COLLECTION #148: Vintage Song Booklets

A few of these booklets have been in other collections, but I thought it would be nice to put all of my song booklets (except for holiday ones or religious ones) into one grouping. These are all soft-bound books, and most of them are from the 1930s to 1950s.

They range from a little song folder from an ice cream company (Hendler's Ice Cream) to the Amsco Music Company compilation of Cowboy Songs. Several of them are published by textbook companies, to be used in the school, one is a simple mimeographed and stapled booklet published in the 1940s by the State of California: Songs of our Latin American Neighbors.

One book is a combination of square dances and folk songs, several include guitar or autoharp chords. The cute book in the back is a nursery rhyme song book. and I've included a few vintage cowboy illustrations to make you sing 'yippee ki-yi-yay'!

THE WEEKEND COLLECTOR: Postcard Collector

I found an awesome website for postcard collectors. It's amazingly called Postcard Collector! It's a great place for postcard collectors of all kinds to share their cards, discuss different types of cards and collections, and exchange information about sales and shows.  It's fascinating how many different types of postcards there are out there... not just souvenir postcards of different locations, but postcards made from real photos (surprisingly called 'real photo postcards'!), postcard comics, postcards made from wood or leather, naughty postcards, romantic postcards, holiday postcards, postcards about pickles, commercial postcards... there's really no end!

Here are a few images I snagged from their website, I hope you take a few minutes and check out all of the wonderful things you can find on the Postcard Collector!

A lovely collection of vintage ladies

Novelty postcards for every occasion!

A 'real photo' postcard with a mystery... who is that man?

COLLECTION #147: The Ginn Basic Readers

More readers! There is never any end to them, and I have tons more to go! But the Ginn Basic Readers, as well as the Alice and Jerry books, and the Scott, Foresman readers (Dick and Jane), were extremely popular readers across the US from the 1940s on. I'm sure there are current versions being used by American schools today, but I don't keep up with those.

I have nearly all of the 1957 edition of the Basic Readers, missing is the 6th grade one. One of these days I'll discover its title, and add it to my collection. These are wonderful books, using a variety of illustrators. There are about a dozen different illustrators who worked on these volumes. 

You can identify the books by their grade level, by observing the spine... on the later, revised edition (1957-1961) on the right, there are dots and lines.  Two dots and two lines means the book is second grade level, part two or semester two. The fourth through sixth grades only have one book per school year. I assume this is because less emphasis is placed on basic reading in the upper grades, and new subjects have come to take their place: science, arithmetic, social studies. The books on the left- the earlier 1948 editions, is the same way, but since I have fewer of them, it might be hard to identify those grade levels. If you look really closely, you can see that there are a few books that don't have such dots and lines. These books (Fun and Fancy in the early edition, Open the Gate and Ranches and Rainbows on the later editions, are considered 'enrichment' books. These were designed to help children who weren't quite ready to advance to the next level, OR to give to those who read more quickly, to give them extra reading practice while the rest of their classmates were catching up).

 I have two different pre-primers, two of the same title. These are all from the 1940s, and use the illustrators from the early books above. They are charming, but not nearly as wonderful as the later books.

1948 edition of On Cherry Street

1957 edition

 I've also included a few pages from early editions vs. later edition to see some differences in the illustrations. They are all wonderful!

1948 edition of the Little White House

1957 edition

 One of my favorite illustrators, Corinne Malvern, is one of the primary illustrators of the mid-grade books of the early editions. In those books there is usually just one or two illustrators for the whole book, as opposed to the later editions that have as many as a dozen different illustrators.

Example of Corinne Malvern illustraion in the 1948 edition of Around the Corner

I hope you enjoy reading  a little bit about Susan, Tom and Betty, and seeing these wonderful mid-century readers.

Around the Corner (1957 edition) with its Do and Learn Book

COLLECTION #146: Turquoise Pottery

 I'm never sure whether to call it 'turquoise', or 'aqua', or 'blue-green'... but here are a few pieces of pottery from my collection that are that beautiful azure color....as is the case with most of my collections- something old, something new, something inherited, something blue....

The Poppy Trail pitcher came from my Grandmother Clark. The bowl is a Baur,  and the rest is either unmarked or unreadable. I love the tiny little vase... we bought it on one of our recent trips, but I can't read the potter's name.
Just some fun things to look at today!

COLLECTION #145: Old Seed Packets

I've had these old seed packets for years,  and love them! There's just something cool about  the graphics - I love the illustrations and the fonts, and the colors.  My guess is these are from the early 20th century, but there's no copyright date on any of them except one: the flower packet has a date of 1916.  I've got my eye open for more.  If you see any, let me know!

COLLECTION #144: Old Photos of Children & Their Toys

For Toy Tuesday, I thought it would be fun to share my photos of children playing with their toys. These are photos of people I don't know, folks probably long gone, but remembered through the magic of Kodak. I don't know anything about these photos, some of them are labeled on the back, but there's really not enough information to give us any significant family details. I hope you enjoy looking at them. Click on any of the images for a closer look.

Look at the beautiful smocked dress this little girl is wearing! Love her little toy.

I love these little photos... the one on the top right shows a birthday party and one little girl clutches her doll. The photo below that shows another birthday party, with a little boy & his car.

I believe this is the same little girl as the one at the top, only slightly younger. Love her little doggy toy.

So sweet... a little girl and her stuffed doggie

Another sweet little girl- this one with her sand pail.

I shared these Christmas toy photos in December, these show children and their Christmas toys.

I found these photos all together on a single photo album page. Love this cute little girl with her little doll and stuffed bear. The little trike is pretty cute too!

COLLECTION #143: Vintage Mormon Song Books

Not to be confused with my vintage hymn books (Mormon or otherwise), these are vintage song books, some of which do contain hymns, but they are mostly youth religious or fun songs. These books are from the 1930s-1950s.

 I remember well the little book called The Children Sing. It was the song book we used when I was a child, and I spent about an hour this morning, going through it at my piano, plunking out some of the long-forgotten children's songs.  It really brought back so many happy memories of singing in Primary and Junior Sunday School back in Glendale and South Pasadena.

A few years before my Dad passed away, I remember he and his younger brother Kent getting together (both well into their 80s), and singing their childhood favorite, "A Mormon Boy".  I never knew that one, but it's nice to know that some of these songs remain in our memories our entire lives... no matter how old we get to be!