Antique German Garden Gnomes

I love gnomes, and they comprise a major category of the "other stuff" I collect. The oldest gnomes in my collection are these miniature terracotta versions, made in Germany in the 1920s-30s.

They're an expressive bunch of little guys, measuring 6 inches tall.

 One of my favorites in this set is the smoking gnome. He reminds me of that photo of J.R.R. Tolkien that's on most of his books. He's holding his pipe in just the same way, and looks like he's about to say something both jovial and profound.

And then there's this gnome, lying about in a leisurely fashion, with rather a "come-hither" look on his face. His friend in the background is even more obviously "on the make": check out the open shirt and wanton expression. (He's also the only gnome I've ever seen with muttonchop sideburns instead of the traditional long gnome beard.)

 

Hard-working garden gnomes, these are not.

Antique Photo of Child With Garden Gnome

I've been wanting to do a little theme on garden gnomes for awhile (I adore gnomes), and I thought I'd start with this: a 1920s German photograph of a little boy with his gnome.

Kind of a creepy-looking gnome, no?

Garden gnomes got their start way back in the mid-1800s in Germany. The earliest were made of terracotta and were finely sculpted. Travelers to Germany took the gnomes back to France and England, where they became very popular with hobby gardeners. In America, these ornamental figures are often referred to as lawn, not garden, gnomes, perhaps reflecting the suburbanite obsession with their little plots of grass.

To learn more about gnomes, check out Garden Gnomes: a History, by the oddly yet aptly named garden historian Twigs Way.

Antique Photo of Child with Stearns Automobile and Chauffeur

Over the summer, I found this antique photo of a child playing in a magnificent automobile while a tolerant chauffeur looks on. Usually I only collect old photos of children with toys, a natural extension of my antique toy collecting. But this picture was just too captivating to pass by. And after all, the child is playing in the car, so perhaps we can consider it a toy, albeit a very expensive one.

 It took me awhile to get the car identified, but I'm told by my local "car guy" that it's a Stearns, made by the luxury automobile manufacturer F.B. Stearns of Cleveland, Ohio. Stearns cars were originally in production from 1898-1925, when the company was sold to J.N. Willys of Willys Overland fame. Willys continued making Stearns models until 1929, when they liquidated the company. I'm not sure of this car's date: I've seen pictures online of similar Stearns ranging from 1908-1920s. (Any Stearns experts out there who can identify it, feel free to write me!) In 1906, a typical Stearns auto sold for an astronomical $5,200, which explains the presence of the chauffeur: if you could afford this car back then, you probably had an estate with a substantial domestic staff.

The picture has a label on the back saying it was framed at Crowley, Milner & Company, a Detroit department store that was founded in 1909, so it's a pretty safe bet that this photograph was taken in a posh area of Detroit like Indian Village or its luxurious neighbor, Grosse Pointe.

That's one happy, happy kid. I would be, too, if I had a chauffeur to drive me everywhere!

1930s Mickey Mouse Tea Set

The yard sale and outdoor antique show season is almost over in my part of the world, where the temperatures are already dropping into the 40s (Farenheit) at night. But last weekend I gathered up my spare change, braved the weather, and saled away, finding great bargains like the mod Barbie clothes and Flagg dollhouse dolls mentioned in the previous two posts.

I had decided to pack it in and head home, as the weather was turning decidedly blustery, when I spotted a final sale. It didn't look like much, but I thought I spotted the gleam of vintage lustrewear. I decided to check, and good thing too, because tucked away in a corner of a table was part of a 1930s Mickey Mouse children's tea set, Made in Japan, in the rarer blue lustre variation (when found, these pieces are usually in gold lustre.) Even though it's just a partial set, it's a treasure: one of the earliest licensed Mickey Mouse items ever made!

The find included a little creamer, four saucers, and two plates. For a sense of scale, the largest plates measure about 3 1/4 inches in diameter.

Mickey and Minnie on a nautical outing decorate
a saucer and the creamer.

An artist Mickey features in the center of a plate.

Mickey presents Minnie with a white rabbit, presumably pulled
from a magic hat, on this tiny saucer.

Mickey waters some flowers. He's probably going to give them
to Minnie later.

My favorite piece of all was this one, a little plate with the image of Mickey standing in front of a fantastic vintage microphone. He looks so confident and self-assured, doesn't he? What a cute little guy.

Now I just need to find the matching cups, teapot, and sugar bowl...

Flagg Flexible Dollhouse Dolls

These homely little dolls may not look like much compared to the oh-so-chic mod Barbies of the previous post, but they have a charm all their own, as well as a wonderful history. (I learned most of this history from the fantastic book Dollhouse and Miniature Dolls, 1840-1990, by Marcie and Bob Tubbs.)

The little dollhouse family of four includes a mom and dad, just over 4 inches each, and a boy and girl, just under 3 inches. They're made of a solid, flexible vinyl over a wire armature, and feature naively handpainted features, hair, and shoes with felt and cotton clothing. The tiny dolls were made by the Flagg Doll Company in the 1950s.

The firm began in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, just after WWII. The founders, Sheila and Charles Flagg, met during the war while she worked in a factory and he served at the Navy ship yard. Sheila was the artistically creative side of the partnership, sculpting the dolls from soap, designing and sewing their clothes, and painting their hair and faces. Charles was the mechanically creative partner. He made the molds, created the special casting oven, designed a hydraulic press to cut out the clothing, and invented a stapler to affix the clothing to the dolls. He also handled the advertising and business end of things.

The family's children sometimes helped in the factory as well. The Tubbs report in their book that "daughters, Leslie and Penny, first painted toenails and fingernails on dolls before graduating to painting faces. Neither daughter was allowed to be a 'costumer' after Leslie stapled her finger on the foot powered machine. One person in the factory boxed dolls, a thankless and unpopular task, as it was difficult to place the feet in the pre-cut tab openings. The Flagg's youngest child, Charles III, was often the nominated 'boxer.'"

The Flagg's first dolls came out around 1947, and appealed not only to children but also to child psychologists, who used them in diagnostic play with their young patients. As dollhouse play declined in the 1970s and '80s, this clinical market became the Flagg's biggest customer.

Besides the standard dollhouse family, the Flagg Company offered a vast range of creatively themed dolls, such as storybook characters, professions (nurses, doctors, police officers, teachers), a wedding party, nuns, Pilgrims, household domestic staff, and countless more.

Profitability became an issue as cheap import toys began flooding the American market in the 1970s and '80s, and the company, after being sold following Charles' death, finally closed in 1985.

The charming little dolls, with their rich history as part of one of the last American family-owned and run toy companies, are a precious addition to any collection. I was thrilled to find my set in a box of bargain priced "junque" at a local sale. Even in their well loved and played with condition, they're still tiny treasures.