1973's "Garage Sale Shopper"

Today we have a book that's a Goodwill find about shopping at garage sales a half-century ago. Garage Sale Shopper was written by Sunny Wicka and published in 1973 by Dafran House Publishers of New York. The subtitle is "A Complete Illustrated Guide for Buyers and Seller."

The book itself is an interesting find, but hardly a hidden-treasure rare book (which I'm always on the lookout for at thrift shops). There are a few copies for sale on eBay and AbeBooks for under $10. 

No, this book is most intriguing as a cultural artifact and a peek into the exciting world of scoping out yard and garage sales in the early 1970s. And that's cooler than you might initially imagine. In the 2020s, I still occasionally find items from the 1960s and 1970s at yard sales. So it's not hard to imagine that 1973 yard sales had items dating to the 1920s. Or earlier!

As Wicka notes, yard sales were still a relatively new phenomenon in the early 1970s. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was a transition from holding such secondhand sales at churches and other community centers to holding them in individual driveways in the new American suburbs, the perfect spot for walk-by and drive-by customers. Wicka writes: "It has mushroomed in the last few years to a national hobby of incredible proportions." Her reasons for the "mushrooming" include the economic savings of buying furniture and clothing new instead of used; the perhaps dubious idea that rich people with mountain cabins and lake cottages want to furnish those second homes at a discount; and Americans choosing recycling over continued wastefulness.

The book contains section that explains garage sales to newcomers, one that provides strategies for shoppers, and one provides tips for sellers, including pricing and advertising.

There's a big section titled "Garage Sale Finds" (not to be confused with the wonderful blog of the same name). And another section provides ideas on what to do with those finds when you bring them back home.

Some excerpts:

• "At one of my sales, an elderly man confided to me that he lived on a large acreage with a big garden, and he intended to use the 15¢ ragged golf bag he had just bought for carrying his hoe and rake and cultivator to and from the gardening area. I say, right on, sir."
• "Milk bottles, medicine bottles, decorative bottles and unusually shaped jars seem to go well if marked low. An antique shop owner told me that the present day ceramic and quality glass wine bottles will become scarce as more and more distillers are switching to less expensive type containers for their products -- making their old containers fair game for collectors."
• "Another one of my clever friends and her equally clever husband mounted a collection of five door knobs on a gracefully shaped piece of wood. The final result was then installed in the entryway where visitors could hang their jackets and hats on brass, porcelain and copper."

If author Wicka is still alive, she'll be 88 this October. Maybe she still keeps an eye out for good yard sales in Minnesota. Here's a picture of her from the book, modeling one of her second-hand finds...

The final two pieces of ephemera from that May yard sale!

We now have closure! Here, finally, are the last two postcards that Ashar and I picked up while checking out Dover Township yard sales on a May morning earlier this year. Up first is a postcard that was never mailed. The German caption on front states Ein Wolkenbruch, which translates to "a cloudburst." I asked Ash for his analysis of this odd postcard, and he said:

I'm guessing they're in a plane, but out on this thing and that the people with umbrellas are running away because the baby is peeing on them. That pretty much sums it up.

I find it hard to disagree with his assessment. I also find it hard to understand why this postcard exists. Less hard, perhaps, to understand why it was never mailed. I'm not quite sure who you would send it to.¹

* * *

The last postcard is an AZO real photo postcard that dates to between 1910 and 1930 based upon the stamp box. This card was printed at The Wilson Studio, which had two locations: No. 225-227 West Market Street in York, Pennsylvania, and No. 420 Market Street in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There is no further information, useful or otherwise, on the front or back.

Ash's analysis is:

That baby looks alarmed. Mostly because I think that baby's sitting on a dead animal.

At least the baby itself looks alive, unlike that sensitive issue we dealt with in 2014.

Previously on "that May yard sale!"

• Mystery RPPC: Long-ago toddler with fuzzy toy
• Mystery RPPC: Girl with parasol and witchy socks
• Mystery RPPC: Young girl with parasol and animal
• Old photo: Children on a slide
• Mystery RPPC: Man in bowler hat and tired girl
• Mystery RPPC: Girl with bear

Footnote
1. Ash and I decided that a more descriptive German caption for the postcard would have been Zoinks, ein Kind aus den Wolken pinkelt auf mich!, which translates to "Zoinks, an infant from the clouds is peeing on me!" Don't you now regret scrolling down to this footnote?

Mystery RPPC: Long-ago toddler with fuzzy toy

Here is item #6 of 8 from the Dover Township yard sale. It's an AZO real photo postcard dating from between 1910 and 1930. Nothing was ever written on the back, and this one doesn't have a stamp denoting the photo center that handled it.

And so we have a very young girl wearing a white dress and matching hat. She's a cutie, but the most interesting things here are the toys. She is standing next to a small stool or table. There are two layers of wooden blocks¹ and, atop those, is a delightful fuzzy creature. Was it her beloved stuffed Friend? Or just a prop used by the photographer to put something interesting into the photograph?

Footnote
1. To learn more about wooden alphabet blocks:

• National Toy Hall of Fame
• Atlas Obscura article by Ernie Smith
• Alphabet blocks and spelling toys at The Henry Ford

Mystery RPPC: Girl with parasol and witchy socks

Here is item #5 of 8 from the Dover Township yard sale. It's another AZO real photo postcard dating from between 1904 and 1918. And, like the last one, it's another card with a circular purple stamp from Electric Studio, 57 East Philadelphia Street, York, Pennsylvania.

Another similarity to the last postcard: It's the same setting and the same parasol. So these were probably taken at the same time. Here they are, side by side:

Today's girl, older than the other, doesn't have a stuffed animal on wheels in the photo with her. But she does have some nifty Wicked Witch of the West socks...

Mystery RPPC: Young girl with parasol and animal

Here is item #4 of 8 from the Dover Township yard sale. It's an AZO real photo postcard dating from between 1904 and 1918. No identifying information, but we do have an additional tie to York County, Pennsylvania. On the back, there's a circular purple stamp (similar to a postmark) from Electric Studio in York, Pennsylvania. It was located at 57 East Philadelphia Street, and F.A. Meyers was the manager.

The July 26, 1915, edition of The York Daily has this small advertisement for Electric Studio, which offered postcards at rates as low as 45 cents per dozen. (Forty-five cents in 1915 would be the equivalent of about $11.28 today, according to my old friend, The Inflation Calculator.)

The postcard features a serious-looking young girl wearing a white dress and holding a parasol. She is standing in a pleasant yard alongside a ...

... what the heckfire is that? Dog-rabbit genetic experiment? Fat dog? Pregnant dog? Dog sitting on another animal? Stuffed animal or taxidermied dog (because the mouth almost appears to be stitched). I'm kind of bummed that we'll never be able to fully answer this question.

* * *
But wait, there's more!

I'm leaving everything above this intact, but I received some very important information after I finished writing this post, but before it was published.

Laura Eckert Thompson, who was one of my fellow students at Penn State back in the day and is currently a co-worker of mine at LNP, points out that the odd-looking animal is definitely a toy. The biggest clue — which I totally missed, because I'm a doofus — is that there are obvious wheels and axles underneath the animal's legs. I'm not sure how I missed that. Perhaps, deep down, I really wanted this to be some missing link between dogs and giant bunnies. And so my eyes were blinded to the truth.

But the truth is even cooler. As Laura notes: "Vintage stuffed animal riding toy. See the wheels attached to the feet? Steiff produced a lot of them." Here are some internet images of the kind of (now antique) toy she's talking about.

Old photo: Children on a slide

Here is item #3 of 8 from the Dover Township yard sale. It's a 4¼-inch-wide snapshot of eight young children gathered around a playground slide. No date, no identifications, no nothing. If we assume this is around the same age as the real photo postcards in this batch of ephemera, then this picture is around 100 to 110 years old. In the background I note that there's a farm and what appear to be some picnic baskets on wooden tables.

And that's it. Here's a closer look at the kids...

Mystery RPPC: Man in bowler hat and tired girl

Here is the second item I picked up at a local yard sale earlier this month.¹ This real photo postcard, like so many others, is an AZO card dating from between 1904 and 1918. There is no identifying information, and the card was never mailed.

And so we have a well-dressed man wearing a bowler hat and a well-dressed young girl (his daughter?) who looks tired, unhappy or both. Perhaps this was taken right before heading to Sunday church. The background leaves much to be desired. Couldn't they have picked something more interesting? Or something that might have given us a better shot at determining the location? Sigh.

Last question: Do you think there's a chance this is the same girl (a little older) from the first postcard I featured from this batch?

Footnote
1. There were 8 items total acquired for 50 cents apiece at the May 11 Dover Township yard sale. Mostly postcards, plus one photo. The first one was featured on May 15.

Mystery RPPC: Girl with bear

This mystery real photo postcard was picked up last weekend, when Ashar and I toured some Dover-area yard sales, mostly in search of cassette tapes for his boombox. To be clear, you don't see many postcards this old at yard sales any more, so of course I bought a few (for just 50 cents apiece!).¹ I'll share them over the coming days and weeks.

There's no writing on this card and it was never mailed. The AZO stamp box configuration indicates that it dates to the period of 1904 to 1918.

The idea of a teddy bear stems from a 1902 incident involving President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. It's a sad story that, while containing a smidgen of compassion, still involves the death of a bear, so I don't want to glorify or sanitize it too much.

The first stuffed bears were made around 1903, by Morris Michtom in the United States and the Steiff company in Germany (which had been creating stuffed toys since 1880). Michtom's were the actual "teddy bears." Given that this postcard could be as old as 1904, the little girl could be holding one of the very earliest stuffed bears, teedy or otherwise.

Want more mystery RPPCs? Start here.

Footnote
1. There were 8 items total from the May 11 Dover Township yard sale. Mostly postcards, plus one photo. This is #1.

"From the personal library of Dan Rather"

I have no idea whether this refers to the Dan Rather, but I found the above provenance stamp, which measures about three inches across, on the first page of a used copy of 2002's The Banana Sculptor, The Purple Lady, and the All-Night Swimmer: Hobbies, Collecting, and Other Passionate Pursuits, by Susan Sheehan and Howard Means.

The book is sort of a less-frenetic version of Errol Morris' documentary Fast, Cheap & Out of Control. I was browsing it a bit before bed last night and (of course) stopped at a chapter about Texas librarian and yard-sale enthusiast Cathy Henderson. Here's are some excerpts...

"I am looking for nothing, just for what catches my eye," Henderson says, and promptly qualifies this statement. "I generally look for jewelry, decorative objects, art, books and CDs, and accessories. I don't buy furniture. I already have too much furniture. All my friends know about my garage sale-ing and ask me to shop for them. Right now, I'm looking for a manual typewriter for a friend." ...

She calls eBay "the world's garage sale" — she is convinced it is better for sellers than for buyers, that some people first try to sell their wares on eBay, then, if that fails, take them to thrift stores or, another rung down the price ladder, offer then up on their lawns...

"I'm not too cerebral about why I go garage-saleing, but I'll track it back to my high school debate coach dissuading me from pursuing a career in archaeology," she says. "He said it didn't pay enough. Archaeology as treasure hunting had a real appeal for me, so now I do my treasure hunting at garage sales..."

* * *Meanwhile, Rather, who will turn 87 this Halloween and might or might not have once had this book on his shelf, remains active and outspoken on social media. Here are a few of his very recent posts:

Quick gut check: what do you think George Washington would think of Trump? (Or Ben Franklin? Hamilton? Adams? Jefferson? Madison? Or, for that matter, FDR? Teddy Roosevelt? Eisenhower? Even Ronald Reagan?) We know what his living predecessors think of him - of both parties.

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) June 6, 2018

Trump disinvites Eagles from White House - while millions of Americans hurt. Puerto Rico suffers. Allies fret. The planet warms. He uses our National Anthem to sow disunity in what's supposed to be the UNITED States of America. I think history will mark it as akin to McCarthyism.

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) June 5, 2018

Rather's Facebook post on June 4:

I look out at our nation today and feel great pride in so many ways and with so many people. And yet that pride must compete with a powerful gut-level feeling of shame. For make no mistake, we are in a moment of deep and abiding shame. And that shame must belong to all of us.

When we learn our American history, there is so much of which to be justly proud. But the nobleness of our great democratic experiment has also been marred by stark failures - where the chasm between the idealism of our founding documents and the reality of our laws and policies are, and should be, a cause of deep shame.

For all the talk of "all men are created equal", we allowed men, women and children to be bought, sold, beaten, raped, and lynched in the name of white supremacy. We wiped out entire tribes of native peoples, from their land and from our nation. We discriminated against immigrants due to their nationality, religion, and race. We interned patriotic Japanese Americans and ruined lives with anti-Communist and anti-gay witch hunts. We exploited workers and despoiled the environment. Time and again, we have reacted with callousness when we needed compassion. These sins of the past, and many others, remain with us.

Now, when I read the paper or hear the President and his apologists speak, I see an era where shame is once again a proper response. Who are we, that we separate parents from children seeking asylum, that we ignore the plight of the people of Puerto Rico, that we claim a President is like a king - above the law, and that we turn our backs on science and reason? It is shameful, and history will surely see it as thus.

But even in times of shame, there has been another American response. Leaders have risen up and said, we cannot allow this to be. We must feel this shame and channel it into action. For out of shame, has come an engine for the improvement of our nation. I feel that energy once more. I see many who refuse to be blinded by the moment. They speak with the moral justice of our history, and I truly believe, are determined to deliver us a better future.

Read. Dream. Imagine. Create. Share. Peace.

There were some yard sales across the street this morning, so I ambled over and bought these for a few dollars. They'll be headed to the alarmingly understocked Little Free Library near my workplace in downtown Lancaster.

Great links: Garage Sale Finds

I've mentioned Garage Sale Finds — http://garagesalin.blogspot.com/ — in passing before, but today I want to give a very deliberate shout-out to this great blog by Tom from Missouri. (We ephemera bloggers have to stick together!)

Over the course of nearly 700 in-depth posts since 2010, he's written about the magazines (with a special affection for vintage TV Guides), action figures, Polaroids, postcards, toys, holiday decorations, mystery items, and so much more that he's picked up at yard, estate and garage sales over the years. I spend a lot of time diving into his wonderful rabbit hole of a blog.

Tom is truly living the dream, and we all get to share in the fun with the items and memories he's preserving digitally.

Last week, he piqued my interest with a post about a 1960s/1970s snack food that I had never heard of — Dippy Canoes from Quaker Oats.¹ The corn chips were most notable, in my mind, for their now-unthinkable use of the clichéd image of a Native American to sell the product.

In his photo-filled post from last Friday, Tom writes about the can of Dippy Canoes that he discovered at an estate sale. If you're like me², it will leave you wanting to learn more about all the crazy snack foods of that time period.³

Here are some other Garage Sale Finds posts that you might dig:

• Facts About Fallout Protection (1961 staplebound pamphlet)
• How to build your kids an outer-space station (1978 Woman's Day article)
• In-depth investigation into a set of plastic superhero figurines
• A collection of Easter Egg dye kits, including one featuring Space Bunnies
• Universal Monsters "You'll Die Laughing" cards packaged with Wonder Bread in the 1970s
• A dazzling mid-century sunburst clock that Tom refurbished
• 1980 brochure for those great hand-held Coleco electronic games

Footnotes
1. Dippy Canoes were once part of Quaker's short-lived and rarely mentioned Nibble Division. I love these little historical tidbits that Tom digs up.
2. And heaven help you, if you are.
3. I think this is a field of "social archaeology" in which the passage of time definitely helps. We might not be all that intrigued today by Starburst GummiBurst, Red Velvet Oreos, Hostess Chocolate Pudding Pies, or Salt & Seaweed Pringles, but give it 40 years and let's see what the bloggers of 2056 have to say.

Nice find at a yard sale for 25¢

It doesn't take much to make me happy when I'm browsing for books or oddball items at yard sales.

This past Saturday, I had a chance to make a leisurely walk around the Wills-Ford Community Yard Sale in nearby Dover Township. It's a sprawling sale the takes up a few residential blocks. It even has its own food vendors.

I was pleased when I came across this nice reading copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

It had been on my (long) list of books that I wanted to pick up and read some day, so it was pretty cool to snag a copy for 25¢.

I also snagged three other interesting books — all for 25¢ apiece — from a different vendor:

• Gettysburg by MacKinlay Kantor
• Funny Stories: Pennsylvania Dutch Wit and Humor by J.E. Herrera, hexologist¹
• Little Known Facts About Bundling in the New World by A. Monroe Aurand, Jr.

And here are a few pictures I snapped at the community yard sale...

Footnote
1. Here is one of the stories:

A wiseheimer tourist had breakfast on a farm in Pa. and when he saw the farmer eating pigs feet and tongue ridiculed the farmer.

"You'd never catch me eating a tongue from an animal's mouth. What a filthy habit that is! I'll have two eggs, please!!"

Just another Piero Fornasetti item found at a Pennsylvania yard sale

Here's an odd item — a paperweight, perhaps? — that I picked up last year at a Dover-area yard sale. It came in cardboard box that is shaped like a book and covered in gold-colored foil.

The guy selling it had discounted it from $8 to $1.50 and said he was about to throw it away at end of the day.¹ He didn't really know what it was or what was the deal with the text and illustration. But he had an idea.

"We typed it into The Facebook, but nothing came up," said the guy. "It's from Romeo and Juliet."

Ashar, who was with me, disagreed.

"I think it's Rapunzel," he offered.

I can safely say they're both wrong.

Here's what we do know:

1. The paperweight is four inches tall, ceramic and shaped like a book — just like the box it came in.

2. Printed along the spine is "NAVIS STULTIFERA."

3. The odd illustration features a group of musicians, most of whom are wearing jester-like outfits, performing underneath a second-floor window. A naked woman is pouring out the contents of either a chamber pot or wash basin onto the performers. This is taking place at night, based upon the moon and stars in the upper-right corner of the illustration.

4. The text printed under the illustration states: "Nouvelle explications en vers de la nef de fols."

5. The back of the paperweight is felted in red and has a gold stamp that tells us this item was made in Milan, Italy, by Fornasetti. That would be Piero Fornasetti (1913-1988), who is no longer with us, yet has a robust and somewhat bizarre website.

So, what about the text? "NAVIS STULTIFERA" is the easy part. That's the Latin title for Ship of Fools, a religious satire published in 1494 by German Sebastian Brant.²

The text under the illustration, curiously, seems to be in French. (Curious, because Fornasetti lived and worked in Italy.) Using Google Translate, "Nouvelle explications en vers de la nef de fols" could be translated as one of these:

• New explanations to the Ship of Fools.
• New explanations of a verse in Ship of Fools.
• Further explanations about the Ship of Fools.

Or something along those lines.

This paperweight was probably created in the 1950s. Fornasetti lived and worked in Italy for most of his life, except for a period in Switzerland in the mid 1940s.

According to his obituary in The New York Times:

"Mr. Fornasetti was internationally known for his original and boldly graphic black-and-white ceramics and furniture that ran the gamut from coasters to multipanel screens - and included whimsical and decorative umbrella stands, trays, cabinets, chairs and china. Mr. Fornasetti worked with glass, fabric, porcelain and wood. Mr. Fornasetti's fanciful pieces were always witty and imaginative. In his motifs, he favored Piranesi-like engravings, the sun, moon and stars, playing cards, animals and surrealistic images."

His popularity waned in the 1970s, but the market for his vintage items has been growing in recent years, according to the artist's official website (which, of course, has a vested interest.)

There are a number of Fornasetti paperweights available for sale online. Some are shaped like books, some come in other forms. Some are vintage, some are remakes.

For giggles, I think I'll post this Ship of Fools paperweight on eBay. Given that it cost us $1.50 (and was about to be thrown out), it won't take much to swing a profit and get this into the hands of a collector who will truly appreciate it.

* * *February 27 addendum: I am both thrilled and embarrassed to report that this paperweight sold for $407 in a recently concluded online auction. I think it's safe to say this will go down as my "Yard-Sale Pick of a Lifetime." And, more importantly, I'm glad this treasured piece of art ended up with a collector and not in a trash can in Dover.

Footnotes
1. The guy also told me: "Best place to find me is at street fairs. I'm the guy in the wide-brim hat."
2. According to Wikipedia and other sources, however, the paperweight has it backwards. It's supposed to be Stultifera Navis.

Old spools of sewing thread

In the category of Things I Don't Need To Be Hoarding¹, I have a metal container full of old thread spools and sewing needles that I picked up a couple of years ago at a yard sale. Because.

It's time for this sewing paraphernalia to move on to another owner. But before it moves out, I wanted to record for posterity some of these really old spools (which is kind of why I bought the container in the first place). The spools are from American Thread Co., Coats & Clark's, Talon, Clark's O.N.T., Richardson's, and Star, among others.

At least these were within a proper container. Back in January 2012, I posted about some embroidery thread, pins and more that I found buried inside an old geography book.

Footnote
1. My wife thinks that many things I've brought into the house fall into this category. She is correct.

Handwritten recipe: Pineapple Bavarian Cream for Labor Day

Happy Labor Day!¹

Back in 2010, I picked up some well-used old handwritten recipe books, stuffed with all sorts of groovy stuff, at a yard sale in southern York County. And it's just the gift that keeps on giving.

Here are some of the posts I've already written about items tucked away inside those volumes:

• Coupons from the E.H. Koester Bakery Co.
• Did Pop get a Py-sicle after winning this round of golf in Clearwater?
• Partial label from Ecco Tomato Juice and the Tomato Twinkle recipe

Here's the latest recipe from one of these wonderful old books. Feel free to use it for dessert today!

Pineapple Bavarian Cream

• Make 1 pkg. lemon Jello as usual.
• Let sit until slightly thick.
• Beat until stiff & foamy.
• Beat 1 gill whipping cream & ½ pint of light cream until stiff.
• Add 1 can crushed pineapple & cream whipped to beaten Jello & let sit until stiff in refrigerator.

If you're craving more information about Pineapple Bavarian Cream, I suggest you head to Culinary Alchemy² for a January 2013 post titled "Bromeliad Buttressed Bavarois - Pineapple Bavarian Cream." It features some history, some photos and a different recipe than the simple one used on that southern York County farmstead.

Today's recipe, by the way, was written on the back of this map of the United States.

If you look closely, you'll see that at least the student could correctly identify Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida.

* * *

As a bonus, here's another piece of ephemera that was tucked away inside the same cookbook: A staplebound booklet titled "101 DRINKS and how to MIX THEM." The booklet is undated and was published by Direct Mail Associates, Inc., of Oshkosh, Wisconsin (affiliated with Dean W. Geer Company).

I'm not so much for the liquor or drinking, but I love the names of some of the drinks and cocktails in the vintage booklet: Bijou, Bishop, Blue Blazer³, Cape Cod Rainbow, Careless Love, Chattanooga Dew, Clover Club, Cream Fizz, Didi Cocktail, Electric Eel, Eureka, Fish Club Punch, Hell-Raiser, Highland Fling, Horse's Neck, Jack Rose, Shandygaff, Snag-Tooth Nell, and Stone Fence.

I wonder if all of those drink names are still used today.

Footnotes
1. Sam Scarlett says hello.
2. Culinary Alchemy has the same background as Papergreat, so it must be great. I suspect Joan will love that site, and maybe she can find some things there that fit in with some of her great stuff on Our School at Home.
3. The Blue Blazer is described as "a very, very swell winter drink — if your Mother let's you play with matches." (Yes, they used let's incorrectly.)

"Prinzess Victoria" and a tiny old package of sewing needles

Part of the fun of modern computing is having the ability to scan old items and magnify them many times in order to see details that might not have been apparent to the naked eye.

I have an old package of needles that I picked up at a yard sale. The package is no bigger than my thumb.¹ So I thought it would be interesting to scan it and present it here, magnified for posterity.

The name "PRINZESS VICTORIA" appears above the line drawing of the woman wearing a crown. I suppose two options for who that might be are Victoria, Princess Royal (1840-1901), who was the eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom (1868–1935), who was the fourth child of Edward VII.

Or perhaps it's a botched attempt at referencing Queen Victoria. While this package clearly states that it was "Made in Germany," it's possible that similar packages — minus the "Made in Germany" — were created in an attempt to misrepresent the country of origin and gain access to various lucrative European markets.

The following passage is from the November 18, 1899, issue of The Economist, and lends credence to this theory:

"A deputation of cravat manufacturers was received this week by the Minister of Commerce of 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 imply that they are of English origin, which appears to be a recommendation with buyers ... 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. The spelling of the word princess betrayed the origin of the article, but would escape the attention of the buyer."

So there you have. Cravats, chicanery and Prinzess Victoria.

There are, by the way, three needles left in the Prinzess Victoria package. Maybe I can use them with my colorful embroidery thread.

Footnote
1. I'm serious. It's the size of my hideously scarred left thumb.

Cooking up some calf's head soup, pawnhaas, tzitterli and streivlin

It's not hard to come across a Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook in southcentral Pennsylvania. You can get them at bookstores, gift shops, farmers' markets and smorgasbords.¹

And yard sales. This battered copy of the July 1969 10th printing of "Edna Eby Heller's Dutch Cookbook" cost me a dime at one earlier this summer. (Some might say I overpaid.)

But while it's easy to track down a Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook, how many people actually read them from front to back?

If you read this one, you'll come across words and phrases like schteepers, schnitz un gnepp, pawnhaas, tzitterli, streivlin, lebkuchen, and milich flitche.

These words are not common. Not even on the overflowing highways of the all-knowing Internet. (Though, I will grant, many of them have numerous spelling variants that make them harder to track down.)

As an example of how uncommon some of these terms are, here's how many Google hits some of them had prior to the publication of this blog post:

• schteepers = 2 hits²
• tzitterli = 10 hits
• streivlin = 6 hits
• milich flitche = 9 hits

Edna states in her preface: "Whenever you hear the call Koom essa, start running, for that is the call to a Pennsylvania Dutch meal where food is good and plentiful."

Now, you might not agree that the sampling of recipes from Edna's book that I'm listing here are exactly what your palate is seeking, but I hope you find the reading of the recipes interesting, because that's half the fun!

Calf's head soup
1 calf's head or veal shin
3 potatoes
1 medium sized onion
½ lb. fresh sausage meat
½ tsp. marjoram
¼ tsp. cloves
¼ tsp. allspice
2 hard cooked eggs
½ cup flour
2 tbsp. butter
Cook the calf's head or shin in 2 qts. of salted water for several hours until quite tender. ... Meanwhile ... Dice the peeled potatoes and onion. ... Cook for 20 minutes. ... Shape sausage into ½ inch balls and fry until brown. ... Make the dough balls as in recipe listed below.³ ... When the meat is tender, remove from broth. ... Cool slightly. ... Take meat off the bones and cut fine. ... To the broth, add the meat, potatoes, sausage balls, spices, chopped eggs and dough balls. ... Lastly, stir in the flour which has been browned in a dry pan over medium heat (stirring constantly) and then mixed to a smooth paste with 1 cup of broth. ... Simmer for five minutes. ... Serves 8.

Pawnhaas
(The more common spelling is pon haus, but this delicious meat treat is even better known as scrapple.)
3 qts. of broth
2 cups of cooked pork meat (cut fine)
2 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
½ tsp. sage (if desired)
cornmeal
To make the broth: Boil together one cleaned hog's head, with heart and liver and pieces of pork for several hours. ... Remove the meat from the bones and grind. ... (Some of this can be used to make puddin'.) ... Bring the broth to a boil. ... Into it dribble cornmeal, stirring constantly, until the consistency of mush has been achieved. ... Add meat and seasonings. ... Cook slowly in a heavy kettle or double-boiler, stirring constantly for the first 15 minutes and then frequently for a half hour. ... Pour into loaf pans and three inches deep and keep in a cool place. ... To serve, slice ¼ inch thick and fry in hot fat until brown on both sides.

Tzitterli
(Tzitterli, sultz, gallerich and souse are all alternative names for jellied pig's feet. And if I haven't lost you after the first two meat dishes, I fear I might lose you now.)
salt brine
2 pig's feet
1 pork tongue
½ cup vinegar
Make a salt brine strong enough to float an egg. ... In it soak the pig's feet and tongue for ten days or two weeks. ... This gives the meat a nice pink color. ... Drain and boil in clear water several hours until the meat falls off the bones. ... Discard bones, gristle, and skin. ... Cut meat very fine and divide into custard cups. ... Bring broth to a full boil. ... Add vinegar and then pour over the meat. ... Stir and let cool. ... To serve, unmold and slice.

Streivlin
(These are also called Snavely Sticks or Plowlines. Since you have come this far, this final recipe is a change of pace and doesn't contain any questionable pieces of meat.)
1 cup sweet cream
2 eggs
2 tsp. salt
4 cups sifted flour
Beat eggs and add to cream. ... Work in the salt and flour as for noodle dough. ... Roll out ¼ of the dough at a time to a very thin sheet. ... Cut this round of dough into sections 4 or 5 inches wide. ... Cut sections (using a pastry wheel if you have one) into half inch strips, cutting only to one inch of outer edge to leave section intact. ... Fry one or two at a time, depending upon the size of pan, in deep fat. ... Fat should be hot enough to brown a cube of bread in one minute. ... Turning once, fry until the sticks have turned a light brown. Serve warm.

Footnotes
1. Smörgåsbord is a Swedish word with a fascinating etymology. The words for the term in other languages are:

• koldtbord (Norway)
• det kolde bord (Denmark)
• seisova pöytä (Finland)
• hlaðborð (Iceland)
• Aukstais galds (Latvia)
• rootsi laud (Estonia)

Here in southcentral Pennsylvania, the two biggest and most famous smorgasbords are Miller's Smorgasbord Restaurant and Shady Maple Smorgasbord, both in Lancaster County. I can personally recommend both. Highly.
2. The two hits for schteepers, prior to this post, were:

• This bakers.tribe.net thread
• This TellSpell anagrams page

3. Here's the dough ball recipe, so that you can properly finish off the calf's head soup recipe, which I know you are dying to make, if you could only find yourself a calf's head. (Edna, by the way, calls the calf's head soup "extra special" and "a spicy soup, full of meat.")

Dough balls
1 cup flour
½ tsp. salt
3 tbsp. lard
3 tbsp. water
Sift together the flour and salt. ... Cut up the lard in the flour until it is the size of peas. ... Toss lightly in the bowl while adding the water gradually. ... With floured hands, shape into tiny balls, ½ inch in diameter. ... Brown in 2 tbsp. melted butter over heat, turning frequently. ... When nicely browned, add to calf's head soup.

Phonic Talking Letters from 1941

Here's a nifty yard-sale find: A 1941 set of "Phonic Talking Letters" produced by Ideal School Supply Co. of Chicago. The system is copyrighted in the name of Edith E. Stephens. According to the instructions:

"The sounds of letters should be taught after pupils have begun to read by word and phrase memory. If they stop to think about sounds before acquiring the habit of quick eye-movement, they will likely become slow readers. Any person who knows a little English can learn the sounds taught by these cards, if they are taught to him by one who believes in the pupil's ability to learn. Without this faith in him, a pupil can learn little (and he will know whether his teacher believes he can learn)."

I don't know about the first part of that paragraph, with regard to teaching the sounds of letters after students have already started to read. But I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of needing teachers who believe in the student, and express that belief in their interactions.

Each Phonic Talking Letter is accompanied by a short story (on the reverse side) intended to help the student learn the sound associated with the letter. Here are a few of the cards -- which I chose for their interesting illustrations -- and accompanying stories.

"(11) One day Little Lady went swimming. She went under and got her mouth full of water. Then she caught onto her big ball. The ball held her up out of the water except for her legs. Whenever you see her holding onto the ball and with her legs below the 'water' line, you know she is trying to get the water out of her mouth, making a 'p-p-p-p' sound. Are you smart enough to make that sound without spitting? We shall see. Play you are Little Lady in the water."

So, to be clear, you learn about the P sound by pretending that you just nearly drowned.

"(3) Little Man and Little Lady have many pets. They have this big cat who is always angry. See his big tail is always curled up high above his head! He says 'f-f-f-f.' Play angry cat. Put your hands out from your head like his big ears and say 'f-f-f-f.'"

"(10) Mother made the children a doughnut with a face, and raisin eyes. The hole in the middle was his round, open mouth. He surprised them and grew in the hot grease until he was as large as the pan. When mother took him out, he was so glad to cool off that he said, 'Ahh ...!' (As a sigh of relief.)

• 1. 'Ah ...!' was all he ever learned to say excepting
• 2. 'Oh,' which is his name.

1. Come out of the hot pan 'Mr. Doughnut.' (Children say 'Ahh ...!')
2. What is your name, sir? (Children say 'Oh.')"

I guess that all makes sense. But it seems there might have been a better way to teach those two sounds than with a creepy talking doughnut.

Drowning, angry cats and doughnuts with faces. Learning is fun!

Plucked from a yard sale, Part 6: Safe journeys, Quizmo and a lion

Today is the end of the journey in documenting 14 items that I picked up for a grand total of $1.25 at a yard sale last weekend. It turned out to be quite a fascinating haul, with far more interesting items than clunkers. The previous entries:

Part 1: Mister Rogers and How to Meet Men
Part 2: Pals Club activity book
Part 3: Painting, baseball and Pac-Man
Part 4: This and that ... and Scott Baio!
Part 5: Is this Dondi the elephant?

Item #12: Teacher's Triptik from 1954

This is a staplebound, 26-page pamphlet published in 1954 by the American Automobile Association for elementary school and junior high teachers.

It was prepared by Luverne Crabtree Walker, the elementary school supervisor for District of Columbia Schools. It offers different levels of tips and guidance for students of different grade levels.

Some excerpts:

• Cover the territory: Get the support of civic groups for the safety of school children. Spread the responsibility for safety over the whole community. Work for better traffic engineering and the safety education of drivers as well as pedestrians.
• A No. 1 necessity is the "triptik"¹ that shows the child's safest route to school. Teachers will want to develop these safest routes just as soon as possible with children. The first day of school is a good time to accent this safety precaution.

• The test of safety education is how children act when they are on their own. Safety education is the "life or death" area of the curriculum. So we cannot take too seriously our responsibility for developing desirable behavior patterns.

The pamphlet encourages traffic safety to be a topic in every school subject.

In language art, students can make a checklist of safety rules. In social studies, they can make a safety map of the neighborhood. In art, they can paint murals on traffic safety. In math, they can interpret safety statistics.

All in all, it's a nice and thorough guide that has plenty of smart ideas that still apply in 2011. (When perhaps we need all the help we can get.)

Item #13: Quizmo: An Educational Lotto

This a fully intact, 62-year-old educational game from Milton Bradley that's in great shape and can easily be used today.

The game is described as follows:

"An educational game played like Lotto² to give practice with addition and subtraction facts in arithmetic. Developed and recommended by prominent educators for grades 2 to 5, this game was created with the purpose of making arithmetic more enjoyable. There are enough cards for the whole class to play at once, or as few as two pupils may play if it is so desired."

Included in the game (see the photo below) are more than 40 double-sided Quizmo cards, calling cards (with one color for addition and another for subtraction), and markers to cover the answer numbers on the cards.

A whole series of Quizmo games are still available today, including an addition and subtraction version that seems nearly identical to this 1949 game.

This version that I picked up at the yard sale would still be great for a classroom or for home-schooling. The outer box is the only thing that shows any wear.

Item #14: "Mr. Yowder and the Lion Roar Capsules"

I picked up "Mr. Yowder and the Lion Roar Capsules" at the yard sale because it was in nice shape and the cover looked interesting. It was written by the late Glen Rounds³ and was published in 1976 by Xerox Education Publications.

While I was writing the first entry in this yard-sale series last Saturday, my son Ashar sat down next to me and started to look through the items I had purchased. He quickly read through the silly Pac-Man book and then turned her attention to "Mr. Yowder and the Lion Roar Capsules" (which I hadn't yet had a chance to leaf through).

It grabbed his attention from the start and he read the whole book (40+ pages), taking a break for dinner and then going right back to the tale afterward. He smiled a lot, laughed a few times and then became focused and solemn in the final pages. "That was a good book," he said as he finished and closed it.

And that, of course, made the 10 minutes spent at the yard sale and the $1.25 spent there more than worth it. It's rare for Ashar to read an entire book from start to finish, in essentially one sitting.⁴

Later, Joan and I checked out this book that had captured his attention. It's a smart tale, sad at times and funny at times. And it has an ending that you might not be prepared for, in terms of its suddenness and violence. But it seemed to make Joan sadder than Ashar, who had no problem with the ending.⁵

So I would have to recommend this book for kids ages 9 to 12. This copy isn't available, though. Ashar said he would like it to go on his bookshelf.

Footnotes
1. "Triptik" later became registered by AAA.
2. By Lotto, they mean Bingo.
3. For more about Rounds, see pages by Children's Literature Network, Pony Mad Booklovers, and Page Books.
4. He tends to be more of a browser, like his father.
5. Joan says the fictional fate of the lion in "Mr. Yowder and the Lion Roar Capsules" was even sadder than the real-life fate of Dondi the elephant in yesterday's post. Both made them misty-eyed, though.