A Note From The Founders... | |
We believe that the act of collecting is timeless and started when we were children! Weren't we all natural collectors with a hoard of rocks, marbles, comic books, baseball cards or dolls that we considered our treasures?
Could it also be that our transition to collecting perfumes and vanity items might have really started with the stockpile of items that we stored in a shoe box under the bed?
So for this issue, we're celebrating the child in all of us, highlighting the children's themed items on display throughout our galleries!
Sincerely,
Jeffrey and Rusty, Co-founders
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A 1924 postcard with Netherlands stamp | |
A recently conducted study by OnePoll found that 59% of people consider themselves "kidults," -- adults who like to hold onto part of their youthful spirit through items they owned, played with and usually discarded when they were children.
Today, "kidults" can search for, purchase, collect and display just about anything online or at an antique show or shop that we coveted years ago.
This nostalgia applies to children's items that include a perfume or vanity theme, and it's always amazing that these items survived as they were meant to be played with. A variety of these items are part of a children's display at Perfume Passage.
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These 1930s three piece children's vanity sets include a 2-1/2" perfume, a 1" compact and a 3-1/2" hand mirror. The perfume label says Annette, New York and Paris, along with the fragrance name Narcissus. Information on the Annette manufacturer hasn't been found. | |
It's amazing that this four-piece 1920s celluloid vanity set survived! It was meant for a child to perhaps use the items as she played with her dolls. "Merry Christmas" is handwritten on the plain 5" cardboard box lid. | |
A colorfully illustrated box held four small Mother Goose Perfumes for the Kiddies! They were part of the Sylvan Series Toilet Water bottles made by Chicago Armour & Company. | |
A child's My Merry makeup set by the Merry Manufacturing Company from Cincinnati, Ohio. The company produced toy sets in the 1950s-1960s with vanity, kitchen, laundry and cleaning themes. | |
This 1950s Lander French Bouquet Apple Blossom Perfume set includes Apple Blossom toilet water, two French Apple Blossom bath crystal containers and six wrapped bath crystals. The 9-1/2" x 5-1/4" box lid has images of Paris, including the Notre Dame cathedral and the Eiffel Tower, along with a couple with bouquets of flowers and a painter with his easel and brush. | |
A Little Lady 1950s child's vanity kit. The blue plastic case holds a compact, lipstick, powder and comb. The powder box is signed New York Helene Pessl, so most likely the entire set was made by the Helene Pessl company. | |
From 1964, this Mary Poppins Beauty Trio set includes cologne, hand lotion and bath oil. They have the image of Mary Poppins on the labels and box lid. It was made by the House of Tre-Jur from New York.
Mary Poppins, a musical film released in 1964, featured the now-iconic screen debut of actress Julie Andrews and was released by Walt Disney Productions. Several other toiletry and vanity sets for children, featuring Mary Poppins, were available at the same time. Good promotional items for the movie and fun collectibles today!
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Even young boys could receive grooming and shaving sets to actually use! This shaving set was also made by the My Merry company and has a copyright 1957 date on it. | |
Jeffrey and Rusty deny that they received the Good Groomers set as a gift when they were young, but this 1972 set with bottles of shampoo, cologne, hair groom and lotion would have been a perfect gift for the future collectors! | |
Didn't we all watch The Flintstones? The animated TV show, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, took place in a Stone Age setting and ran from 1960 to 1966. While we don't know what Fred and Wilma really smelled like, their eau de toilette from the 1960s had a slight floral aroma! | |
In the 1930s, the Massachusetts Whiting & Davis purse manufacturers would often use a mother and child in their advertisements, encouraging little girls to want a purse like mom! This 1924 ad included the Baby Peggy mesh purse that "like mother's mesh purse was priced to match its tiny owner."
Additional children's mesh purses, measuring 3" long, are part of the purse collection at Perfume Passage. Since they were meant to be used and played with, they're hard to find in top condition.
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These fun 1920s celluloid "penny purses" came in a variety of colors and shapes with different applied figures on top, including rabbits, ducks, bears and dogs. They have a string cord with a slide piece to keep the purse closed and your penny from falling out! The barrel shapes measure just 1-1/4" tall and 1-1/2" around. One squish and they were gone! The 3" blue celluloid bear was advertised in the 1928 Butler Bros. general merchandise catalog as a "kiddies' novelty bag," selling for .72 cents a dozen.
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Perfumes with Children... | |
Over the years, adorable children and babies became popular figural perfume bottles manufactured in a variety of materials, including porcelain and glass. | |
An 1880s French Grand Tour cranberry scent bottle with a child's portrait. It has a gold filigree overlay with a scrolling pattern and has a hinged lid with glass stopper insert. | |
An 1895 Porzellanfabrik Triebner, Ens & Company German porcelain atomizer with a heart. The child has detailed blue wings, and his body is realistically modeled with tiny, delicate fingers and toes with appealing dimples! | |
Pink amphora scent bottle with a boy riding a bike. Made in West Germany for the A.A. Importing Co. St. Louis, Missouri in the Mary Gregory style. | |
The 1920s German crowntop perfume collection on display in the Deco gallery includes several featuring children. | |
Children can't survive without toys, dolls and soap, right?! And so what child wouldn't have wanted to receive a vanity item that's a toy, doll or soap? | |
An unopened box of Circus Time Castille soap (below) from the 1950s included three individually handpainted clown shaped soaps! It says the soaps were handpainted by Austrian craftsmen on the box lid.
Shulton's Pistol Pete soap (right) for children wears a plastic cowboy hat! This is unused and still sealed in the box from 1961.
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A 1959 Little Lady Doll & Toiletry set includes a Raggedy Ann-like doll with three mini bottles of fragrance and lotion. It was made by the Helene Pressl company of New York. | |
A Mini Miss Rag Doll Powder Mitt from Edith Rehnborg Cosmetics. Made in Hong Kong, dating from 1958-1968. | |
2016 Superman and Batman Eau de Toilettes from the Justice League series made by Marmol & Son, Inc. | |
A fun, unopened Dick Tracy Grimestoppers grooming set from the 1990s that includes aftershave, chap-lip radio watch and comb! | |
Kewpies
Rose O'Neill, a Nebraska native, was a writer and illustrator in New York City who developed the Kewpie character as a cartoon intended for a comic strip in 1909.
The Kewpie grew in popularity and Rose began to illustrate and sell paper doll versions of the Kewpies. They were then produced as bisque dolls around 1912 in Germany, becoming very popular in the early 20th century.
The Kewpie brand soon became a household name, and was used in a variety of product advertisements and with items such as dishware, soap, coloring books and of course, toiletries and perfumes.
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This two-foot-tall composition Kewpie was a store display, and it says copyright 1917 by Rose O'Neill on the base. Inside the heart on its chest, it says "Kewpie Talcum makes me rosy. Bright and cheery. Cool and cosy." She's keeping an eye on the display windows in the Passageway! | |
1920s German Kewpie crowntop perfumes and a ceramic talc with a Kewpie image! | |
Formerly called the California Perfume Company (CPC), Avon was founded in 1886 by David H. McConnell, a traveling book salesman for the Union Publishing Company. He gave free samples of perfumes while doing door-to-door book sales and soon realized his female customers were more interested in his perfumes than his books.
Today, Avon has grown from a small New York perfume company into a global cosmetics and fragrance industry. Avon has created jobs to help support women and some men around the world. There are Avon representatives on five continents and in over 100 countries.
Perfume Passage has a wonderful display of CPC and Avon (CPC changed its name to Avon Products Inc. in 1939), and Rusty has fond memories from his childhood about Avon products.
"While I didn't collect Avon as a child, I was an avid shopper for my mother, and whenever I see Avon perfumes and vanity items, they remind me of my mom and the presence of these items in our home.
I recall my mother using many of my father's Avon colognes as aromatic water. He couldn't keep up with the increasing number of bottles we would give him for his birthday, Father's Day and Christmas! So my mother would pour some of the fragrance into the mopping water and go over the floors once they were clean.
As an adult, I've collected Avon bottles and always feel nostalgic about what they represent to me. I love the whimsical cosmetics (shown below) from the 1970s made for children, as well as the early CPC items that are part of the collection at Perfume Passage."
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Businesses have been advertising their products and services for centuries, but it was around the late 1800s that they began to understand the importance of promoting and advertising their products in order to be competitive in their specialty market.
Children were a popular image to use on trade cards for many perfume and toiletry companies to promote their items. After all, who could resist an adorable child!
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Postcard collecting probably began as soon as postcards were circulated, and postcards with vanity-related themes were popular in the 1920s, with many produced in Germany, England and France. Postcard purchasing, mailing and collecting was sometimes called postcarditis, and today postcards are a common ephemera category, especially those featuring children and vanity items!
Perfume Passages's vanity-themed postcard and tradecard collections are placed in binders for visitors to view.
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We've shared the fascinating story of little Charley Ross several years ago. However, the collectible cologne bottles manufactured as a result of his tragic tale not only fit this month's children's theme but are a part of history we believe worth repeating. | |
Four-year-old Charley Ross and his five year old brother Walter were kidnapped from the front yard of their Philadelphia home on July 1, 1874.
A buggy pulled up to the house, and two men offered the boys candy and fireworks if they took a ride with them. The boys agreed, and Walter was given a quarter and instructed to go inside a store to buy fireworks. Walter did so, and when he came outside, the carriage and his brother Charley were gone.
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The family offered to pay a ransom through ads in the newspapers, and the kidnappers were eventually caught, but little Charley Ross was never seen again.
This 5" bottle below was produced so the public would be aware that Charlie was still missing. The bottle has an embossed bust image of Charley on the front, along with his name. It is believed that these bottles were used for cologne or perfume, with the idea that the bottle would sit on a dresser and keep the story of his kidnapping alive, and perhaps someone would come forward with information.
There were several variants of the Charley Ross bottles, and we haven't discovered any information as to who made the bottles, but it is assumed they came from one of the Philadelphia glass houses.
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This bottle is the newest edition to the collection. It is the first and only time we've seen a version of the cologne bottle with a medallion. It shows young Charley holding a sailboat. | |
This was a highly publicized event, as it was the first time a child had been kidnapped in the US, held for ransom and it was also the first time a missing child had been put on a bottle. Perhaps the idea of putting information about missing children on milk cartons came from the Charley Ross bottle.
A fascinating bottle of historical importance marks this sad event, and the warning "don't take candy from strangers" is said to have originated from Charley Ross' kidnapping.
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Join us for a Special Celebration!
Perfume Passage is marking a milestone - our fifth anniversary! Save the date and be part of our Essence of Summer aromatic extravaganza.
Date: Saturday July 27, 2024
1pm - 5pm
Venue: Perfume Passage
Join us for an unforgettable afternoon filled with scents, stories and surprises! The festivities will include:
Tours of the Galleries
New exhibits and displays
Food and drinks
Ice cream at the 1880s soda fountain
Presentations
Door prizes
And more!!
Invitations and further details are available on our linktree and website.
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Perfume Passage Journal... | |
Issue 8 about Vantine's is available!
For this issue, we celebrate the influence of Asian cultures on the American perfume industry. What better way to showcase this rich history than to spotlight the story of A. A. Vantine & Co.
The founder, Ashley Abraham Vantine, spent several years in California in the San Francisco area during the gold rush era. He observed the massive population of Chinese and Japanese immigrants who arrived in America in search of wealth. Vantine was successful in importing foods and household goods from the Far East to cater to this market.
You will discover a gold mine of bottles, burners, powder boxes and ephemera from our collection. A window display in the Passageway is dedicated to Vantine's, with two 17-inch Buddhas greeting visitors. Incense smoke often wafts through the corridors on occasion!
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We Have Published Our First Book!! | |
We're thrilled to announce the release of our inaugural book, a testament to our ongoing commitment to preserve the history, beauty, and artistry of perfume bottles, compacts, ephemera and related vanity items.
In the bustling streets of Paris during the late 1920s and early 1930s, a short-lived yet immensely creative company emerged whose designs captured the glamour and elegance of the Art Deco era. The French Montral company epitomized the spirit of the time, and authors and collectors Howard W. Melton and Anne de Thoisy-Dallem capture the previously unknown history of Montral in their book, The Art of Montral Powder Watch Compacts 1927-1931.
Through documentation, patents and known compact examples, this rich history tells a tale of luxury, creativity and the pursuit of beauty in an era marked by unprecedented social and cultural transformation.
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Perfume Passage Is On Social Media... | |
You will find everything on one site. Check out our Linktr.ee | |
You will find links to our past PassageWAY newsletters, video content such as the virtual tour by Erin Parsons, and much more! | |
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Interested in visiting the collection?
- As a private residence, we are not open to the general public except through pre-arranged tours.
- Experiencing the collection is best when done in smaller groups, therefore we limit admission for an up close and intimate experience. See the link below for upcoming available dates.
- We also offer private group tours and many other events throughout the year.
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Our mission is to preserve the history, beauty and artistry of perfume bottles, compacts, ephemera and related vanity items. Through education, outreach, and awareness of the Perfume Passage collection and library, our goal is to inspire art lovers, collectors, arts and curators to keep this history alive. | | | | |