Pictured above is what is believed to be a previously cataloged, circa 1896 Richard Outcault “Yellow Kid” Wax Head Full Figure Doll Candy Container (click here for a history of the evolution of the Yellow Kid). Extensive research has been unable to discover another example of this early, newspaper comics character having surfaced, nor any mention of the container in the extensive references pertaining to Yellow Kid Collectibles.

The Yellow Kid was the name of a lead comic strip character that ran from 1895 to 1898 in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, and later in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. Created and drawn by Richard F. Outcault in a strip entitled Hogan’s Alley (and later under other names as well), it was one of the first Sunday supplement comic strips in an American newspaper. The Yellow Kid is also famous for its connection to the coining of the term “yellow journalism.”

Mickey Dugan, better known as The Yellow Kid, was a bald, snaggle-toothed boy who wore an over-sized yellow nightshirt, and hung around in a slum alley typical of certain areas of squalor that existed in turn of the 19th to 20th century in New York City. Hogan’s Alley was filled with equally odd characters, mostly other children. With a goofy grin, the Kid habitually spoke in a ragged, peculiar ghetto slang, which was printed on his shirt, a device meant to lampoon advertising billboards.

This apparently previously unknown Yellow Kid Candy Container features the Yellow Kid doll seated with a large drum between his legs. The delicate, thin paperboard drum is covered with an even more delicate, yellow crepe paper, and the top and sides of the drum slide off the base revealing the container which held the candy. The Yellow Kid doll/figure features a wax head, wax hands, and some type of papier-mâché composition shoes. His torso is solid and appears to be contiguous with his head. It is also likely made of wax. He wears a stiff, cloth nightshirt or tunic that appears to have originally been off-white in color (though possibly a light yellow), but is now mostly a dark brown. It appears that he may have originally worn a small hat (there is a small hole in his head and a small ring around the hole that appears to be a “shadow” of where a hat may have been.

The candy container measures approximately 4” tall to the top of the seated Yellow Kid’s wax head, and 4” by 4” at the base (measured from the soles of the Kid’s shoes to his upright back and across his widely spread legs). The drum shaped paper container itself measures approx. 2” tall and 2” in diameter across the head of the drum.

Although the candy container is not marked in any way, there is absolutely no doubt that this is the Yellow Kid – besides his trademark, floor length nightshirt/tunic and the fact that he is “beating the drum,” the figure’s wax head distinctly shows the characteristics of Outcault’s comic creation. This includes two large front teeth (the Kid was often called “snaggle-toothed”), very large ears that are perpendicular to his head, and the trademark Yellow Kid “goofy grin.”

While the cloth nightshirt of the Yellow Kid is complete and intact, it has been stained a uniform, dark brown color (all of the nightshirt except the arms and the top of the back), and there are blotches of a similar brown color on the sides of the Drum. It appears to us that the original candy contained in the Drum melted or deteriorated in some way and caused this staining. The pattern of blotches on the sides of the Drum actually give it the “look” of an “animal skin” surface which, in truth, is quite attractive (although not original). The fact that the body of the Yellow Kid’s Nightshirt is quite uniformly stained dark brown and the arms remain light, creates a rather appealing look also (again, however, not original).

While we were able to uncover a number of very rare and highly desirable wax head doll candy containers from the late 19th century, we have found no mention in any of the references, nor any online references, to a Yellow Kid Candy Container such as the one offered here. We believe that it may, in fact, be a previously unknown Yellow Kid item and perhaps the only known example. Any information regarding the rarity and/or manufacturer of this fantastic Yellow Kid Candy Container would be greatly appreciated!!!

If you are interested in learning more about this item, please see our eBay listing.

The stunningly beautiful, 1890′s embossed and extensively gold gilt-encrusted chromolithograph advertising sign pictured above is among the most striking pieces of advertising we have ever come across. To say that the chromolithography is of THE very highest quality is a gross understatement – this sign is the consummate example of the very finest art and craftsmanship of the Lithographic Art. It is signed by the lithographer – Hermann Schott, who along with Klingenberg Bros., produced many of the most elaborate and highly sought-after cigar labels of the same style and period.

But above and beyond the beauty of the sign, it is its content wherein lies the story. The sign advertises “Don Jose” Cigars manufactured by “Jose Tinchant y Gonzales & Co. Cigars,” owned and operated by transplanted African-American Cigar maker, New Orleans Creole “free man of color,” and second lieutenant in the 6th Louisiana Volunteers (Colored) during the Civil War, Joseph Tinchant. At the center of the sign is a stunning portrait of Joseph Tinchant, himself!

Although the factories of “Jose Tinchant y Gonzales & Co.” were located in Belgium, the company had extensive American connections. Three generations of the Tinchant family lived and worked in New Orleans. The patriarch was brought from Africa in slavery to the island of Haiti, and was emancipated during the Haitian Revolution of the 1790′s. He married a woman who was the child of a white man and a free woman of color, and the couple immigrated to Louisiana where, as a “free man of color,” Jacques Tinchant (father of Joseph and Edouard of “Jose Tinchant y Gonzales & Co. and son of the freed Haitian slave) married a mixed race woman and spent his life in various business interests which straddled the line between the white and Creole communities of New Orleans. While census records describe Jacques Tinchant as a “f.m.c.” (free man of color), in his business dealings that designation sometimes appeared and sometimes did not. It was not that Jacques was “passing for white” (as the designation would disappear and reappear over and over), but the stigma associated with that designation was sometimes “inconvenient” to the customers (white or black) that he was dealing with.

In the antebellum years, New Orleans society was much more complex than the “slave and master” society that dominated most of the American South. Jacques made a living and held a prominent position in society as a land developer who facilitated the transfer of land and real estate from white owners to “free people of color.” By 1840, however, the structure of society in New Orleans had begun to change and the actions of the so-called “free person of color” became much more restricted. The Tichant family made the decision to sail for France with their 5 young boys, and after some hard times in France, eventually ended up in Antwerp. There the family established themselves as cigar makers, and around 1860, at least 3 of the boys had returned to New Orleans (Joseph included) where they were listed in census reports as either “cigar makers” or “tobacconists.”

When Union forces captured New Orleans in 1862, Joseph Tichant helped to raise the 6th Louisiana Infantry (Colored) and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. His brother Edouard enlisted in the regiment. After the War, Edouard became the representative of the 6th Ward of the city of New Orleans, at the Constitutional Convention of the State of Louisiana in 1867–68, a Radical Republican convention made up of mostly men of color which framed the Louisiana State Constitution that took effect during Reconstruction.
By 1877, with the end of Reconstruction in the South and the plight of African Americans there firmly in the hands of the segregationist elements, Joseph and his brother Edouard had again crossed the Atlantic and joined their brothers who had established a cigar factory in Antwerp. Joseph took on the name of his wife – Gonzales – and modified his own name to reflect a Cuban heritage (a great advantage in the cigar industry – even if most of the tobacco for the cigars manufactured at the factory came from Mexico). The company name was changed to “Jose Tinchant y Gonzales & Co.” Their premier brand was “La Flor de Don Jose” with a portrait of Joesph on the cigar’s label and cigar band.

Click here to read more about the fascinating history of the African American Tinchant family.

If you’d like to learn more about this piece, further details can be found at our eBay listing.

It’s America’s oldest soft drink. Pictured above is an original, tin lithograph advertising sign from around 1933. It features a wonderful image of the “Moxiemobile,” an advertising automobile that was first manufactured for Moxie in 1915.

There were several Moxiemobiles on American roads in the 1930′s, and the example seen on this sign is the Rolls Royce model. On the sign, the Moxiemobile can be seen speeding along a country road and passing a large Billboard with advertising text that reads “Drink Moxie / Distinctively Different.”

“Distinctively Different,” indeed. Moxie originated in Lowell, Massachusetts, at Doctor Augustin Thompson’s Moxie Nerve Food Company (Source) in 1876. It was originally intended to be a “cure-all” serum, which may be why some describe the soda’s taste as “medicinal.” It’s main ingredient is gentian root, which is used to help digestion and upset stomach.

On the original Moxie label, the makers claimed that the beverage:

Contains not a drop of Medicine, Poison, Stimulant or Alcohol. But is a simple sugarcane-like plant grown near the Equator and farther south, was lately accidentally discovered by Lieut. Moxie and has proved itself to be the only harmless nerve food known that can recover brain and nervous exhaustion, loss of manhood, imbecility and helplessness. It has recovered paralysis, softening of the brain, locomotor ataxia, and insanity when caused by nervous exhaustion. It gives a durable solid strength, makes you eat voraciously, takes away the tired, sleepy, listless feeling like magic, removes fatigue from mental and physical over work at once, will not interfere with action of vegetable medicines.

Some speculate that the name “Moxie” came from an Alogonquin Indian word, a tribe populating the section of Maine Dr. Thompson where Dr. Thompson grew up. It is possible that the name was derrived from the word “maski”, meaning “medicine”, which also could have been the origin of the name. As a Moxie chronicler adds, “Dr. Thompson no doubt believed that giving an Indian name to his product would lend it a mystique and perhaps imply that it contained Indian medicines.” (Source)

If you want to read more about the history of Moxie, further information can be found here.

If you’d like to learn more about this piece, further details can be found at our eBay listing.

This beautiful, circa 1905, celluloid-wrapped, advertising pocket match safe has a fascinating back story connecting it to illegal gambling in the Big Apple at the turn of the 20th century. The Match Safe (or “Vesta” as it is called across the pond) features a chromolithograph image of a beautiful young woman in the “Pretty Girl” style of Angelo Asti. The sultry young beauty wears an exceptionally low cut dress which exposes her bare shoulder and much of her ample bosom. She stares dreamily to the right with her flowing auburn hair draped seductively over her left shoulder. The opposite side features advertising text that reads simply “Compliments of / Joseph Levy / Merry Xmas.”

Although there is no information regarding the identity of “Joseph Levy,” we did find that in 1903, a Joseph Levy owned a Saloon / Barroom on Montgomery Street in New York City. In July of that year, Levy was arrested and taken to jail for running a “policy parlor” at his saloon. Policy was a form of gambling similar to Keno, as played in Casinos today. Participants would wager on a number and once all bets were in, a number would be drawn from a barrel and the winner paid off with money collected from the losing bettors. This was illegal gambling, hence Levy’s arrest.

Not only a beautiful match safe but a wonderful Christmas Gift from your neighborhood “Policy Parlor!”

Merry Christmas from the Walnutts Antiques family to yours!

If you’d like to learn more about this piece, further details can be found at our eBay listing.

For more information on Match Safes, you can check out the site for the International Match Safe Museum!