Penny To Mail Spurred Valentines

Although valentines had been exchanged on a limited basis for many years, the valentine industry really started in England after the introduction of the penny post in 1840. Finally, almost everyone could afford to send messages to someone special.

Secrecy was a key element of the original valentine sending. Very frequently, the sender remained anonymous.

Later, lovers who wished to be considered creative could purchase a little book called a Valentine Writer, which contained verses that could be copied into purchased cards, thus somewhat “customizing” the valentine.

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Rookwood Auctions Have A New Home

The Rookwood Pottery, originally founded in the 1880s in Cincinnati, Ohio, has been of interest to collectors of art pottery since its earliest days.

After a move to Starkville, Mississippi in the 1960s, it soon closed. In 1982, when there was talk of the Rookwood molds being sold to a buyer in Japan,  a buyer in Michigan was able to acquire them. The buyer, Art Townley, made a few pieces in his home kiln, all clearly and permanently marked as to the date when these later pieces were made.

Interest in Rookwood hit new highs in 1991 when the Cincinnati Art Galleries offered at auction the 1800-piece Glover Collection of Rookwood pottery. Winning bids set record highs. Since that time, the Cincinnati Art Galleries have continued to hold auctions each year featuring Rookwood pottery.

The Rookwood pottery itself came to life again in 2005, under the leadership of current president Christopher Rose, with the purchase from Townley of the 3,000 existing old molds, along with hundreds of glaze recipes. Now both old and new molds are being used, with a staff of artists and decorators creating the new art pottery.

Today, according to a recent article in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the pottery auction arm of the Cincinnati Art Galleries has been sold to the Rookwood Company. The first auction under the new ownership is planned for June, 2010. The Enquirer quotes Rose as saying, “We’re going to set up the art gallery for auction pieces in a room next to the pottery’s mold library.”  In other words, the vintage pieces will be located right next to the molds from which they were made. The event will be held at the firm’s 80,000 square foot facility in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine district.

The auction arm of the new Rookwood will be managed by Riley Humler, who has managed the Rookwood auctions for the Cincinnati Art Galleries from the beginning, lending additional continuity to the event.

Donna Miller

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Theater Organs Were Something Special

An article by John Terry in the Portland Oregonian on November 22, 2009, recalled the majestic organs which were once found in movie theaters of the Northwest. In the era before motion pictures became “talkies,”  and replacing the small orchestras that some theaters used, these organs were the ultimate in theater sound in the 1910s and 1920s.

A theater organ is different than the traditional church organ, writes Terry. It had from four to as many as 34 ranks, and each rank imitated the sound of a particular instrument – trumpet, clarinet, etc. (A rank was a set of pipes.) Some of the organs could also imitate bird songs and other sound effects.

Seattle claims the distinction of having the first pipe organ to accompany motion pictures, in 1907. The first really big theater organ was installed in 1914 at Seattle’s Liberty Theatre. (Since then, it’s also made its home at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma and the First Church of the Nazarene in Spokane.)

The Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society has researched the use of these organs throughout the Northwest. At the least, there were 46 of them in Portland at one time; there may have been more. In Oregon, they’re also known to have been in use in Vernonia, Burns, Coos Bay, The Dalles, Klamath Falls, Astoria, Medford, Eugene and Salem. If you want to hear one today, visit Oaks Park Roller Rink in Portland on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evening, says Terry, when it is used to accompany the skaters there.

If you are really interested, check out the www.pstos web site. There’s a lot of information there, and a convention coming up this year in Seattle. There’s also an Oregon chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society. As a part of the summer convention, attendees will travel from Seattle to Portland to Cleveland High School, where volunteers have been restoring a 24-rank organ.

Movie buffs and music buffs alike should enjoy hearing a performance on one of these grand old instruments.

Donna Miller

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