Christmas collectibles
Antiques Roadshow specialist Marc Allum takes a look at the origins of a traditional British Christmas and the allure of festive antiques
Antiques Roadshow expert Marc Allum explores the traditions of Christmas past
There’s nothing quite like the smell of a real Christmas tree. It instantly transports me back to my childhood, reminding me of the large painted bulbs of our hand-me-down 1930s Christmas lights. Shaped like fruit, snowmen and Father Christmas’ heads, the annual ritual of trying to make them work exasperated my father, but they were truly magical. Add to this an ancient family fairy and a varied mixture of homemade and commercial decorations and the tree was a homely, heart-warming affair. Year in, year out, the same 1950s advent calendar was reused, the next Christmas issue of The Beano Annual duly appeared and the same plaster snowman appeared on the top of the roughly iced Christmas cake; no one minded and life was good!
This is perhaps the idyllic and nostalgic view that many of us have of a family Christmas and nostalgia is what ultimately fuels collectors.
Those cynical people among us might complain that Christmas is too commercial, but in reality that’s nothing new. The commercial aspects of Christmas have a long and interesting history, and it’s this history that provides us with a wonderful array of festive collectibles.
Traditional times
The origins of our traditional Christmas are firmly rooted in the Victorian period. Of course, it existed well before this, but the image of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the family standing around a magnificent tree (pictured left, published in the Illustrated London News of 1848), with its boughs spread over myriad toys and presents, popularised the German traditions that Prince Albert brought with him. This ideal spread throughout the Empire, and it is in those early years of Victoria’s reign that we see many of our popular customs evolve, such as the Christmas card and Christmas crackers.
In 1843, the publication of Charles Dickens’
A Christmas Carol cemented our notion of Victorian sentimentalism. The industrial revolution and the new cheap penny postal service further contributed to the commercialisation of this once pagan celebration.
Popular ephemera
Perhaps the biggest legacy of this period is ephemera – a favourite and largely affordable area for collectors. Colourful lithographed scraps, festive cards – ranging from beautiful die-cut examples to postcards, Christmas catalogues, decorations and advertising material can be purchased for just a few pounds. Vintage pop-up lithographed nativity scenes and advent calendars are popular, too.
The first Christmas card was designed in 1843 by John Callcott Horsley at the behest of Henry Cole (the first director of the Victoria & Albert Museum), although the image of a child being offered a sup of wine did create some trouble at the time. Original examples can cost several hundred pounds but my personal favourite to collect are the strangely black-humoured and sometimes cruel cards depicting subjects such as dead robins or birds drowned in a punch bowl annotated with messages like ‘May Yours be a Joyful Christmas’ – a little out of canter with our modern sensibilities but very sought after. It’s a wonderfully diverse field that finds its commercial zenith in the glamorous American adverts of the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, and the Coca-cola advertisements with a ruddy-faced Santa Claus by artists such as Haddon Sundblom.
Antique decorations
Although the tradition of bringing greenery indoors was historically prevalent, the idea of dressing a whole tree was definitely German. Illuminating them with candles was popular and the array of clip-on holders and coloured pressed-glass ‘fairy lights’ – hung with wire loops – was one of the magical aspects of Christmas that we all take for granted with our cheap electric lights. Of course, these days, decorating a tree with candles is considered risky but I do use a large quantity of Victorian glass Christmas tree lights every year on the mantelpiece, and they can usually be purchased for a few pounds each.
One of the most popular tree decorations is the ball, or bauble. They were first made in the town of Lauscha, in the Thuringia region of Germany. Initially they were blown into clay moulds, and like many Christmas traditions were popularised in the early-victorian period. By 1870, the craze had reached America and Woolworth’s began to sell imported Lauscha ornaments in 1880. An annual Christmas glass ‘ball’ market takes place in Lauscha, where baubles are still made.
Antique baubles are much sought after and are particularly popular with collectors in the States. Values will vary greatly depending on the design and rarity. The earliest examples tend to be in the form of fruits, but my favourites are the kitsch Russian astronaut and rocket baubles from the
1950s and ’60s. As for the top of the tree, most people in Britain use a fairy or a star, but ‘tree toppers’, to coin an American phrase, also come in glass, and vintage spire-like decorations with hollow bases are popular collectibles.
In-demand packaging
Christmas packaging is something we all take for granted. Our supermarkets and shops peddle large quantities of Christmas-themed luxuries but it’s nothing new. Huntley & Palmers biscuits, founded in 1822 by Joseph Huntley, pioneered the use of metal tins, later profiting from the invention of lithographic printing to produce its famous novelty containers. Every year the company produced a new catalogue of designs, primarily aimed at the Christmas market. Although the themes of the tins were not necessarily festive, the countless variations, ranging from the more common stack of books, to clocks, lawn rollers, buses and aircraft, were designed to appeal to youngsters and adults alike. Condition of the tins is important, but prices can generally range from just a few pounds to over a thousand pounds.
Sweet or ‘candy’ containers come in an enormous variety; old examples – often in the shape of buildings and made of card – sometimes doubled up as candle holders or Christmas tree lights with coloured tissues and mica to give the impression of stained glass.
Traditional toys
If there’s one toy that firmly encapsulates the Victorian sentiment of Christmas, then it must be the Noah’s Ark. Good 19th-century examples of these educational German or Swiss wooden hand-carved and painted menageries can sell for thousands of pounds. A period Gamage’s Christmas Bazaar catalogue of 1913 is a valuable resource that perfectly illustrates – through several hundred pages – the diversity of gifts and decorations on offer. There are an amazing 21 pages of boxed ‘parlour games’ alone, not to mention tin-plate toys, Steiff animals and a whole page of Noah’s Arks. Facsimiles of the catalogue can be purchased online and are a fascinating insight into Christmas past.
Nativity scenes or ‘putz’ villages are also a popular collectible, particularly in America where the tradition originated with the Pennsylvanian Dutch community. Noah’s Arks would often figure in the narrative of these village scenes, which eventually evolved into more and more elaborate constructions. In the post-war period the Japanese manufactured boxed sets of ‘putz’ villages, which were often fashioned from cardboard and decorated with faux snow and moss. Good vintage sets can change hands for £150.
So, if you favour a traditional Christmas complete with a whopping great spruce tree, hand-blown baubles and coloured glass candle holders, then look to its Germanic origins and the 19th-century influence of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert. I love it.