21/09/2019 by Scheong

Elongated Elegance – Looking at Walking Sticks

“What do you make of it, Watson?”
“Why should I make anything of it? The fellow came to see you!”
“Ah! But what kind of a fellow? Let me hear you reconstruct him – from his walking stick – by our usual method of elementary observation!”
‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ (B. Rathbone, N. Bruce, 1939).

In this posting, we’ll be looking at the history, styles, designs, types, anatomy and function of walking sticks, an aide and accessory so old that it goes far into prehistoric times. So – as Pierce Brosnan said in “Around the World in 80 Days”: ‘I trust you have some stout shoes? We may do a little walking!‘.

What Is a Walking Stick?

A walking stick is a mobility-aid or fashion accessory which has existed since time immemorial. It has lasted in one form or another for literally thousands of years, and they continue to be manufactured in the modern world, for everything from looking stylish, to keeping your balance, for hiking, camping, and mountain-climbing.

A standard walking stick varies considerably in length, anywhere from about 30 to 45 inches. Some sticks can be five or six feet in length! But, where do they come from?

A History of Walking Sticks

Walking sticks of every size, shape and description have existed for millennia. Every culture and civilisation, from Ancient Rome to Ancient China, pre-Columbian America and the Middle East.

For much of history, a walking stick was…simply…a stick. A branch of convenient length, thickness and strength, which could be cut, shaved and modified to be used as a mobility aid.

Walking sticks as we might recognise them today, started becoming a thing in the 1500s and 1600s. Since medieval times, it had been de-rigeur for gentlemen to carry a sword while out in public, as a means of self-defense. However, this started being seen as confrontational, and by the 1600s, was no longer socially acceptable, unless it was part of military dress-uniform or other similar situations.

In a time when most people walked everywhere, unless they owned a horse and carriage, or a boat and lived near a major river, walking sticks naturally took the place of the sword in polite society. Remember also, that paved roads (with the exception of the Ancient Romans, perhaps) are a relatively modern phenomenon. Muddy tracks, cobblestones, and dirt or grassy roads were the norm for much of human history. Using a stick while walking helped you keep your balance while navigating pot-holes, ruts and gullies worn into the road by other travelers.

Some people, such as the elderly, the infirm or those suffering from some permanent injury or disability, might well have carried a stick for purely practical purposes, to help them move around, but increasingly, carrying a walking stick was seen largely as being a fashion accessory. Much like how you might carry around your smartphone today, back in the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s, carrying around a walking-stick was done for both practical, and fashionable reasons. Having a flashy walking stick, possibly made of rare or expensive materials, was seen as a status-symbol, and they lent an air of superiority and higher social standing to the user.

Apart from this, with most people walking everywhere, a stick was useful on a practical level. Carrying a stick took some of the pressure and wear off of your shoes and feet – important, when you might well be walking for several hours every day. Having something to lean or rest on, was important for the purpose of personal comfort.

The Anatomy of a Walking Stick

A classic walking stick was typically comprised of four parts. I’ll go through each one in detail and give a bit of their history.

The Shaft

The shaft is the length of wood which makes up the walking-stick’s body. Traditionally, shafts were made out of a wide variety of wood, such as oak, blackthorn, etc. Some sticks were made of brass, some were even made of ivory – the long tusks of the narwhal were a popular material for making walking-sticks.

In some instances, walking sticks were made out of more unusual substances. A popular material for shafts was rattan cane, which was both strong, and flexible. They were particularly popular in the Far East, but also in Britain; such a type of cane is mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes novel “The Hound of the Baskervilles“.

The Handle

The handle, or grip of the walking stick is the area at the top, grasped by the user’s hand. Some walking sticks had very plain, curved wooden handles, which were simply the end of the shaft being bent over to create a hook. However, from the 1600s onwards, and even into the modern day – handles made of a wide variety of materials have been popular.

Handles have been made of brass, silver, ivory, glass, pool-balls, horn, tusk, bits of pipe…almost anything and everything imaginable. During the 1700s and 1800s, silver, brass, wood, bone and ivory were the most popular materials for making walking stick handles.

Handle shapes were as varied as their materials. The handle might be a simple knob, a hook, or the T-shaped derby-style handle. Handles in the form of an upturned L, which were sometimes made in the form of animal or bird-heads, such as dogs, eagle, rabbits and almost anything else imaginable, were also very popular.

The Collar

The collar is the ring directly underneath the handle, where it joins to the shaft. Not every walking stick has a collar, and not all collars are functional. Some exist purely for aesthetic reasons. Popular collar materials were silver, brass and ivory.

The Ferrule

The ferrule is the end-cap, foot, or base, right at the bottom of the walking-stick. It serves two purposes – to protect the end of the shaft, and to provide the user of the stick with grip, to stop the base of the walking stick from sliding around.

Interesting fact: Ferrule lengths varied over history. As a rule – the longer your ferrule is, the older your stick is. The shorter your ferrule is, the more modern your stick is!

Now, you might ask – why?

Remember when I said further up, that one of the main uses for walking sticks was to navigate terrible roads and paths, to help you keep your balance, and stop you from falling over? Well – because roads were, as a rule, unpaved until recent times – it was very common for a walking-stick to sink into the mud or slop or ooze, especially if you had to put weight on it. This was disadvantageous, because the mud and gunk would get all over the bottom half of your stick…eewww…!!

But also – the mud, or more specifically, the water and moisture, would damage the wood of which your stick was made. Constant exposure to water and mud would cause the wood to swell and crack, and for the end of the stick to wear down. To prevent this, or at least, to minimise it, ferrules were added to the bottom of sticks, and they were made much longer (up to six or eight inches, in some cases!) so as to protect as much of the stick as possible.

As paved roads and pavements became more common, the necessity to protect so much of the lower half of the stick was reduced, and so walking stick ferrules generally get shorter and shorter. In the modern era, most ferrules aren’t more than an inch or two long, compared with four or eight inches, in times past.

The Purpose of Carrying a Stick

While the most common reason for carrying a walking stick was either as a fashion-accessory, or as a mobility aid of some variety, there were many other reasons for carrying one, and these expanded throughout the centuries.

Self-Defense

One of the most common reasons why people carry walking sticks, even into the modern era – is for the purposes of self-defense. State-run police-forces did not become a regular thing until the early 1800s, Because of this, carrying a walking stick when you went out served as both a fashion accessory, but also as a personal defense weapon. With the right skills, someone could disarm or disable an attacker with very little effort.

The heyday for sticks used for personal defense was the Victorian era. A method of self defense was developed during this time, known as “singlestick fighting”. It was a series of classes and courses, which you could take to learn how to defend yourself – using a single walking stick – hence the name. Singlestick fighting was incredibly popular – and photographic manuals existed, demonstrating how to disarm someone, how to trip someone up, how to duck, block and parry an attacker’s movements, and how to turn disadvantages (such as having a shorter stick) into an advantage.

***Various moves in singlestick fighting.***

Along with the art of singlestick fighting, walking stick manufacturers also made sticks with self-defense capabilities built into them – usually, these were custom-ordered walking sticks, made specifically to a client’s needs. Walking sticks with spring-loaded bayonets, walking sticks with lead-shot inside the handle, and most famously – walking-sticks with swords or daggers inside the handle (“swordsticks”), were particularly common.

Gadget Sticks

Also called “systems sticks”, a gadget stick was a walking stick which served at least two functions. Gadget sticks varied from the mundane, to the fantastic, and everything in between. Gadget sticks had all kinds of additional accessories added into them – compasses, watches, whiskey-flasks hidden inside the shafts, telescopes, and even firearms – Valentin Zhukovsky, in the James Bond films, has a walking-stick with a built-in rifle.

Gadget-sticks were immensely popular, and today, a really unusual, or elaborate gadget-stick can be worth several hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. The more intricate and complicated it is, the more desirable it becomes, and the more value it retains.

While some gadget-sticks had gadgets inside them purely for the fun of it (a whiskey-flask, a compass, a watch, etc, etc), some gadget-sticks were manufactured specifically for particular occupations. For example, an explorer or a surveyor’s stick might have a telescope, a yardstick, a spirit-level and a compass. A doctor’s stick might have pill-boxes and a thermometer. A writer’s stick might have space for pens, spare nibs and a bottle of ink.

The End of the Walking Stick

The walking stick as an aid for mobility has never disappeared, and some people still collect and use antique and vintage sticks for walking on a regular basis. Others still buy their sticks brand-new and use them every day. A friend of mine has carried the same curved wooden walking stick for years, to help with the bodily imbalance caused by his back issues.

But the days of carrying a walking stick as a fashion accessory does seem to have died away. While some people do still uphold this, they do tend to be a minority. The fact is that a walking stick is seldom practical as an accessory in the modern world. We have so many other things to think about and carry – phones, chargers, earphones, tablets, laptops…the last thing we need to carry around is a purely decorative piece of wood.

Quite apart from anything else, one of the main reasons why walking sticks started dying out as a fashion accessory is due to the advancements in transportation.

Prior to the late 1800s, most people walked almost everywhere. Carriages were expensive, trains didn’t reach all places, and bicycles were rare. Because of this, walking was the main mode of transport, which meant that carrying a walking stick, either to aid with balance, to help ease the pressure on one’s feet, or simply as an accessory – was considered acceptable.

However, once cars became popular, and people started doing much less walking in general, sticks fell by the wayside as being impractical and unnecessary. Their popularity continued through the 20th century, but they started being seen increasingly as being more of mobility aid, and more for older people than younger people, and less as a fashion accessory than they once were, which all contributed to their general lack of use in the modern world.

26/08/2019 by Scheong

A Beginner’s Guide to Buying & Fixing Vintage Clothing

If you’ve been a reader of my blog for any decent length of time, then you’ll know that I love fixing stuff. Usually, that ‘stuff’ is some variety of antique or vintage item. I find it very satisfying to breathe life and rejuvenation into old objects, and items and make them useful, or at least functional, again. If I can repair something instead of throwing it out, I’d rather have it repaired.

For about seven years, I worked as a volunteer in a local charity thrift shop. It was only one shift a week, but it got me out of the house, and I met some really fun and interesting people, who I still hang out with from time to time (if they’re reading this, they know who they are! Hey guys!).

One thing that working in a charity shop made me realise is just how much stuff people really throw out, and how many things people buy that they really don’t need. But sometimes, that’s good, because then we can actually find all kinds of things, which are really nice, for really cheap prices. And sometimes, you can find it even cheaper, if you know what to do with it.

And this brings me to the purpose of today’s posting – buying and repairing old clothing.

Now, first thing’s first – this isn’t going to be a full-on style posting. There’s a million excellent menswear styling sites out there (if you want to find a few, I suggest looking up the Gentlemen’s Gazette, Real Men Real Style, etc) – but this blog, right here – ain’t one of them. I’ll give a couple of pointers and tips, but that’s it.

Finding Stuff at Thrift Shops

These days, bargain-hunting at thrift-shops is very popular. Usually, the amount of stuff being dumped on these places is so high that they HAVE to price it dirt cheap, just to get a high enough turnover rate, so that the stores aren’t snowed under all the time. But this gives you an excellent opportunity to find great stuff at bargain prices. Usually, it’s clothing, but you can find other stuff like antiques, books, homewares and kitchenwares that you didn’t even know existed, and all kinds of other stuff. For the purpose of this posting, however, we’ll be concentrating mostly on clothing, since that’s what most people buy at charity shops.

Always Inspect Everything!

Before you carry your latest prized garment to the front counter to buy it, always check the ENTIRE garment. This goes without saying. Try it on. Make sure it fits. A jacket or coat should always fit in two key areas: The shoulders, and the sleeves.

A jacket or coat shoulder should stop where your shoulder stops. You might get away with it being a finger’s width too wide, or half a finger too narrow, but anymore than that, and it won’t fit properly. Make sure you’re comfortable putting it on and taking it off. Try this a few times to be sure.

With coats and jackets, make sure the sleeves are the right length. What’s the right length?

Stick your arms out to the front and then to the side. A jacket sleeve never goes beyond your wrist-bones. A coat sleeve never goes past the knuckle of your thumb closest to your palm.

What’s the difference? A coat goes over a jacket, but a jacket never goes over a coat. They’re called “overcoats” for a reason, you know.

How long a coat hangs is up to you. A jacket should never drop below your butt. A coat can go all the way down to the ground, if you can find one long enough. Generally, an overcoat will drop to anywhere from mid-thigh to knee-length. Sometimes you can find some which drop even further, but they can be tricky to obtain.

Once you’ve found something you like and have decided that it fits you, make sure that you check everything about the garment! And I mean everything – check for holes, check for moth, check for rips, missing buttons, tears, wear-patches, staining…absolutely everything. Examine every square inch of fabric, and take as long as you have to, to be absolutely sure.

Once you’ve summed up the item’s imperfections, decide whether or not you can live with them. Can you repair them? Can you ignore them? Is anyone going to care about that wine stain on the jacket lining, when nobody’s ever going to see it? Does it matter that you patch the back of your coat, since it’s on the inside and only you’ll know it’s there? Does it matter that that ONE button is SLIGHTLY off, because you had to replace it?

Similarly, do the same thing with shirts, and trousers. Is the rise too high? Too low? Are the jeans pinching your balls? (hey, it had to be asked, OK?), and probably most importantly – that crotch stitching is still holding up, right?

On top of that, the main thing to check with trousers of any kind, apart from the waist, of course, is the inside leg. The inside-leg measurement is taken from the groin down to the ankle. I’m about 5’7″, and my inside-leg is 29 inches, while my waistline measurement is 32 inches. You should always remember stats like this if you intend to go thrift-shopping, and of course, bring a measuring tape with you. That way, you’ll save time by measuring the clothes before you even try them on.

Buying clothes at thrift-shops is always a gamble and always a compromise. You have to decide:

What can you accept? What can you excuse? What can you let slide or get away with, or not worry about?

Certain things should never be compromised on. Never buy anything that doesn’t fit, never buy anything that can’t be repaired, never buy anything that you’re not comfortable wearing (either physically or mentally), and never buy anything that cannot be cleaned properly. There’s no point buying something if you can’t get the stains out or can’t repair it. Moth holes, for example – forget it.

On the other hand, some things you can get away with. Oh it’s missing buttons? Whatever. Buy some new ones and replace them. Oh, it’s got a hole in the lining? If it doesn’t bother you, then don’t be bothered by it. Nobody’s going to see it anyway. Likewise, holes in pockets can be sewn up, and so on.

What Can You Repair?

That really depends on what your skills are. My grandmother was a dressmaker for forty years. When I was a child, she taught me all kinds of basic sewing skills. How to thread a needle, how to sew on a button, how to measure, how to chalk cloth, how to cut, how to leave seam-allowances, how to stitch, cut and sew buttonholes, and all kinds of other things. These are all things which are useful skills, if you want to buy vintage clothing or secondhand stuff at thrift-shops. So, if you do intend to buy clothes from thrift-shops, what basic sewing skills should you know, to try and repair and revive clothes to bring them back to life?

Below is a short list of a few skills that you might need to know, but first…

What Stuff Do you Need?

***My 1930s Singer vibrating shuttle machine. It only does one thing, but it does it very well!***

If you intend to repair clothes that you bought at a thrift-shop, you should have the following: Needles, thread, pin-cushion with pins, tailors’ chalk, a measuring tape or ruler, an iron, a thimble, a seam-cutter, a needle-threader, scissors, and ideally – a functioning sewing machine that you know how to use.

Sewing on a Button – Difficulty – EASY

Let’s start dead simple – everyone should know how to sew on a button. To determine where the button should be sewn, either use the existing buttons on the garment as a measuring guide, or else use the opposing buttonhole as a guide. Mark this with chalk, and then thread and knot your needle. Feed the needle through the cloth from the INSIDE of the shirt, going out. And then feed the button through the needle and down onto the shirt.

How many times you sew the button up against the shirt is up to you, but be sure that you do it evenly and use all the available threading-holes. Your button threading can either look like an “X”, an “O”, or an “H”, but keep the threading consistent – either do it twice, four times, six times or eight times. Don’t do it an odd number of times, because then it looks sloppy. Above all, make sure that the stitches are tight and even. When you’re done, stitch the needle through one of the stitches behind the button, tie a knot and cut the thread. Done!

Not all buttons are created equal, however. Due to the thicker fabrics, coat and jacket-buttons should not be stitched TOO tightly against the garment. If they are, then you’ll find them harder to button due to the thicker fabrics and the chunkier, larger buttons used to hold your garment closed. So long as the button is firmly anchored to the jacket or coat, you can leave a TINY amount of slackness in the stitching, maybe an eighth of an inch, or even less, but certainly not more.

If you’re trying to find buttons for a garment because some are missing, and you think it’d be easier just to replace ALL the buttons at once, one way to do this is to find a coat or jacket of a similar colour and style, but which is unwearable (because it’s filled with holes, or has massive stains on it, etc), and cut off all the buttons (if it has a full set) and simply use those to re-button your better-condition garment. Keep the original buttons from your first garment in a button-box or tin for use in other emergencies.

Tip: If you’re sewing through particularly thick fabric (heavy wool, for example, or several layers of fabric at once), then make sure you have a thimble! It’ll save you from being pricked and poked as you try and yank and push that needle through. It may only be a few milimeters thick, but there’s a lot of friction between the fabric and the needle when you’re sewing something. I have a few antique silver thimbles that I keep in my sewing box, but whatever you can find is probably suitable enough – just make sure it’s nothing smooth, like those kitschy little porcelain ones – it needs to have dimples on it, to catch the point of the needle and to stop it sliding around everywhere!

Pinning Clothes – Difficulty – EASY

One of the most important things that you’ll need to know when repairing clothes is how to pin fabric. Is a sleeve coming off? Is the lining coming undone? Did you tear your waistcoat shoulder and need to sew it back together? (That happened to me once, and it was a frustrating repair!). For all these applications and more, you need to know how to pin stuff.

For this, you’ll need a bunch of tailor’s pins. They’re easily purchased in-bulk from any fabric and craft store, sometimes even at supermarkets. Best to buy two or three packets – they don’t always last very long.

The point of these pins (no pun intended!…OK not much of one, anyway…) is to hold two or more pieces of fabric together, and to stop it from sliding or coming apart when you’re trying to sew them back together.

After positioning the two pieces of fabric how you want them to be sewn together – take your pins – which should be housed in a pin-cushion – and feed them through the fabric, one at a time – parallel to the seam that you’ll be sewing. This is to allow the two pieces of fabric to lie flat and straight – if you pin perpendicular to the seam, the fabric may bunch up or pull out of alignment while sewing – and you certainly don’t want that!

While pinning, make sure that the pins go straight through both layers of fabric, and then back out through both layers of fabric. Make sure that the pin goes all the way through, and all the way out, but also, that the pin goes in and out through the fabric over the shortest distance possible – this gives you enough leeway for the pin to move (which it may do, while you’re sewing) without sliding out of the fabric entirely (which is a possibility) and ruining the end effect!

Hemming Trousers – Difficulty – MEDIUM

This is something that I reckon every well-dressed guy, and any girl who wears trousers or jeans – should know – HOW TO HEM YOUR TROUSERS! I’m constantly amazed at how many of my friends have no idea how to do this.

Finding a pair of jeans or trousers that fit you great in the waist, but which are too long, is a problem for a lot of people. Chances are that nothing will fit you perfectly off the rack, no matter how much weight you lose or sit-ups you try to do. That’s just the reality of life. Some shops (such as Uni Qlo, for example) do offer an in-store alteration-service for a nominal fee, and if you want to, you can do that, if you buy something from a store, brand-new. But if you’re buying from a thrift-shop, you don’t have that option. So you either have to pay someone to do it (which I would never bother doing), or you do it yourself.

First, you gotta figure out your inside-leg. To figure that out, get a pair of trousers that already fit you really well, and measure the inside-leg. That’s taken from the middle of the crotch-seam, down the INSIDE of the trouser-leg to the bottom of the hem – by inside, I mean the inner-side of the trouser leg, as opposed to the outer-side, not the literal inside of the trousers where the seams are hidden. Am I making sense here??

That measurement is your inside-leg. For most people, it’ll be between 26 – 40 inches, depending on how tall you are. If you’re really tall, then it could be as much as 50 inches. Either way, remember that length and then measure it out on the pair of trousers you want to hem. Mark that point on the trouser-leg with chalk and then rule a line along the bottom of the trouser-leg at that mark. Make sure the trouser-leg is flat and your ruler is straight!

Depending on how much fabric is below this line, you can either hem straight away, or you might want to cut off some of the excess fabric. If you have more than an inch and a half of fabric, I’d suggest trimming it off.

Once you’ve made your measurement and it’s ready to hem – fold the excess fabric UP inside the trouser leg. Here, you might want to iron it, to set a crease so it doesn’t flop around. Next step is to pin the hem. Using tailor’s pins, pin the hem so that the fabric stays in place while you sew it in your new hemline using a sewing machine. Make sure that you sew the hem so that the new line of stitches is as close to the edge of the folded-up fabric as possible, and not the new hemline – otherwise all the loose, unsupported fabric inside your trouser-leg will flop back down and you’ll have a bitch of a time trying to put your trousers on later. This is also why I suggest removing excess fabric – it just gets in the way.

Cutting buttonholes – Difficulty – MEDIUM

I don’t know anybody who cuts their own buttonholes, but I have done, on occasion. It’s not strictly always necessary, but in some instances, it may be.

About a week ago, I was at my local flea market, looking for a new winter overcoat. I lucked out and found a lovely 60-40 wool-poly blended navy blue peacoat. It fit decently in the shoulders and arms, and it was a longer cut, going down to almost my knees, which I liked, because I believe overcoats should be as long as possible without looking awkward.

The thing about peacoats is that they’re double-breasted – they are ALWAYS double-breasted. There is no such thing as a single-breasted peacoat. I don’t own anything that’s double-breasted (apart from one grey jacket) and I thought it’d be fun to buy a double-breasted overcoat. It’s different, it was in a colour I liked, a style that suited me, a size that fit me, and had features which I liked – namely that it buttoned right up to the throat, which is great in freezing winter weather!!

But – it only buttons up on one side – left over right.

I’m a firm believer that if you’re going to do something, you should do it as right as you can – what’s the point of having a double-breasted overcoat which only buttons up on one side? So, I took it home and made extra buttons on the other side, so that I could overlap the coat either direction.

To make new buttonholes, you will need:

A sewing machine, thread, a needle and thread, tailor’s chalk, and a pair of very sharp, pointed-tip scissors.

First thing’s first – mark where the buttonhole is going to be, and how long it’s going to be, compared to the diameter of the button that’s going to go through it. If you have the button handy – use that as a guide. Use tailor’s chalk to mark the boundaries of the buttonhole that you wish to make.

Next step is to sew a rectangle using your sewing machine – bordering around the chalk-marks you made.

After that, you need to make the actual hole itself. Always sew the boundaries of the buttonhole before doing this – the point of the stitching is to ARREST and PREVENT any unwanted tearing or fraying in the fabric. If you don’t do the reinforcing rectangle first, then all you’ll get is a huge bloody hole in your coat that’s of no use to anybody.

To cut the hole, use sharp, pointed-tip scissors. If you can get them, there are specific buttonhole scissors that exist – but if you can’t get them, then any scissors like what I described, will do. Pierce the fabric and feed the blade of the scissors through, and then cut along the chalk-mark inside the stitched border. Make sure that the button slips through comfortably, but not too loosely.

The final step is to reinforce the buttonhole. If you do not do this, then the fraying edges of the buttonhole will cause the entire thing to fall apart. Get your needle and thread, and sew around the edge of the buttonhole using a whipstitch, or overcast stitch – these are designed to furl over the edge of the fabric, and therefore prevent it from wearing out and unwraveling. Make the stitches as tight and as close together as possible to produce a neat, even appearance. Once it’s done, tie off the thread, snip the excess, and you’re done!

Of course, if you want to use a sewing machine, you can do that too – and use a buttonhole attachment, but if you’re not confident with using one, or don’t have one, then this is the most traditional way of doing it. It’s an easy way of adding buttonholes to garments that you find secondhand and want to alter to your own tastes or uses.

Blind Stitching – Difficulty – EASY

Blind stitching the name given to the method by which two pieces of fabric are sewn together, without there being a visible seam or stitches. The stitching is done in such a way that it is ‘blind’, or invisible.

Blind stitching is useful if you’re trying to sew seams back together that have come apart, but you don’t want it to be obvious that you’ve done a homemade repair – you want it to look like it was never damaged in the first place!

Blind stitching is easily accomplished with a simple needle and thread. It involves sewing the two pieces of fabric together in such a way that the thread holding the two pieces together cannot be seen from one side (usually, the outside!). So, how is this done?

To successfully carry out a blind stitching operation, you sew the two pieces of fabric together by passing the needle through the fabric, without poking all the way through. Basically, you catch threads or fibres of the fabric, pull your needle through, catch the fibres or threads of the other fabric, and pull the needle through that. On the other side of the two pieces of fabric – there shouldn’t be any hole or any thread visible.

Blind stitching is relatively easy – but it has to be done slowly, and carefully if you want a neat and presentable finish. Best to do it when you’re bored, and lonely, sitting down watching TV or YouTube videos, because you won’t want anybody trying to actively steal your attention while you’re doing this. The only slight disadvantage with blind stitching is that since the stitches don’t pass all the way through the two pieces of fabric, it may not be as strong as conventional stitching. You can remedy this by making the stitches more numerous or tighter, to give the seam some extra strength!

Darn it! – Difficulty – MEDIUM

You might’ve heard of darning from reading old books, or watching period movies, old TV shows, or possibly, from speaking to your grandparents. It’s that thing that grandma did late at night when there was nothing else going on. But what is it?

Darning is a process whereby clothes are repaired. To be specific, it’s a method for repairing, filling in or patching holes, usually in thick, knitted or woven fabrics and garments such as scarves, jumpers, cardigans, beanies, mittens etc. It doesn’t really work that well with thinner fabrics or fabrics with a tight weave, like cotton.

Darning is a process whereby you fill in the hole created by the loose, or missing threads, by weaving in fresh thread to replace it. First, you identify the hole that needs darning. Then, you get your needle and thread. Ideally, you want a thread that matches the colour of the fabric as closely as possible.

Prepare your needle and thread as you usually do, and then tuck the point of the needle through the weave in the fabric, near the edge of the hole that you’re trying to darn. For a neater finished appearance – darn from the INSIDE of the garment, so that none of the fiddly bits – like that knot you tied in the end of your thread – are visible when the darning is completed.

Pull the thread across the hole and through a weave in the fabric at the other edge. Then repeat the process going back the other way. And back the other away again. And again. And again. Until the entire hole is covered.

Now you’ve done half the process. The next step is to go from top to bottom, weaving your needle in and out of the threads you just created, while also doing the anchoring stitches that you did earlier. Keep your stitches as dense as possible to create an even, solid mass of thread which will eventually build up, and cover the hole. Yay! You’re darning!

**A wooden darning egg. Darning eggs can be made out of almost anything – metal, glass, wood, even stone. It just has to be something sufficiently hard that the needle doesn’t break it**. ***The curved shape helps to stretch out the fabric, and stops it from bunching up and kinking.***

One way to make darning easier is to place something inside the garment, so that you have a solid surface to rest against while you darn. This stops the fabric from flopping around anywhere. Traditionally, this ‘something’ was a hard, round object made of wood, known as a “darning egg”, or a “darning mushroom”, depending on the shape.

Darning is usually done on thick, woven wool clothes and fabrics. Stuff like sweaters, dressing gowns, socks, sweater-vests, etc. The thick, fluffy weave of the fabric hides (or makes less noticeable) the repair-job of darning. Darning will never make a garment look like new, but it will stop it from getting worse and falling apart. For this reason, darning is a repair technique usually reserved for things which won’t be seen publicly – dressing gowns, socks, or sweaters which might be covered by a jacket or overcoat. Of course – the neater and more densely packed your darning stitches are, the less noticeable the repair will be overall, especially if you use a colour-matched thread.

Conclusion

Well, that brings this posting to an end. For anyone who loves bargain-hunting and seeking out secondhand or vintage clothes, hopefully this posting has given you a bit more confidence to be a bit more adventurous in your hunter-gathering, and given you a bit more confidence in repairing your own secondhand scores!

25/07/2019 by Scheong

Antique Sealing-Wax Stove

Sometimes, you really do find the weirdest things, when you’re out antiquing. Over the years, I’ve stumbled across everything from Pieces of Eight to razor-blade sharpeners, pill-rollers and writing slopes. But sometimes…just sometimes…you find something so obscure and unheard of that not only have you never seen it before, you’ve never heard of it before, and you’ve never even come across one on the internet! Likely, you’ve never even considered that such a thing might even exist!

Such was the case last week!

It was on a very windy Sunday morning in July when I picked up this curious rectangular, metal object. It was pointed out to me by the stallholder as something in which I might show a particular interest! And boy, was he right!

I remember staring at this object, a mounting sense of curiosity building up inside me as I laughed at it and picked it up.

“What is it!?”
“Ever seen something like this before?”
“Hell no! What’s it do?”
“It’s pretty fantastic, huh? It’s for heating sealing-wax! You like that kind of old-world writing stuff, don’t you?”
“Well…yeah!”
“Buy it! You’ll never see another one of these, mate!”

Deciding that he was probably right, I haggled the price down and handed him the money. Apart from a bit of rubbing and wear, the piece was in absolutely wonderful condition – no cracks, no scratching, no dents, no missing or broken parts – everything was in perfect working order! A bit stiff in its operation, perhaps, but nothing that a good cleaning couldn’t fix!

The furnace, or stove, is comprised of four main parts.

First is the body or shell. This is divided into two sections – the upper section, accessed by a flat, hinged lid, and the lower section, accessed by another hinged lid, with a circular handle screwed into the front.

The second part is the two-piece burner or spirit-lamp. This is the little rectangular unit that slides out of the bottom compartment. The top half of the burner comprises of the wick, and the adjustment-knob on the side, with the reservoir underneath.

It’s basically a small oil-lamp which burns kerosene or lamp-oil. The burner-unit is unscrewed, the reservoir is filled with oil, the wick and burner-unit are screwed back on, and once the oil has wicked its way up the wick, it can be lit with a match. Turning the wick up creates a strong, bright flame that is used as a heat-source for melting the wax.

**The bottom door opened, showing the spirit lamp underneath**

The sealing wax itself is stored in the third component – the wax pan. The pan is basically a metal dish or trough into which chunks or sticks of sealing wax are placed to be melted. The trough is heated from below by the flame of the spirit lamp, and once the metal is hot enough, the wax inside the trough melts into a liquid state.

***Opening the top door reveals the removable wax pan above the burner-unit***

Riveted to the sides of the body of the stove is the fourth component of the stove – an insulated carrying handle – suggesting that the stove is meant to be portable – this is borne out by the fact that the burner-unit fits into flanges or grooves inside the lower compartment of the stove-body, presumably to hold it in position under the middle of the wax-pan, and to stop it from sliding around when it’s being carried – important when you’ve got boiling hot wax and open flames around!

Is It A Rare Item?

I suspect that it is. I mean how many antique, working sealing-wax stoves have there got to be in the world? A look online revealed a surprisingly large number of sealing-wax melting devices, variously labeled as ‘stoves’, ‘kilns’ or even ‘furnaces’, but these were all modern ones. They’re low capacity, low-heat devices, usually incorporating a tealight candle.

They’re cheaply made with wooden and metal frames and bases, and are used only for melting small quantities of wax – enough for maybe one or two seals at a time. None of them have any age to them, and none of them are designed for large-scale, long-term use. They’re sold more as a cutesy gimmick, not as an actual piece of office or desktop equipment.

During all my searching, I found only two other antique sealing-wax stoves online, and only one of them was similar in design to mine. This would lead me to believe that they aren’t that common, and that if others do exist out there, then they’ve probably been mis-identified…which wouldn’t surprise me – after all, how many offices would’ve had a device like this sitting around?

What Is The Purpose of the Stove?

The stove is designed to melt and liquefy sealing wax, used for sealing documents and parcels, and provide a device for evidence of tampering. Traditional sealing-wax is very hard and brittle – it’s designed to shatter and crack if any stress is applied to it. Unfortunately, this quality means that it’s also much harder to melt than conventional candle-wax, or even modern, soft-textured sealing-wax.

Given that it would take higher heat and a longer time to melt traditional sealing-wax, it would make sense that any office where documents had to be sealed regularly, such as a post-office, bank, or lawyer’s office, would have a stove like this constantly lit, so that a supply of hot, liquid sealing-wax was on standby at the moment’s notice. To seal a document, one simply had to open the lid, scoop out the required amount with a ladle, and pour it over the document or parcel which required sealing.

How Does It Work?

Very simply! You place sticks or pellets of sealing-wax in the pan at the top of the stove. Drop the pan in, and close the lid. Then you fill the spirit lamp or burner with lamp-oil, or kerosene. You let the fuel rise up the wick, then light it with a match, like any other oil lamp. Turn the wick up to the highest level it can go without smoking, and then slide it into the bottom compartment between the two guide-rails. Then close the lower door (or leave it open, up to you).

**Lighting the wick and testing out the spirit lamp**

Once the lamp is lit, it’s just a matter of waiting for the flame to heat the pan, to melt the wax down to a liquid state. Obviously, the more wax there is in the pan, the longer it takes to melt. I imagine they did this on a case-by-case basis – they’d melt just enough wax to make a few seals, and after every 2-3 uses, they’d toss in another stick of wax to melt, so that it’d be liquid by the time they needed to use it again, while keeping the stove burning all day long throughout office hours.

***The insulated carry-handle at the back***

The carrying-handle on the stove suggests that it was meant to be portable – and that it was intended that the stove could be moved from desk to desk around a large office so that different people could use it, rather than taking their documents to a central table to seal them when needed.

How Old Is the Stove and Who Made It?

I honestly don’t know. I’d estimate early 1900s, probably not later than after the First World War, and as far back as the 1880s or thereabouts. There’s no real information on the device itself that gives us any information as to its history.

The only information provided is “SUTHERLAND, THOMSON & Co., 31 Tooley Street, London“. They’re identified as late as the 1930s, as being a supplier of “Dairy equipment and Scientific Glassware” – but that doesn’t mean that they made the stove. They might’ve sold it as the retailer, or simply have bought it for their own use in sealing documents and parcels. I saw one other one online supposedly sold by the same company, so they may have been an established retailer, although I have no real proof one way or the other. There are no patent-numbers, model-numbers, serial-numbers or any other marks on the device at all that tell us anything about it.

26/06/2019 by Scheong

Among My Souvenirs – Display Cabinets and Cases

As a serious antiques collector since my school days, taking care of one’s collection, keeping tabs on it, remembering what’s in your collection, what you’ve bought, sold, traded or given away, and how to protect, store and display one’s collection is something that is always on your mind.

In this posting, I’m going to be talking about display-cabinets and cases, and what sorts of choices and options there are out there for you to consider, and what issues you yourself need to consider when you select a case or cabinet, dependent on the types of antiques you collect.

Cabinets and Cases – What Are They?

Before we get swept away with the fascination about our intriguing subject-matter, let’s first understand one thing:

Cabinets are not cases, and cases are not cabinets. They are two different things, and each is used for different items. Alright?

Alright.

Display Cabinets

A display CABINET is a freestanding unit or piece of furniture, designed to exhibit the items stored within it. They can be tall and thin, low and rectangular, square, modular and angular. They usually have glass sides and doors and multiple shelves. They may or may not be lockable.

Benefits of display-cabinets is that they’re larger and can keep a larger amount of (or larger-sized) items safe and clean. For a relatively small footprint, they can store and display multiple shelves or layers of collectives and therefore take up a small amount of floor-space for the amount of items that they can store. The disadvantages are their weight and lack of portability.

Display Cases

By comparison, a display CASE is a shallow, flat, box-like container, usually with a glass-topped lid. They’re usually small enough to be somewhat portable and are typically used for displaying small items such as pens, coins, stamps, etc. Basically, anything small that wouldn’t really suit a larger display cabinet, because they would get lost among all the bigger items. They may or may not be lockable, just like their larger counterparts, and may or may not include lighting features.

The benefits of display cases is that they’re smaller and more portable. This makes them great for things like displaying your collections or items for sale, at antiques fairs, collectors’ fairs and conventions, or for displaying your collections in a wider selection of areas (in your study, on the coffee table in your living room, etc).

The disadvantages of display cases is that they take up a LOT of space. Since you can’t stack them when they’re in use, they can take up a lot of space, compared with the relatively small footprint vs. large storage space, of a display cabinet.

Cabinets or Cases? What’s Best for You?

Cabinets are better if what you’re displaying is large, bulky or heavy. Silverware, brassware, antique optical equipment, books, porcelain, etc. Things that you don’t have to strain your eyes to notice through the glass.

Cases are better for displaying smaller things with low profiles, such as coins, stamps, pens, collections of snuffboxes, pocketknives, lighters, and so on.

Having lights makes things easier to see…

When deciding to buy a display-unit for your collections, you need to figure out what’s going to go into it, how heavy your collection is, and where the case or cabinet is going to go. Will the shelves support the weight of that beautiful French porcelain censer? Will the lid close on top of your favourite guilloche enamel table-lighter? Will you be able to arrange things the way you want them to look?

These are all things that you need to consider. If you buy a set of display cabinets – do you have the wall-space for them? Where will you hang your pictures, photographs and clocks? Will it take up space that you need for other things? So much to think about.

Display & Lighting

Once you’ve decided on which option works best for you – cabinets or cases, then the next thing to consider is how to display your collection and whether or not you wish to include any form of illumination.

With a flat case, how you arrange your collection is up to you, but with display cabinets, there are certain limitations that you need to consider.

First – how stable are your cabinets? To provide ballast, heavier, bulkier items should go at the bottom and lighter and smaller things further up. Larger items should be placed at the back of shelves, and smaller items closer to the front, so that all pieces may be seen, with minimal obstruction between one piece and another.

Of course, you don’t have to have lights, but not having them can create shadows which make it harder to see the details of your collection

As much as possible, take full advantage of all the space available to you. Small pieces may be displayed by hanging them from hooks, which you can stick to the sides or backs of your shelves. Narrow-depth, smaller-sized display-boxes with transparent windows, may be used to display smaller items, within the main cabinets, in order to maximise the vertical space between your shelves. This can make it easier to see particularly small items and if these display-boxes can be stacked or otherwise arranged, then it frees up even more space for larger items.

Along with how to display your items comes the issue (or non-issue, as the case may be) of illuminating your display.

Naturally, display cases are generally easier to illuminate. A lamp or two, strategically placed, is usually sufficient to light up your prized collection, but when it comes to larger receptacles, such as cabinets, some form of integrated lighting is either included, or at least, recommended.

Whether it’s battery-powered or comes with a plug and lead, lights should be unobtrusive and shouldn’t get in the way of whatever it is that you’re trying to illuminate. It’s best to stick them in corners or edges, or on the undersides of your shelves, so that they’re out of the way, but still give plenty of illumination.

What Lights Are Best?

It really depends on what your budget and personal situation is. These days, there are a wide range of options. Ideally, you want lights that are small, unobtrusive, and bright. In this arena, we have bar lights, strip lights, and puck lights, all utilising extremely powerful LEDs to produce the necessary illumination. Each of them has their benefits and drawbacks.

Bar lights are comparatively bulky and take up the most space overall. They work off of batteries and/or cables, and this can mess up your delicately placed displays. If you have a particularly LARGE display cabinet, however, and can spare the space, and require the light, then bar lights might be the way to go!

LED strip lights are much smaller in profile, while still being extremely bright. These can vary from very, very, VERY long strips which are typically powered by plug-leads and switches, and comparatively small strips, which are battery-powered. These are often great for small or medium-sized cabinets or smaller display-cases since they don’t take up much room. You just need to think about where you’re going to hide the extra leads, plugs, switches, and battery-boxes.

The last option is using puck lights. Puck lights get their name because they’re flat, round and chunky – like hockey pucks. Puck lights are cheap – A pack of four or six cost comparatively little, they take ordinary AA-size batteries, and require no leads or switches. They can be mounted almost anywhere, and are very bright. Also, you can get them with remote controllers. That way, you can switch on loads of pucks at once, and then them off at once, requiring just a couple of clicks of a button. Useful, if you have twelve lights to turn on and off.

The only potential downside to puck-lights is that they are VERY expensive in BATTERIES. The average puck-light takes three batteries to operate. This may not sound like much (my flashlight only takes TWO batteries!), but when you’re trying to light up a LOT of pucks, the number of batteries required can easily run into the dozens! That said, they do last a long time.

Shelving Types

When it comes to shelves in your display cabinets, you generally have two options: Conventional wooden shelves, and glass shelves.

Wooden shelves are more sturdy and can take more weight. On the flipside, they’re bulky, weigh a lot, and impede the passage of light.

Putting smaller display boxes/cases inside larger display cabinets can make better use of the available vertical space, allowing you to show more things in a smaller amount of space

The alternative is having shelves made of glass. Glass has numerous advantages. It’s light, it means you need fewer lights to illuminate your cabinet, and they take up much less space. The only problems with glass are that glass shelves can be scratched, broken and cannot take excessively heavy loads – so like, I wouldn’t suggest putting your Victorian-era editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica on glass shelves, for example. Glass shelves also show off dust far more than wooden ones.

Doors and Windows

Whether or not your display cabinets or cases have doors or windows is up to you. But there are certain advantages and disadvantages.

The main disadvantage is weight. Such additions as doors, glass, and handles, hinges etc, do add considerably to the weight of your cabinet or case. It’s more things to break, more things to go wrong. If you do transport your cabinets or cases and they have glass doors and windows, make sure you pad and restrain them securely during transit, to prevent cracks and breakage.

One way to keep sub-collections of small items organised within larger collections is to use display-cases or boxes inside your larger cabinets. This is a simple Fererro Rocher chocolate box which I used to put my pocketknife and lighter collection into. It doesn’t take up much space, and it keeps the dust away.

However, glass doors and windows do have advantages. They let in more light, while at the same time, keeping out dust, prying fingers, and other grime. With the right accessories, doors can also be locked, for added security. An alternative for doors when it comes to display cases, is to have a lockable drawer setup, where the entire case can be slid out from under the glass for arranging and displaying items, before the entire thing is slid back in and locked for security.

Concluding Remarks

For the serious collector, having somewhere to store, and more importantly, display your collections is always important. It’s not something to be rushed into, however and as much time as necessary should be taken in deciding what you want and how you want it to look. Remember that your deciding factors should be things like: What are you displaying? What is your budget? How much space do you have, and how can you maximise it?

Do you need to worry about things like earthquakes? Storms? Do your cabinets or cases require anchoring to protect them from toppling or falling? What’s the largest or heaviest thing that you’ll be putting inside?

Think about all these factors and more, before making any serious moves.

23/06/2019 by Scheong

One Pair of Bone-Handled Boot-Pulls

One thing that I love about antiques is discovering, and learning about all the weird, whimsical little one-use gadgets that the Georgians and the Victorians invented to overcome fiddly little problems, or created, as elegant solutions to necessary evils.

I’ve seen everything from pocketknives with button-hooks, brass string-caddies that stop balls of twine from rolling away, oval-shaped silver pap-boats for feeding infants, brass pill-rollers, and countless other items too numerous to mention.

Well, last week, I ended up buying yet another historical curiosity – a pair of bone-handled boot-pullers! I don’t know how old these things are, but from the research I did, they used to be very common back around the Victorian era. Modern ones are still made today, but they’re manufactured with wooden handles and the steel rods used to make them tend to be much thinner. Some pullers are even made with plastic handles!

What are Boot-Pulls?

Boot-pulls have T-shaped handles at the top – usually in wood, or in antique ones – bone. Some slim, compact models have thin, folding metal handles. Modern models typically have plastic ones.

Beneath the handles (boot-pulls were always sold as pairs), there’s a long shaft, about six or eight inches. Beneath this is a flat, angular hook with a blunt tip.

They’re designed to help you put your boots on, back in the days when men wore calf-, or even knee-length riding boots. Due to the length of the boot-leg and the confined space inside, it wasn’t always easy to slide your foot all the way down and into the shoe at the bottom. Because the firmness of the leather, and the size of the boot, prevented (or at least made it very difficult) for the wearer to bend their knees or reach their boots to tug them on, boot-pulls were invented.

The whole idea is that the blunt, flat hook at the bottom of the pull hooks into the leather pull-loop or tab at the top of the boot-leg. The length of the metal shaft meant you didn’t have to bend down so far, and you were able to tug your boots on quickly and comfortably without having to fight with them.

Where Did Boot-Pulls Come From?

Back in the old days, boot-pulls were usually sold in pairs and were typically associated with the sports of hunting and horse-riding. It was common to buy a set of boot-pulls along with the rest of your traditional riding outfit such as boots, horse-whip, flasks, hat, breeches and so on. Companies like Swaine & Adeney, which for over 200 years, have specialised in high-end leathergoods such as riding boots and other footwear, would’ve sold sets along with their boots and shoes, or would’ve offered them as optional extras at the moment of purchase.

Boot-Pulls sound useful! I want some!

You can still buy boot-pulls today, although modern ones are typically made with handles constituted from wood, or plastic, rather than bone. Now, as then, some sets were collapsible, with folding handles for easy storage and packing.

If you want an antique set with bone handles, then the easiest place to find them is eBay. Being fairly common, they don’t tend to go for very much and a pair in good condition can easily be purchased for under $100. The set that I purchased cost me less than half of that, and they’ll last forever!

31/05/2019 by Scheong

Decadent and Delightful: A History of Dressing Gowns

Despite the fact that winter in the Land Down Under has barely started, we of the Antipodes were recently given a stern reminder of the fact that, despite being one of the hottest and driest countries on earth, Australia can also get bloody cold in winter time! This is due to the oft-overlooked fact that there’s no landmasses between us and Antarctica, defending us from the frigid gales, storms and icy cold fronts that routinely come blasting up from the Roaring Forties.

Waking up to below or near freezing temperatures every morning is no-one’s idea of pleasant unless you’re a penguin. And this was what prompted me to start looking into buying myself a new dressing gown. I had one when I was younger, but after it started falling apart, I never bothered replacing it. Fed up with the cold mornings, I finally decided that I had to get a new one.

**Soft, fluffy and warm! Velour cotton navy blue, with a pair of waist-level patch pockets, sash-loops and sash-belt. Red would’ve been nice, too, but blue seemed to be almost all they had.**

At first, I wasn’t even sure if I could replace it. After all, dressing gowns are typically seen as being rather old-fashioned these days. Apart from myself, I only know one other friend who wears them (if he’s reading this, he knows who he is!), and I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to buy one. But after browsing the websites of two or three major department stores in town, I decided that I’d head out and buy something! I was fed up of constantly shivering every morning, and the weather over the next few weeks was only slated to get even worse.

What is a Dressing Gown?

A dressing-gown, also known as a housecoat, nightgown or dressing robe, is an open-fronted, loose-fitting garment with wide sleeves, typically ranging in size anywhere from knee-length down to ankle-length. It typically comes with two waist-level pockets, a pair of sash-loops, and a fabric belt or sash, designed to hold the robe shut.

Dressing gowns are designed to be worn over the top of one’s other clothes, such as (but not limited to) underwear, sleepwear such as pajamas, or one’s day-wear when around the house. Dressing gowns typically come in two different styles – those worn for comfort, and those worn for style.

Dressing gowns worn for comfort – usually for the purposes of keeping warm – are typically made of cotton or wool in various weaves or finishes. They’re designed to be soft, fluffy, warm and pleasant to touch. Dressing gowns worn for style are usually made of silk. They’re much thinner and are worn more as a fashion accessory than as a way to beat the cold!

What is the Purpose of a Dressing Gown?

Dressing gowns are usually worn for one of three reasons: For warmth, for fashion, or for the sake of modesty. The reasoning behind these three options will be explained later, but basically they’re linked to history, societal expectations, and comfort.

The History of the Dressing Gown

Robes of any description were among the first clothes ever worn by humankind, and in one form or another, their use date back for centuries.

In prehistory, robes were the easiest clothes to manufacture, and the easiest to wear, typically made up of flat, easily measured, easily sewn panels of cloth, ranging from Chinese silk robes, to Middle Eastern robes of cotton and wool, the Japanese kimono, to European academic or judicial robes, and all the way back to ancient Roman and Greek robes such as togas, robes of all kinds have permeated global culture.

**Diarist Samuel Pepys in his nightshirt, cravat or kerchief, and draped with his dressing gown (1666).**

The dressing gown, and indeed, pajamas themselves, migrated to Europe at the time of the Renaissance during the 1500s and 1600s, originally coming from the Middle East. The word “pajamas” comes from the Iranian words “Pai Jamahs”, originally referring to the soft, loose-fitting pants or trousers worn by people in the Middle East (especially in Turkey, India, and Iran). The dressing gown evolved from the Turkish and Persian “Banyan”, a loose-fitting over-robe worn for the sake of modesty and comfort. In this way, both the dressing gown (and its cousin – the bathrobe), and pajamas, are of Middle-Eastern or west-Asian origin.

The European Dressing Gown

The dressing gown started taking off in Europe in the 1500s and 1600s. For much of Western history, right up into the early 20th century, shirts of any kind – tunic shirts, collared shirts, T-shirts – were seen as underwear, akin to briefs, trunks or boxer-shorts. Shirts were seen as a necessary evil. They were regarded as underwear – to be worn under one’s regular day-clothes, and to be worn in bed as sleepwear. For the sake of modesty, shirts used to be much larger than they are today, and using much more fabric than is now the case.

***A film screenshot depicting Ebeneezer Scrooge (of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ fame) in his dressing gown, before the visitation of the Three Ghosts.***

As shirts were regarded as underwear, it was considered VERY unseemly, and even rude, to appear in the presence of guests ‘in your shirtsleeves‘, as the literature of the time put it. That being the case, if it was required for you to make an appearance in front of guests in a ‘state of undress‘ as they said at the time, then the socially acceptable thing to do was to throw your dressing gown over your half-dressed body before entering a room. This not only kept you warm, but also preserved modesty.

In the 1800s, pajamas as we know them today – with a matching jacket and trousers – started to replace what was increasingly seen as being the antiquated and frankly -unhygienic – nightshirt, which was the usual sleeping garb for most people since medieval times. By now, the modern button-down shirt (in the form of the ‘tunic shirt’ with a separate attachable collar, which would later morph into the modern dress-shirt) had replaced the up-until-then, ubiquitous nightshirt as daily wear.

Despite this change in status of the humble shirt, the stigma of being seen in your shirtsleeves remained strong throughout the Victorian era, and it was still seen as a major faux pas to be seen dressed in your shirt alone. For this reason, the dressing gown remained popular as a garment, being an acceptable, and later, stylish way of preserving modesty while entertaining company in one’s own home.

The Dressing Gown as a Fashion Accessory

By the later 1800s, leading into the 20th century, the dressing gown started being seen, not only as a necessary evil, but also as a fashion accessory. This was partially spurred on by popular culture such as art, literature, and increasingly – motion pictures in the 20s, 30s, and 40s.

***A character famous for his indulgence of luxurious clothes, James Bond did much to associate the dressing gown with sex-appeal and the playboy lifestyle.***

It was at this time that increasingly elaborate dressing gowns with quilted fabrics, silk linings, satin exteriors, patterned silks, and carefully woven cotton or woolen fabrics became popular. As dressing gowns started being seen more as stylish sleepwear or casual, household lounging-attire, they continued to be increasingly embellished.

***The ankle-length dressing gown owned by President J.A. Garfield.***

Dressing gowns were often accentuated with embroidery and piping along the pocket-seams, cuffs, sash, sash-loops and around fastening-points such as straps, buttons and buttonholes. Hollywood films of the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s increased the popularity of dressing gowns. People were treated to scenes of big celebrities like Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Cary Grant, Sean Connery and Noel Coward, to name but a few – regularly dressed, either in photographs, or on the silver screen, in dressing gowns, lounging around in their bedrooms or living-rooms.

The late Hugh Hefner was famous for being photographed in his silk and satin dressing gowns. This did much to strengthen the associations between dressing gowns, casual lounging and wealthy, idle hedonism in the 20th century.

Noel Coward and Hugh Hefner were particularly famous for lounging around in their dressing gowns, and this gave the gown an air of upper-class luxury, seductiveness, hedonism and relaxation. These connotations have lasted into the modern era, although some might say that the dressing gown as the stereotypical outfit of the gadabout idle playboy has somewhat diminished its appeal.

Dressing Gowns as Practical Accessories

If you live in a country that routinely experiences harsh winters such as northern Europe, southern Australia, New Zealand, or the northern reaches of the United States or Canada, then you’ll readily appreciate why the dressing gown became popular as an article of household attire and sleepwear, and also, why it remained popular for such a long time.

Remember that many houses from the 1600s to the early 1900s – the era when dressing gowns were most popular – did not have any form of central heating. While bedrooms, reception rooms, and private offices or studies might’ve had fireplaces, most other areas of a house – corridors, store-rooms, servants quarters, kitchens, etc, had absolutely no heating at all in the depths of winter. A thick, heavy, well-padded dressing gown was therefore essential for holding back the winter chills – especially if you had to rush out in the middle of the night for any reason.

This was the time of the “Little Ice Age”, an era of history stretching from late Medieval times until the mid 1800s, when global temperatures were significantly colder than they are today. Clothing choices, such as three-piece suits, cloaks, capes and yes – dressing gowns – became not only fashionable, but also vital – to keeping out the cold in houses and buildings where heat was limited, and when the difference in temperatures between indoors and outdoors was negligible at best.

Dressing Gowns: Types, Styles and Elements

There are, broadly speaking, two or three types of dressing gowns.

Dressing gowns designed for warmth and comfort, and those designed for fashion.

Materials and Fabrics

Dressing gowns meant for fashion or style are typically lighter-weight and are made of silk, satin, or lightly-woven cotton fabrics. They’re used primarily just to cover up one’s other clothes so as to present a neat and stylish appearance. They’re also useful in warmer climates where a heavier garment would be uncomfortable.

By comparison, a dressing gown worn for comfort and warmth is typically thicker, and much heavier, made of heavier woven cotton or even wool fabric, ranging from thinner terrycloth, to heavier velour or even velvet fabrics. The gown might be silk or satin-lined for comfort, or may not be. To provide extra warmth, some gowns may even be quilted – that is to say – they’ll have two layers of cloth (the exterior and the lining) and have something else – usually wool or cotton padding – sewn or ‘quilted’ between the two layers like a sandwich, to add bulk and warmth.

Sizes and Styles

Dressing gowns typically come in one of two lengths: Knee- or shin-length, and (although rather rare today), ankle-length. My dressing gown is shin-length. Most which are made and sold today will be knee or shin-length. Longer, ankle-length gowns aren’t as common today, what with the advent of more effective home-heating, so If you want a longer, ankle-length gown, you’ll either have to make it yourself, or ask a tailor to make one for you.

Dressing gowns come in a variety of styles. For more structured, fitted gowns, the more casual, relaxed ‘shawl’-style collar and lapels are popular. For less structured gowns, a simple folded over collar and lapel is common. As dressing gowns were originally inspired by Far East and Middle-Eastern designs, some gowns are deliberately modeled on, or imitate the look of garments such as Japanese kimono.

Fastenings

While some dressing gowns (especially back in the Victorian era) came with buttons, straps and hooks for fastening, the accepted stance is that the vast majority of dressing gowns don’t come with any fastenings at all. If you need to keep your gown closed (for modesty, for warmth, etc), then simply fold one side over the other, and use the sash. Typically, the tightness of the sash and the friction of the fabric rubbing against itself will be enough to hold the gown shut.

Gowns which did have fastenings (usually buttons) had embroidered cord buttonholes or strapped buttonholes which were woven and sewn into the design of the robe, adding to the overall embellishment of the garment.

Pockets

Most gowns come with two pockets, usually patch pockets or similar, at waist-level. Patch pockets get their name because they’re simply square patches of matching fabric, which are sewn onto the sides of the garment. Almost all dressing gowns come with patch pockets, whether they number one, two (the most common) or three (not as common, but you can still find them).

While most gowns come with two patch pockets at waist-level, some gowns are also manufactured with a third, breast-pocket at chest level. A gown with a breast-pocket may have the manufacturer’s monogram or logo embroidered or sewn onto it as decoration. However, if the pocket is blank, you can have your own initials or monogram sewn there instead – Noel Coward was famous for doing this.

Sashs and Sash-Loops

Almost every dressing gown is considered incomplete without the soft, cloth belt, or ‘sash’ which accompanies it. The sash is a simple cloth cord, strap or belt that is designed to be wrapped around the waist and tied at the front or side, in order to keep the dressing gown closed.

To help guide the sash around the body of the robe and its wearer, and to keep the sash from sliding or falling away if it comes undone accidentally – most dressing gowns will also have two sash-loops – typically at waist-level, just above and behind the pockets. Sashes are typically made of the same type of fabric as the gown, or are made out of the fabric that lines or edges the gown, to provide a nice contrast.

Buying a Dressing Gown

So, you want to buy a dressing gown, huh? There’s a lot of things to consider.

Firstly – can you even find the style that you like? If you think you can’t, you can either get a tailor to design and make one for you – or if you have the skills – then you can do what I did – and simply make your own. I wore my own creation for five or six years before it started coming apart, but while it lasted, it was excellent!

Secondly – you need to decide why you want your gown. Is it for casual wear? Or for comfort and warmth? This will determine the types of fabrics that the gown will be made of. Gowns are typically made of silk, cotton, wool or velvet in various weaves, patterns and decorations.

Thirdly – How big do you want the gown to be? Ankle-length gowns are rather rare these days unless you can find someone to make one for you. The most important thing to consider when buying a gown is how it fits you. Remember that dressing gowns are meant to be worn over the top of other clothes – so they need to have lots of space to move around. If you’re buying your gown in-store somewhere, don’t be afraid to just throw it over the top of whatever it is you’re wearing on the day.

Fourthly – How much do you want to spend on your gown? Really luxurious handmade silk dressing gowns can cost upwards of $1,000. Whereas more reasonable gowns, typically made of wool, cotton, or less elaborate silks or in plainer styles and patterns, may be purchased for just a couple of hundred…my navy blue number cost me all of $60.00! So they need only be expensive if you want them to be, and can afford it.

Lastly – pick a gown that goes with as many outfits as possible. Think about your sleepwear – what colour pajamas do you have? What would go best with them? Would the gown look just as good draped over just anything else? If the answer to these questions is all ‘Yes’, then buy it. Classic gown colours are typically blue, red, brown, black, and grey. This is just my opinion – but I would seriously avoid buying a dressing gown in white, because then it starts looking far too much like a bathrobe…

Dressing Gowns Vs. Bathrobes

Last, but not least. What’s the difference between a dressing gown and a bathrobe?

While superficially, they look and feel very similar, the differences between the two garments are quite significant.

Bathrobes are made of toweling fabric – a thick, absorbent fabric (usually cotton), used to make floor-mats and towels. Bathrobes are designed to dry and warm the body after having a shower or bath, or after swimming. They’re not meant for long-term wear. Also, bathrobes typically only come in one very generic style, and even fewer colours!

By comparison, dressing gowns are meant for long-term wear, around the house, at night, first thing in the morning, and even during the day. They’re designed to keep the body warm, and they come in a much wider range of styles, colours, fabrics and designs.

Another key difference between a dressing gown and a bathrobe is that dressing gowns are typically meant to be worn over other clothes (either day-clothes, night-clothes or underwear). By comparison, bathrobes are almost always worn against bare flesh.

Concluding Remarks

Anyway, that about sums up this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it and that it helped you pick out what you want, or helped you make a decision about whether you want to buy a robe. I’ve always liked the look of dressing gowns and have always enjoyed how comfortable they are, as well as looking into their fascinating history and their evolution through time and fashion.

25/04/2019 by Scheong

The Infamous IMCO – Lighter of Mystery!

“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth” – Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment.
“Truth isn’t truth” – Rudolph Giuliani, Mayor of the City of New York.

It’s been remarked by a number of people that those who collect one area of antiques will often branch out into other areas. Typically, for guys, at least, these areas are:

Fountain pens and related accessories.
Watches and/or clocks, and related accessories.
Knives, and related accessories.
Lighters, and related accessories.

Basically, this theory states that if you’re interested in one of those areas, you’re likely to be interested in at least one of the other three areas. Shamefully for me – I’m interested in all four of those areas. So I’m screwed right off the bat! Haha…

Aaanyway. Enough of that. I am creating this posting for the very real purpose of it being a public service to the collecting community, and the subject of this posting is, as the title says: IMCO lighters! Or specifically, one particular IMCO lighter, which I’ll be talking about later on.

OK. So What is “IMCO”?

Most people in lighter-collecting circles will likely have heard of IMCO, and if you haven’t, here’s a brief introduction:

IMCO was an Austrian manufacturer of cigarette lighters. Established in 1907 by Julius Meister, who was formerly a manufacturer of brass buttons for the Austro-Hungarian Army. Unable to make much money just from making buttons, Meister struck on the idea of manufacturing something that everybody would need, and that everybody would use – not just the army. And that something was the newfangled ‘cigarette lighter’.

Cigarette lighters as we recognise them today were invented in the late 1800s. Early models were unbelievably crude by modern standards, but IMCO got the idea that if they could come up with one good, cheap, simple design, then they could mass produce them, and become the Henry Ford Company of cigarette lighters!

Of course, for the lighters to be cheap enough for everybody to afford them, they had to keep costs down. So that meant that they needed a cheap, readily available source of metal. This wasn’t easy in the 1910s, when Austria-Hungary was fighting with Germany and Turkey, against Russia, France, Belgium, Britain, Canada, and the United States! Any plans to start manufacturing lighters during the First World War were quickly shelved as being wholly impractical. It wasn’t until after the war in 1919, and 1920, that IMCO actually began manufacturing.

The IMCO ‘Trench Lighter’

Due to the restraints of the First World War, IMCO couldn’t actually start making lighters in the 1910s. When the war ended in 1918, the need for flashy brass buttons for the army suddenly ended, and IMCO was groping around to try and find something else to manufacture. In 1920, the first IMCO lighter was released.

The lighter, closed up. At the top is the snuffer-cap. On the right is the flint-tube and striker-wheel. At the bottom of the flint-tube is the spring-loaded arm which keeps the flint hard up against the wheel. Pulling this arm down pulls back the spring so that you can drop in a fresh flint. The brass sleeve around the lighter body is the windshield.

In the days before stainless steel, a lot of metal products were made of brass, because of its ability to resist rusting and most forms of corrosion. The biggest source of brass in Austria at the time was the millions and millions and MILLIONS of leftover shell-casings from the First World War.

Now, whether or not IMCO ever used these casings in their ‘raw’ form to make their first lighters is unknown. Going by photographs I’ve seen, I would say that it was very unlikely. It is possible that they simply used the brass bullet-casings, melted them down and remade the reclaimed metal into the necessary parts they needed, but didn’t use the actual casings themselves to manufacture the lighters.

So, what’s the deal here?

The ‘deal’ is that almost every single one of these lighters – be they originals from the 1920s, or (much more common), reproductions made in China or elsewhere – are always sold as ‘trench’ lighters, a moniker which is not only massively misleading, but also blatantly incorrect, for reasons I will explain below.

What is a ‘Trench Lighter’?

A ‘trench’ lighter is a type of ‘trench art’. ‘Trench art’ is anything decorative or functional, handmade by soldiers while out in the fields or in the trenches during battle, or by soldiers recuperating or on-leave from the battlefront, using materials scavenged or saved or found on the battlefield. Usually such items are things like shell casings, bullet-casings, and metal from food tins or cans of meat and so on.

For something to qualify as ‘trench art’, it has to have been made by a soldier during either the First or the Second World War, while on the front lines (or while on active duty during the wars) using materials available on the battlefield.

That means that for the IMCO lighter to be a REAL ‘trench’ lighter, it would have to have been made out of actual battlefield materials. Which it never was. Even if the brass which was used to manufacture it came from old shell-casings that were melted down and reused, that doesn’t constitute a trench lighter, since it wasn’t made by a soldier on active duty during the war, out of actual field materials. That’s not to say that actual trench lighters don’t exist – they certainly do – but the IMCO lighter from 1920 is not one of them.

Where does this whole thing come from?

If it’s not a trench lighter, and was never used in the First World War, and wasn’t even manufactured until at least a year or two after the war ended, then why is it even called a trench lighter? Where did it come from!?

Honestly, I have no idea. But it perplexed, and later, perturbed me, that so many people were being unknowingly and unwillingly conned or misled into thinking that they were buying some sort of legitimate and original First World War cigarette lighter made on the Western Front or in the trenches or something. The sheer QUANTITY of these so-called ‘handmade’, ‘homemade’ lighters, supposedly produced out of stuff they found lying around in the trenches, should alone, make it a suspect piece, to say nothing of the fact that they all look exactly the same.

Are Soldiers’ Cigarette Lighters a Thing?

Did soldiers in the First World War ever make their own trench-art lighters out of scraps of brass and copper that they found lying around in the trenches, probably while in hospital or on leave, to kill time and have something to do?

Probably, yeah! Some genuine examples certainly do exist. But what was far more common was for established companies to actually manufacture lighters specially for the armed forces (no, the IMCO lighter isn’t one of these, either. Sorry, folks). Many of these were made during the Second World War. The most common models were the Dunhill Service Lighter, and the venerable ZIPPO lighter.

Sliding up the windshield raises and shifts the snuffer-cap to the side, exposing the wick, ready for use.

During the conflict, ZIPPO ceased manufacturing lighters for the civilian market, and sold exclusively to the armed forces. Because brass was required for the war-effort, wartime Zippos were made exclusively of steel – the first, last and only time in their history when the lighter wasn’t made of brass (except of course, for when it was made of silver or gold).

Another example is what is known as the ‘foxhole’ or ‘sailor’s lighter. This consists of a flint-tube with striking wheel, and an adjacent tube through which a thick match-cord or rope has been passed. Striking the flint-wheel causes sparks to land on the frayed end of the match-cord.

Blowing gently on the captured sparks creates the necessary heat to ignite the rope, creating an ember. This ember can be used to light a cigarette or start a fire. Since it doesn’t require lighter fluid and doesn’t actually create a flame, the ‘foxhole’ lighter was popular with sailors, soldiers and campers, and anybody else who might need to start a fire without the aid of combustibles, matches or a conventional cigarette lighter.

Concluding Remarks

In closing – is the original IMCO lighter a ‘trench’ lighter? No. It never was, and it never will be. It doesn’t fulfill a single one of the aforementioned prerequisites to be called a ‘trench’ lighter. It wasn’t made of bullet-casings, artillery-shells or other scrap metal found in the trenches, it wasn’t manufactured by soldiers during combat, and it wasn’t even manufactured by IMCO until two years AFTER the war was over.

If that’s the case, then why do people think it is? I honestly don’t know. As for why it’s still WIDELY manufactured (literally – you can buy one off of eBay right now for next to nothing), I don’t know. IMCO folded in 2012, but this peculiar, fascinating, quirky little lighter, now coming up to 100 years old, continues to be loved, appreciated and admired. I think part of it is the sheer novelty aspect of it, as well as people’s mistaken belief in its fraudulent history.

Is it Possible to Buy an ORIGINAL IMCO lighter from the 20s?

Sure! They ain’t easy to find, but yes, you can buy them. They pop up on eBay from time to time. The original IMCO lighters (as opposed to the reproduction ‘trench’ lighters) are marked on the flint-tube with “MADE IN AUSTRIA”, and the sliding windshield is stamped with “IMCO” and the relevant patent numbers in very snazzy Art-Deco style font. Most of these lighters date to the mid 1920s.

30/03/2019 by Scheong

Lighting up History: Dunhill Model A ‘Sports’ Lighter (ca. 1924)

Isn’t this beautiful?

Made of silver-plated brass, what we have here is an icon of classic, 1920s design, made by one of the most famous companies in the world.

I picked this up at my local flea-market. I’ve always wanted a lighter like this. It’s solid, chunky, dependable, stylish, and it looks so much more interesting than the bog-standard Zippo-lighter, which most people are doubtless familiar with, from movies and TV shows. In this posting, I’ll be going through the process of how I restored the lighter, and also a bit about its history in general.

What Is a Lift-Arm Lighter?

This style of lighter is of a kind hardly seen in the 21st century. There’s only a handful of companies that still make them (if that), and prior to their limited resurgence in recent years, haven’t been widely manufactured since the 1950s.

Generally featuring a horizontal flint-tube and striking-wheel, a spring-loaded snuffer-arm, and a refueling hole underneath, usually accessed via a screw-on cap, lift-arm lighters were among the most common types of cigarette lighters available from the end of the First World War, up until the end of the 1950s. In the long and storied history of the lighter, that’s only about 40 years of existence. Not much, when you think of something like the ZIPPO which has been around now, for nearly 90 years!

The name of this style of lighter comes from the very distinctive spring-loaded snuffer-arm which is mounted on the top of the body, parallel to the horizontal flint-tube and striking-wheel. To operate the lighter, you flip the arm upwards and then strike the wheel to create the necessary sparks to light the fuel. When you’re done, you flip the snuffer-arm the other way, and it snaps down to extinguish the flame and protect the wick. Since you had to flip or ‘lift’ the snuffer-arm each time you wanted to use the lighter, they became known as ‘lift-arm’ lighters.

How Old Are Lighters Such as These?

A traditional, liquid-fuel lighter of this kind typically dates from the late 1910s/early 1920s, up to the late 1930s/early 40s. They appear to have died off during the war. This style made a BRIEF resurgence in the 1950s, but then appears to have died off again by the end of the 1960s.

That being the case, the majority of lift-arm lighters of this style date from the 20s and 30s, when they were in their heyday. Prominent manufacturers include POLO, PARKER, and DUNHILL, along with a variety of European and American manufacturers. If you’re looking to buy an original lift-arm, then in most cases, you’ll be hunting down a lighter that is the better part of 80 – 100 years old.

Lighters like these date back to the days when smoking was not only common, but highly fashionable. The dangers of smoking were unknown (or at least unacknowledged), and tobacconalia was extremely popular. For most men and a lot of women, owning a flashy lighter was as common an accessory in 1930, as owning a smartphone is today. Lighters were made of solid gold and silver, and in some truly beautiful and fascinating designs and styles.

It’s a thrill to own a lighter from this fascinating and bygone era, full of such elegance, even for something as questionable as smoking. While I don’t smoke, I have always felt that smokers from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s had some of the most interesting and beautiful smoking accessories ever made.

What is YOUR Particular Lighter?

The model that’s being featured in this posting is the DUNHILL Model A ‘Sports’ lighter, manufactured in the second half of the 1920s (ca. 1924-1928, according to my research). As far as lift-arm models go, it’s one of the most famous designs ever produced.

The lighter has certain features which were iconic to the Dunhill brand, such as the distinctive, downward-curving lift-arm, with “Dunhill” on it, and the three-slot windshield (what ZIPPO would later call a ‘chimney’, in the early 1930s).

Here, you can see the flint-tube (front), the flint-wheel (on the right), and the lift-arm snuffer-cap (behind).

The lighter is made of brass, and is plated in silver. Here and there, the silver plating has started to wear off, most likely from use, cleaning, and just the friction from being shoved into, and being pulled out of, pockets for 95 years!

One of the more interesting features of the lighter is the windshield or chimney which surrounds the wick. Although it has a number of horizontal vents cut into it, the purpose of the windshield is, nonetheless – to guard the flame and wick against the wind. The vents in the sides of the windshield allow for airflow and sufficient oxygen for the flame, while the body of the shield reduces the likelihood of the surrounding wind to snuff out the flame accidentally.

Whatever you call them – wind guards, windshields or chimneys, this feature was very rare on early lighters. Most lighters from the 1890s through to the 1930s had no wind-protection of any kind (or at least, had very, very little), making them nigh impossible to use outside on anything but the calmest of days. One of the selling points of the ZIPPO when it came out in 1932, was that it was the ZIPPO WINDPROOF LIGHTER!

While no lighter can be said to be fully windproof, the chimney or windshield did at least give the flame a fighting chance, allowing the lighter to be used more easily outdoors.

That said – even into the 1930s, such features were rare (and still are rare) on the majority of cigarette lighters – especially those of the lift-arm variety, so the presence of the shield makes this one stand out quite significantly.

Restoring the Lighter

This lighter, while functional, was in a very sorry state of affairs when I bought it. The whole body and mechanism were black and grey with heavy tarnish and the mechanism itself was clogged with dust, grime, ash and soot.

Removing the Windshield

The first order of business was to clean the lighter and remove all the grime and tarnish. Part of this process was removing the windshield or chimney from around the wick and flint-wheel. Easy in theory, but difficult in practice!

The windshield, chimney or wick-guard (whatever you want to call it) was held onto the top of the lighter’s body by two absolutely microscopic screws. The first step was to clean out all the gunk inside the windshield, and then locate the screws. Using a very small, very thin flathead screwdriver, I unscrewed the two screws and very carefully lifted the shield off of the lighter. I tipped the two screws into a glass cup nearby to stop them from rolling away, and then started cleaning the shield, polishing it, removing dust and grime, picking out old bits of wick, cleaning the wick-housing and everything else that I could reach while the windshield had been removed.

Once the shield was clean and the area where it was mounted onto the lighter was clean, I had to reassemble the whole thing. To do this, I mounted the shield back on top of the lighter and then I had to get the two screws down through the shield and onto their holes, and then screw them back in.

How?

The screws are TINY (about half a grain of rice), and there’s no way to grip them while screwing them in. In the end, I used Blu-Tak (what some people might call adhesive Plasticine) to stick the screws onto my screwdriver. Then I lowered them one at a time, through the gap in the windshield and into their respective holes. Then I very carefully screwed them back in.

Sticking the screws to the head of my screwdriver with plasticine so that I can screw them back into the lighter.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this was easy – it took about 3-4 tries for each screw, before I got the threads to line up properly, but once they do, the actual act of screwing them down was thankfully – very easy.

Replacing the Wick, Flints and Wadding

Next came the relatively easy task of replacing the wadding, the wick and the flint inside the lighter. This was done by unscrewing the fuel-cap underneath the lighter, and removing all the cotton-ball wadding using a pair of tweezers. After teasing out little tufts of cotton wool, it was a matter of grasping them in the fingers and then spinning them around and pulling at the same time. This caused the wadding fibres to mesh together. This means you can pull them out more easily, and you can pull out more wadding each time, instead of little tufts.

Removing the wick and the original wadding.

Once the wadding was out, the wick came next. At some point in this lighter’s history, some ingenious fellow had come up with the idea of wrapping very thin steel wire around the base of the wick, and leaving several inches of this wire to trail off the end. This is a great idea! It means that you can feed the wire through the body of the lighter…and out the other side.

That means that you can grab the wire, and yank it through the lighter, and that pulls the wick inside along with it. No more screwing around with trying to stuff the wick inside, just pull it in. Any old copper or steel wire (of an appropriate thinness) will do. Just make sure you wrap it around the wick a sufficient number of times so that it doesn’t unexpectedly unravel when you use it to tug the wick through the lighter.

If you find replacing the wick on your lighters to be particularly troublesome, perhaps try this method? About six inches of wire should be more than enough. Once the wick is through, simply roll or fold up the excess wire and stuff it into the lighter along with the wadding.

Once the new wick was inserted, it was just a matter of packing in fresh wadding. Now this isn’t strictly necessary, but I like to replace the wadding with fresh wadding when I restore my lighters. The wadding is ordinary cotton wool balls so they cost nothing, anyway. The average lighter (eg – Zippos, and lighters of that size) typically take 6-8 balls, firmly packed inside. Once it was full, I put the cap on and then looked at the flint.

The next step was to replace the flint. Now this lighter didn’t have a flint when I bought it, but I have plenty of spares, so it was easy enough to unscrew the screw and spring on the flint-tube and drop in a fresh flint and then screw it shut again. Now what some people may not be aware of, is the fact that the majority of antique lighters actually take TWO flints!

One flint goes into the flint-tube at the top of the lighter, the other flint – the spare flint – goes inside the lighter. In the majority of antique lighters (including this one), the spare flint is housed in a TINY compartment INSIDE the fuel-compartment screw-on cap. Simply remove the cap from the fuel-tank and inside should be a little cylindrical cap – unscrew that – the spare flint goes in there. Usually, they’re big enough to hold one flint, but sometimes you can cram two in there.

Removing the Engraving

Once all the working parts of the lighter had been seen to, the next thing to address was the engraving on the snuffer-cap.

Now personally, I hate engravings. Unless it’s a gift, a dedication, reward, a date, or a monogram, I find them really tacky and unsightly. Given a choice, I’d almost always prefer an antique without an engraving. That said, some engravings can be fun because they add something to the object – a date, an event, an important name, etc. In some antiques, engravings can be a useful dating or research prompt.

Not in this case. The engraving of the owner’s initials just didn’t add anything to the lighter. So I decided to remove it.

Removing the engraving was just a matter of polishing. Lots and lots of polishing. I started with 200-grit sandpaper for the initial scrubbing, then moved up to 400-grit paper, and then finally, 0000-grade steel wool, mixed with sewing-machine oil and Brasso. What you’re doing with this process of polishing and sanding, is removing the surrounding metal, a microscopic layer at a time, until the surrounding metal reaches the lowest point of the engraving. Once the metal is level again, the engraving will disappear, leaving smooth, glossy metal (in this case, brass) behind!

Of course, this can only be done properly once, so you need to be very careful. Fortunately, the engraving on this lighter was very shallow, so removing it was no challenge.

Once that was gone, it was simply a matter of polishing the entire lighter, to remove as much of the grime and blemishes, marks, tarnishing and crud as possible. The lighter would never look 100% brand-new, what with plating-loss and such, but it at least looked clean and attractive enough to be picked up and used!

Fueling up the Lighter

The final step in the restoration was, of course, making sure that the lighter works! I juiced up the fuel-tank with four or five generous squirts of lighter-fluid and screwed the cap on.

Lighters like this 1920s Dunhill are designed to be operated by one hand – indeed, by one FINGER of one hand – typically the thumb. In normal operation, the lighter is held upright with the flint-tube facing towards you (so that you’re looking at the lighter from ‘behind’, with the lift-arm snuffer-cap facing away from you).

The lift-arm is flipped up using the thumb, and then the flint-wheel is struck rapidly from right to left. Assuming that everything is clean and functional, one half-turn of the flint-wheel is all it takes to create enough sparks to light the fuel-vapours and ignite the lighter.

Help! My Lighter Won’t Light!?

When it comes to repairing or restoring antique lighters, this is one of the most annoying things ever. You spend all that time lavishing care on your newfound lighter, and the damn thing just refuses to repay your kind attentions by deigning it necessary to carry out its primary function – lighting up!

Why not??

Antique lighters fail to light for a number of reasons. Here are some of the most common ones:

There’s No Fuel!

Probably the most obvious reason – there’s no go-juice in the tank! Antique lighters take liquid fuel – typically some manner of petroleum spirits. For there to be enough fuel to burn, the tank needs to be full. The cotton wadding soaks up the fuel and the wick transports this fuel up to the top of the lighter. But if there isn’t enough fuel, it’s not going to reach the wick. The lighter is full when you’ve thoroughly saturated all the wadding (typically 4-5 generous squirts of the can will be enough).

The wick is too short…

Antique lighters have wicks, just like old-fashioned oil-lamps or candles. And the same principles apply – if the wick is too short, then there’s nothing to burn! Now, on a properly functioning lighter, it’s not the wick itself that burns. What burns is the fuel-vapour around the wick that is drawn up through capillary action. But if the wick is too short, there isn’t enough surface-area above the top of the lighter for there to be enough vapour to light.

This is easily remedied by tugging out the wick until it’s long enough for the sparks to catch the fuel-vapour. Typically, the wick should be as high as the top of the windshield, or as high as the top of the snuffer-cap.

The wheel isn’t sparking

Another really common reason as to why lighters won’t light is because there’s no spark to get it going.

When you strike a light, you spin the corrugated flint-wheel or striking-wheel against the small pellet of flintstone inside the lighter. The corrugations scrape the flint and this produces sparks – it’s a principle known for hundreds of years that steel plus flint = sparks.

But this won’t happen if there isn’t enough friction between the flint and the wheel for the lighter to spark properly. Why is this?

There’s three reasons.

1). The flint isn’t touching the flint-wheel.

A REALLY common problem with old lighters is that when you buy them ‘in the wild’ in flea-markets, etc, they often still have old, corroded flints inside them! These old flints are beyond saving, and they’re often impossible to spark. They must be removed from the flint-tube, and a new flint should replace it. To remove the flint, just take the flint-tube cap and spring out, and tap the old flint out.

Sometimes if it’s stuck, you may need to tap the lighter on a table or something, to coax it out. If it’s REALLY stuck up in there, you can use something like a nail, a pin or a screwdriver to smash up the flint and pick at it. This will break up the flint into chunks and they should fall out on their own. Use pipe-cleaners or toothpicks to make sure that all the flint is gone, and then replace the old flint with a new flint.

2). The compression is incorrect.

Every lighter that operates with a flint has a flint-spring inside it. This spring is used to apply pressure to the flint, so that it’s kept hard-up against the side of the flint-wheel, so that when you spin the wheel, there’s enough friction to generate sparks. If you spin the wheel and there’s no sparks, (or very few sparks) then there’s probably either not enough (or too much) pressure from the flint-spring pressing on the flint.

Fix this by fiddling with the screw-cap at the end of your flint-tube. The tighter you screw it shut, the more pressure and friction there is, the looser it is, the less pressure and friction there is. Typically, the tighter you can get it, the better the lighter will work. But, you can get it SO TIGHT that there’s no way for the wheel to spin. If so, loosen the screw-cap slightly until there’s just enough laxity for the wheel the spin, but enough compression that the spring holds the flint against the wheel.

Now when you strike the wheel, the lighter should light.

3). The wheel is clogged!

Another reason why the lighter may not strike right is because the corrugations on the flint-wheel are clogged with gunk (either dust, lint, or more commonly – flakes and chips of old, corroded flints). All that gunk means that the edges of the corrugations can’t catch the flint and strike it. This grime can be removed using a stiff brush and plenty of scrubbing.

That said, another reason your lighter may not strike is because the flint-wheel is simply worn out. This is VERY rare, because flint-wheels last almost forever, but it can happen. If it does…well…sorry to say it, but you have a dead lighter. But, barring that, just about any antique lighter in decent condition can be made to be serviceable again.

Closing Remarks

That pretty much brings this little saga to a close. While some might baulk at the idea of lavishing this much attention on a cigarette lighter, it is nonetheless, a very old and I think, beautiful cigarette lighter, and one that was well worth the effort used to improve its condition, to something resembling its original appearance.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this posting! Perhaps it’s given you some instruction on how to fix your own antique or vintage lighters that you’ve collected, inherited or found in the wild. I’ve always wanted a functioning, Dunhill lift-arm lighter from the 20s. They’re iconic! And I was so glad to have the opportunity to breathe new life into this worn-looking antique.

04/03/2019 by Scheong

National Foods which Aren’t National! A Tasty History

We all love to eat. And we all have particular foods, or dishes that we hold dear to our hearts, out of nostalgic, sentimental or patriotic reasons. Every nation and culture on earth have dishes that they regard as sacred, and as being quintessentially part of their lives. But not all is what it seems. In this posting, I’ll be talking about just a few of the dishes and foods which have surprising backstories.

Let us begin!

Food: The Hamburger
Claimant: The USA.
Origin Country: Germany.

Aah, the hamburger! The quintessential fast-food menu staple! But why are they called hamburgers when there’s…no ham…inside them?

The original “Hamburger”, a Hamburg Steak, popularly eaten in Germany for centuries. Sandwich versions of this steak became the ‘Hamburger’ we know today.

Actually, hamburgers are named after the city of their origin – Hamburg, Germany! The original concoction was a simple ground beef sandwich. When the people of Hamburg (also called ‘Hamburgers’) moved to the USA, they took their “Hamburg Steak Sandwiches” along with them. Deciding that this was an even bigger mouthful than the sandwiches themselves, Americans shortened them to just ‘hamburger’, and later on, shorter still, to just ‘burger’.

Food: Fish and Chips
Claimant: The UK
Origin Country: Various.

Ah, fish and chips! We like fish and chips! As British as bad weather, hot tea, and more accents than you can shake a stick at, fish and chips has long been seen as a staple of British cuisine!

Right?

Wrong.

Actually, fish and chips only goes back to Victorian times, barely two hundred years ago! The idea of battered, crumbed fish, deep-fried in oil (or as was common in Victorian times – beef tallow…mmm…tallow!), actually comes, not from England, but from Russia! Observant Russian Jews would abstain from doing any useful work on the Sabbath Day, except that which was absolutely essential, as dictated by their religious teachings. This includes the kindling of flames.

Since you can’t kindle flames on the Sabbath, you can’t cook. So instead, they would batter, crumb and fry their fish the night before, so that they would have a quick, convenient and delicious food to eat the next day. This custom of frying fish came to England with the immigration of Russian and Polish Jews in the 1800s when they fled pogroms in Eastern Europe.

The idea of chunks of potato being fried in a similar manner comes from Belgium. Unable to fish during the winter months, Belgians would dice up potatoes into slabs or blocks and deep-fry them in oil or tallow as a fish-substitute. This method of cooking potatoes is also what gave rise to the “french fry”, since they were created in the French-speaking area of Belgium. That said, American-style French-fries are much thinner than British/Commonwealth-style Chips.

The first fish-and-chip shop…or as most people affectionately call them – chippies! – dates back to around 1860 in Britain. Fish and chips were a fast, tasty, filling, and relatively cheap dish. The industrial revolution allowed for the widespread construction of railroad networks which allowed for fish, potatoes, and other foods and vegetables to be, for the first time, transported in-bulk across the country in a matter of hours, rather than days or weeks. This spike in the availability of fish meant that the price dropped and it was cheap enough to be fried up and served to the working-classes as a convenient and crispy lunchtime snack.

Food: Doughnuts!
Claimant: The USA
Origin: The Netherlands.

Mmmm. Doughnuts. The staple food of Homer Simpson, Garfield the Cat and most American children, the doughnut has long since been a popular sweet snackfood. Chocolate-stuffed, jam-filled, custard-pumped, cinnamon-dusted, sugar-glazed…the list of varieties goes on forever!

But where do they come from?

Despite their popularity in the ‘States, doughnuts actually come from the Netherlands, and were brought to what would eventually become Manhattan, with the Dutch immigration in the 17th century. The doughnut is directly descendant from the Dutch Oly Koek, literally ‘Oily Cake’, so-named because it was a sweet cake or bun that was cooked by being fried in oil (much as most doughnuts are still made today).

Variations of the Oly Koek remained popular in the area around what would become New York City for centuries, and are mentioned in the writings of early American writer, Washington Irving, who said that to find the genuine Dutch original, you had to find Old Dutch families who had been living in New York for generations!

Traditional Dutch ‘Oly Koeks’ or ‘Oily Cakes’, the precursor to the modern doughnut.

The first record of a ‘dough nut’ comes from the early 1800s, when it was mentioned in an English-language cookbook from 1803. By the end of the decade, the spelling of “doughnut” or “dough nut” had become accepted, and the original Dutch snack was slowly morphing into the treat we know today.

Doughnuts at this time were not as we would currently recognise them, however. The majority still resembled buns rather than circles of sweetness. Although debate seems to rage over this, it appears that the modern holed doughnut was invented in the mid-1800s as a way to make the doughnuts cook more evenly when they were deep-fried.

Food: Chop Suey
Claimant: N/A. Supposed origin: China.
Origin: The USA.

Any film, or book, set or written back in the 1800s or early 1900s in the USA that mentions Chinese culture or food is likely to mention this dish at one time or another. It’s mentioned in the 1936 film “San Francisco”, when two characters decide to go out for a meal of ‘chop suey’.

At the time, it was believed by unknowing Americans, that chop suey was a genuine Chinese dish. It isn’t, a fact more widely known today than it once was. The word ‘chop suey’ is a corruption of the Chinese words “Za Sui”, which basically means “Bits and Pieces”. This is because chop suey was usually made out of whatever food was available and served up to hungry people looking for a cheap meal. As such, it doesn’t really have a recognised ‘recipe’. These days, ‘chop suey’ is largely seen as a historical curiosity, but there was a time when most people with limited knowledge of Chinese cuisine literally didn’t know any better.

Food: The Croissant.
Claimant: France.
Origin: Austria & Germany.

Ah! La croissant! The Crescent! Leavened dough folded, folded, folded and refolded over and over sheets of butter, before being proofed, and baked, and coming out hot, savory, tangy and crunchy and soft and oh-so-rich…mmmmm.

Who doesn’t like croissants? They’re as French as the Eiffel Tower and beheading the nobility! But believe it or not…they’re not french at all!

The East-European Kifli, or Kipferl, the precursor to the modern croissant.

The croissant actually originated in Austria, created by Viennese bakers who were creating a type of bread roll known as a “Kipferl” (literally “Twisted” or “Curved”). The idea of a leavened-dough roll or bun in the shape of a crescent migrated to France with Austrian immigrants in the 1800s, but even then, it wasn’t a Frenchman who was responsible for the transition from Kipferl to Croissant!

Zang’s bakery (on the left) in Paris, photographed in 1909, after his death.

Again, it was an Austrian, a former army officer turned civilian baker, August Zang, who moved to Paris in the 1830s. In Paris, Zang set up the “Boulangerie Viennoise” (literally “The Viennese Bakery”), where he sold modified versions of his native Kipferl, which became known as the ‘Croissant’ we love today.

12/02/2019 by Scheong

H. Hughes & Son “Officer-of-the-Watch” Telescope (Ca. 1920).

After selling one of my telescopes last year at an antiques fair (and making a very healthy profit on it, if I do say so myself!), I was able to splurge a bit on another ‘scope – of a particular style which I have, until now, not had the privilege of adding to my collection.

I’ve seen a number of these telescopes over the years, but they were all in absolutely terrible condition. Most of them were covered with dents, scratches, loose or broken lenses…and outrageous price-tags! I don’t know about you, but $650 for a telescope with no glass inside it sounds like a very steep price to pay for what is basically a very nice, polished metal tube covered in leather.

I got this particular ‘scope from my local flea-market and after checking it all over for flaws and damage, decided that it was worth the expense to buy it. It had one or two minor faults, all relating to the leather sheathing, but nothing that some restoration (eventually…if it ever needs it) couldn’t rectify. So, for much less than the nearly $700 that the other telescopes were going for, I decided to buy it.

What is an ‘Officer of the Watch’ Telescope?

With its long, thin profile and single draw-tube, sliding glare-shield and smooth, leather cladding, this telescope is quite different from a lot of the others that you’ll find out ‘in the wild’ as it were. Most antique telescopes that you’ll find out and about are multi-tube telescopes without any type of sliding glare-shield, and they’re usually much smaller, with a closed length of anywhere from four to six to eight inches; some slightly larger ones might be about twelve inches, but not many will be longer than that.

Telescope with the draw-tube (back) and the glare-shield (front) extended.

By comparison, an officer-of-the-watch telescope typically measures 18 inches when closed up, stretching out to about two feet when fully extended. Most other telescopes can double or triple their lengths easily when they’re extended, while this particular model does not. Exactly why it was designed this way will be explained later on.

These telescopes are called Officer-of-the-watch/officer-on-watch (‘OOW’) telescopes because they were usually purchased by officers or captains serving in the navy or the merchant marine for use on the ship’s bridge. Such telescopes were either the private property of the officers who carried them, or else were the property of the ship, and were kept on the bridge at all times for use by the crew. Their purpose was to provide a vision-aid close to hand for officers on the bridge in the event of an emergency.

Why are they shaped like they are?

As I said earlier, Officer-of-the-Watch telescopes are long and narrow, with single draw-tubes and sliding glare-shields over their objective lenses. Their unique shape is due to the constraints of their working environments. Since these telescopes were usually kept (and used in) the bridge of a ship at sea, they had to be compact. A shorter, two-foot telescope was lighter, easier to carry and easier to use in the confined space of a ship’s wheelhouse, compared to a more conventional naval telescope (some of which could be three or even four feet long!). Try swinging that around inside a wheelhouse without cracking the helmsman in the head! He won’t thank you for it!

How Old are these Telescopes?

Officer-of-the-watch telescopes date to the early 20th century and appear to have been made exclusively in Britain. They were manufactured starting ca. 1900 up to the middle of the century. and were originally manufactured for the Royal Navy, but their use drifted into regular merchant-marine use as well due to their practicality of design.

So, what is an Officer of the Watch?

In the ship’s crew, an officer of the watch (or ‘officer on watch’) is the officer in charge of watchkeeping. Every officer on the ship, generally from the captain down to the lowest-ranking officer, covers watchkeeping in shifts. Traditionally, a watch was four hours long. During that four-hour shift, an officer stood watch on the bridge. Here, he could oversee the ship’s navigation, the weather, the speed and direction of travel, and could respond swiftly to emergencies. The officer of the watch had to be good at navigation, reading the weather, and at assessing dangerous situations such as storms, reefs, rocks and other hazards. In the absence of the captain (who might be sleeping, working, having dinner or be otherwise engaged), the officer of the watch was in charge of the ship’s immediate handling and navigation.

The “HUSUN” trademark on the glare-shield, comprised of the ocean and the rising sun

Typically, the officer of the watch was joined by at least two other sailors – a forward lookout or two, and a junior seaman known as a quartermaster, whose job was usually that of controlling the ship’s direction by manning the helm or the ship’s wheel. Officer-of-the-Watch telescopes were usually mounted on the wheelhouse walls, secured in place by brackets or rings to stop them rolling or sliding around.

In the event of something posing a hazard or threat to the ship (such as an oncoming storm, a coastline, rocks, a lighthouse or other ships), the officer of the watch could use the telescope provided (or one which he himself had purchased) to assess the situation ahead.

The bridge of the RMS Queen Mary. The semicircular devices on pedestals are the ship’s engine-order telegraphs

Since it could be dangerous to leave the wheelhouse during rough or stormy weather, a slimmer, more compact telescope which could be used easily indoors was preferable to the much longer, thicker, and heavier telescopes usually used at sea. Once the hazard had been identified, the ship could take appropriate action, either changing course, or else ordering the ship to stop or slow down, usually done by operating the engine-order telegraphs on the bridge, to send or ‘ring’ orders down to the engine-room below (each telegraph was equipped with a bell that dinged with each movement of the telegraph-arm so that the engineer could hear the change in orders from the bridge, over the drone of the engines).

What Features do these Telescopes Have?

To begin with, one of the most noticeable features of these telescopes is how thin they are. Typically not more than about three inches wide (if that!). A useful feature, since it would make the telescope easy to grip and hold – even if it’s winter on the Atlantic, and you’re wearing gloves to stop frostbite, but you need to spot an iceberg right ahead!

Another useful feature is the leather, non-slip cladding on the barrel. This was partially done for style purposes, but it also makes the telescope easier to grip with wet, cold hands in an emergency.

The third most noticeable feature that you’ll find on every officer of the watch telescope is the sliding shield at the front. Variously called ‘dew shields’ and ‘glare shields’, their purpose was to keep rain, seawater, spray and sunlight off the main lens (known as the ‘objective lens’). By sliding the shield out ahead of the lens, it prevented the sun’s rays from reflecting off the glass and potentially blinding the user, and it also kept the glass clear of raindrops or sea-spray in heavy weather, and was a popular feature on maritime telescopes.

Are These Types of Telescopes Common?

They are fairly common, yes. I’ve seen about four or five before I eventually bought this one. Most of them were in terrible, unusable condition due to their age and the lives they led, but you can find working examples for not too much money, if you’re patient. They’re typically made of brass (which may or may not be nickel-plated. Mine is plated) and are typically 18 inches long, extending out to about 24 inches in open length. Living in Australia, a country which until the late 20th century was accessible only by ship, finding maritime antiques isn’t that difficult. Barometers, ship’s clocks, telescopes, binoculars and sextants are pretty common here.

If you’re thinking of buying an antique telescope, then you need to check for things like dents, cracks, scratches and warpage. Damaged lenses can be hard to replace, and so should be avoided. Dents on the barrel (but even moreso on the draw-tubes) should be avoided as much as possible. Dents will misshape the profile of the tube and make it harder to draw in and out of the telescope. Dents on the draw-tubes will cause the telescope to jam.

If you have the right tools and enough patience, you can press and roll out (or at least reduce) stubborn dents, but you should be careful not to warp the shape of the tube. I was able to use a heavy, wooden rolling pin to roll out the dent inside the glare-shield on one of my favourite telescopes with great success. It wasn’t entirely eliminated, but it was reduced significantly – enough that it was no longer causing the shield to jam every time I opened or closed it.

The eyepiece shutter (closed) on the end of the telescope.

You should check that the sliding eyepiece shutter over the eyepiece lens is in good condition. If loose, they can be tightened by screwing them back into place. If they’re too tight, loosen the screw slightly. If the screw works itself loose repeatedly after tightening, every time you open and close the shutter, then a DROP of oil on the shutter will provide enough lubrication to allow the shutter to slide open and shut, without the friction that would also loosen the screw.

Simply tighten the screw as much as possible, apply a dab of oil and work it in. I’ve had to do that with a couple of telescopes in the past and provided the oil doesn’t dry out completely (unlikely), then it’s a very effective little fix.

Last but not least, you should check the telescope for its lens cap. Not all telescopes were designed to have lens-caps, but most did. This one does not have a cap over the objective lens, and never did. Instead it has a leather hood that drops over it, but most telescopes are meant to have them, to protect the objective lens from dust, water and damage. That said, it’s rather common to buy antique telescopes without their lens-caps included.

Anyway, that wraps up my posting about my rather different and interesting addition to my collection. For more information about antique telescopes, I can strongly recommend the blog of Nicholas Denbow, at The Telescope Collector. His posts are both entertaining, informative and fun to read!

Throughout History

A blog about antiques and history!

Author Archives

A Beginner’s Guide to Buying & Fixing Vintage Clothing

Antique Sealing-Wax Stove

Among My Souvenirs – Display Cabinets and Cases

One Pair of Bone-Handled Boot-Pulls

Decadent and Delightful: A History of Dressing Gowns

National Foods which Aren’t National! A Tasty History

H. Hughes & Son “Officer-of-the-Watch” Telescope (Ca. 1920).

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