Years ago I acquired this cute little girl's shoulder bag that featured art of Alice and the White Rabbit with a Rocking Horse Fly (you don't see that every day). For years I did not know who the manufacturer was, but I suspected it was a company called Salient Inc. of East Longmeadow, MA, who (according to Tomart and the CMD) had a license to produce children's purses and wallets for the years 1951-1952. Salient is listed in the CMD, but there is no merchandise page in the CMD.
Flash forward a few years, probably around 1998, and I was at the Atlantique show in Atlantic City NJ (now sadly departed) when I came across this brown cardboard box. The dealer had one of these handbags sitting on the top of it. I opened the lid and saw this:
Holy crap! A full box with original built-in store display for the Alice shoulder bag (throw in a few Donald Duck and Pluto for good measure). While it is difficult to read, the lid has a stenciled 'Small Fry Shoulder Bag' on the top, and a smudge that was probably the item count. This box held 18, I don't know if that is correct as it is really, really full. My guess would be that it originally held a dozen. And how clever is it to create a built-in store display in the shipping box itself? I love it. Here is a cleaned-up scan of the inside lid/counter display. Shoulder bags for little ladies indeed!
There must have been a small find on this bag back in the 1990s, as they turn up every once in a while in mint condition - I have a few extra as well in the Wonderland Bazaar if you'd care to have one. But this is the only full box with all three styles I've come across.
1 comment:
Wow, what an amazing find!
I had no idea that the show in Atlantic City was kaput.
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