COLLECTIBLES : Shellwork: Pearl of Souvenir Trade

After months spent away from family, lovers and friends, many young sailors of the 19th Century, anchored in distant ports, searched for trinkets or souvenirs to send home as sweet remembrances.

In fact, so many whalers and merchant seamen plied foreign shores looking for mementos that a unique industry sprang up worldwide, selling seashell-studded souvenirs to sailors. Inexpensive and often whimsical, most shellwork was designed with women in mind.

“Shellwork souvenirs, especially those decorated with a remembrance of an exotic foreign country, could convince any sailor’s wife or adventuresome bachelor’s sweetheart that he’d been thinking of her during his long journey at sea,” says David Robinson, an expert on Victorian shellwork and the owner of Legacy Antiques in Monterey.

“Everything from shell-decorated hand mirrors to miniature furniture with pin-cushion seats, from picture frames to elaborate jewelry boxes--the selection of these colorful shellwork items was enormous, especially in seaport towns in England, France and America.”

Proprietors of shellwork received a boost in the late 1800s from “day trippers” taking advantage of expanded railroad routes to travel to seaside resorts. (Day trippers were middle-class working men and their families who could afford a trip to a seaside resort if they returned home the same day). They helped make the manufacture and sale of shellwork keepsakes a bona fide cottage industry.

Among the most popular shell items at these resorts were shell roundels, sometimes called “bull’s eyes,” which were basically cheap color prints of yachts, clipper ships and fishing boats under bulbous glass coverings. The foregrounds of shell roundels were made of dried seaweed, moss and imitation coral. The shell-encrusted frames were usually circular, horseshoe-shaped or heart-shaped. Over the years shell mosaics laid in octagonal pine or mahogany frames have come to be called “sailor’s valentines” and are today some of the most sought-after shellwork objects on the antiques market. Popular with sailors as well as travelers, these valentines were often hinged as a pair, and featured such endearing mottoes as “Love The Giver,” “Forget Me Not,” “Truly Thine” and “For My Pet.”

Antique pieces sometimes can be found at bargain prices at flea markets. More often, even miniature furniture with cardboard framework and simple trinket boxes start at $75 and can reach $175 depending on the design and condition of the piece. Frames, roundels and hand mirrors are more expensive, hovering in the $125 to $250 range. Sailor’s valentines start at $500 and can bring about $3,000 depending on age, size, ornateness and condition.

Serious collectors amass a “shell bank” for replacing missing shells by cannibalizing pieces that are beyond repair. Minor repairs and cleaning (dip a soft cloth in a mild detergent-water solution) can be handled by collectors, but anything more demanding should be left to an expert.

Robinson’s 50-piece private collection contains some of the finest examples of antique shellwork in the country. “Collectors should know that boxes are the most common shellwork items on the market today,” he says. After boxes, says Robinson, miniature furniture, often having drawers or doors for sewing accessories, is easiest to find across the United States. Picture frames, hand mirrors, wall-mounted anchors and roundels, Robinson says, are no longer readily available. Finding them is becoming a challenge.