Random Saturday - Postcards

Do you remember this post about a postcard which came back to the house where it came from? After almost 50 years?

Now you may think that is just another example of nostalgia, and part of it probably is, but to me it actually means learning more about our hometown and its history. Sometimes it takes a while to find info online, sometimes there's nothing to find.
And the backs of the cards - as in the above mentioned case - can be really interesting as well, but that may be a story for another time.

The other day, it came to me that I knew absolutely nothing about the history of the postcard itself. Another rabbit hole? Actually more of a whole burrow. There are so many pages out there, and while they agree on some things, they don't on others - doesn't that sound familiar ... Who was the first one to invent the "real" postcard? Which country was the first? What even is a "real" postcard? There are postcards and picture postcards. To be honest, my brain was overwhelmed trying to make sense of it all and especially to put it in a post shorter than a thesis and I failed miserably.
So let's just say that it really seems to have started in the 19th century (staying on the safe side here) and that most sources seem to agree on these Austrian "correspondence cards" to be the first "real" postcards even though there had been cards before.
Here's the history on the "World Postcard Day" page.

Correspondence card from 1869
Public domain via Wikipedia

When Heinrich von Stephan who reorganized the German postal service suggested something similar in 1865, the "open post sheet" which was meant to avoid an envelope by having pre-printed postage if you just wanted to send a short message, the idea wasn't well received.
What if servants read their employers' mail, for example? What about preserving public morals? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! Sorry, that's a quote from "Ghostbusters".
Anyhow, after the Austrian card was such a huge success, postcards caught on in other countries as well, even in Germany. I couldn't find any information on the servant-employer crisis related to that 😉
Towards the end of the century, there were more and more picture postcards. Pictures could be lithographies, sometimes colorized, or photos. They showed individual buildings, streets, parks, but also persons.
For example, monarchy used postcards for propaganda, showing off their families as role models for their subjects and to shape a positive image of themselves - which may have worked for some people, but not others. Examples that come to mind are the Romanovs, Queen Victoria, Emperor Wilhelm II.

Early cards still looked different. Unlike the cards you probably know, one side was meant only for the address and the message was written above, below or around the picture, like in this panorama of Göppingen from 1903 made up of three postcards.
If it was just one card, the sender didn't manage to put much text on it.

Maybe that's why postcards changed later. The images took up one side completely and the back was divided in a space for the address and one for the message.
The address on this card from 1919 simply says "Umbrella shop" and the town.
Isn't the penmanship beautiful? As much as I like to look at writings in Sütterlin, it's not always easy for us today to decipher it, though.

I'm often surprised at what the senders have shared on postcards. Sometimes it's just a greeting from a short trip, a visit, a longer vacation, on occasion of a holiday, a thank you, but we have seen more than one that has been sent from a hospital and the news haven't always been very good.

Greetings for New Year's Eve. You might think the word and flowers are
drawn by hand, but they are printed on, probably after a hand drawn design.

I'm not very interested in cars in general, but look at these beauties!
I just love an nice old VW Bug. That restaurant is outside town, near an artificial lake. You just don't see VW Bugs there anymore now.
The other card shows our renaissance castle. If you look closely, you don't just see the old cars, but also - unfortunately blurry - a horse carriage in the background.

The following pictures are not postcards, but file copies which served as masters. They are actually just half the size of a card.
They were taken by a local photographer. Many of my cards were manufactured by local photographers, bookstores or stationery shops.

This is the square in front of the old train station with the post office on the right.

More old cars, but to me it was interesting to learn about the so-called "Kraftpost" (literally power post). These successors of stagecoaches were postbuses used in Germany (other countries had them as well) both for mail delivery and passenger transport. You can see a sign on the post office building. It's illegible here, but I also know a picture with a later sign that could be read easily.

Let's stop here or I might never stop again.
I hope I didn't bore you too much, but maybe you could get a idea of how postcards have illustrated history over years, no matter if you are just interested in that of your town or area or global history.
When was the last time you sent a card?

Nostalgia - Traveling Treff

This post is inspired by two topics.
The first one is my love to Steiff's Treff dog, the second one is the fascinating (and frustrating) world of parcel delivery, hence the title.

Let me tell you about Treff first.
From the very start of our Steiff collecting on, this bloodhound has had my heart. Although there are a lot of Steiff dogs I love, Treff has always been my favorite.
I couldn't even tell you why exactly. Is it the long ears, is it the cute nose? The color, the airbrushed details in the face, the eyes? I guess it's the whole package.

Over many years, a few of them made it into the collection, all of them sitting in different sizes from 4 to almost 20 inch (not in all nine sizes, though), in mohair and velvet. These are smaller ones, the big ones sit in the back of the cabinet and I'll admit I didn't want to move the animals in front of them.

Treff was a popular dog not just with me and therefore stayed in the Steiff lineup from 1928 to 1938, also standing up, as a ride animal, with a music box inside, on a pincushion -  and as a puppet on which I had had my eager eye on from the beginning.

I don't know if you have noticed it in the group photo, but their eyes don't all look the same.
The design was patented, the eyes are not just sewn on, but embedded and part of them is covered by the fabric for the distinctive bloodhound look.
As quoted by Steiff Gal, Steiff's US distributor Borgfeldt once wrote "the slanting, half-covered eyeball, which gives this dog’s face a particularly thoughtful, intelligent expression."
In fact, however, you see Treffs where the eyes don't look like that because the fabric has slipped behind the eye. I usually leave them like that because I don't want to mess with the eye and fabric to avoid tearing.

Can you see how the look changes?

I'm in love with the Steiff animal hand puppets and especially with the pre-war ones, and when a Treff finally turned up for sale after years, the ex got it for my birthday.
Probably only a collector will be able to imagine my excitement waiting for the parcel.

And that brings us to the wonders of postal services ...
Back then you didn't get emails and you didn't have live tracking. Delivery notices were still on cards being thrown in your mailbox telling you to pick the parcel up elsewhere although you had been home all day.
What was really disturbing in this case, though, was not getting a notice or a parcel, but then being told that the parcel had been delivered ...
What had they done to my Treff??

So I called the hotline. At least I didn't have to deal with a chatbot back then, but of course I still had to "number press" my way through to a human who then explained to me that I would have to call a sorting center in Munich.
I live 200 km from Munich. The parcel didn't go via Munich. "Doesn't matter, you have to call Munich". Once I finally had a person on the phone there ... you may have already guessed it ... "Why are you calling us?" "Heck if I know, the hotline said ..." "Yeah, you are wrong here, try the hotline again." With the help of a little whimpering and begging from me not to send me back there, they gave me at least the direct number to the right sorting center near us.

There I got to talk to a very nice man who had strange news for me. Yes, the parcel had been delivered today, yes, they had a signature from my husband. Stop, stop ... we always had both names on parcels because of our different names, but I had been home, not he.
I asked him what the name was and he didn't hesitate to tell me, so my next question was if it was difficult to read and he said not at all. I explained to him that it couldn't be my husband's signature for two reasons - he wasn't home and his signature was absolutely not readable because it didn't even have individual letters. He said he'd fax it to me (yes, it was that long ago) which only confirmed what I knew already.
WHO had MY Treff?

I was worried and angry because after all we are not only talking a certain financial but also emotional value. This isn't something easily available for replacing.
He promised to send the parcel guy by our house to see if it helped him remember the parcel and where he had taken it to.
When he called me back, he let me know that my parcel had been delivered to a town three miles from here. To a different person in a street with a different name who had seen - of course because the address had been correct and readable - that it wasn't for him, but decided to keep the parcel "just in case". What case? That the actual owner wouldn't investigate?
Of course, they didn't tell me the name of the person, but does it sound to you as if that was an honest mistake? I didn't even believe that person had the same last name as my husband.
At any rate, the next day Treff traveled to the right house and here he has been ever since.

Disappointed!

Please read the title in the voice of Kevin Kline in "A Fish Called Wanda". I can't use the word anymore without thinking of him and I love that there's a video of this moment on YouTube.

The other day I dreamed that I was travelling. I can't tell you the country and also not the first part of the dream because there's just a vague idea left of visiting an older lady.
Anyhow, I went to a beach I didn't recognize and half buried in the sand was a small open cardboard box which contents had spilled out on the sand. There were tumbled rocks, golden chains (not real), charms, a pretty wild mix. It looked as someone got rid of their old jewelry making supplies.
Of course I had to go through the box right away and I took apart clumps of golden chain, I picked some rocks and just enjoyed having a look at everything.
You may wonder why I didn't just take the whole box, but I remember thinking that I should leave some for the next person and indeed another person showed up in the end.

Picture via pxhere

When I woke up, I was a little disappointed for a second and didn't even know why. Then it came to me.

It hadn't been the first time I had a dream like that. I know from other collectors that they had similar ones.
Collectors are weird.
Over the years, a lot of my dreams about all kinds of things or events have been very vivid and I can still remember quite a few of them, also because there are recurring themes or locations.
No worries, I'm not going to tell you all of them now 😉

One of them is the department store dream.
I have obviously gone back in time and am in a huge store in the toy department. I only remember it in black and white. Despite having had dreams in black and white, I think that my memory is deceiving me in this case and I blame two episodes from TV shows for that - "Death at Bargain Prices" from "The Avengers" and "The After Hours" from "The Twilight Zone" both of which are set in a department store and both of which are favorite episodes of mine.
(This was before I watched "Are You Being Served?" or they might have been in color.)

What I definitely still know, however, is that I feel completely overwhelmed by the collection of pristine Steiff animals (pre-war) or Barbie dolls from the 60s - at the prices of that time.
Weirdly, it's always only one or the other. I guess my brain thinks I wouldn't be able to handle both at a time, but actually I can't even handle one.
For some reason, I'm standing there knowing I don't have a means of transportation and can't have them all, but how to choose?
There has never been an ending so far which may be for the better. Possibly it would end with my having to be dragged off the store floor because I'm losing my mind 😂

Other dreams take me to a street round the corner where I used to live as a child, to different antique shops. I have no idea why they are always in that street because there has never been any shop at all there in my time.
Not the one on the corner which has a lot of books, but also a few glass cases with small Steiff animals sitting between jewelry or trinkets. Most of them are not special, but there's always one that catches my eye.
Not the one on the other corner which seems to be a mix of jewelry and antique shop.
And not the one in a basement with some steps leading down (no doubt inspired by two real shops in different streets which had stationery, office supplies, and things like that and which went away decades ago), but with a window on street level where I once saw a row of Steiff wool miniatures sitting, at the original price, the most beautiful pre-war ones ever. I woke up just when I wanted to go inside. That one hit hard because I was so close and it really took me a while to realize it had just been a dream. I almost expected them to sit in my cabinet.

These cuties don't live me with anymore which is
probably for the better given Gundel's history
(I'm of course referring to the Christmas massacre of 2018)

I haven't had one of these dreams in a while. I also haven't been at fleamarkets or fairs in years.
That doesn't mean I have forgotten or never miss the thrill of the hunt which makes up a fair share of the collecting experience. Mind you, I wasn't a very good hunter (I hung around in front of book boxes too much) and maybe that added to the disappointment after waking up from such a dream when I thought I had found something really good? 😉

Have you ever gone thrifting in a dream?

Nostalgia - How toys become real

A few weeks ago, I read "The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real" for the first time. The book isn't a children's classic here in Germany, but I had seen it mentioned every, now and then and figured it was about time to read it.
If you don't know it, here's the plot.

Not a velveteen, but an artificial silk plush Steiff
bunny from the 1940s (not complete, but in
wonderful condition)

There are different kinds of collectors.
Collecting can be about diversity of items, a shared detail, about the monetary value or the emotional one, about the perfect or the imperfect look, about color, about use, about rarity, about history, about sentimentality ... I could keep going on like this.

As a collector of Steiff animals, I can say that a unplayed with vintage Steiff, possibly even complete with button, chest and ear tag which get ripped off easily by children's hands (no safety buttons back then), has something very special. It never fails to make me wonder how that is even possible. Has it spent the last 50, 70, 100 years or more in a cabinet, never touched? Has it been living in a bubble (I use the word "living" on purpose, you'll see why)?
I would lie if I said I don't know how breathtaking an old "new" Steiff can be. There are collectors who only look for those, and they are ready to pay the price for the (often) few chosen ones.

And then there are the others.
I'll never forget the fleamarket where I found this little fellow. I ran to drag the ex over to the stand to let him know I had fallen in love.

Now you might not understand how someone can fall in love with the obvious victim of a moth attack that has swingy limbs.
You might even think that this is a bit yucky or disturbing.
I, however, saw an 80 year old friend (over 100 now).

A child loved him so much that he stayed around although he had lost most of his fur, loved him so much that someone made the effort to give this little fellow new paw pads from white leather (now worn as well), sewn on very neatly and secure.
I remember how on edge I was as a kid when my own teddy had holes in his felt paw pads and I watched my mother sew on new fabric ones.

The child is probably not here anymore, but he is, and oh, the stories he could tell! Maybe he was like my teddy and saw his child grow up and get old before ending up at a fleamarket in Marin County just to be found by a pair of Germans and being taken back to within 60 kms from where he once came.

The velveteen rabbit is told: "Real isn't how you are made ... It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." ...
"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
Spoiler alert: The nursery magic Fairy turns him Real, a real little rabbit.

I have no doubt that this teddy became Real to his child like the velveteen rabbit to his boy because he was loved (even though he still has his shoe button eyes). Maybe he's still waiting for his fairy and I'll happily give him the spot with some other teddy friends to do so.

Because that's the kind of collectors we were and there are others like us. They don't just love the perfect ones, they love the loved ones, the played with, the "flawed" ones those we wish could tell us their stories, all of them, not just the good ones ...
Just saying.
Each of them has their own beauty.

Nostalgia - Princess / Prinzess Victoria needles

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others. So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

As this is a collection that's still growing, I have decide to give it its own page on the blog now, so I can update it more easily now.
You can find it here.

Actually, I already started talking about today's small collection a few years ago as part of a homage to needles, I just didn't know then this would turn into a collection of its own.
I have used and broken quite a few needles since I started beading. Bead embroidery, especially on the beaded sneakers (no idea why Blogger insisted to have extra space between the lines in that post) and the HeatherCat sneakers (this is the last post of four which has all the links if you are interested), was extra hard for them (well, and my hands).

In the homage post, I talked about how I discovered vintage paper needle packs while looking for beading needles and how I fell in love with some of the labels.
Most intriguing to me were the Princess Victoria needles because there were variations, and I thought they deserved a post of their own by now because there will probably be one or the other addition to them.
That means I will then update this post instead of the other one which might get a bit too long otherwise.
In fact, this one is also quite long already.

It's nice that the packs don't take up much space, though, and of course I can always use the needles if I need them as most packs are full, this isn't just decoration (or so I tell myself). The packs are scattered throughout my Steiff collection, rather fitting I think as most of it are sewn animals.

So what are Princess Victoria needles? I honestly wish I knew how they got that name.
When I got the first tiny pack - not even an inch - of size 12 sharps, I started searching, but without any success.
What I do know is that there are all sizes, that the packs can have a red or a golden edge and "banner" around Victoria, and that there are different pictures of Victoria. Some have a more vintage look, some look quite modern, some have a blurry or messy print, some a very clear modern looking one.

Some labels are all English, some are all German (saying Prinzess instead of Princess and using the German terms for the needles, such as Frauennadeln), some are a mix of English and German using the word "Prinzess" and "feinste", but the term "sharps", for example.
I even found a picture on eBay UK with an Italian label (and now wish I had bought that pack)!

There are those without a country of origin, but also some that specify it, "Germany", "Made in Germany", "M.i W. Germany, Imp. Allemagne OCC" (between 1949 and 1989), but also "Made in Czechoslovakia" (which means between 1918 and 1992) or "Made in the Czech Republic" (after 1992).
Last but not least, most of them that I have seen don't have a company name printed on, but there are exceptions. So far I have seen "Prym", "Rhein Nadel", and a name I'm not sure about, "St. Witte", "Stowitte"? What's up with that?
Did the needle production go from one company to the next?

And who is this Princess Victoria, anyway?
Does the name refer to an actual Princess Victoria, such as Queen Victoria's daughter (who eventually became the German Empress) or the daughter of Edward VII.? Or does it refer to the Queen herself? I think that's possible because there are also Queen Victoria needles with a similar Victoria on a slightly different background (I don't have any of those). Doesn't it make sense for it to be the same one?
As you will see further down, the needles have been around for a long time, but after all Victoria was crowned in 1838, so could it have been that long?
I doubt she was really important enough for someone to think the name would appeal to buyers before she was a Queen.

At some point, someone must have said "let's call them that forever and ever", but why? Because, you know, you can actually still get a mix of sizes from Prym, but in a plastic tube and not with silver-plated or gold-plated eyes anymore to "protect the environment".
Possibly the manufacturer(s?) intended them mainly for the British market and therefore used the name to appeal to buyers there? Why would they bother to make a difference between the "Princess" and the "Queen" needles at all then?

Then I found this older blog post by Papergreat again that I had already commented on in 2022 and then forgotten right away.
Chris had found the following in The Economist of November 18, 1899, page 1629 - 1630 from the correspondent in France:
"A deputation of cravat manufacturers was received this week by the Minister of Commerce to make representations on the use of false trade-marks on importations of the articles they sell from Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Italy. These goods, the deputation declared, are marked with the words "Made in London," or other words implying that they are of English origin, which appears to be a recommendation with buyers, and the Minister was consequently asked to put in operation Article 2 of the Madrid Convention, under which they may be seized. ... The prices at which these goods are sold are probably lower than those at which they can be imported from England, and French makers are sufficiently protected against imports from England by the higher cost and the heavy duty. It is, however, a common practice to import German goods marked as English, and recently the attention of the British Chamber of Commerce was called to the sale, in France, of packets of needles bearing a portrait of the Queen, with the words, "Prinzess Victoria Needles" and the name of a fictitious manufacturer at Redditch (Note: makes me wonder if it said Redditch on the packs). The spelling of the word princess betrayed the origin of the article, but would escape the attention of the buyer."

So does that mean that a bunch of German companies used that name for the needles trying to disguise where they came from - but why the mix of languages and why the different Victorias? Might they be able to tell me something about the age of the needles, like different Steiff buttons indicate the time period an animal was made?
This is only getting more intriguing. I'm afraid I'm not done with this rabbit hole yet. I'm a librarian and determined which means I'll probably be having a look at some of our databases to see where I can get with those.
Ok, so I'm probably not just determined, but obsessed with these now.

Click on the photos for more detail.

This was the one that started it all. Such a tiny pack, only about 1 inch!

Update Victoria needles April 2025:
I got some more packs. One pack is as tiny as the one above. This time we actually have a name, but I'm not sure what it is.
Googling, I can find one result for "St. Witte & Co." which doesn't help in any way, but there is something between the T and the W. Could that be a badly printed O (I found the name Stowitte, but again without any more info) or is it a kind of abbreviation?
The only other name I found was "Schmidt, Witte & Co.", a shipping company, that didn't help much, either. Or could this be a fictitious company?
Anyhow, this time we have German words for these size 10 sharps and even the Prinzess is written with a z as it would be done in German.

I got these three packs for a great price. All of them are unused and full of big, fat size 2 needles. As you can tell, we are back to English words, too.

To show you the size difference, I took a picture of all of my new acquisitions together.

Then I got these - some sharps and some "betweens", two of them with a German print and one by "Rhein Nadel", another former needle producer in Aachen (which changed their field from needles to automation eventually, so this pack must be from before 2003).

How funny that the one "Made in Germany" has the English print, but still the Prinzess with a z. Even funnier is that the print is very clear and looks more modern, but the "Prinzess Victoria" got mirror-inverted!
This pack looks identical to one I have seen marked with Prym. Did a company make these and then marked them for different companies or did Prym just take over from Rhein Nadel?
Is this a plot to drive me crazy? 😂

Then I went on a bit of shopping spree, but that's going to be it for a while, I swear!
If I get something new, it will have to be some kind of variation (uh-oh, I may have ... in May ...).
This is one result of the shopping spree. It's old new stock from a seller who gets her items from warehouses.
Now I have all the sizes for sharps and finally some packs with the red "banner" instead of the golden one. The edges are golden on all of them - except one which is yellow!

I think the one marked "gold ey'd" should be the oldest, it's also the only one with the "Princess" print and without a country of origin.
All the others are marked "Prinzess" and "Made in Czechoslovakia" except for one that says "Made in Czech Republic", but I don't think they all have the same age as there are different fonts. My guess is that the ones with the red banners are younger, also because one of them is from the Czech Republic which we know must have been after 1992.

Here's a comparison between the two packs of size 0 sharps.
The print is so much more beautiful and elaborate on the old pack, the crowns are completely different, Victoria has a lot more details down to the pendant she's wearing! Even the flowers are more beautiful.

By the way, this is what "gold ey'd" (later gold eyed) looks like. Some of the needles are corroded, but I bet they are around 100 years old if not older, so that's to be expected.

Update May 2025 (any updates after May 20 will be on the new blog page).

This little cutie is also one of the tiny ones.
It's the first one I have with both the German and the English description of "Frauen Nadeln" and "Sharps" and once again Victoria looks different.
The color print is quite messy, though.

This one is my favorite so far. My guess is that it was a sample card, maybe used for representation in haberdashery shops.
It has the sizes 1 to 10 safely tucked into cord loops and an extra needle pack marked 1/9 with the /9 added in handwriting, but actually there are 12 different needles in it.
The numbers under the sample needles with the article number 126 and "Et. 925" (no idea (yet) what that could mean) are also by hand, very carefully done.
The pack is marked "Gold Ey'd Sharps" and "Made in Germany".
Also - yet another "Prinzess Victoria"!

This is a bit of a different needle book that my last acquisition is glued to. I found several examples of this early 20th century needle book in past auctions and one of them showed the exact same needle pack, but in different condition, so I know it wasn't mine.

Victoria looks the same as in the sample card, but this time we got "elliptic gold eyed sharps" in the sizes 3 to 9.

Does someone need a needle? I happen to have one or two ...

Here's the Princess/Prinzess gallery of different faces so far.

Nostalgia - The mystery zebra

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others. So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

Today I have brought a little mystery friend from my Steiff collection.
Steiff has always been known to make promotional items, from an aphid for a chemical company to a little teddy for cough syrup, but also cartoon characters including Mickey Mouse.

This little fellow is a zebra as you can see. That isn't unusual of course, but unlike its zebra pal with whom it shares the stock number, its cotton velvet fur doesn't have only black or brown stripes (yes, even the "ordinary" Steiff zebras don't all have the same color) ...

... but part of its stripes are green. Huh?

The green is not painted over the original stripes and it is not limited to individual parts of the zebra, in some spots you can see it go across the seams.

Was the color sprayed on maybe? Why green? And why not all the stripes?
Then of course there's also the word "arco" on both hips.

I've tried more than once, but couldn't find out anything. So I finally turned to expert Steiffgal hoping she would be able to help me. She let me know that there was a picture of the arco zebra in a product guide I don't own, but all it said there was that it was from 1954 and that it was a promotional item for "Arco".
I had figured as much, but what is or was "arco"? Is it a brand, is it a company name? What did it have to do with the color green?
Interesting is also that the zebra in the book is described as being green and white and also looks that way in the photo, no brown to see, while mine just has some green areas and the green seems to be brighter.
Did that depend on the person applying the stripes or did it have to do with the production process?

Unfortunately I don't have any possibility to find out after 70 years, so my little zebra is going to stay a mystery.
And why do I have the feeling it's laughing at me? ;-)

Nostalgia - Midge or The Beginning

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others.So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

Are you a collector and can you say exactly when and how you started your collection/s? My guess is you can.
While gaining and possessing a new piece is exciting, even more so if it is something you have been looking for for a long time, there's also the thrill of the hunt. You can be a wild hunter like my ex or you can take the more relaxed approach like I did, simply because I can't walk as fast or am not tall enough to see everything around me at a glance.
I might not have found as much as him at fleamarkets, but that made every good find even more special.

My Barbie collection started with such a good find and it was mere luck.
I had a platinum TNT Stacey when I was a child, I have told her story a long time ago. How my sisters got Mattel dolls for Christmas and five year old me nagged until I got one as well. How I played library with her and loved her so much that she has been in a pretty sad condition for a long time.
It has also been years since I told the story of the Billy Boy Barbie book my sister got and how my fascination with Barbies was rekindled in a completely new way. What can I say, I just can't resist tiny zippers and buttons. And I mentioned finding a Midge doll.

I'll never forget that moment, actually I could show you the spot at the university fleamarket (where the Steiff collection started as well, by the way, topic for another time maybe) almost exactly. Only thanks to the Billy Boy book I knew that the doll in the box (not hers, but a big one) was a "BL" (bendable leg) Midge, more rare than her straight leg (SL) predecessor. Was she in perfect condition? No. Was I excited, anyway? Oh yes, I was. Did I almost squeal when the seller replied to my question that she was 4 DM (about $2.50 at the time)? You bet!
As clear as this is in my mind, however, I'm completely lost trying to remember what she wore, but think it was probably a swimsuit, not necessarily hers, though. I guess I was so fixed on her face and hair and being able to identify her that the outfit didn't matter. That of course changed a lot during my collecting career when I learned more and more from my books.

Midge, Barbie's best friend, came out a few years after Barbie herself, in 1962, to be exact. Back then all you could move on the bodies were the arms and legs at the shoulders and hips.
In 1965 and 1966, Midge didn't just get bendable legs, but her hairstyle changed from a tight outward flip to a loose inward flip. She came in three hair colors, blond, titian, and the brownette of my doll.

My Midge has lost her hairband which would have held her full bangs together, she also has a darkened face (and the current heat wave has given her sticky arms again which need to be cleaned and powdered), but for her age - which could be the same as mine if she is the first issue - she is still looking very good, definitely better than me. Not one grey hair on her! ;-)
I didn't hesitate to put her into Dinner At Eight although it is a little older than she is (1964). Maybe she has borrowed this beautiful persimmon colored jumpsuit with the airy looking hostess coat in a burnt orange with metallic golden threads from her BFF Barbie, who knows? I just think the orange goes so beautifully with her hair - and the hair of a brunette SL Midge I have that wears the same outfit.

When I took Midge home, I didn't even realize that the first stone to my vintage Barbie collection had been laid there and then.
My next lucky find not long after made it impossible for me to stop ...

Nostalgia? - The cat rattle

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others. So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

Why the question mark in the title this time, though? Well, I never gave the piece that I want to show you today much thought after the ex got it. For once, I don't even remember if it was at a fleamarket or a show and how much he paid, but I am quite sure we brought it home from the USA, together with the cat measure tape in this picture.

The fun in a collection is not just to add to it, but also to look through it and rediscover things. Today this cat rattle, which keeps my vintage Steiff cats company, caught my eye, and being stuck at a WIP thanks to the heat and doing anything to get away from it, I took a closer look at the kitty instead.

The ribbon was obviously new, but what about the cat?
No markings anywhere, so not real silver - which would have surprised me, anyway - but silver plated.
It may have to do with the heat and the resulting weird sleep patterns, but at first I thought the silver looked very worn down (which was of course wrong).
The bail at the top holding the plastic teething ring was bent as you can see.
Did all of this mean, however, that the cat was vintage? I mean, it definitely is now because my last trip to the USA was 23 years ago, but had it already been back when it was bought?

What was that at the bottom? Amiscia. I had never heard of that. Could it be a company name?
No, but it was listed as a girl's name on several baby name sites, from the Latin "amicitia" meaning "friendship". The sites agreed on the name being English, but not on its pronunciation.
Okay. We have a cat rattle and a baby girl's name, but except for the name not being very common in our times as it seems, that doesn't say anything about the age.

Google Images. Victorian silver cat rattle. No good matches. Victorian silver plate cat rattle. No. Wait a moment, that picture is exactly my cat in perfect condition. The bow, the little bell, no doubt about it. Just the teething ring looked a bit different. Hm, in a box. So it's new after all? A small business on Etsy ... in Germany?? They sold it more than once, was it old stock? They also had other rattles, but they looked not as elaborate as the cat.
Google again. The other rattles were still widely available, teddies, rabbits, ducks, and more, from Amazon over eBay to several German jewelry stores (fun fact, the descriptions say that the rattles can't be engraved) ... but not the cat. A discontinued pattern?

I went to take some pictures and that's when it came to me. Of course the silver wasn't worn down, it had blackened. What kind of jewelry maker was I, shame on me. I got out my polishing paste and cloth and tested it in two small spots. Bright silver. For it to get quite this black, however, would take a while, wouldn't it? 23 years or more maybe?
On the other hand I was sure that it had not been bright silver when we brought it home because the vintage look had been what made the ex want to add it to the old Steiff cats.
Know what? All of this has definitely become nostalgia now ;-)

I won't polish the cat lady (no idea why I think it's a lady) and I don't know if I will ever ask one of the stores selling the other rattles if they know more.
She looks perfect the way she is now. And who doesn't like a bit of mystery?
Amiscia, wherever you are, I promise I will keep loving your cat.