A Few Things I Really Miss....

History In Your Hands

There are a few things that I really miss and can't believe that they are no longer on the market.  

1. Banana Bits: These were candy that was much like a Sweet Tart in looks both in packaging and shape and design of the candy.  They tasted like banana...and we bought them at the 5 and dime BEN FRANKLIN store in Seward, Nebraska in the mid-1960's.  My brother loved them.
2. Carob Peanut Bar: This was a "health food store" candy bar that was made of peanut butter, honey, and a lot of lecithin as the center, enrobed in a waxy carob.  Hmmm...not sure I made that sound as great as it tasted.  I bought it in the 1970's at a place called "The Golden Carrot".
3. French Creams:  Yes, these are still available, but not in the flavors I remember.  The purple ones and the reddish pink ones tasted like flowers or perfume...the white ones were vanilla, the orange tasted like oranges...the green ones may have been lime? maybe mint...I don't remember eating them, and the yellow were probably lemon.  These may be available in France, still, but so far, I haven't found them available in the US.
4. Soft Center Peanut Clusters:  These may still available in vanilla, cherry, and maple...and please don't ask me to choose which I like best.  Brach's makes these, but the only place I have ever seen them marketed is at House of Davisson in Seward, NE.  For years our Dear Uncle would make a trip to the store for us and mail them to us for the holidays...
5. Seven up Bar: No, this has nothing to do with the soda...it was a candy bar that had SEVEN different pieces of candy--like boxed candy...chocolate nuts, caramel, and fondant centers...all linked together into one candy bar...you could break off each piece.  Oh, did I buy those...again in the mid-1960's maybe into the 1970's.
6. Ham Burgers:  These were compressed burgers of ground ham with a very "fake" smoked flavoring, and I really liked them.  They made a great burger sandwich.  My mother was able to purchase them from the meat packing plant that she worked for.  Late 1960's-early 1970's. 
7. Round Bone Roast:  These were formerly available until maybe the mid to late 1980's.  The flat beef roast had one round bone in it and a very special piece of meat that I was partial too.  It was a round piece of meat that was full of gelatin...and a little "gluey"...but I really liked it...and I would fight for it.  I have asked several butchers, most didn't even know what I was talking about...a couple seemed to think that it was called an arm roast...and most stores won't even make that cut anymore.  Ah well...
8. Pima Cheese:  This was locally available at a little cheese store in Chandler, AZ in the early 1980's.  I am uncertain as to the reason it was called PIMA Cheese, though it could be for the Native Tribe, or maybe the county.  It was a very lacy cheddar cheese.  Lots of little holes.  It was very rubbery and chewy...even somewhat squeaky!  It was stringy when melted.  It was fairly expensive, but well worth the money.  It was only available occasionally...and availability became farther and farther apart...finally no longer available.
9. Oxford Cheddar Cheese:  This may still be available...my parents used to order it in the mail...very good flavor.  We loved good cheese.
10. Fresh Cheese:  This was a product that was available probably late 1980's or more likely the early 1990's.  It was a soft cheese something between the texture of cream cheese and Greek yogurt.  Sold in cups much like yogurt and next to the yogurt section...my favorite FAVORITE flavor was FRESH PEACH.  It wasn't on the market very long...I ate a bunch of it.
11. Lay's Deli-Style Potato Chips:  I had been searching for a good flavored potato chip, that had a good texture and tasted like potatoes, not grease and salt.  These were a little thicker, less salty, and less greasy.  I finally determined these to be the best chips (for my tastes), and they are no longer available in my region.  A few packages slipped through even after that...and I bought them...I think they changed the recipe, but they are still the best of Lay's.  I spoke with a Lay's representative, but he couldn't give me a reason that they were no longer available in my region.
12. Field Pennycress Seeds:  As the information came down to me from my father, who apparently learned about these seeds from our neighbor who was a professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, a professor of agriculture would take a few students out into the fields and secure the seeds from a wild "weed" known as Field Pennycress and use them to make yeast bread rolls coating the rolls in the seeds, much like you would use poppy seeds.  These seeds had a wonderful onion-y-garlic-y flavor.  Haven't seen this growing in AZ.  Never have been able to track down the professor's name...it would have been in the 1970's, I believe.  These should be in everyone's pantry!  

So...what foods are you missing?  What used to be available...but either is no longer available or they changed the recipe and ruined it?  Post it to History in Your Hands on facebook!!

A Few Minutes with the AUTHOR: Mark Pickvet

History in Your Hands is very happy to announce a new feature!  From time to time we will be interviewing authors, business owners, and collectors from various backgrounds.


Our very first guest in this series has a most unusual name--Mark Pickvet.  How fortunate for Mark Pickvet to have a name that one can google and be the only one there is!!  


Mr. Pickvet is well versed (and well educated) on glass, his most recent publication from earlier this year being the second edition of The Encyclopedia of Glass.  

What is nice about this book is that it doesn't have prices and values in it.  Why would that be good?  Values are in constant flux and value guides need to be replaced yearly or at least quite often.  
However, the information in this book provides all the unchanging facts and background for identification on the history, style, crafting, designers, and makers of glass.  Over 4,000 listings are covered and cross-referenced in the book, which is currently available from bookstores and on-line.   

If you are looking for a price guide on glass, never fear, Mark Pickvet has also written four editions of the Official Price Guide To Glassware.

While those books cover an entire field of collecting, Mark Pickvet also hones in on subjects with more focused detail including Paperweights, and Playing Cards; though his first book was on Shot Glasses, now in it's 4th edition.   

Did you catch the title in there that wasn't about glass?  Mark Pickvet's book about Playing Cards is what brought him to my attention several years ago.  Because of his book, I added playing cards to my inventory which became a good and consistent selling item for me. 


Mr. Pickvet hails from middle Michigan...Pinconning, MI, population (in 2010) listed at 1,307.  If you were trying to find it on a map, you would be looking in the crook of the "thumb".  


Although we might be tempted to refer to the author as an "expert", he might have something else to say about it...

"I always hate to be called an expert, researcher is probably better.  When inspecting a piece I try not to let on that I know anything about it (sometimes I don't w/o research) or who I am.  If they find out that I am an author and think I am an expert, then a collector will clam up & tell me little or nothing about the piece thinking erroneously that I know everything there is to know.  So much glass is unmarked that I need the story....how long have you had it?  Where did it come from?  For instance, if it was passed down from your grandparents who brought it to America from Europe (a specific country is better). "

You wouldn't guess from that comment that the truth is...

"... the original Encyclopedia of Glass was basically the glossary to my PhD dissertation on glass history..." (University of Michigan)

With all his books, he doesn't consider himself first and foremost as an author, he is quite at ease in his "day job"...

"...writing is really a hobby of mine, my main job is that of a safety engineer & I travel all over the state of Michigan conducting safety inspections; not to brag, but you would be hard pressed to find somewhere in the state where I have not been..."

While it may seem a bit outside the realm of a safety engineer to become a respected authority on collectible glass, the background on his "first collectible" may shed a little light...

" I started collecting shot glasses on a 6th grade (around 10 years of age) class trip to Boblo Island, a now defunct amusement park that once existed on the Detroit River between Michigan and Canada (it was actually on the Canadian side).  I bought a souvenir shot glass for 69 cents at the time (I had a dollar of spending money).  I started picking more and more of them up as souvenirs, flea markets, antique stores, and so on.  They were always inexpensive like playing cards and basically, it is easy to collect them in quantity without shelling out that much money.  As a graduate student, I could never find a price guide on shot glasses, so I wrote my own back in the mid-1980's as a Master's Thesis that paralleled the glass industry with that of the liquor industry.  Pricing was always based on what one could buy them for.  I ran a club called The Shot Glass Club of America through much of the later 1980's and into the '90's to share information with other collectors."

 The author was also kind enough to share a little about those "finds" when you are out on the hunt for something and find it at a great price!  (You know--when you feel like your heart is racing and you shouldn't have had that second cup of coffee--so excited!)

" I have found some pre-Prohibition whiskey sample glasses [valued] in the $50 to $75 [range] at rummage sales for 10 to 25 cents. Sometimes one can find a nice $50 piece of Fostoria Coin Glass for a few dollars too, but high end stuff like rare carnival glass, fancy art styles, and even clean Depression Glass, will not be found cheaply at garage & yard sales."

How does a price/value guide help the dealer and the collector?

" One thing people have to realize is that price guides often list the full retail value of an object; or in other words, what a dealer expects to get for it.....dealers/buyers generally pay about half of the price in price guides and then hope to sell the object at twice what they paid for it. Once the online auction houses came on line like eBay, the market radically changed.....along with search engines like Google. It's much easier to Google something or check eBay for pricing trends than pricing guides. Collector Books for instance, a huge publishing house for collector guides stopped publishing books a couple of years back (Antique Publications, my first publishing house, went out of business years ago). At first online auction houses raised prices considerably by throwing a lot of short supply ads out there to incredible demand. One example is that my wife collects Mary Gregory Glass; stuff that was fairly difficult to find in the 1990's & prior, but now, check eBay, and there may be 75 to 150 pieces listed any given day. In the early days of eBay, you might only find a handful of pieces and bidding would be ferocious, now there is an over abundance of supply; thus, combined with the recession, prices are down."

What are the trends that you have seen for the market in general and glass in particular since 2008?

"The recession over the past several years has really hammered the antique/collectible market unless you are into precious metals like gold & silver.  There are simply more sellers than buyers and prices have been dropping.....Depression, Art, Carnival, and popular makers, especially those in America like Fenton & Fostoria to name a couple, are down significantly."

What can we be looking forward to from you in the future?

 

" I always have projects in the works. Originally, I was going to do another book on playing card values with Collector Books, but since they closed the door on publishing new titles, I am seeking publication of it elsewhere. I have a few more books coming out soon on the history of Michigan, and am dabbling in fiction as well. It took me 30 years to finish my book on the History of Michigan and I have a publisher who is going to print it in 3 to 4 volumes over the next couple of years since it is quite large."

A HUGE Thank You to author Mark Pickvet for spending a little time with History in Your Hands and being our "guinea pig" first author to join us.  The History of Michigan sounds like it must have been a daunting task!  We look forward to the publication!  Let us know when you have a set publication date!

[full disclaimer:  The author Mark Pickvet and the admin of the facebook page History in Your Hands have no agreement or arrangement through any publishing or promotional company.  The admin of HIYH made an earnest and sincere request for a Q & A and Mark Pickvet was kind enough to comply. ]