that appeared in the 1890's though out the country and am starting to investigate the wide variety of interesting paper toys.  What little I've discovered so far is that many of these artful creations were syndicated and an item 

that showed up one Sunday in Philadelphia might appear the next Sunday or 

a few Sundays later in Boston, New York, Chicago or some other major paper. 

This can increase one's chances of acquiring these vintage images unless 

you strictly want your collection to be from a specific publication.

Probably one of the most well known set of images from the 1890's  Sunday papers is a set of fashion dolls that included 2 dolls and a series of costumes to dress her in. I have not personally collected any of them but I've known about them for years and when you see the image below, 

I'm sure you'll recognize them too.

These paper doll reference images were found at www.thestrong.org

Dolls and Costumes that appeared in the 1895 Philadelphia Press and the Sunday Herald in Boston

I just wanted to show an example of  of the same images 

showing up weeks apart in different papers.

The top row shows that this set of dolls appeared in the Philadelphia Press 

two weeks ahead of them appearing in the Sunday Herold in Boston.

Now that my curiosity is peeked I'll be looking to see what other papers 

printed these as well just for the grins and giggles of it.

*****

Well I have one more example for you that involves a theater 

with plays published late in Dec 1895 and continued into early 1896.

This theater was issued just prior to the Patriotic one I purchased from March 1896.

I don't own this one yet but luckily I had reference images of it to share with you. 
The Brownie Theater parts were found at - ThePaperCollector.blogspot.com
The Uncle Tom's Play set was found at - AntiqueToyChest.com

Boston Sunday Globe Dec 1895 Theater with Brownies & 1896 Uncle Tom's Cabin theater pieces

 From what I've seen so far on the 1890's Sunday paper theaters; when they published one of these then they would follow up for the next few Sundays with additional sets to add to the theater stage.

In this instance The Boston Sunday Globe issued the Theater and the first play with the Brownies on Dec 8, 1895 then on January 26, 1896 they came out with the Uncle Tom's Cabin play.

There are probably several more "plays" in between.

The second image on the Theater sheet (which is the stage floor) 

states - "other plays will be given from time to time".

 I suspect Cinderella to be another of the plays for this theater...

Ironically I've run across this "play" set from the New York Recorder in Jan 1896 .
This was another great reference find at - ThePaperCollector.blogspot.com

 This Cinderella play seems to be part of the above "Brownie" theater series; so my guess is 

the New York Recorder also printed that theater and the plays that went with it.

I'm not sure how many other Sunday papers around the nation printed these theaters but it gives me hope that I stand a chance at one day getting some of them.

I'm looking forward to my 2013 vintage paper adventures 

and I hope you join me from time to time as I play.

Till Next Time...