Collecting English Modern Tins and German “lebkuchen” Tins
12/29/02 THIS NOTE IS FOR DONNA (DMK);PERHAPS YOU HAVE FOUND THE PERSON THAT MAY HAVE THE TINS THAT YOU DESIRE.CERTAINLY THE “DURRER” CHEST OF LONG AGO ( I’VE ONLY SEEN 3) IS TO YOUR LIKING OR MANY OF THE OTHERS. WE DO HAVE A LARGE ASSORTMENT OF MOST ALLSIZES AND SHAPES INCLUDING THE ARTIST TIN. PLEASE LET US TALK MORE ON THE SUBJECT. SINCERELY, FRED BORNEMANN europesfinestimports@msn.com
From: DMK (Donna) 3/7/99 – I have some fun news to share with all who live in England about places to shop in London, if anyone is collecting new tins.
We lived in England from 1982-88 & I remember one of the first dayson base (Mildenhall/Lakenheath) I found two small, red tins (almost all of mine are”new” or “look new” upon purchase) – a tall, round one resembling anEnglish post box, & the other a slender rectangle with the cover having roundedcorners to resemble a double decker bus. It wasn’t because it was a “tin,” butjust because I LOVED being in England & wanted to take everything “English”home with me (whenever it would be that we’d have to move back to the U.S. 🙂
As it turned out, about October of 1985, a new friend who had justmoved from Germany, showed me some of her German lebkuchen tins (a German spice cookiethat’s very popular at the holiday time & sold in gorgeous tins!!!). The largest ofthe tins looked a bit too ornate for my tastes at the time, but another didn’t & Iasked her to bring one back if possible – which she did. I just loved it !!! — 8 x 12hinged, flat cover rectangular chest 5 1/2” tall, burnt orange & all “oldworld” type pictures of the European cities & people. That was the beginning.From then on it seemed as if everywhere I went in England I saw “old world” typetins, & then tins with “English” names on them, & those with the”standards or emblem” on them “By appointment to ……the Queen,etc.”
There were those representing history like the time I was at theBronte’s Parsonage & found one with pictures of the sisters & the story of theirlives. Many were rectangular ones with a roof-shaped cover to represent an imaginary orreal English shop, castle, National Home, historical building, etc., of some sort. I wentto Ian Logan’s when he was still by Charterhouse Square the fall of 1987, as he hadseveral weeks a year where anyone could go to his company office & buy any of theempty tins he produced. (Does he still do that, wherever he is located now???) I leftEngland with a little over 200, mostly English tins from those years, which I thought wassignificant, since I knew of no other person who had gone on such a “buying &collecting spree,” nor knew of “collectors” out in the world. I shouldmention that I purchased most filled with tea, candy, or “cookies” to usAmericans. I found some empty “reproductions” & as long as it was “oldfashioned” or “something English,” it was mine. (I don’t drink tea orcoffee & it’s a standing bit of amusement that Dad gets what’s “inside” thetins, & Mom gets the container! I know my husband had enough tea for the next 3 yearsbecause of all the tins I bought, but it lasted & was fresh in those sealed tins!!)
We moved to Germany & through 3 years of flohmarkts (flea markets)I ended up with over 900 by the time we were sent back to the U.S. in 1991. 200 of thoseadditional 500 ended up being lebkuchen tins which have a very special place in my heart.How I’ve yearned to be able to be in Germany each Christmas season to buy the hoard oflebkuchen tins which I’ve missed! I’ve found a “few” in the U.S., but I see somein the company brochures (which I send for each year) which I would have truly loved. Theyare so gorgeous! I found that the lebkuchen companies, (like with Phyllis mentioning thecompany she worked for, saying “so I became a “mini archivist”) didn’treally value their “tin containers” as to being very important. I went to thelargest company one day, Otto Schmidt, wanting to make a copy of their seasonal brochureof each year since they began producing the largest chest, a # 735 series in 1955, &they didn’t even keep a brochure of each year – they just had a typed list of the”description of the main picture” from each year!!! I have all but 6 of thoselarge lebkuchen chests & the matching “6 stuck” round tin which is one ofthe 15 or so packages of lebkuchen inside this huge tin chest (11 1/2 x 16 1/2 hingedcover x 6 1/2″ tall)….(pronounced 6 stewk) which means 6 “pieces” or”cookies,” & if I ever find a German person through this Tin Newsletter whois into tins & flohmarkts & speaks English, THAT is the person I want to beconnected with so the hunt will be on in Germany for me for those 6 tins! I knew that if Icould have stayed living in Germany for my life, I would have found a way to have alebkuchen tin collection in some museum, etc., because the companies weren’t evendisplaying their own tins (except a few in the Schmidt factory story). Anyway, the historyof the German lebkuchen tins can become another story – another day :).
(So I wonder how many lebkuchen tins that man in Belgium has? Maybe hehas an “in” with the largest tin-manufacturing company in Germany & can geta sample of each tin each year????? I’ve made contact with that company & havereceived a catalog, too, one of these past years. I would love to see his collection… -35,000 ! Whew !!! I wonder where they all are & if people can see them?)
Anyway, to all of you in England, I need to cut to the chase here. Ididn’t have time to let any of you know I’d be in England & to come see any of you,but hopefully before my next trip I can put out the word & see if I can come visit& look at some of your collections. I’ve just aligned myself as a marketing agent witha company called Good Shepherd Tours (in the U.S. 16 years) who does “grouptours” to Israel & I went on their trip Feb. 8-16. The most wonderful thing isthat they fly through LONDON!!! So first I stayed an “extra day” on the 17th, inorder to walk through the process of trains from airports, etc., which is what peoplewould be doing if they choose this “extra day” beyond their week in Israel. Bythe way, GST is opening an office in London this month to tap the English market, so ifany of you are interested in looking into being a Tour Host or know of anyone wanting tohave a tour to Israel (8 days about 600-700 pounds all inclusive except getting to theairport, lunches, passport, & spending money), e-mail me (Donna) at Bibleland@aol.com & I will work with you, as that’s what I did from Feb. 17-25th – had appointments atthe American military bases & some English churches to do presentations. If I can getmy foot in the door to be a church’s Associate Partner representative, then I’ll be ableto spend MORE & MORE time in your fabulous country !!! AND BUY MORE TINS :))))) !
So getting back to tins, by the eve of the 17th when I got back to thehotel by Gatwick, I finally had to separate my 2 largest suitcases :)! I was glad to getout of Israel with the 2 in 1, but leaving England, whoa!!! — were they heavy! Right nowSelfridges has gorgeous “canister” (4-5″ round, 8″ tall) Williamson& Magor Tea tins in the style of an elephant! There are 4 colors, depending on whichtea you want (50 tea bags each) for 8.45 (sorry – the American keyboard doesn’t have a”pound” sign). Steel Grey is Earl Grey; Blue is English Breakfast; Green isTraditional English; & pink – maybe Darjeeling (sp??) There was also a neat Frenchsardine can ( 4.25) but I think if you pull off the cover (which has the olde worldsailing scene) you’ll ruin it, so the sardines will stay in mine forever! I was lookingfor a Droste cocoa tin, as I found them there in the 1980s, but didn’t see any this day.BUT, they DID have a “clearance” of a German “6 stuck” lebkuchen tinfrom the F. G. Metzger company (reg. 12.99, now 9.50) 4 1/4″ round x 4 1/2″tall, green, with 8 Nurnberg & fairytale scenes around. It has/had (yummy!) 6 leb.cookies inside. Now, at the exchange rate of $1.70 per pound, this seemed pricey, but whenthe passion has turned into an illness ———- what can you say! 🙂 And Metzger was anexpensive brand, even back in my German days. Besides, if it’s a lebkuchen tin, I feel Ineed to do whatever I can to purchase it – for my self-appointed position of a lebkuchentin historical archivist, right??? – even if I am on the opposite side of the ocean ofproduction…..I’m trying :). I sure would like to find German tin collectors! (Anyway,9.50 x $1.70 = $16.15, which is what another 6-stuck of that size cost here in the U.S.this past Christmas time. So only at the regular price of 12.99 x $1.70 = $22.10 would ithave been out of range.)
So on to Harrods ——— Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, fabulous Harrods! Too bad thepocketbook had a limit, along with how much 2 of us could carry !!! I won’t even begin tolist what Harrods has. If you have money, just go !!! There’s no end to it. I think I musthave picked up 8-10 in only 2 areas & then when leaving the country at Gatwick Iwalked into Harrods in the duty-free section & figured out a way to fit 9 more (7 weresmall !!) into my 2 “carry ons.” Hey, I’ve got ingenuity with packing down to ascience. 🙂 Where there’s a will there’s a way ! But I tell you, I even had to “makechoices” because I had to leave some. A person could have a huge collection JUST ofHarrod’s tins through the years, & enough tea & biscuits to boot!!!
I made stops at Waitrose, Tesco, & Sainsbury, & I don’t knowwhat I found where, but Williamsom & Magor has a silver 4x4x4″ square tin ofloose tea with blue writing, an elephant, & a short story “since 1869.”Also, there’s a small round tin (2″ x 3 1/2” tall) filled with “TraditionalDried Active Yeast for baking” which is orange & white, some green & has awindmill at top center. And of course your Colman’s mustard, Golden Syrup, etc.
Bentley’s has the “house shaped tins” for The Tower ofLondon, Buckingham, Windsor Castle, & one other, filled with candy. They call it the”English Heritage Collection.” They also have a tall, thin “Row House”(1 3/4 x 2 1/2″ cover shaped like a roof x 5 1/4” tall) designed as a Punch& Judy puppet show, AS does Wilson – 3 tall, thin “Row Houses” in “TheCovent Garden Series,” with each house having a name (2.63 each) – filled with acandy of some sort. Mind you, I very seldom buy the tin for what’s inside it…so throughthe years we’ve had our share of special treats & lots to give away that otherwisewe’d never have had the pleasure of trying. I would never invest the kind of money I do intins if it was for what’s inside them, & didn’t feel that the personal”value” was in the container, itself. So it’s all in one’s perspective. Also,I’m not buying the tins for an “investment” on the monetary value of what Iwould “hope” to make some day. It’s for personal enjoyment & hopefully to beable to share with the public one day. That made it a lot easier to deal with thepossibilty of a loss if that container of our household goods would have dropped into theocean during the loading/unloading process of moving across the ocean (which did happen tosome missionary people we knew – only their ONE container was all they had, & not the”excess luxury of “tins & bygones!”).
So back to London, do you ever take the “extra long walk”from the nearest tube & go to Twinings on the Strand? I didn’t this time, but I didfind several of their current tins with tea (don’t remember where). One is about 4x4x4 butis 6-sided, pink & grey, & has pics of people in a restaurant. Another is also6-sided but in the 3×3” range, blue, & a continuous pic of people having a picnicby a pond.
There’s a tea tin out called “Royalty, Darvilles of Windsor,England,” blue, about 3″ square ( 2.95)…4 neat pictures of Windsor castle.Maybe I got this in Windsor, in those gift shops near McDonalds?? – don’t remember.
I didn’t get to the gift shops of St. Paul’s & Westminster, or thatbig store on Sloane Sq. (John Lewis is it?) & the nearby General Trading Company, northat huge store (if it’s still there) at Covent Garden across from the tube entrance &in Trocadero Center. Also, I remember another “long walk” (I feel those Londonblocks are a mile each 🙂 !!!) to Crabtree & Evelyn during my England days, but it wasworth it for tin shopping – because a person could buy empty tins at their London store.If you had to buy them all full, whew!!! — you’d leave a bit of your bank account thatway. And Fortnum & Masons is another stop on a tin-buying list – & especially atChristmas time – they used to get many imported from Germany, especially from the H.Bahlsen Company.
And in the newsletter you’re wondering about dating Silver Crane tins.Why not ask the company for brochures / catalogs, or even a black & white copy ofolder issues? And the same would go for Ian Logan. He used to send me his catalog eachyear when I requested. Some of you should also track down (if you don’t have them)brochures / catalogs of Hunky Dory. I’ve heard they’re out of business, but is it possibleto make a connection with whoever owned that company, before time becomes too distant? Andalso that Frederick Warne company that has the license for all the Beatrix Potter tins. Ido have some stores in my area which have “imports” through which I’ve foundmany European tins all these years, & many have been fabulous Beatrix Potter tins. Butat over 2200 now I’m at capacity for storage space & need to stop, but how? Look atwhat just happened by going to England! But since my heart is in Europe & withEuropean tins, I’ve tried to begin to pass on American ones.
At the thought of so many, many people wonder where I have them all.Well, I only have a hundred or so displayed on top of an 11′ long, double-deep row of verytall packing boxes holding most of the tins, along a wall in my work room. And all those100 have tins inside tins inside tins. It’s the only way. Someday my dream is to have aplace to display all of them for the enjoyment & historical benefit of the generalpublic. Besides my 225+ German lebkuchen tins, I know I must have at least 150-200 in theshape of a house (the cover is the shape of a roof). And another 100 or so must be justChristmas. And another 125 or so are Coca Cola. Those started for me in Europe when Ireceived one as a gift & there’s a company in France holding the license &producing CC tins for the European market, which aren’t often seen in the U.S.
Toward the middle to the end of the 1980s the U.S. really began toproduce a lot of tins at Christmas time. I’d say almost every candy company has had atleast one tin, if not one (or more, as in the Hershey company) each year this past decade.And within the past 2 years the Olive Can Company ( www.olivecan.com ) has had the U.S.license to produce the Silver Crane tins, although I don’t know if they’re the same aswhat’s produced in England, or different. I’ve written to them twice asking for a cataloge& need to pursue more diligently to get one! I think at Christmas time I’ve increasedmy collection on an average of 100 tins a year & I’m even selective about “oldfashioned” nostalgic pictures, & those with old-fashioned style lettering torepresent advertising or a company of “American history,” etc., but none thathave “photo-type” pics. This year there were some repeats & I was so glad!It does get to be an illness, because once you start (like with the Coca Cola tins I gotwhen in Europe) you don’t know when to quit if you see another! You think, “Well, nowthat I’ve got 50 ——.”
After London, with my 1st day out in a rental car for the next week,following a stop in Windsor for the breath-taking view of the castle, plus the heart beatskipping a few times at the majesty of that castle, I had Reading as my 1st destination.After I “finally” found The Olde Town Hall & got a nearby parking spaceafter waiting 30 minutes, and with a dozen rolls of high speed film to photograph all thetins of their collection, I walked in to find that they were in the process of remodelingand had ALL the tins packed away in boxes !!! Cringe ~~~. Who would have ever thought – — . So I just figured I’d HAVE TO come back to England another day :). So on to theCotswolds & Cirencester / Fairford. The following 2 days I nosed around in nearbytowns & found antique shops in Tetbury & Lechlade – ohhhh, it was Heaven! But theprices are a bit “dear!”
During the 3 years in Germany, after a kindergarten-level education inantique furniture & kitchen items in England, I created a “Bygones ofYesteryear” business by buying olde bygones & collectibles at 3-5 flohmarkts 3days each week for 2 1/2 years & refinishing / story-telling & reselling. I foundterrific buys & quickly became very good at bargaining in German :). I find bargaining”in a bargaining atmosphere” to be very exciting & exhilarating. To me it’s”the thrill of the hunt” & to come out feeling as if I got the best half ofthe deal, while at the same time hoping that the other guy feels the same way! I had hadprior bargaining experience in Turkey when I went home “with enough copper to open asmall copper shop,” as my friend put it ! I did a lot of reserach for my flohmarktfinds, although I also knew a lot by growing up on a farm in Wisconsin & had anaffinity to most olde bygones that caught my eye. I also learned enough German tocommunicate & get a hint of what I didn’t know about. I got a terrific”antique/collectibles” education during those years, passed it on throughstories with the items I sold, & am still in love with the olde stuff – have a couplethousand kitchen items of days-gone-by. Here again, I feel I’ve become a keeper of historyfor a future generation.
In case “new people to collecting” ever wonder where all themoney comes from when they hear of those of us with huge collections of things, becausenone is ever used from my husband’s income which is to provide for our family, &”tin collecting” doesn’t qualify as a provision!!! — in England I created& sold handcrafts for 2 years, as I had a home-based, handcraft business in the U.S.for 10 years (weekend shows a few times a year so I’d have a way to get out of the house,mix with the public, & have some “pin” money) while the 3 kids were young,before going overseas. Then in Germany with a newborn baby & 3 teenagers it was the”Bygones of Yesteryear” business. Now in the U.S. I’ve been teaching ESL at acommunity college – English as a Second Language to Adults from Foreign Lands – I have theUniversity of Cambridge/Royal Society of Arts Certificate which I got in San Franciscowhile we were stationed in California 1991-94. There are about 75 centers world-wide whereone can get this certificate & most U.S. people then go overseas with it in order tohave a way to at least earn the country’s average income to have the benefit of living ina foreign land. Without pursuing “more than the average person is willing to do”goal-oriented hours in my days, I would never have the tin collection, or theantique/bygones, so it’s a choice. It doesn’t “just happen.” I’ve”made” a LOT of fabulous experiences happen by getting a bit less sleep thanmost people, that’s all, but it’s sure been fun. We also traveled to more than 24countries in Europe during our 9 years. I know we saw more of England than most people wholive there, but that was because it was a priority. I studied tour brochures & maps& made itineraries, plans, & schedules with the diligence that most people use toprepare for school exams for a degree. I probably walked more of London’s streets than thepeople who live there. I just made it happen. Fun, fun, fun!
So to close, I’ll reveal 1 of 2 old “antique tin” treasures(10 pounds) I found in the Cotswolds: the 4 1/2 x 6″ deep pink cover with silverwriting is the curved spines of 5 Charles Dickens’ books, so the cover has 5 humps &on each is the title of one of the books: (Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, PickwickPapers, Tale of Two Cities, & Christmas Carol). When you set the tin “onend” so the cover & names of the books are facing you, as they would be on ashelf, the rest of the tin looks like the 5 books all next to each other – whitish pages,dark pink edges of the covers, etc. So one side of the tin, as it’s the “cover”of the 1st of the 5 books, says “Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens” with silverfilagree to represent tooling on a leather bound book.
Alas, until next time, I’ll keep my largest, new Harrod’s canister(7″ round x 8″ tall w/a gold knob on the cover, 10.95 duty free filledw/Traditional English Biscuits) on the kitchen counter,…..smiling every time I look atthe magnificent canopied store front with the old fashioned red buses & green deliverytrucks out front,…..thanking the Lord for my Good Shepherd Tours’ opportunity to be ableto be in England again,…..reliving that day with wonderful, heart-warming memories ofshopping in the history-steeped Food Halls,…..& then enjoying a cup of hot chocolateat a Food Bar,…..sharing those moments with a special friend,…..in child-likeawesomeness at the wonder of it all :). In my heart you, in England, are always “nextdoor,” & not an ocean away.
Until next time,
DMK (Donna)