Showing posts with label Philadelphia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philadelphia. Show all posts

Historical Series (#10) CDV 'Carte de Visite' photographs 1870-1890's

Carte de visite photographs were popular around 1859-1890. They were eventually replaced in popularity by the larger style, Cabinet Card

Carte de visite literally means "Visiting Card". CDV photgraphs are no larger than a modern business card and were meant to be traded between friends. They are made out of a heavy card stock, with the photo mounted on the front. The photographers studio is usually printed on the back of the CDV card.
A little boy and his 19th century hoop, 
used for hoop rolling.
An extremely interesting (or slightly disturbing) taxidermy rabbit pull toy.
Dressed in Sunday's finest.
Her cheeks have been tinted on the photograph.

Their small size makes them quite collectible. CDV albums of friends & family were popular in the 19th century. I've recently started my own CDV photo collection.
Historical Series:
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Historical Series: (#6) Victorian Advertising 1800's - Wanamakers Philadelphia


Wanamaker's was Philadelphia's first department store. John Wanamaker founded his first store, a mens clothing store with his brother-in-law in the 1860's. Which was called Wanamaker & Brown. The advertising card above has a copyright date of 1876.


In 1876 Wanamaker opened his larger scale department store at 13th & Market Streets in Philadelphia. The advertising card below for Alexandre Kid Gloves is circa 1876-1880's.

An 1895 map of Wanamaker's. Source: philageohistory.org
Rumford Yeast Powder antique trade card. Circa: 1860-1880. Baking powder used to be called yeast powder back in the day. The back of the card has a grocery store location for 21st & Market Street in Philadelphia.
A New York Industrial Insurance advertising card, circa 1880's. I love the price rates for the life insurance back then (10 cents a week!)


Historical Series:

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Historical Series: (#1) Vintage Postcards- Philadelphia 1910

Hello! I know it's been quite awhile since I last posted. I wanted to start a historical series here on the blog. I've always loved history, and one of my newest hobbies has been collecting vintage and historical items. Photos, Postcards, Vintage Advertising, Coins, Tins, Clocks, Books, etc.

The vintage postcards are fascinating, because if there's enough information you can actually research and locate the person. I prefer collecting postcards with visible postmarks of their age, mostly from the early 1900's.

I've started looking for early Philadelphia items lately, (being my hometown). The thing that caught my eye on this postcard was who it was addressed to.... F.B. If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you'll know my husband's name is F.B. (which is his father's initials, but his legal name is F.B.) so I couldn't pass up getting this postcard addressed to a Dr. F.B. Davison, postmarked 1910 sent from a friend named Natalie who was visiting Philadelphia.


With a little research, I was able to find Dr. F.B. Davisons grave on the findagrave.com website. Dr. Francis Barker Davison would have been around 83 years old when he received this postcard in 1910, and he passed away 6 years later. He had a wife named Nancy who passed away in 1904, and one daughter. He was a surgeon and civil war veteran. Absolutely fascinating that 107 years later this postcard still exists!

I also think it's interesting how there's no street address or zipcode on the postcard. According to Wikipedia the census in 1910 said there was approximately 759 people living in Factoryville, PA.

If anyone has more information on Dr. F.B. Davison, would love to hear from you below in the comments.
My little historical nook here at home, with other items that I will be sharing stories about soon:

Historical Series:
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Macro Spam; featuring Emily de Molly

I cut down my nails this week (the tips were peeling a bit), so it's going to take them 1-2 weeks to get back to normal length. Also my skin and cuticles have been really dry from the last three collections I swatched... damn you pure acetone! I'm taking a little break while I give my swatching hand some TLC! :-)

So instead... I decided to give you guys a little macro spam! (My pinky says hi!)


I picked up Cosmic Forces last year when Llarowe happened to restock. (Emily de Molly is an Australian indie brand so it's hard to get in the USA). It was one of my biggest lemmings. #1 it's my favorite color, purple. #2... it's got those awesome holographic circles.


And... ahhh Oceanic Forces.... is.... mesmerizing! This has been one of my other lemmings for quite awhile, and I was lucky enough to find it in my mail box on Monday. I will have full swatches another time soon. :-) 


I ordered a polish from Philly Loves Lacquer, she has a section where you can get certain throwback polishes made (as long as she still has the supplies). I've wanted Saturnalian quite awhile. It was a color in her winter collection last year. Saturnalian is a scattered holo turquoise. It's pretty opaque in just one coat too, though I used two coats below. I'll swatch this another time too! So just enjoy the macro for now! :)


Esther; besides the obvious; (you know, being a fellow Philadelphian). ;-) Is also really nice. She was recently at the 30th Street Station craft fair, that was actually outside my office. Only... the day I was supposed to go in June- it rained and got canceled. (Friday the 13th too, how about that?!) And then, when it was finally rescheduled; I was already furloughed from work, and waiting for my unemployment to kick in... so I didn't have money for train fare, or even spending money, boo. So, I didn't get down there to meet her or buy any polish in person. :-(

(To be brief; I've been a seasonal employee at my job for the past 12 years, so I usually have off 3-6 months out of the year) 

Esther and I are friends on Facebook, and before the 1st craft fair had gotten canceled she said she had a #RAOK for me which was really sweet. So, I had an included surprise when my Philly Loves Lacquer order arrived on Monday! I've probably never been so surprised opening a package... especially when it's something you've really wanted for awhile! She sent me Oceanic Forces. That was incredibly sweet of her to do. :) I will have to pay it (#raok) forward sometime soon.


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Philadelphia Eagle's Nails

✯ Press Samples Mentioned ✯

I'm not much of a sports person and not really a football person... but my family is. So, since I'm also a Philadelphian and the Eagles have a big game tonight I decided to do some football themed nails.

I started with two coats of NYC Color in Precious Peacock (press sample) over one coat of black polish. Then I stamped with Konad special white polish and Winstonia Store stamp plate W103. I applied one coat of Seche Vite topcoat before using the NYC Matte About You topcoat (press sample), so I wouldn't smear the design.


Edited: Oh well... just heard the Eagles lost. :-p

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Government Shutdown...

 Photo from CNN

Tuesday at 12am, the US Government failed to agree on a new fisical budget, and the Government shut down. I don't talk about my job too much on this blog. I've worked for the Dept of the Treasury, for the past 11 years. All non essential government employees were placed on immediate furlough. 800,000 federal employee's now have no job and no paycheck. Myself included.

We only have one income. We are not rich, we live paycheck to paycheck. This morning I had to put in a request to borrow money from my credit card and opened my claim for unemployment. The last shutdown back in the 90's lasted 21 days... that's far too long to go without a paycheck. National parks and monuments are closed. The House and Congress do not understand how this effects regular people- because they are still getting a paycheck while they bicker about the budget. I'm not sure how long this shutdown will last... but it's scary... 

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