Latest Acquisitions (March 2022)
The Car and Car Topics
Nescafé Promotional Ware
Ravenhead Sanitary Pipe and Brick Co.
The World of Fashion and Continental Feuilletons
The World of Fashion and Continental Feuilletons
Running from 1824 to 1851 this monthly fashion magazine was fashion-edited by Mrs. Mary Ann Bell (believed to be the wife of the magazine’s publisher John B. Bell) and featured coloured fashion plates, fold out patterns, general articles and fashion-related articles.
Prior to editing The World of Fashion Mrs. Bell was fashion editor of the magazine La Belle Assemblée (owned by John Bell up to 1821). At the same time she also owned and ran a dress shop in Bloomsbury which supplied the fashion material for the magazine.
Mrs. Bell was not only fashion editor of The World of Fashion but also still ran her dress shop, now called Magazin de Modes and relocated to St. James’s, London and would have sold these dress designs in her shop. You have to ask yourself the question: were the designs in the magazine from her shop or the designs in her shop from the magazine? Either way it could be seen as a means of self-promotion for her business.
In 1852 the magazine merged with The Ladies’ Monthly Magazine to become The Ladies’ Monthly Magazine and World of Fashion.
The highlight for me are the fabulous hand-coloured steel engravings that appear in each issue. These give a wonderful insight into the height of fashion during this early Victorian period. It amazes me that some of the pattern sheets still survive. We have some modern ones in the archive in magazines from the 1970s and 1980s.
Ravenhead Sanitary Pipe and Brick Co.
At our February open evening Anthony Hall turned up with a brick, a bottle and a bag of assorted items of paperwork as a donation to the archive. I was particularly drawn to the brick because unusually it is dated (1928). I have seen images before of dated bricks but this is the first time I have been able to hold one close up and examine it.
There is available to view on the internet a copy of their 1922 catalogue for “Ravenhead and Upholland METALLIC BRICKS” (see link below):
https://archive.org/details/RavenheadAndUphollandMetallicBricks
If you look closely at the accompanying images there are a number of points to consider.
Firstly, the stamping is on the rear of the brick and not in the “frog” as you would normally expect (indeed the brick has no frog).
Secondly, the stamping of company information is done randomly and by hand with three separate stamps: 1) a date stamp, 2) an RUS stamp and 3) the Raven’s head stamp (the company trademark).
All in all a wonderful example of the brick maker’s art of marking their bricks.
Nescafé Promotional Ware
A delightful addition to our corporate promotion material is this set of Nescafé drinkware items. We have the coffee pot, cream jug, sugar bowl and five mugs. Although not dated I am sure that if we trawl enough magazines we will be able to date this item. However, if you can beat me to it I would love to be able to date them. There are lots of different editions issued by Nescafé so I will be keeping a look out for others to add to the collection.
The Car and Car Topics
Many thanks to John French for the donation of this lovely collection of the difficult-to-find magazine The Car and Car Topics. Published in the 1950s this A5-size magazine is packed full of articles and information for the motorist. It is interesting to see the change of styles of the covers over a relatively short period of time. The content however follows the same style throughout with car reviews, sports events coverage (e.g. the Monte Carlo Rally), motoring cartoons, accessories, holiday and destination features, and articles on the motorist and the law.
