Box-Like ‘Case’ Furniture Built For Utilitarian Use

Case furniture is a term used to describe any piece of furniture built like a box and intended to contain something. The two basic forms are the chest and the cupboard. Also considered as case furniture are highboys, lowboys, desks, trunks, wardrobes and cabinets.

The earliest American case pieces were sturdy and strong oak chests that were made in the 17th century. Many had carved designs or had applied decorative pieces in a contrasting wood such as maple.

From about 1700 on, the simple six-board chests were made. As their name implies, they were made from six boards - four for the sides and one each for the top and bottom. The woods used were mainly pine and walnut, and often had graining painted on. More elaborate ones were dower chests from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New Jersey, with their painted flowers, hearts and inscriptions for decorations.

Cupboards, either free standing or wall, eventually became important pieces of furniture, Pine, poplar and cherry wood were used most often. These were almost always painted. Pieces with a good original finish are hard to find - and will command premium prices.

The early desks were boxes with slanted tops. Some were built simply to hold the family Bible. As with the other pieces, pine was the primary wood used, and graining was popular as a finish.

Hardware and construction are important clues in dating case pieces. Before 1800, snipe hinges were used on chests. These were hairpin-shaped pieces of iron which interlocked. nails were crude and hand-made. After 1830, square-headed cut nails and wrought iron butt hinges were used. Screws, if used, were hand-finished and had off-center slots.

In the early cupboards, the backboards were left unfinished, so saw marks can be seen. Straight saw cuts usually indicate a pre-1840 date. After that time, circular mill saws were used. Drawers, if present, will have a few big dovetails. Numerous small ones, uniform in size, are an indication of factory-made furniture, beginning about 1880.

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Enamel Offers Special Effects

 Guilloche is a term used to describe a fairly translucent enamel. Designs engraved in the backing piece of a metal such as silver would show through the enamel, with a shimmery effect. Butterflies and birds worked especially well for the design, because they almost appeared to be flying.

This was a popular technique for hatpins in the 1800s. A real find for a collector would be a matched set, which would include buttons and a brooch to go with the hatpin.

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Ornaments That Go Bang Similar To More Famous Firecrackers

Christmas crackers are not something one eats. They are a relative to the Fourth of July’s firecrackers. Although now rarely used in the United States, they are still an important part of Christmas celebrating in England.

The crackers are ornaments that make a bang. They are made of a cardboard tube which is covered with colored paper,  twisted at both ends. When the two ends are pulled, they make a small bang as the tube breaks open. (The tube contains a type of paper that has been treated with a chemical to produce the bang when friction is applied.) Inside is some kind of a surprise - a balloon, party hat, toy, motto, or a combination of several things depending on the size of the cracker.

The first ones were sold in England in the middle of the 1800s by the Tom Smith company, who designed them to hold candy. The coverings over a period of time grew more and more fanciful, and at one point, Smith made a cracker 18 feet long, which “contained real people who jumped out and distributed gifts.”

The Germans and French made the most elaborate Christmas crackers. Germans called them “bang candy.” An old German catalog shows crackers disguised as paper dolls, angels and sausages. The French made Japanese ladies with crackers under their kimonos, baby dolls with crackers under their christening gowns and mothers holding children, with crackers under their bustles.

In the United States, crackers were first used as tree ornaments. These were quite plain ones, with perhaps nothing more than a lithographed picture decorating the outside of the wrapped piece. From there, they eventually came to be used as table ornaments at children’s parties.

They are still made by British firms, over 100 million a year. Attempts are being made to popularize them in this country and they have started to appear in mail order catalogs.

Although the new trimmings are similar to the old, general appearance will usually enable one to distinguish which is which. The old scraps in the center and a general fading in appearance characterize the old ones, even if they are unused.

We used Christmas crackers at Christmas dinner a few years ago. The mottoes were silly - think Chinese fortune cookies - and the “prizes” small, but it was great fun at the table to open them. Watch for them in all those catalogs you’ll likely find in your mailbox or just go to Google online and type in “Christmas cracker.”

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From Palm Tree To Fir Tree, It’s Time For Celebration
 

Long before the decorated tree became a Christmas tradition, people around the world celebrated special times of the year by bringing trees into their homes or decorating them.

Egyptians once brought green palm trees into their homes to celebrate life on the shortest day of the year, in December. Romans draped evergreens around their villas during the winter festival, when they honored Saturnus, their god of agriculture.

But it was in the 16th century in Strasbourg, in what is now Germany, that today’s Christmas-tree tradition first emerged. Families there, both rich and poor, decorated fir trees with colored paper, fruits and sweets to celebrate Christ’s birth.

Even the annual Christmas tree lots date to that time - when older women would sell recently cut trees in the town marketplace.

The Christmas tree tradition is believed to have arrived in the United States through German settlers and, ironically, the Hessian soldiers who fought with the English while trying to crush the American revolution.

By 1842, Charles Minnegrode began decorating trees in Williamsburg, Virginia, and in 1851, Mark Carr hooked his oxen to sleds and hauled Christmas trees from the Catskill mountains into the streets of New York City to set up the country’s first tree lot.

President Franklin Pierce began the practice of setting up a Christmas tree in the White House in the days before the Civil War.

One of the nation’s most visible Christmas traditions - the National Christmas Tree lighting Ceremony now held each year near the White House - was begun in 1923 by President Calvin Coolidge.

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