Heard it through the Grapevine

Thirsty for Royal Crown Advertising? Hey, Pop, You Won’t get a Weigh Cheap Here

By Ralph Finch

A massive two-day coin-op and advertising auction, held in late November by Morphy Auctions of Denver, Pennsylvania, offered some 1,315 lots. Included were dolls, bears and toys, dice, jukeboxes, miniature dollhouse furniture, pinball machines, poker items, roulette wheels, slot machines (462 of them!), toy boats plus general advertising. And there were items related to cars, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, plus postcards, sewing machines, etc. Oh, and the list went on and on. And, for heavy hitters, one item that caught my eye was lot 2458, “a great soda fountain scale from the Advertising Scales Co. Royal Crown Cola in excellent condition with signs of normal wear around the bottle cap, no cracks, original paint and plating. A wonderful example of this great collectable scale,” in excellent condition, measuring 12 by 22 by 45 inches.

$9,000 for a scale? Pound for pound, was it a deal? The one cent Advertising Scales Co. item was valued $5,000-$10,000, and required an opening bid of $2,500. It sold for $9,000, plus a 20 percent buyer’s premium. And shipping? It might be cheaper to drive to Pennsylvania and pick it up yourself.

FYI 1: For more on this type of material, go to the International Arcade Museum website, “the museum of the game.” The website notes, “Advertising Scale was produced by Toledo Scale Co.” circa 1919. “Toledo Scale Co. released ten different machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1915.”

However, the website also states: “Royal Crown Cola was produced by Hamilton Scale Co. in 1950. Hamilton Scale Co. released eight different machines under this trade name, starting in 1931. Other machines made by Hamilton Scale Co. during the time period Royal Crown Cola was produced include Grapette, Upper 10, Mr. Peanut, Hamilton Model P-W, and Hamilton Person Weighing Scale.” RC Cola, short for Royal Crown Cola, is an American brand of cola-flavored soft drink developed in 1905.

FYI 2: I can understand collecting small stuff. We probably all know people who collect miniature items, but big things? Really big things? Or heavy things?

I’ve known several collectors of bricks (I have a few, and they are manageable until you have hundreds, even thousands of them), but anvils? I know a couple of people who have collected them. In fact, you can find anvils today on eBay, or from anvil websites.

There is a lot of interest in them, even Carl Sandburg and Longfellow wrote odes to anvils. They have found their way into popular culture including episodes of Looney Tunes, and the name of a heavy metal band. Anvils have been used as percussion instruments in several famous musical compositions (Ringo Starr played one in a Beatles song).

Same thing for people who collect scales. They are BIG, heavy, awkward, often ugly (the scales, not those who collect them) and, OK, I have a couple of scales, too.

The author, who works for scale, can be contacted at rfinch@twmi.rr.com

This old ad would appeal to anvil fans.

Heard it through the Grapevine

Fangs for the Memories

A creepy report by Ralph Finch

If you are high bidder, losers will hiss you. It’s one thing to be bitten by the collecting bug, but a rattlesnake jug?

At Garth’s 59th annual Thanksgiving Americana Auction held Nov. 29, in Columbus, Ohio, was this interesting, but not old, piece of pottery. It was described as “Lot 224, Crocker Brothers Rattlesnake Jug, a Redware jug with applied handle and detailed rattlesnake. Signed on the bottom by Michael and Melvin Crocker, #50, 1990.”

Hmmmmm. The auction also offered 500-plus lots of painted and formal furniture plus decorative arts, other redware and stoneware, weathervanes, game boards, samplers, folk art and other stuff.

Lot 224 was estimated at $300-600, and sold for $800, plus the buyer’s premium. (A similar jug sold last April for $800, and another last September for $1,300.)

Per the internet, Michael Crocker was born in 1956, Melvin in 1959. Both were surrounded by pottery from a young age and have turned towards it as part of the family’s Georgia business. The mother of these two artists is also a potter. While Michael would make the body of the pot on the wheel, Melvin was very good at decorating it.

Truly, these two are artists with a pot to hiss in, and you can find out more on their art at www.crockerfolkpottery.com.

The Crocker jug above sold by Garth’s went for $800 plus the buyer’s premium. The photo is from the Crocker gallery.

You Auto Enjoy This. Honk if You Love a Photo of an Uncommon(?) Medicine

Ralph Finch took a ride into the past, got lost, and now reports:

This great image offered on eBay in late November reveals what residents of Campello, Massachusetts, may have seen chugging by. And bumping along those rough cobblestones you might hope that the “medicine” could really help your kidney and liver. If you saw this car go by, should you have tipped your Stetson?

About Campello, the internet says: In the late 1600s, descendants of the original settlers of Duxbury moved inland, into what was known as Bridgewater. Prominent among these first residents was the Rev. James Keith, who came from Scotland in 1662. In 1758 his great grandson, Levi, became the first in the family to make shoes. Levi’s son, Benjamin, and grandson, Ziba, became the next generations to take up shoemaking and established a family tradition that lasted into the 20th century.

Citizens of North Bridgewater started to think that their town deserved a unique and special name. The Rev. Daniel Huntington, the pastor of the South Congregational Church, decided around 1850 that a more fitting name for this section would be Campello, or “small plain.”

Now, as for “Pioneer Health Herbs”? Well, I struck out. After an hour-plus going though Google and other websites, I gave up. One tiny reference was this, “Pioneer Health Herbs: 1916.” The car appears to date to that era.

Is there an AB&GC reader who can offer more information on Pioneer Health Herbs? Please share your knowledge with us.