Night Stand’s Predecessors Had More Varied Uses
Is it a dressing table, a lamp stand, a sewing stand or a bedside stand?
All those names are used to describe the useful small table with drawers popular in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Such tables have a rectangular top about 16 to 22 inches to a side. A table could have one, two or three drawers. The legs were made in the prevailing style, from thin-reeded Sheraton to heavy-square Empire.
Today, many people have a night stand next to their bed to hold such items as a lamp, books, clock, handkerchief and perhaps a telephone. In earlier times, the table was needed primarily to hold a lamp or a hand-held candle or night light that led the way up dark stairs.
Most of the antique stands were made of attractively grained woods, often maple, satinwood, cherry, birch or mahogany crotchwood.
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Question: My 94-year-old cousin has two Steiff teddy bears, one brown and one yellow. Their eyes are embroidered. When did Steiff use embroidered eyes on bears?
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Answer: Steiff never used embroidered eyes.
The German toy company, founded in 1877, made its first teddy bears in 1903. Its early bears had black shoe-button eyes. By 1910, Steiff was beginning to use black or black-and-brown glass eyes.
Your cousin’s bears might have been made by another company, or the original Steiff eyes might have been replaced with embroidered ones.
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Q: I found a 1-gallon stoneware jug labeled “Radium Water from the Mendenhall Hotel Baths, Claremore, Okla., Cures Rheumatism, Stomach Trouble, Eczema and Other Ailments.” Was radium really in the water?
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A: No. Radium--isolated by the Curies in 1898--was not in the artesian mineral waters discovered in Claremore in 1903. But a few years later, traces of radon, the radioactive gas produced from the breakdown of radium, were discovered in European hot springs that were thought to cure physical ailments. Claremore’s entrepreneurs and civic leaders marketed their spring waters as “Radium Water” and sold it in glass bottles and stoneware jugs.
Some wily turn-of-the-century quacks did put small amounts of radium in their “medicines,” and patients who took too much developed anemia and even bone cancer. The dangers of radium were known by the 1930s.
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Q: What is Francisware?
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A: Francisware is a glassware made in the 1880s by Hobbs, Brockunier and Co. of Wheeling, W.Va. It is a clear or frosted hobnail- or swirl-pattern glass with an amber-stained rim. Some pieces were pressed; others were mold-blown.
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Q: I just found an aluminum ice bucket decorated with penguins. I paid $5 for it at a garage sale. What is it worth?
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A: The penguin ice bucket is so often seen that we can identify it from your brief description. It was made by the West Bend Aluminum Co. of West Bend, Wis., from 1941 through the 1950s.
The buckets sell at antiques shops for about $20. If yours is in good condition, you made a good buy.
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Q: I collect bread plates, bread knives, dough trays and even bread wrappers, stickers, advertisements and giveaways. I just found a pack of Bond Bread trading cards that picture the cowboy “Hoppy” with two guns. Can you tell me about the cards?
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A: Hopalong Cassidy, known as “Hoppy,” was a character in a series of books first published in 1907. Hollywood discovered the character, and in 1935 the first of 66 movies about him was released.
William Boyd was the first and the most famous of the actors to play Cassidy. Boyd, who also played Cassidy on a 1949 radio show, bought the rights to the movies and edited them into TV segments, which proved so popular that he made 52 new episodes.
Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy endorsed hundreds of products. They are all collectible.
His face appears on several bread company premiums, including Wonder, Barbara Ann, Butter-Nut and Bond brands. Most of the endorsements date from the 1950s and 1960s.
If you’d like a listing of helpful books and publications on antiques, send a self-addressed, stamped (55 cents) envelope to the Kovels, Los Angeles Times, King Features Syndicate, 235 E. 45th St., New York, NY 10017.
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Current Prices
Current prices are recorded from antiques shows, flea markets, sales and auctions throughout the United States. Prices vary by location because of local economic conditions.
* Advertising match pack, Fearless Fosdick for Wildroot Cream Oil, white, three-panel comic strip with Al Capp and Fosdick, unused, 1950s: $25.
* Avon figural cologne bottle, 1850 pepperbox pistol, original box: $35.
* Gilchrist ice-cream dipper, No. 31: $40.
* Mr. Potato Head toy, Styrofoam ball head, plastic accessories, 1950, Hasbro: $50.
* Coleslaw grater, hardwood, signed “Tucker & Dorsey Mfg. Co.”: $65.
* Barry Goldwater campaign lighter, metal, “Why Not Victory” on front, elephant wearing black glasses on back, 1964: $80.
* Mickey Mouse pencil sharpener, celluloid, black Mickey, red pants and tongue, 1930s, 3 inches: $155.
* Kay Finch pottery, sitting dog, pearl white with gold bow, incised mark, 8 inches: $195.
* Gustav Stickley chair, four horizontal slats, arched stretcher, red mark, rope seat frame, original finish, 36 3/4 by 18 1/2 inches: $350.
* Carnival three-footed glass bowl, Stag & Holly pattern, 10 inches: $425.
