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Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC

Southern Vintage Table Events – Sweet, Timeless Vintage

We are very happy to show off more professional photos this week! These are from Chris and Kristen’s August wedding, captured by Casey Rose Photography, at the historic venue in Raleigh, All Saints Chapel.

Many pieces from Southern Vintage Table’s dessert collection were on display at this lovely wedding reception. Our vintage cake stands and tiered stand showcased the sumptuous cake and cupcakes created by Edible Art of Raleigh. All lined up at the candy station, stacked and filled with sweet delectables, was an array of our stands as well as our vintage candy jars and scoops. With Knots ‘N Such designer Amy Wurster’s creative touch, it all looked wonderful!

If these lovely photos just wet your whistle and you’d like to see more, head over to Knots’N Such’s blog post. Here’s a shout out to the vendors who provided their professional services for this wonderful affair:

Planning, coordination, event & floral design: Knots ‘N Such
Photographer: Casey Rose Photography
Venue: All Saints Chapel
Catering: Catering by Design
Bakery: Edible Art of Raleigh
DJ: Will Hardison
Rentals: American Party Rentals
Vintage Rentals: Southern Vintage Table

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

Vintage Feature – Vintage Bobèche Bling Bling

We learned a new word this week – bobèche. It’s such an elegant sounding word – pronounced as bō-ˈbāsh – and it’s something you’ve probably seen but didn’t know that it had such a cool name. So, what is a (now practice saying it) bobèche?

A bobèche is the collar placed under a candle or light and adorned with crystals and pretty do-dads. The collars might be made from plastic, glass, or metal. Fun, huh? They make any brass, pewter, silver, and glass candle holder look so glam!

After experimenting with our collection of bobèches, we are itching to try out a few ideas. We’re not ready to share them just yet except to say we’ve seen some pretty crystals that match the colors of our vintage jewel-toned goblets. Oops, we probably said too much. In the meantime, after this tumultuous week, this empowering quote has given me new purpose.

Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.
~ W. Clement Stone

Wishing you all a terrific week.

Southern Vintage Table Milk Glass Rental

Southern Vintage Table Events – Vintage Milk Glass Centerpieces

We have some pretty photographs to share today from Brian and Heidi’s June wedding, courtesy of KM Photography. Filled with gorgeous flowers from Fernrock Farm, a local flower grower, a trio of our milk glass vases and compotes took center stage on each of their reception tables. How beautiful is this?

Thank you, Brian and Heidi, as well as KM Photography and Fernrock Farm. If you love milk glass as much as we do, take a look at two of our previous posts – Vintage Milk Glass is Perfect at a Wedding and The Beauty of Vintage Milk Glass. Enjoy the beautiful October weather this week!

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
Albert Camus, BrainyQuote

Vintage Adventures – The Story of a Teaspoon & a Jar

Part of my fascination about anything vintage is the history they embody – the companies that made them, the folks who bought them, the homes they were in, the time period they existed. Appreciating these objects as artifacts, I am thrilled when I uncover an interesting story connected to a new find. This happened last week when I found four teaspoons in the flatware bin at a local thrift store.

They stood out because of their silvery sheen and ornateness and, when I picked them up, they were nice and heavy. As usual, I didn’t bring my glasses so I couldn’t make out the maker, but the pattern was new to me. When I got to my car and found my glasses, I read the mark – King’s Hall Silver 1088 – and quickly searched the name on my phone. Ding ding!

My research began with a community board on Ebay. Someone posted a question about these teaspoons and here’s Susan’s response:

… all I could find on this spoon were pages and pages of Home & Garden, Country Life, Suburban Life, … 1911 magazine ads for Kerr Glass Mfg. Economy jars. Kerr was giving away 3 of these spoons with every case of jars and 1 with a dozen caps. No doubt the use of the number 1066 was to attract attention for it was in the year 1066 that William the Conqueror invaded England. His descendants resulted in the Plantagenet dynasty that ruled England for over 300 years.

With this response, I found several ads that ran during 1911. Here are two from Country Life in America and Suburban Life.

Mystery solved – these King’s Hall Silver teaspoons were a free gift given out circa 1911 by Kerr Glass to drive sales of their canning jars, a kitchen staple well known to all of us. It may be difficult to read, so here’s an excerpt from the ad.

Cut out “Hand in Jar” trademark, like above shown, appearing on either end of each case of one dozen Economy Jars and mail it with 14c. in U. S. stamps to cover cost of packing, postage, etc., and we will present to you one Full Size King’s Hall Silver. 1086, famous sectional plate silver teaspoon, made by the manufacturers of the best silverplate in the world. The richest family in the land has no finer, richer, nor more beautiful silver plate than King’s Hall Silver, 1066.

From here, I wanted to learn more about the Kerr Glass company. My research uncovered many more twists and turns – here’s a quick synopsis of the highlights.

In 1903 Alexander Kerr started a fruit jar company in Portland, Oregon called the Hermetic Fruit Jar Company. The jars were made by the Illinois-Pacific Glass Company, located in San Francisco.
The Great Earthquake of 1906 struck San Francisco and 80% of city was destroyed. Miraculously, the Illinois-Pacific Glass manufacturing plant survived.
Kerr opened his first glass manufacturing plant in Kansas in 1909.
Kerr fell in love with a young stenographer in his office, Albertina Sechtem (who was 28 years younger), divorced his wife, and married her in 1910. The local headline read, “Rich merchant divorces wife.”
During 1911 Kerr Glass Manufacturing ran ads for free teaspoons with purchase of jars and lids in numerous publications.
Albertina Kerr contracted typhoid and died months after giving birth to a son in October, 1911. On her deathbed she asked Alexander to “look after motherless babies, too.”
Kerr donated their home to the Pacific Coast Rescue Society to help orphans and single mothers. Over the next hundred years, this contribution proved to be a seed to provide support for young children, single mothers, and individuals with disabilities. Today the Albertina Kerr Center, located in Portland, Oregon, supports individuals with developmental and physical challenges.
In 1913, Kerr married his young secretary, Ruth Kalbus, and they had 6 children. Kerr died in 1925 from pneumonia contracted while collecting Community Chest Funds.
The eldest son from Kerr’s first marriage ran the company until his death in 1930. Alexander’s third wife, Ruth, took over to become “the first woman executive in the glass-blowing industry — if not one of the first women executives in manufacturing — in the United States.” (Healthy Canning) She ran the company until her death in 1965. Under her direction, many women were promoted into executive positions and her company would become one of the two largest canning businesses in the United States.
In 1937 Ruth Kerr established the Bible Missionary Institute that would eventually become Westmont College, ranked as the 90th “America’s Best Colleges List 2013” in liberal arts colleges by US & News Report.
Two notable contributions to the canning industry by Alexander Kerr were the production of the first wide-mouth jar and the invention of the metal flat disk used to seal the jar.

From fruit jars, to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a scandalous divorce and marriage, free teaspoons, centers to help orphans and children with developmental needs, and one of the first women executives in manufacturing – whew! Now, this is a pretty good story, huh?

Want to see more? Check out these popular publications from 1911.
Suburban Life, July 1911
House & Garden, July 1911
Country Life in America, June 1911
The Garden Magazine, July 1911

Sources:
Ebay Community Board
Glass Bottle Marks
Alexander H. Kerr
1906 San Francisco Earthquake
Albertina Kerr
Healthy Canning
Polio Wars: Sister Kenny and the Golden Age of American Medicine
Find a Grave
Westmont College

Vintage Feature – Retro, Chunky, & Cool Coffee Mugs

No doubt, we L-O-V-E vintage glassware – the colors, heft, patterns, and textures – but today we want to give centerstage to their counterparts – vintage coffee mugs. Over the last few years we patiently have accumulated an array of colors, shapes, styles, and patterns and, until now, they have been stored away, waiting for the right occasion.

We have two upcoming events where these mugs will make an appearance – a Boho styled shoot this Friday with HoneyBee Mine Events at the 1870 Farm and a wedding reception in October. These hearty mugs will complement our vintage casual and stoneware plates wonderfully!

Many of these mugs are probably from the 1960s-1980s when shades of browns, yellows, and greens were trendy. Some are from Japan but most were made here in the United States by companies such as Buffalo China, Syracuse China, Homer Laughlin, Shenango China, and Fire King.

We know we have at least 80 solid retro mugs in our inventory but we also have some chunky patterned ones to pull out. We think you’ll be crazy about these, too!

Vintage Feature – Join Us On Instagram!

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC “So, are you on Instagram?” she asked.
“No,” I replied, “but we’re on Facebook and Pinterest.”
“Oh, if you were on Instagram you could see how the tables turned out.”
“Dang,” I’m thinking. “Do we really want another social media account to manage?”
The answer turns out to be, “Yes, indeed we do!”

That was one year ago when a wedding planner explained that she would be posting photos of our vintage centerpieces on her Instagram account. We really, really wanted to see how they turned out so that night we did it – we opened up an account. It didn’t take long to understand why folks love this mobile social media app.

Instagram may be our favorite way to share our wares and see what others are doing. We still appreciate our connections through Facebook and Pinterest, but we absolutely love that Instagram is all about photos. For a visual business like ours, when we post our recent find or photos from an event, the post is fed to all of our followers. They get to see what we are doing and, in turn, we get to see what’s new with all the folks we are following. With the hashtag feature, users can search for photos on a topic or trend (like #vintageblueandwhite) and connect with us and others who have used this hashtag to describe their photo. It’s quick, uncluttered, and a visual treat. And, did we mention fun?

Blue and White Screen Shot

After one year, we are happily posting and sharing photos, making new connections, and visually exploring the world through others’ experiences. We would love to bring you along. Follow us on Instagram (@southernvintagetable2) and if you don’t yet have an account, consider joining the Instagram community.

We have to warn you up front – it’s addicting. No joke – you’ll find yourself checking for “likes” on your posts, looking through your feed, and searching hashtags for things you love – like #pugs or #succulents or #foodogs or even a place, like #ncmountains – and you’re hooked. A good thing, however, is if you are looking for an inspiration, waiting for an appointment, or drinking your first cup of coffee in the morning, you have Instagram to fill that time in such a delightful way!

Here are couple of things you should know before you sign up. Instagram is meant to be a mobile app which means you take photos from your phone and upload them from your phone. On a laptop you can create and view your account, edit your descriptions, “like” others posts, and do searches but you cannot upload photos. There probably are ways around all of that but the notion of “instant-ness” is its intent. Another cool feature is that you easily can share your IG posts to your Facebook so your FB friends don’t miss out on that cool thing you just did or saw.

Lastly, you can make your account private which means only folks you have invited can view your photos but you still can view accounts that are public. In other words, you can look through the Instagram window without opening your Instagram door!

For those who may not be ready to take the leap, we now have our Instagram feed coming in our home page and we also placed it below for you to get a quick look. Listen to Eleanor and jump in!

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt (verybestquotes.com)

(Please note that we are not @southernvintagetable as you might think. We stumbled at first and created this account but couldn’t figure out how to delete it so we became @southernvintagetable2. We are still working on how to get rid of the first one!)

Here’s our feed and an easy “Follow” button if you are already part of the IG craze!

[wdi_feed id=”2″]

Vintage Feature – This Week’s A-ha Moment

Savor your aha moment

Sometimes it just happens, sometimes it takes time, and sometimes you have to work at it. I’m talking about that magical a-ha moment. Maybe it’s as simple as remembering where you left your keys (haha, I experience this a-ha moment several times each week) or finally figuring out something that just takes time and mental energy. The latter happened this week as I was updating our website.

The exasperating thing I finally figured out was how to insert a table on a page and then add photos in the cells. I tried to make this work months ago and, after spending days on it, I finally gave up and figured out how to create slideshows. I knew I would try to tackle this again and this week, with fresh eyes, I looked at it once more. I tried a couple of plug-ins that didn’t work well, and then I returned to the toolbar’s table tab and fiddled with it. Voila, it came to me! And, the crazy thing was the solution was right there all along. Isn’t this how it oftentimes happens?

After finally registering that “yes, it did work,” I savored this long-awaited a-ha moment for just a moment longer and began to realize how much this was going to change the style of the website. I dug in and began revamping our inventory pages. This was my focus all week – setting up tables, finding and resizing images, taking more photos, redoing the header menu, and so forth. I still have more to do but I am really pleased with the progress.

As an example, here’s the table from the Vintage Collections page. I hope you’ll agree it is visually pleasing and easier to view our extensive vintage collections!

China	Glassware	Flatware
Serving Dishes	Linens	Silver-Plate

Hope you have a fabulous week and month ahead. We’ll be taking a break from our blogging schedule for the month of July. Look for a new post on Sunday, August 7th!

Vintage Feature – An Antique Teapot Steeped in History

Oh, my goodness, you are going to LOVE the historical connections to this pretty vintage teapot. Recently we found it on the shelf at one of our favorite thrift stores, *Paws4Ever in Hillsborough. We really liked the size of this pot – it can hold 12 cups of tea – as well as the pink roses and gold detailing. What we didn’t realize at the time is that this vintage teapot is actually an antique, probably made in the late 1800s or possibly early 1900s. But the story becomes so much more interesting …

We began our search with the mark on the bottom – Oscar Gutherz Limoges. The google search came up with several images of pieces by this china company but we couldn’t find this particular pattern. Finding the bit of information about the company, however, gave us pause because it lead us to estimate its age – at least 100 years old!

“Oscar Gutherz had originally started a porcelain decorating business with Maximilian Marx in Altrolau in 1884, using financial backing from the American importer Lazarus Straus & Sons. The company subsequently expanded into porcelain production.” – Porcelain Zone

We couldn’t find much more about Oscar so we looked into the American importer, Lazarus Straus & Sons. This search was the key to the astounding historical connections to this teapot. Here are the highlights:

First, you should know that Lina Gutherz, the sister of Oscar Gutherz (the maker of this teapot) married Nathan Straus, the son of the Lazarus Straus, the American importer who financially supported her brother’s porcelain business. This piece of information, which we found on Geni, was pivotal to understanding the rest of the story.
Lazarus Straus (the father of Nathan who would marry Lina, the sister to Oscar the teapot maker) immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1852 and settled in Georgia. After peddling wares to families with a cart, he opened a dry goods store. The success of his store made it possible to bring his wife and children, which included 4-year old Nathan, over to America.
The Civil War disseminated Lazarus’ business so he moved with his family to New York and began his porcelain import business. His sons joined him and it was on a business trip abroad that Nathan met Lina (sister to Oscar the teapot maker), instantly fell in love, and married. Nathan returned to America with his new bride.
Lazarus Straus & Sons, after renting the basement of Macy’s department store in New York City to sell their imported porcelain, eventually became partners with RH Macy. In 1887 Nathan and his brother, Isidor (brother-in-law to Lina, the sister to Oscar the teapot maker), bought Macy’s. There’s so much history about this American department store we couldn’t include it in this post except for this little bit. Macy’s star logo was chosen because the original owner, RH Macy, had it tattooed on him when he worked on a Nantucket whaling ship as a teenager. You have to love this!
In 1912 Isidor and his wife (in-laws to Oscar who made the teapot) bought tickets to sail on the Titanic. Alas, they were not on the survivor’s list.
Nathan and Lina’s son, Nathan, Jr. (the grandson of Oscar the teapot maker) attended Princeton and then went overseas to study at Heidelberg University in 1908. He befriended art scholar, Otto Frank, and convinced Otto to come to New York to work with him at Macy’s. When Otto’s father died, Otto returned to Germany and fought in WWI. Because of growing antisemitism in Germany, he took his family to Amsterdam and asked for Nathan Jr.’s help to bring his family to the United States. Nathan Jr. tried but the visas for the Frank family were denied. After being discovered in the hidden rooms above his shop, Otto and his family, including daughter Anne Frank, were sent to the Nazi concentrations camps. Only Otto would survive.

So, in summary, this little antique teapot is steeped in history and the connecting thread is Oscar Gutherz, owner of a porcelain factory, and his sister, Lina. We imagine it was imported to the United States by Lazarus Straus & Sons in the early 1900s from Limoges, France and was placed on a Macy’s basement shelf in New York. Then, soon after, a woman shopping for a large teapot at Macy’s bought this one made by Oscar and took it home. Although we can envision many cups of tea being poured over the years from this lovely pot, we wish we knew more of its story from the time it was bought at Macy’s in the early 1900s to showing up on a thrift store shelf a hundred years later in 2016!

Serve up a little history at your next tea party with this lovely antique teapot made by Oscar. You may even want to share a little of its historical connections with your guests. (Especially the story of Macy’s star logo!)

Sources:
Porcelain Zone
AJCArchive
Straus Historical Society
The House of Brilliant Glass
Wikipedia – Nathan Straus
Wikipedia – Macy’s
Geni

*We love to support thrift stores with a solid cause and Paws4Ever‘s mission is one dear to many of us – dogs and cats in need. It is a “guaranteed-adoption animal shelter and sanctuary dedicated to improving the lives of cats and dogs through adoption, training and education.” There are many ways to become involved with this caring organization so check them out!

Vintage Feature – Petite & Sweet Vintage Dishes

Ah, petite and sweet… and, just like the lovely Morticia Addams, these small vintage dishes are delightful. Whether used as a serving dish for berries or a dessert bowl for ice cream, these wee pieces of china are hugely charming.

Vintage petite serving dishes are perfect to display mini delectables like fruit, candies, and small pastries. With their elegant shapes, designs, and patterns your guests with enjoy your treats for both their taste and presentation.

We have collected a few vintage specialty petite dishes that were, at first, a mystery. We thought these dishes had unique uses and it turns out they do indeed. First, the two handled dishes below are meant to serve lemon slices during teatime and are called – you guessed it – lemon servers!

The next specialty dish is for a vegetable that once was only affordable by affluent households so, of course, it deserved a dish of its very own. What was this highly revered vegetable – celery! And, because celery was so magnificent (and expensive in the late 1800s), this status vegetable was displayed for all to see – in a celery vase. As celery became more affordable but still highly desired, the less prominent flat celery dish evolved. Now, this may be one of our favorite china history lessons of all time and, after learning this, we’ll surely appreciate every crunchy bite of this once coveted vegetable.

This final vintage dish really stumped us at first. I remember holding it in the thrift store, turning it over, and looking at it from all angles, wondering what it was. The strange shape and indentation in the center is the perfect design for – as you can see – holding spoons!

Perhaps our very favorite piece of china is the wee berry bowl. These small bowls are the perfect size for all kinds of edibles, whether it’s a side dish like peas, squash or brunswick stew or desserts like berries, ice cream, or – yum – banana pudding. We have great collection of berry bowls and we’d love to share them with you at your next dinner or event.

No doubt, when you are planning for a celebration or dinner party, it’s always important to remember the essentials – dinner plates, glassware, flatware, linens, etc. Remember, though, the small details – including these petite vintage dishes – are also wonderful to add to your list!

Vintage Feature – A Vintage Postcard’s Inspiration

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet – to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

~ We Shall Keep the Faith by Moina Michael ~

Memorial Day has come to signify leisurely fun – a 3-day weekend, parades, family cookouts, and the official opening day to the summer season. Many of us, however, overlook the solemnness of this holiday as a day of remembrance for our veterans.

I wanted to capture the historic essence of Memorial Day and began searching for an inspiration in our vintage postcard collection. I came across one with a beautiful bouquet of red, white, and blue flowers. Perfect, I thought. As I began researching the background of Memorial Day, I serendipitously found the inspiration for today’s post – the remembrance poppy.

The red poppy as a symbol for Memorial Day began with the poem, “We Shall Keep the Faith,” written in 1918 by Moina Michael, an American professor. Her poem was in response to “In Flanders Fields”, a poem penned by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, as a tribute to a friend who died in WWI. Why red poppies, you may ask? Here’s what I learned from Wikipedia.

“The red poppies that McCrae referred to had been associated with war since the Napoleonic Wars when a writer of that time first noted how the poppies grew over the graves of soldiers.^[45] The damage done to the landscape in Flanders during the battle greatly increased the lime content in the surface soil, leaving the poppy as one of the few plants able to grow in the region.”^[46]

After teaching a class to disabled veterans at the University of Georgia, Moina Michael realized these men needed more help than they were receiving. Having read McCrae’s poem and then writing her own, the idea of a red poppy as a representative icon was conceived. She fundraised using silk poppies to help raise awareness and monies for the veterans and in 1924, the remembrance poppy was adopted by the American Legion Auxillary as a symbol for those who have died serving their country.

My quest to find something meaningful to share on Memorial Day began with a vintage postcard – what a wonderful coincidence to discover its floral symbol of remembrance.

And, to add a little vintage china in this post, here’s a new vintage set featuring red, white, and blue found by my friend, Trudy. Won’t it look terrific with blue & white patterns?

Resources:
In Flanders Field
Moina Michael
US Memorial Day
The Great War