Let's end our array of Holiday miscellany with this handsome Christmas tin from the Twenties. A rather-serious portrait of Father Christmas is surrounded by a wreath-like frame of poinsettia blossoms. This covered box, modest in size, is made of machined steel sheets, litho-printed with this holiday illustration. It was made in Baltimore, Maryland, at the Tin Decorating Company—better know as Tindeco. Today, the box would make a wonderful place to keep holiday sweets. Or, perhaps, small ornaments, strings of glass beads or ornament hooks. It would also make a sublime presentation box for a special gift, packed within.
Tindeco was founded in Baltimore in 1914. Within a few years, they were the largest tin decorating plant in the world—with a factory covering seven acres and employing 3,000 workers ('round the clock). They made up to four million stamped metal boxes every day: for candy, cookies, cakes, tobacco, medicines, bandages, talcum powder and other household items. The factory was entirely self-contained; that is, it housed their art department, all manufacturing and finishing, paint mixing, even a little doctor's office for those employees who were overcome by the heat or hurt with the sharp metal sheets. Many of the machines at Tindeco had to be designed and crafted by the company itself, such was their cutting-edge position in the industry. Many of these machines were operated by the German and Polish immigrants who had settled in Baltimore.
Today, the waterfront factory has been converted into apartments—where one can glance across the harbor to Fort McHenry.
Click on the photo above to learn more about this handsome, festive Christmas box.
Though our Greenwich Village store is now permanently closed, LEO Design is still alive and well! Please visit our on-line store where we continue to sell Handsome Gifts (www.LEOdesignNYC.com).
We also can be found in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania at The Antique Center of Strabane (www.antiquecenterofstrabane.com).
Or call to arrange to visit our Pittsburgh showroom (by private appointment only). 917-446-4248