"I've never seen one of those before...." Having started a conversation with the matronly antique dealer, I quickly discovered another poor soul who collected old coffee tins.
She was a bit brassy...Nosferatu didn't care for the banter but I welcomed the joshing.
When shown the pic of barely half our collection she was impressed. "You've got more cans than I do!" Yeah....then I dropped the recently acquired BOMB on her....
I, by good fortune, had recently come across this J. L. Hudson's brand coffee tin...it didn't cost a King's ransom yet it wasn't my usual frugal purchase. I simply knew what I was looking at: An Ancient DETROIT rarity!
A 2nd such expert confirmed my hunch....."That was sold at the downtown store!" In the cafeteria....with the other food products! I swear...that Hudson's coffee is the best coffee I've ever tasted!"
"A selected blend of Columbia Mara & Mocha"
I'll venture a guess, due to the small 1lb key wind tin, that this coffee vessel is from the late 1940's/early 1950's...
Searches of the 'ol Interweb proved inconclusive.....
A "One of a kind" find? Perhaps.....
A killer addition to a ridiculously extensive collection!
Traveling the old forgotten alleys & ruins of Detroit, one finds many a strange relic from the distant past. So it was with these 2 ancient political campaign cards from Hamtramck for the Mayoral election of 1934.
Hamtramck is and was a suburb of metro Detroit. In the 30's it was predominantly Polish in its ethic makeup. It was also a hotbed for radicals & troublemakers!
George Kristalsky was born in Poland and immigrated to these shores...and brought with him the ideology of the times.
He was defeated in the '34 elections...along with 7 of his Communist brothern...which makes this decrepit card that much more awesome!
Hammer & Sickle telling a guy all he needed to know about these candidates! But HEY!!! At least they weren't those lousy FASCIST!!!
2nd card in blue as opposed to the black coloring of the 1st card!
Reverse side of the 1st card has the same info in Polish!
Guys all long dead & buried....wonder how they'd view the political landscape of today? Probably prefer to stay dead to this shameful shambles that the Country has become...
And for good measure....my 1925 Street Directory of DETROIT....my source has some brilliant old junk/temporal artifacts....
Brilliant for its list of "All Night Car Services, Owl Cars, Hotels, Cemeteries, and Street Car Lines"! Maps of streets and surrounding countryside also genius!
The FRANK TEA & SPICE co of Cincinnati, Oh...makers of old Frank's Red Hot sauce...made peanut butter for ages....early 1900's till the 1960'2/70's...
Any of us have seen a slew of these JUMBO peanut butter jars....every Antique store worth their salt has a plentiful supply, most estate sales and even the more cosmopolitan garage sales will have one.
I'd never been interested in them...until reading a post on the "Jar Fetish™" sites...
"The JUMBO jars....produced for so long...have about 80 variations...different sizes, different lids, different eras...rarely will you come across one with a lid...."
Yuppers....that jumped out at me..."The lid is the key!" And here I found a 7oz jar, of the older variety, with its original lid!
Not the "grail" of peanut butter jars....but a rare find regardless!
All in a days scurraging!!
***UPDATE*** So...that lid I found is from the 1920's...one of the oldest JUMBO lids out there....not too shabby!
Another estate sale out in the hinterlands. Advertised as a "1850's farmhouse"....who could pass up a chance at some ancient artifacts buried out in the sticks?!?
Not I...Off I set in search of who knows what?
2 barns....full of "Horses-people" stuff! Harnesses & Horses collars...mostly useless things...useless to me anyways...off to the house!
Inside...most glassware & clothing....seemingly a bust.....then I noticed the basement with its "DO NOT ENTER" sign...being ignored by hoarders & employees alike!
TO THE BAT-CAVE! Down a set of ramshackle stairs that even the Dog-Boy would have disapproved of! Again...nothing....dust & mold & a dank smell...people picking their way among the ruins...I had almost given up hope....until I saw a woman rummaging through an old cupboard....and there they were: An ancient prescription bottle....and, buried at the bottom...an old Velvet Peanut butter jar, dirty almost beyond recognition!
The 'script bottle...looking like was just handed over yesterday to some farmer's daughter...."R.L. McCabe"...DETROIT, MICH. I have one other such bottle....who's label is torn almost beyond reading....this one is perfect. A bit of research provided ad's circa 1930's from DETROIT advertising McCabe's pharmacy! Who knows when they became defunct? A bottle of " Potassium permanganate"...A household oxidizing agent....good 'ol Potash!
And the Velvet jar...
Tucked away at the bottom of the cupboard....covered in dust & dirt....and filled with turpentine! Who can guess how long this jar had been siting down in the dungeon of gloom containing this piney concoction? An age & an age perhaps? Label torn & frayed....it took some cleaning & elbow grease...but it cleaned up rather well....artistic representation non-withstanding!
Popsy Peanut Butter...a Velvet Nut Products. Inc creation...the same people who brought the Detroit area VELVET Peanut butter.
Predates the "Homogenized" Velvet brand, perhaps? Only research will tell!
That typical estate sale basement....musty books & dusty records. Baubles and twine & buttons....and then you run across the cookie cutters.
Pennsylvania Dutch...those makers of kiddie stuff of a bygone age.
I came across this at an estate sale in Livonia this 'morn....
6 replica antique cookie cutters...did see on the interwebs that this box set is from"...the 1940's"...can't confirm....will look for more information...
Ma & Sonny Boy fixin' to fix the vittles....cuz what else have they got to do?
And the the kicker...
For those so obsessed...another Hudson's Department store purchase...
Another artifact for the vault...
Velvet Peanut butter, THE Detroit peanut butter. "Fresh, Pure, Delicious". Every kid knew those 3 words meant Peanut butter. Velvet brand peanut butter.
My brothers & I would always make sure to stop at the Velvet display back in the 1970's....the kids faces on the jar of Velvet always made us laugh. The FRESH kid looked like he meant trouble, like a natural born mixer with a couple of choir boys as siblings. We related to the implied threat of chaos that kid represented.
We all know, at least should, the history of Velvet. A Detroit truck driver, Paul Zuckerman, made a dream into an empire. I'll leave the bloviation to the children of a lesser god. Just watch the well done doc "Made in the Motor City" for the Velvet story...starting around the 13:28 mark.
http://video.dptv.org/video/2365438277/
I made the journey to the hinterlands and came back with an old Velvet lid, an ancient Velvet Jar, and a plastic Velvet bucket.
Here's the lid...it doesn't go with the 2lb jar, but was near it in the dusty workshop in the basement...
"Crunchy" variety....77 cent
Slight scuffs...bit 'o rust...overall good condition.
The plastic bucket...it was being used to hold flame retardant....how apropos.
Needed a great deal of cleaning...
It's in decent enough shape...some scrapes and scuffs, discoloring and wear...
And the Jar...
No lid....label scuffed & torn at the bottom...
Took some slight yet careful cleaning...and the glass returned to a brilliant hue.
Now the specs that only a few crackpots really care aboot....
A "4930" on the bottom...the "Homogenized" process and sales pitch started with Velvet (Zuckerman claimed that Velvet was the 1st peanut butter to utilize the process) in 1944. A 1949 jar? Perhaps...
The other markings....a "Jug" shaped symbol, perhaps of the glass fabricator...and a lone 8.
You want to know more about Velvet? http://myjewishdetroit.org/2014/12/fresh-pure-delicious/
Cut-and-paste 'till your little black heart is content.
I always try to hit the estate sales in the "less traveled" areas...they seem to pay more dividends. Besides...how many times can you draw water from the same well before it runs dry? Who cares....not me, I've got other sales to hit home-slice! $3 for those 3 forgotten gems was all I had to part with....Instant Karma & succotash!
