Beer Steins

Christmas is over and I got one of my favorite presents ... Belgian beer.  In this case, I got some Rochefort made by the monks at Abbey St. Remy and some St. Bernardus, technically not an abbey beer but just as good.  So with beer on my mind, I thought I would have a blog post on beer and beer steins.





I checked the internet and have to conclude that there has never been a brewery in Anoka County.  Washington County and Stillwater, on the other hand, boast some of the earliest in Minnesota.  One of these was the Aiple brewery that has direct links to the Kimmick brewery that was started in Stillwater in 1852.  The Aiple brewery closed in 1896.  This is a stein promoting their Aiple-Brau that I was very fortunate to pick up for my collection, and since the brewery closed in 1896 this is one of the oldest I have.

Idyllic tavern scene

Many German steins are decorated with an idyllic tavern scene with some appropriate saying.  In this case it says "Drink what is clear, Speak what is true." 

Barroom brawl

So I couldn't pass up acquiring this stein that shows a great barroom brawl.  The German on this translates to "Card playing farmers" and "Barley and hops make great drops", drops meaning drinks, I think, unless it is referring to being clobbered with a beer pitcher.

But enough of my collection.  There are numerous steins and lots of other things to buy at Antiques on Main.  Come in and check us out.

Book Signing

Author Laurie MacKechnie

Believe it or not, the dealers at Antiques on Main and their families have interests outside of antiques.  In this instance Laurie MacKechnie, wife of dealer Mac, has written a book titled The Child Who Changed the World. She will be at AOM for a book signing on December 14 from 1-3PM. Come in and meet Laurie.

Her book is an engaging story for children four years old and up. The story shows how children can make a difference with a simple act of kindness. A young child offers a friendly, helpful hand, which has a domino effect of goodness on those around him. Anyone, even children, can make the world a better place by “paying it forward.”

This book will delight and captivate children of all ages, helping them to think how they can change the world at daycare, school, home, or in their neighborhood. They’ll also have fun tracking down the sneaky squirrel in each illustration. It was written by Laurie MacKechnie, an elementary school teacher for some years and now a college professor working with teachers, helping them to help children make reading an exciting part of growing up. The illustrator, Jelena Modec, was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia, and has been an elementary school art teacher for eight years.

Post Halloween Thoughts

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays and by chance I was working at the store on Halloween this year. The dealer I would be working with called a couple of days before to make sure I would come in costume. I was planning to anyway.  So here we are...

Working with the devil was kind of tricky as it was often difficult to avoid stepping on her tail. And I think I've heard that stepping on the devil's tail can bring bad luck - or something like that.

I also dressed up as "Indy" when passing out candy to the trick-or-treaters that came to our door. It's kind of fun because all the kids know who I'm supposed to be (in spite of the mustache) and ask questions like "Are you the real Indiana Jones?" Then there was the kid who said only one thing while holding out his bag for candy: "I like your whip, mister"

As I said at the beginning - this is a favorite holiday of mine. Mom and Dad were supportive of us going trick-or-treating at all the neighbors and Mom spent the time and effort of making costumes for us. Here's a photo of my brother and me in 1952. I'm the one on the left. As silly as we might look, we were pretty proud of our costumes. Although... I'm not sure if my hat was part of the costume or my normal winter hat.

Anoka is the Halloween Capitol of the World and there are always lots of good Halloween items available at our store.  Come in and check us out.

 

Recent Arrivals

I think I mentioned that this has been a very busy summer and I have not spent as much time in Antiques on Main as I normally do.  My real job (remember... antiques is just a hobby) took me to Hawaii, Kentucky, Hastings and along the St. Croix River.  I even got to volunteer at an archaeological dig for the Science Museum of Minnesota.  But now summer is behind me and my schedule is back to "normal" and I have time to add to this blog.

For this post, I thought I would feature a few items that have recently shown up in the store ... because of their story and because they are interesting.

First is this metal funnel.  The funnel itself isn't very interesting but the person it promotes is.  A.M. Smith, wine merchant, is Andrew M. Smith, born Anders Madsen Smedt in Denmark.  He worked as a merchant sailor from 1857 to 1860, when he came to the U.S.  After serving in the Civil War, he worked on the Transcontinental Raiload, before settling briefly as a Farmer in Elko, Utah in 1870.   He moved to Ogden in 1871 and with $10 in his pocket opened a business in Salt Lake City as a wine dealer (the California Wine Depot) in 1872.   He operated in Salt Lake City from 1872 to 1875, before moving the business to Philadelphia (1875-1886) and finally to Minneapolis in 1886. In his autobiography he identified himself as “Soldier and Sailor, Moulder and Merchant, Tramp and Trader, Soap-boiler and Scribe, Peddler and Philosopher,  Overseer and Understrapper,  Jack-of-all-Trades and Master of Fortune."  He was the classic American success story.

Another new arrival at AOM is this fabulous bird's-eye-view map of Niagara Falls. The color is vibrant and it is a particularly large format.  It is a lithograph published in 1893 by the American Fine Art Co.  Although not stated, the map maker is probably Henry Wellge who did many bird's-eye-views and published some through the American Fine Art Co.  Views like this have been created for centuries.  The oldest in my collection of maps is ca. 1590.  Obviously the mapmaker could not actually have seen views from these elevations so imagination plays a large role.  This would be a great addition to anyone's collection including mine, but so far I have resisted.

Here is another fun item - a 1950's license plate topper advertising Long Beach, Washington.  The claim of the World's Longest Beach (28 miles) is interesting, I suppose, but I found the claim to have the world's largest frypan irresistible.  A bit of research found that this 9.5-foot diameter pan was used to fry omelets at the Farmers-Merchant Picnic in 1931.  A Gibson Girl greased the pan by strapping slabs of bacon to her feet and "skating" around the pan.  The original pan no longer exists but has been replaced by a fiberglass copy.  Nevertheless, according to RoadsideAmerica.com "Long Beach's frying pan serves as a nice photo backdrop for families who couldn't get a decent picture in front of the Alligator Man across the street at Marsh's Free Museum."  What can I say - except come into Antiques on Main and see these and other great items.

 

Last, but not least, is this great wall clock advertising Mercury Outboard Motor Sales and Service.  It has great graphics and is in great condition.  And it works - lights up and the clock runs.  It was made by the Pam clock company that went out of business in the 70's

World War II in the Pacific

Waikiki Beach as seen from our dinner table

I've been unusually slow to add a new post to this blog but my excuse is that I've been out of town on business.  Truth be told, I've been in Hawaii but it was still business.  I did manage to have about 2 hours of vacation and was even able to walk in the water at Waikiki beach after a fabulous dinner overlooking the ocean.

My work in Hawaii was as part of a group doing a historical study of Ewa field (or more formally Marine Corps Air Field Ewa).  On their way to Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked Ewa field to prevent the US from initiating an air defense against the attack.  You can still see strafing damage on the runway where parked planes were shot up.  We stayed at Hickam Air Force Base which was also attacked the same time as Pearl Harbor and where you can still see damage from the attack.

Being so involved with WWII history made me think of Dad, who was wounded at Guadalcanal.  So I thought I would share a couple of "souvenirs" he brought back from the war - rare photos of civilian prisoners of the Japanese, probably somewhere in Indonesia.  The one where the soldiers are sitting with the children makes me feel pretty uneasy although there is no obvious mistreatment going on.

These photographs are not for sale, but there are plenty of other WWII related items for sale at our store.  There are other WWII photographs, a practice bomb, Navy binoculars, and many other WWII items waiting for you to discover as you explore Antiques on Main for its many treasures. 

Another Button Collection

Call us crazy, but we just bought another button collection.  We bought our first collection over a year ago and although we've sold quite a few buttons from it we still have a few hundred left.  Now we bought out another large collection giving us hundreds more.  If we collected buttons ourselves it would make more sense.  As it is, I hope our kids enjoy them when they inherit all we don't sell in our lifetime.

But I am beginning to appreciate how fun they would be to collect.  They come in an infinite variety of shapes and sizes, materials, and colors.  And subject matter.

Different Sizes

Different Shapes

Cleopatra and the Asp

 My favorites are the story buttons that depict scenes from well known stories.  Most of the stories I don't know because most of these buttons were produced in the late 1800s or early 1900s.  (Cleopatra I've heard of)

One of the mysteries (at least to me) is on what kind of clothing some of these buttons were used.  Its pretty obvious how some were used, like underwear buttons, and I have not searched the internet for images of those being used.

Mastiff with a Stick

But for other buttons, its not so obvious.  For instance, on what do you wear a button of a not-so-friendly looking dog?  Or for that matter, when is the right time to wear Cleopatra and the Asp, and on what kind of clothing?  The internet is surprisingly devoid of photos of buttons on old clothing.

Come into Antiques on Main to see (even buy!) buttons and lots of other wonderful antiques.

 

Police Badges, etc.

We bought a collection of badges (police, sheriff, fire department and others) a few weeks ago and we've been going through them to catalog and price them.  I am not an expert in badges but have been learning a lot.  In most cases a badge is just a badge, but one of the badges intrigued me more than the others.  It is a 1920s Omaha Police badge with a civilian designation.  My question: under what circumstances would a civilian get an official police badge?

At first I thought the Omaha Police force was beefing up its numbers by using civilians after the 1919 race riots.  But now I think the use of civilians was something different.  Omaha organized a citizen constabulary in 1920 called “Volunteer Civilian Officers” who were primarily used for enforcing traffic regulations and providing educational programs.  I think the badges were issued to them, but I could easily be wrong.

1922 Omaha Civilian Traffic Police

Closer to home is the St. Paul Union Depot, so in honor of its recent re-opening I thought I would add this photo of an attendant’s hat badge.

We invite you to shop Antiques on Main to find these and thousands of other antiques and collectibles for sale.

Wrong About Butter Pats

Apparently I've been wrong in my understanding of how butter pats were used.  I'm talking about the little plates and not the globs of butter.  I always thought they were a throwback to Victorian times and used for fancy, formal meals.  But I was wrong.  Let me start at the beginning.

As antique dealers, we often get invited to peoples houses to buy things and this was one of those times.  The seller was downsizing and had a few things from the family farm that she no longer wanted.  The things she wanted to sell were laid out on the kitchen table. While we were deciding what we wanted to buy I was looking around and spotted a stack of flow blue butter pats.  I asked about them and she said they had belonged to her grandmother who used them on the farm and she didn't want to sell them yet.

So I had to ask - "Your grandmother had pretty fancy meals?"

"Oh no" she responded, "just your basic farm meals."

"And she used these butter pats?"

"Yes, there were a lot of boys in the family."  She went on to explain that her grandmother used the butter pats to save on the butter.  The boys usually licked their knives "clean" before taking butter and Grandmother didn't want to keep butter that had been contaminated this way.  So by giving the boys their own butter, the rest of the butter was saved.

Evolution of a Collection

I used to tell people that I didn't collect anything, but instead I accumulated stuff.  Today its the other way around - I collect certain things and accumulate little.  I was not conscious of changing how I collected my stuff and only by looking back did I realize that it had changed.  As it turns out, I was always collecting things, such as Mickey Mouse and beer steins, but my collections evolved from quantity (what I used to call accumulations) to quality.

For example, lets look at my Mickey Mouse accumulation.  It was probably around 20 years ago that I started to pick up the occasional Mickey item at garage sales and thrift stores.  Needless to say, you can find lots of Disney items at these places and pretty soon the shelf I was using to hold them was full to overflowing.  And what didn't fit on the shelf was packed away in boxes. This should have raised a warning flag that the accumulation was getting a little out of control ... but it didn't.

A small part of my Mickey Mouse accumulation.

The turning point might have been when I bought a 1930s Mickey Mouse lusterware tea set in its original box, or it might have been when I got a 1940s Donald Duck  lamp with the original shade.  But in the end, I realized that there was more enjoyment in having a few good items than there was in having hundreds of inexpensive ones.  And the "good" items don't have to be expensive.  Now I try to be more selective and buy only the earlier Disney pieces in good condition - and, of course, only if the price is right.

So now I have a few "good" items in my display cabinet (more than a couple of these bought at Antiques on Main) and  almost all of the original accumulation is packed away in boxes in my basement until can decide what to do with it.  But I had lots of fun accumulating everything and would probably do it again, so I don't criticize anyone who is in that stage of collecting.

At Antiques on Main, we have have things for collections whatever stage they are in.

Civil War Sesquicentennial

The American Civil War was taking place 150 years ago so I thought I would look through Antiques on Main to see what Civil War related items I could find for sale.  Although I did not find a lot of items, what I found were both varied and interesting.  This is what I found:

 1. A Civil War musket. This is a Wm. Mason 58 cal. musket from 1861.  It is shown with a replica kepi (cap) with original brass crossed cannons.  Also shown is a replica Civil War powder flask.

2.  A Civil War breast plate.  This would be attached to your cartridge box strap.

3. A tear bottle (or vial or catcher).  These were used during the Civil War to catch and save tears shed during the mourning of a loved one killed during the war.

4. A Civil War bayonet.  This is for a 58 cal. U.S. Musket.  It is shown with a Civil War period powder flask. 

5.  A Civil War receipt. This is a receipt for a  Sharps rifle given by Capt. William Badger to Pvt. Andrew McManus in 1865.

6. A Confederate Infantry button.  This style is called the "Fancy Script I".

7. Civil War envelopes.  Envelopes used during the Civil War, such as these, often contained a propaganda cartoon. 
 

8.  A commemorative plate.  It isn't from the time of the Civil War, but it commemorates the Battle of Gettysburg.

9.  A Civil War payroll record. This shows that these guys (clerk, wagon master, and teamsters) got paid $7.75 for the month of March, 1862!!   .