The late 1800s marked the beginning of the “golden era” of postcards, which were the text messaging or social media of the day—people sent these greetings for any reason, particularly holidays. This trend lasted until around 1918. 

 Turn-of-the-century Halloween postcards were sometimes frightening, sometimes weird, sometimes cute. Some had fat jack o’ lanterns topped with equally adorable chubby-cheeked children. Others had evil witches. Black cats show up often and were sometimes cuddly, sometimes scary.

The Edwardian romanticism is obvious on these cards. Many almost seem like a combo of Valentine’s Day and Halloween with the professions of love, etc.

One particularly popular superstition for romantic Halloween cards shows a young woman looking into a mirror at the stroke of midnight to see the face of her true love, using the light of a jack o’ lantern.

Some cards might be instructional, saying things like, “On Halloween, take the seeds from a Pumpkin, place them in front of the sofa in the form of a cross – then the Witches won’t bother you.” Or, “On Halloween, Goblins have been known to fly away with Fair Maidens. Therefore ’tis best to have some one hold you and tightly, too, — because Goblins are strong.”

 

These cards are so much fun to collect but they are relatively rare. We do sometimes get them in the Midtown Mercantile Mall at 4443 E. Speedway in Tucson, AZ. Come on in to the mall. It’ll be fun to hunt down some of these charming postcards!

Carol Fenn 10-2017

Many people consider Halloween to be their favorite holiday. It’s so much fun to decorate with black cats, pumpkins, witches and spiders! … and you get to eat candy! … and … here in Tucson we are celebrating the onset of cooler weather!

There are so many ways to fill your home with Halloween decor. You can use antiques, vintage items or new holiday decorations. And guess what? Here at The Midtown Mercantile Mall at 4443 E. Speedway we’ve got everything you need no matter what your theme may be.

Pictured here you’ll find many examples of ways to decorate. Get inspired, get an early start on your decor, and come on in the mall. We’re already celebrating Halloween! Join us!

Carol Fenn 9-2017

Labor Day – the perfect day to celebrate antique and vintage labor posters and other labor related art.

Some honor home front workers supporting the war effort. Many support and celebrate the union labor movement, which brought so many important rights to American workers.  

Some are 1930’s WPA posters – the Works Progress Administration which, thanks to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, employed the unemployed and helped bring us out of the Great Depression.  

The “Free Labor Will Win” poster represents fighting the Axis dictators in World War II (which had “unfree” labor) combined with President Roosevelt’s positive policies toward organized labor unions. 

There are Women’s labor posters, anti child-labor posters, etc. I’ve also included a labor related US stamp and the movie poster from the great movie, Metropolis, about a shining Art Deco city which is powered by thousands of poor abused workers living underground.

Come on in to the Midtown Mercantile Mall at 4443 E. Speedway in Tucson, Arizona. We have many merchants who sell vintage art. There just might be some of these old labor posters in the mall right now. If you hang a few of these on your wall you will have a wonderful historic collection, and they are beautiful as well!

Carol Fenn 9-2017

You’ve got your NASA approved eclipse glasses and I’m sure you’re going to get a thrill out of watching this rare event occurring on August 21, 2017. But when it’s all over you might want to hang onto those eclipse glasses as they might just become collectible.  

There are a few contemporary things that can join the vintage and antique items that eclipse lovers already collect. The glasses, t-shirts, and the lovely posters that have been created just for this happening.  

There are some really cool old items that fit the category of eclipse collectibles. Perhaps most well known are the vintage “eclipse pattern” tumblers by the iconic mid century designer, Russell Wright.

Then there are the old astronomical charts, old photos, etc. All endlessly interesting and historical. It’s so much fun to build a collection. 

 Come on in to the Midtown Mercantile Mall at 4443 E. Speedway. We just might have an old eclipse collectible waiting for you.

Carol Fenn 8-2017

Back in the day, before the first day of school, (which used to be mid-September) your Mom or Dad would take you shopping for new clothes and new shoes.  

In those days, the clothes, no matter how much they cost, a lot or a little, were quality, finely made, and they lasted until you grew out of them. And this was probably the only time you got new clothes until the next year.  
After you were done shopping for clothes you might get treated to a brand new lunch box. Which one should you get? Yogi Bear, Peanuts, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Popeye, Underdog, Huckleberry Hound, Mary Poppins, Hee Haw, Batman, Julia, The Flintstones, or what? There were so many! Why is it so hard to pick?   

Last, grab a composition book, a pack of pencils and maybe a cool pencil box. That’s all you needed. Everything else was supplied by the school.  Oh, and hopefully your mom will save some paper grocery bags so that you can cover your textbooks with them.

Today, kids go back to school in the middle of summer and parents receive the school’s annual list of classroom supplies that they must purchase and deliver. It can be three or four pages long. It includes several cleaning products and also requests a Costco-sized package of toilet paper. It might even include a huge bag of flour! This is in addition to the school supplies for your own child. A backpack, paper, pens, folders, notebooks, a calligraphy set, fifteen new apps for their tablets, a graphing calculator, a scalpel, an electron microscope and a centrifuge. And clothing? You’ll be buying clothes all year because today’s clothes only last thru maybe a half a dozen laundry cycles. Doesn’t sound like much fun does it? And not to mention the expense. Many parents cannot afford all of these items, hence the school supply drives that pop up this time of year.  

And I’m certainly not a snob about how people dress but just check out the difference in the crossing guards then and now.

Hey, to beat those back to school blues come on in to The Mercantile at 4443 E. Speedway, Tucson AZ.  You might find one of those old lunch boxes to help bring back those “back in the day” memories.

Carol Fenn 8-2017
 
 

Ah Shiny Brite ornaments! We love you! I don’t know about you, but when I’m searching through a box of vintage and antique Christmas decorations, when I come across a Shiny Brite it makes my heart go pitty-pat!  

In 1937, Max Eckardt established Shiny Brite. He had been importing and selling German ornaments for many years but he saw the writing on the wall with the upcoming war. Eckardt partnered with the American Corning Glass Company. They adapted their process for making light bulbs to mass producing clear glass ornaments, which were then shipped to Eckardt’s factories to be decorated by hand. Prior to this time most Christmas ornaments were indeed imported from Germany. The fact that Shiny Brite ornaments were an American-made product was stressed as a selling point during World War II, even featuring Uncle Sam on the box! In the first year they sold 250,000 ornaments! 

The accurate dating of Shiny Brites is often helped by studying the hook. The first Shiny Brite ornaments had the traditional metal cap and loop. Production during WWII necessitated the replacement of the metal cap with a cardboard tab. These cardboard hangers firmly place the date of manufacture of the ornament to the early 1940s. Later during WWII they came with paper caps with a loop of string. Also during the war there was no metallic paint used as decoration. Ornaments dating to this time have a non-silvered surface.

Following the war, Shiny Brite introduced a line of ornaments with a metal hook that provided the user with two lengths of hanger. The long hook traveled through the center of the ornament and exited the bottom, where it attached to the bottom. This provided the “short” hanger. Unlatched from the bottom, the entire length of the hook was available, allowing the ornament to dangle at a greater distance from the tree limb to which it was attached. This arrangement was designed to allow the ornament to fill sparsely limbed areas of a natural tree. This feature was discontinued in 1960 when aluminum trees became popular.  

In the early 1960s, the increased popularity of artificial trees seemed to coincide with the desire for unbreakable plastic ornaments to decorate them with. The Shiny Brite company closed its doors in 1962.  

Today Shiny Brites are very popular with collectors who not only decorate their trees but they make gorgeous wreaths with them. Some even take old damaged Shiny Brite boxes and make charming little Christmastime vignettes. How cute is that!  

Carol Fenn 7-2017

Since the early 1800s, Uncle Sam has been a popular symbol of the US government as well as a manifestation of patriotism. He’s even taken on some forms of environmental conservation. But how did this come about? 

It was in 1813 that the United States got its nickname, Uncle Sam. Popular lore says that the name is linked to Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, New York, who supplied barrels of beef to the United States Army during the War of 1812. Wilson stamped his barrels with “U.S.” for United States, but soldiers began referring to the grub as “Uncle Sam’s.” The local newspaper picked up on the story and Uncle Sam eventually gained widespread acceptance as the nickname for the U.S. government.

The image of Uncle Sam that we recognize today was created by James Montgomery Flagg during World War I. This image more than any other has influenced the modern appearance of Uncle Sam: an elderly man with white hair and a goatee, wearing a white top hat with white stars on a blue band and striped trousers.

Uncle Sam has been used over the years to encourage Americans to plant Victory gardens, join the military, buy American-made products, perform patriotic acts, etc.

Well-known figure that he is, Uncle Sam has been carved into folk art figures, used on mechanical banks, toys, noisemakers, puzzles, and of course, appropriately on the 4th of July, you might even find him prominently displayed on fireworks!  

It might be fun to come into the Midtown Mall at 4443 E Speedway in Tucson, AZ and go on a treasure hunt for some Uncle Sam antiques and collectibles. Come on in! It’s cool inside!

Carol Fenn 7-2017

Back in the day this was one of the best parts of childhood. Dusk is approaching. The whole family gets piled into the Ford Galaxy, Chevy pickup, etc. and off you go. As you approach the theater you see the bigger-than-you-can-possibly-imagine neon sign of a cowboy on a bucking bronco. After paying by the carload you drive into the huge dirt lot with little hills and speakers on stands. After parking on one of those little hills it’s important to check the speaker immediately cuz you need to be sure that it works. Yep, it does! Now the kids are off to the skeezy snack bar for some popcorn and soda. It’s getting darker. Once everybody is situated in the car the movie comes on. Heaven.

Arizona got off to a late start in the outdoor drive in business. At the end of the 1940’s, there were only five drive ins operating in the entire state. But by the late 1950’s, during their heyday, there were about 50. Since that time, the number of operating drive-ins in the state has steadily declined. 

There isn’t a lot of information about the old drive in theaters in Tucson. I suppose we’d need to ask a movie-loving Tucson native if we wanted all of the info. But as far as I can tell the names of the drive ins here in the Old Pueblo were: The Apache, The Fiesta, The Prince, The 22nd Street Drive-in, The Midway, The Rodeo, and The Cactus, also known as The De-Anza. 

There is a group of people here in Tucson who are doing their best to get a drive in re-established. Let’s hope they do. Just leave out the skeezy snack bar!

Carol Fenn 6-2017

So I went in the Midtown MM Antique mall at 4443 E Speedway and look at what I found! The owners just brought it in today and I have to say it is one of the most beautiful pieces of antique furniture I’ve ever seen. 

This antique buffet is much more than just a buffet. It features exceptional tiger oak. It’s perfectly made. It’s in excellent condition. And holding up the two front corners are a pair of marvelously hand carved griffins.

 
The griffin is a fascinating mythical creature whose roots reach from western Europe to the Eastern edges of India. In any mythology, he is portrayed as a mix between an eagle and a lion. He is a kingly mythical creature who commands deep respect.  Griffin mythology reads a lot like dragon mythology in that griffins were thought to be very wise and wily characters who spent a good deal of time seeking out and guarding gold and treasures.   

Some historians have guessed at a possible origin of griffin mythology: There have been several fossil findings of the pentaceratops – a dinosaur from the Cretaceous period – that were located near known gold veins. These findings may have been influential in the ancient belief in griffins. The pentaceratops had a beaked face with a four-legged body. Anyone digging for gold in an area with these bones would find a creature whose bones looked very much like what one would imagine a griffin’s bones to look like. From there, it’s not hard to figure out why people would imagine a griffin looking as it does and being known for digging for and hoarding gold.

Finally, the buffet was sold by Captain William Gadsby of Portland, Oregon. Mr. Gadsby was of English birth and lineage. He was born January 18, 1859, in Birmingham, England, where the family name has long been associated with mercantile enterprises. He joined the British army. He was stationed in Ireland and India and eventually settled in Oregon where he went into the furniture business, becoming quite revered in the Portland community.

 
The beautiful advertisements for this circa 1900 Portland furniture business have an obvious arts and crafts influence, which was popular at the time.

So come on into the mall and check out this stunning piece of furniture. It is a sight to see.

 

Carol Fenn 6-2017

Prior to the 1850s, there were no snowcones. Imagine that! But, it is believed that they had their birth around this time in Baltimore, Maryland. Thanks to the industrial revolution, ice had become commercially available. (Prior to this if you wanted ice it had to be cut off of a frozen river or lake – not great for eating – yuck). Ice houses in New York sold man-made ice to the southern states. To get it there they would send a big horse-drawn wagon with a huge block of ice south. 

The route to Florida would pass right through Baltimore where kids would run up to the wagon and ask for a small scraping of ice. Before long, mothers started to make flavoring in anticipation of their children receiving some ice. The first flavor the women made is still a Baltimore favorite: egg custard. Egg custard was an easy flavor to make as the only ingredients were eggs, vanilla, and sugar. In Baltimore today, a favorite is some ice with a dollop of marshmallow syrup on top. Sounds good doesn’t it?

By the 1870s, snowcones had evolved to where they were being sold on street corners. At this time they were known as snowballs.  

The snowball’s popularity had risen to the degree that in the warm summer months, theaters would sell snowballs to keep their patrons cool. Because of this association with the theater, snowballs were soon thought of as an upper-class commodity. Signs in theaters instructing patrons to finish their snowballs before coming in for the second act are the earliest tangible evidence of these cool treats. In the theaters in Baltimore during this time hand shavers were used to shave the ice. 

Over the years we have found many ways to make crushed or shaved ice with many different tools. Shavers, crushers, etc!  

In Hawaii they have big vintage shaved ice machines made out of cast iron. Their shaved ices tend to be flavored with local fruits like pineapple, coconut, and guava.  

Most of the smaller tools are collectible today and they can, of course, still be used to make a snowcone. Fire up the vintage ice crusher and pull out the marshmallow syrup! Who’s ready for a snowcone!

In the Midtown mall we’ve been known to serve snowcones. We hope to have them again in the near future. Now you can not only enjoy this cool treat, but you know it’s history as well!

Carol Fenn 6-2017