March 26th Today, I am...

...this vintage typewriter!

I'm an old Crandall New Model typewriter and said to be "one of the most beautiful typewriters ever made." I have a wonderful curved and ornate Victorian design and am lavishly decorated with hand painted roses, accented with inlaid mother-of-pearl!
Lucien S. Crandall was born in Broome County New York in 1844. He would become one of the great early typewriter pioneers during the 1860s and 1870s. He patented perhaps ten typewriters with six or so being manufactured. All of his designs are very intriguing and brilliantly imagined machines. The Crandall - New Model was his third typewriter to be manufactured but the first to have some success in sales. The Crandall was the first typewriter to print from a single element or "type-sleeve", well before IBM's 'Golf ball' of 1961. The Crandall's type-sleeve is a cylinder, about the size of your finger, which rotates and rises up one or two positions before striking the roller, achieving 84 characters with only 28 keys. The type-sleeve is easy to remove, allowing for change of font style and character size. One might well wonder why type-cylinder typewriters did not become the standard over typebar typewriters prior to the 1961 Selectric. The reason was speed. Even though typebars are many separate hammers striking away, each hammer has a very simple and quick action. In contrast, a type-cylinder is moved by a more complicated mechanical dance, which reduces its speed to respond to the keys being struck. The IBM “golf ball” was able to move very fast because it was light, well designed, and driven by an electric motor.

other vintage typewriters:

interesting typewriter facts:

* the typewriter and computers today use the same key layout

* the longest word that could be typed on a typewriter with only the left hand is stewardesses

* on a typewriter, surprisingly typewriter is one of the longest words able to be typed using one row of letters

* Christopher Latham Sholes intentionally placed letters apart to slow down typing so jamming would not occur

*  the earliest typewriters would have a bell to warn the typist that the was near the end of the paper

* every single typewriter was different in its own way, none of them were exactly the same

* Jack Kerouac, a fast typist at 100 words per minute, typed On the Road on a roll of paper so he would not be interrupted by having to change the paper; within two weeks of starting to write On the Road, Kerouac had one single-spaced paragraph, 120 feet long

* as of 2009, typewriters were still used by some U.S. government agencies, in fact, in 2008, New York City spent almost $1,000,000 to purchase a few thousand typewriters for use by the New York police department – mainly to type property and evidence vouchers on carbon paper forms 

Jack Kerouac, a fast typist at 100 words per minute, typed On the Road on a roll of paper so he would not be interrupted by having to change the paper. Within two weeks of starting to write On the Road, Kerouac had one single-spaced paragraph, 120 feet lon - See more at: http://petitev.com/category/typewriter-facts/#sthash.aL5u3pSu.dpuf

Jack Kerouac, a fast typist at 100 words per minute, typed On the Road on a roll of paper so he would not be interrupted by having to change the paper. Within two weeks of starting to write On the Road, Kerouac had one single-spaced paragraph, 120 feet lon - See more at: http://petitev.com/category/typewriter-facts/#sthash.aL5u3pSu.dpuf

Jack Kerouac, a fast typist at 100 words per minute, typed On the Road on a roll of paper so he would not be interrupted by having to change the paper. Within two weeks of starting to write On the Road, Kerouac had one single-spaced paragraph, 120 feet lon - See more at: http://petitev.com/category/typewriter-facts/#sthash.aL5u3pSu.dpuf

(facts found at Typewriter and Petite V)

March 22nd Today, I am...

...this interesting combination of modern patchwork with antique details armchair!

I'm from the Light Vintage Collection Of Armchairs By Moda. Moda has created something very unique, and stylish. This modern vintage furniture with contemporary flair is quite exquisite but also very eye-pleasing. It adds a character to every room. The seating furniture solution offered by the Italian company Moda Collection is fabulous and chic. It is suitable for a living room, bedroom even a vintage-like kitchen or hallway. These items are actually very desirable by many. This is not just another piece of furniture made only for sitting – a piece of furniture that no one will notice. It has a statement and it surely brings a lot of attention to itself. The armchairs are just dazzling. They are light-vintage and yet very contemporary. These upholstered furniture items are available in many different colors and fabric models. Classy, stylish, old-school and modern are all very different styles but when mixed together in this indescribably amazing way by these incredible artists, they become magnificent furniture pieces that look nothing less than marvelous works of art.

other armchairs by Moda:

interesting patchwork/quilting facts:

* originally, the Chinese and Egyptians were the first to sew three layers of fabrics together to form the quilt
* in the 11th century, quilted fabric was used inside armor to give warriors padding and protection
* in the 18th century, women had quilted skirts and petticoats and men had waistcoats of quilted material
* they are also used as decorative wall hangings in many homes
* quilts were made by hand, with a needle and thread until using a sewing machines became popular in the mid 1800’s
* they have much sentimental value and is a family tradition in many homes, passing the art from generation to generation
* quilts made by the Amish are considered the most popular and are most collected; the Amish quilts are often made with solid colors of varying shades as they feel printed fabrics are too “showy”

(all facts found at Makobi Scribe)

March 21st Today, I am...

...this gorgeous floral teacup!

I'm an antique tea cup with saucer English china tea set, could be purchased at Etsy for $159 but currently out of stock! Tea was introduced in Europe by the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century. The first merchant shipment arrived in 1637 but tea remained a rare good, together withother exotic Asian products, for several decades. Its demand grew steadily and it finally dominated the whole 18th century  overseas trade with China. At the beginning of the 18th century it was an aristocratic drink. England came to be a major destiny for the new drink. While both green and black tea where popular in China, black tea dominated the trade to Europe. Green tea was more difficult to keep fresh and easier to adulterate, so both companies and consumers had a preference for the fermented variation. A sweetened version of the beverage became popular in Europe, where it spread together with coffeeand chocolate. The new hot drinks, increasingly consumed along the 18th century, changed the daily diet in many countries. In the Netherlands, they were combined with bread to form an economic breakfast that replaced porridge, pancakes and beer and reorganized the daily meal system, from a two‐meal to a three meal regime. They also brought thehabit of eating sweets.

other antique teacups:

 

interesting tea facts: 

* tea bags were invented in America in the early 1800s, and were initially used to hold samples of teas brought from India

* there are many different kinds of tea, but they are all derived from just one plant: Camellia sinensis.; the color and variety of the tea (green, black, white, oolong) depends, however, on the way the leaves are treated

* at 11 o’clock in the morning, to stay alert, in England it’s common to take a break with a cup of tea and some cakes: Elevenses; before dinner, however, you can take ‘high tea’: a kind of reinforced snack

* «Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea? Me?» is one of cinema’s best-known quotes; it’s the famously cheeky line uttered by Joan Cusack to Harrison Ford in the classic film Working Girl.

* tea leaves are a natural means of keeping mosquitoes away
* Oolong tea, a Chinese and Taiwanese tea with a fruity aroma, is also often called Dragon’s Tea: these tea leaves, when put in teapot, often start to look like a dragon
* The London Tea Auction was an institution which lasted for 300 years; tea was sold using the ‘by the candle’ system: bidding for lots went on until an inch of a candle had burnt away

(all facts found at Tea Facts A-Z)

March 17th Today, I am...

...this golden antique telephone!

Such a beauty! I am actually as hard to get as you'd think, you can purchase me at AliExpress for a very reasonable price! With so many carefully shaped details full of flowers and gentle curves intertwined with leaves. Once again, we can relate this kind of type to the Victorian era (I can't help it, I think it's becoming my favourite period). The beginning of a phone goes a long way back to Alexander Graham Bell, an expert in sound, but not so much in electricity (hence the assistant Thomas Watson). The break-through, actually, happened by accident, while experimenting with two springs connected by a long piece of wire. Bell and Watson were in different rooms, each with a spring, thinking when one of them waggled their spring, the spring at the other end of the wire would waggle too. Instead, the sound of the spring twanging in one room travelled along the wire and could be heard at the spring in the other room. The Queen found the whole process ‘most extraordinary’ and wished to purchase a set of telephones.

other antique telephones:

interesting telephone facts:

* the original telephone greeting was 'Ahoy!', suggested by Alexander Graham Bell and later replaced with 'Hello!', suggested by Thomas Edison
* the very first phone call was: “Watson come here, I want you!" made between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas A. Watson in 1876 in Boston
* the memorable Nokia tone for receiving SMS text messages is Morse code for ‘SMS’
* Bell’s patent for the telephone was modestly titled ‘Improvement in Telegraphy’
* the Italian-American Antonio Meucci invented a telephone in 1871, which was five years before Bell, but was too poor to renew his patent for it
* in the early days, telephone wires were ranked according to how tasty they were to mice and rats
* as a tribute to Alexander Graham Bell when he died in 1922, all the telephones stopped ringing for one full minute (14 million telephones in US and canada were affected)
* Mark Twain was one of the first to have a phone in his home

(facts found at Knowlarity and Express)

March 11th Today, I am...

...this beautiful Art Nouveau hand mirror!

We've mentioned Art Nouveau before. The name came from an interior design gallery in Paris, the Maison de l’Art Nouveau. This style uses forms that resemble stems and blossoms of plants as well as geometrical forms. The coming of Art Nouveau can be traced to two specific influences: the first was the introduction, of the Arts and Crafts movement, that was led by the English designer William Morris. Just like Art Nouveau, this movement was a reaction against the cluttered designs of Victorian-era decorative art. The second influence was the latest vogue for Japanese art, especially wood-block prints, which swept up many European artists in the 80s and 90s, such as Gustav Klimt, Emile Galle and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. The Japanese wood-block prints consisted of floral and rounded forms, and “whiplash” curves, these were the elements that would eventually become Art Nouveau. Hand mirrors have a long history of use both as household accessories and as objects of decoration. For the most part, they were hand cut and beveled, then framed in an array of metals, such as German silver, brass, silver plate and sterling, some with a gold wash. 

other Art Nouveau hand mirrors:

interesting mirror facts:

* Narcissus was supposedly bewitched by his own reflection in a pool of water, and magic powers are ascribed to mirrors in fairy tales
* the concepts of the soul are often associated with mirrors, which results in a wealth of superstition surrounding mirrors (for instance, breaking a mirror causes seven years of bad luck because the soul which shatters with the broken mirror regenerates every seven years)
* mirrors also have a strong connection to spirits; they are covered when some dies, because according to some superstitions, a mirror can trap the soul of the person who dies
* a broken mirror to this day is said to bring seven years of bad luck; this curse goes back thousands of years ago to the period of ancient Romans
* the first mirrors were often sheets of polished metal and were used almost exclusively by the ruling classes
* silvering—the process of coating the back of a glass sheet with melted silver—became the most popular method for making mirrors in the 1600s
* in some severe cases, the images these mirrors reflected were similar to those we'd see in a fun-house mirror today

(facts found at Encyclopedia.com and  Mirror History)

February 26th Today, I am...

...this beautifully decorated perfume bottle!

I am Limoges style figural enamelled black ground scent bottle from 1870 (Limoges is known for its medieval and Renaissance enamels on copper, for its 19th-century porcelain and for its oak barrels which are used for Cognac production). "Perfume containters emerged as an art form in the 18th century, many different types of bottles were created such as those of cut glass, silver overlay on glass, porcelain, crystal and others. In the 19th century, bottles were being made of different materials like opaline, a special type of crystal that was colored by adding tin oxide and calcified bone that gave the bottles a milky quality. Large bottles were designed to be placed on dressing tables to hold Eau de Cologne; smaller containers were carried in handbags or worn on chains (as in picture). While during the 18th century it was mostly the wealthiest in the society who wore perfume bottles, in the middle of the 19th century, due to the industrial revolution, this changed forever. Synthetic perfume became popular and manufacturers began to produce perfume flasks in mass quantities, lowering the price of bottled perfume and enabling all types of people to indulge in what used to be a luxury"

other 19th century perfume bottles:

interesting perfume facts:

* one of the most valuable raw materials in perfumery, ambergris (ocean-y and sweet), is produced in the intestines of sperm whale
* in 1921, Molinard released a fragnance that was intended to scent cigarettes - you placed the satchels in your cigarette case or applied it directly to your cigarette for a delicious, lasting aroma
* famous French perfumer, Jean Carles (created Miss Dior), was said to have insured his nose for one million dollars
* in 1920, a Parisian butcher started a collection of 11 essential oils with the essence of bacon, thinking they could dramatically lift his customers' mood

(facts found at: Byrdie)