Small Fry Shoulder Bag by Salient

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.