|
Question:
When is it a 'Salesman's Sample' and when is it something else?
Answer:
A 'mini' garment, accessory or other item could be one of several things. Since we offer an excellent selection of such items, The Dormouse decided to set the record straight. You will find small/miniature versions of clothing items (especially Men's Hats & Shoes) offered for sale as--and most frequently described as--'Salesman,' 'Salesman's' or 'Salesmen's Samples.' They are usually something else altogether--most often 'Gift Certificate Premiums.' Here's how you can differentiate true samples from some of the other possibilities.
SALESMAN SAMPLES: The easiest way to tell when you have a Salesman's Sample is to remember its purpose. It was a 'living catalog picture.' When the proverbial traveling salesman plied his trade on the highways and byways of America, he (yes, it was always a man in those politically incorrect olden days) might have the luxury of an automobile, but was much more likely to travel by train or bus. Thje saleman with an extensive line couldn't very well carry full-size samples of his wares on these trips, so he would typically have printed sales sheets or catalogs, material swatches, and some small-scale samples that were specially made up to show the quality of the goods. In every respect of material, workmanship and scale, the sample would replicate the full-sized product. In the case of a nmber of the hat samples we show, there are identifying tags with stock numbers, prices and other information.
Most of the Salesman Samples offered by The Dormouse are for Hats; a few are for women's styles, but most are men's. We also occasionally are able to offer Salesman Samplels of women's shoes, and even have one mini pair of Fruit of the Loom boxer shorts! Bottom line: if the mini is plastic and the full-sized item wasn't, what you have is NOT a Salesman Sample.
GIFT CERTIFICATE PREMIUMS: Most of the Gift Certificate Premiums we have seen and handled were for men's accessories, and of those by far the most common seem to be for hats, although we also find the occasional shoe item.
In the good old days, when a man wasn't considered dressed without a hat, it made a great gift for Dad, Grandpa, Great Uncle, or any other man in your life. But Mom wouldn't pick out the hat Dad would actually wear, any more than she would trust him to pick out HER chapeau. She would go to the haberdashery (a fancy word for a men's clothing store) and select the brand, type and price level of his gift. She paid for the gift certificate, and went home with a darling little hat in a darling little hatbox, and wrapped it up for Father's Day...or Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanza...or his Birthday. Having received his gift, Dad then had the pleasure of visiting the haberdasher to be fitted for his personal selection of headgear, handing over the certificate to complete the purchase. The darling little mini-hat in the darling little mini-hatbox, might end up in the kids' toy box, to be worn by a favorite doll or Teddy bear, or it might just be put away in a drawer. (Needless to say, collectors pray for the latter, since those can turn up in mint condition.)
Most often, the certificate would be for a specific brand of hat, not for just any hat in the store. Hat manufacturers competed to offer their merchandise in miniature. We have (or have had--they DO get sold) minis from Adam, Biltmore, Cavanagh, Champ, Churchill, Dobbs, Evans, Kennedy, Knox, Lee, Mallory, Resistol and Stetson. We have some minis that were apparently custom made and marked for individual men's stores in both the U.S. and Canada. There were also unmarked/unbranded hats & boxes, which were used as generic gift certificate premiums by smaller stores, and/or those who carried many brands of hats. The heyday of Gift Certificate Premiums seems to have been from the 1930's to the 1950's.
Graphically and structurally, many boxes resemble the makers' full-size styles. Materials include flocked, paper-covered, hot-stamped or litho-laminated cardboard, molded or therformed plastics, and litho-printed tin. Some even have straps and buckles, just like their bigger counterparts. One has a gold-stamped, leather-like, padded lid, pretty as any jewelry box. Styles changed with the seasons; they're often found with Christmas colors, and even Santa Claus printed on their surfaces.
The mini-hats, themselves, were made of a variety of materials: felt (steam-pressed, some with stitched brims and fancy hatbands), Bakelite, other plastics--both molded and thermoformed, both plain and flocked--straw, and even pressed Cellophane. Many of the molded plastic ones had brand names, as well as hatbands and bows, molded into the hat. Typically, the other hats had some type of fabric hatband; these might be as simple as a piece of seam binding stapled to the hat or as fancy as a woven band with a bead and a feather. Most, except some of the molded plastic minis, had no brand identification, although little decals or stickers with the Stetson brand are found inside some of the older stitched felt ones. It would appear that many of the hat manufacturers shared the same suppliers of the little novelties, since identical molds and shapes turn up under different brand names. Some were clearly made to double as ashtrays, maybe at Uncle Charlie's poker table on a Friday night. There are found in a Bakelite-like heat-resistant plastic, in pottery (both glazed and unglazed), glass and metal. There's even a Biltmore mini complete with a set of plastic coasters in addition to the ashtray/hat; it's probably no coincidence that the coasters are blue, white, yellow and red--the color of Uncle Charlie's poker chips!
In addition to hats, some gift certificate premiums are found for shoes, although not nearly as often. We have had mini-shoeboxes--with a single molded plastic shoe--for Florsheim and Hanover brands of men's shoes, and even one brand of women's shoes, Enna Jettick, used the little premiums. There are little pairs of generic men's shoes--both black & white and brown & white--with and without mini shoeboxes. We saw one solid brass Winthrop wingtip shoe, with shoebox, offered for sale; the shoe was probably intended to be used as a paperweight on Dad's desk. Women often took the little molded plastic pump that came in the Enna Jettick box and stuffed it to make a pincushion.
OTHER MINIS: Individual little hats may be found that were obviously made for dolls. And there have been plastic top hats available for bridal shower decorations and favors for at least the last fifty years. Stetson apparently noted the fad of the recent past for collecting miniature molded resin women's hats, purses and shoes; they offered a litho-printed tin box, containing a molded resin, wicker-look hatstand with a choice of replicas of several of their best-known styles, also in the molded resin.
Pressed-glass mini top-hats--typically about three inches high, and both with and without cigarette indentations--have been made and collected for at least a hundred years. Likewise, mini shoes have been made in pressed glass and in porcelain, and were a favorite Victorian collectible.
While patent models (which had to accompany patent applications for many years) share Salesman Sample characteristics of being substantially identical in every way to their full-size counterparts, we won't address them here. Salesman Samples were undoubtedly made in multiples, but patent models were one of a kind, and were usually of mechanisms and mechanical objects rather than clothing.
Some minis which appear to be Salesman Samples, in terms of materials and workmanship, may actually have been made to display in the smaller store windows of the day. I can remember miniature 'foundation garments'--girdles and bras, to you--displayed on small-scale mannequins or half-mannequins, in appropriate stores in the 1950's, and they were used in the 1930's and 1940's, too.
|
|
Question:
Why would I collect Salesman Samples & Gift Certificate Premiums and what can I do with them?
Answer:
There is something very appealing about anything that has been miniaturized. True Salesman Samples are just plain wonderful because they are so accurate, although small. They are much harder to find than the Gift Certificate Premiums, but can be well worth the hunt. Displayed, they can't be beat as a conversation starter. (If you can't wait for the line of exclusive, handmade miniature hatstands we plan to offer, look for interesting candlesticks to use for display.)
Do you have one or more vintage men's hats? Display a Gift Certificate Premium mini set of the same brand along with each one. Or if you have a favorite brand, try to find as many of that maker's different box and hat styles and colors as possible. If variety is your thing, see how many different brands you can find. To really enhance a collection, look for the mainly full-page, full-color magazine ads from major hat manufacturers, that showed an illustration of their Gift Certificate Mini, along with the featured, full-size product. We've seen ads from the 1950's for Knox, Lee and Mallory brands; other companies may have done similar advertising as well.
Do you collect Christmas memorabilia? Go for the red boxes with green hats, green boxes with red hats, and the wonderful Adam box from the 1950's that's printed on the sides with red bricks--and has Santa climbing down the chimney printed on the lid! Collect enough of them and hang them on an all-hat Christmas tree. If you accumulate a number of the little hats without boxes, hand them on a little hat stand. Have a 'hat party.' Decorate the table with minis, but don't let the guests take 'em home!
|
