Anyone Have Any Good Ephemera?

[Steph]

I was just feeling nostalgic for some Alox shoelaces I once had ... with marbles on the label.


These are some pix I found of similar ones in case you'd like to know what to look for. Says Alox somewhere on the label. Took me quite awhile to figure out those were marbles. At least that's what I think they are!










What fun stuff do you have?

[Ric]

Those look like marbles to me too. Here are some Alox shoe laces . . . but no marbles on the label, unfortunately.

[zaboo]

I want those red ones!!! I'd put those in my tenny's any day!

[Al Oregon]

Steph - were you 'modularforms' on one of the boards? Here was a picture posted back in December 2007.

[Steph]

There's the Alox name! Thanks, Al!

[Ric]

Dani, People would definitely see you coming. They are really bright. I had to grab 'em. The other kind of cool thing is how the patterns on the two laces line up almost perfectly in the package to make a checkerboard pattern.

I'm a little perplexed by the "Made in Japan" and the "14MO" after St. Louis on the label Al shows. Anyone have thoughts?

[Steph]

Well, the "14" postal zone could give an estimated date from 1943 to 1963.

Edited: Within those two decades, the "Made in Japan" could put it at 1952 or after ... but I'm still reading about that so this is subject to another edit. (Would something before 1952 definitely have had "Made in Occupied Japan" or is it possible that it would just say "Made in Japan"?)

I remember hearing once that Alox was a fiercely "made in America" company ... and of course they specialized in shoe laces ... so I've wondered when and why they would have laces made in Japan. And don't have a good theory for that yet.

[Ric]

The postal zone makes sense. For a minute, I thought maybe the label was made in Japan. But if that were the case, you might expect to see "Printed in Japan"?

According to one source: On Thursday, February 20, 1964, a U.S. federal trademark registration was filed for ALOX and the name was first used on 4/1/1919.

(http://www.trademarkia.com/alox-72187101.html). So it would seem that mine were packaged sometime after the trademark was registered. As for the ones you show . . . ?

[Steph]

Nice info about the trademark!

[clydetul62]

I believe before WW2 the mark would just say "Japan". After WW2-1952 would say "made in occupied japan". After that would be "made in japan" As you said subject to edit.

[Steph]

This book, MacRae's Blue Book, Volume 1, is supposedly 1966 and mentions Alox Old Cobbler brand Shoe Laces and polishes. It has the same postal zone mentioned even though I'm pretty 1966 is after when zip codes were introduced.

This link might take you to the right place, "alox old cobbler". Edit: no, that didn't work. I'll try it one more time. Will it work now?

[kbobam]

I worked my tail off today for twelve hours in sauna-like conditions.

Since I'm too old and dignified for this sort of thing, I'm now into

'hour two' of 'cocktail hour'. Okay. The 'disclaimer' is done!

I was in New York City in 1966, and I'm pretty sure I remember

addresses that ended with "New York (double-digit), New York."

There were definitely five digit zip-codes at the time, but I'm

thinking there were still places of 'reputation' who considered

their address historically and internationally 'sacred', so they

stuck with the old form as long as possible.

Also remember this guy encouraging us to use the full zip code.

[zaboo]

they were called 'area codes' back then I think.... lol mine was '4'. we weren't big enough for double digits I guess.

[kbobam]

That's funny.

Don't remember it exactly, but we weren't doing 'area codes'

with phone numbers yet, so there's no doubt you're right.

At the time we still had letters in the legitimate phone 'number'.

Although they'd been shortened.

My number was OR4-8186.

That's how anyone would have said it at the time.

But if anyone 'old school' actually said Oregon48186,

it still made sense. Sort of. ( :

[Steph]

That lunch box is too fun!

[Greatmacscott]

Weren't they called postal zones?

at that time each city started with 2 and added more as it grew. I don't think any reach 3 digits before the advent of the zip code.

[kbobam]

Well, it's a government thing.

I'm sure they were called 'postal zones' and

many other things at any given point in time.

OMG

I was concentrating so hard on finding an image

of the animated postman I remembered, that I

wasn't really paying attention and thought this

was a mailbox. Definitely a lunchbox.

Although the 'rounded top' lunchboxes do have

a similar shape, so hope no one laughs too much. ( :

[BobBlock]

Zip codes were introduced in 1963 I think

[clydetul62]

Zip codes started July 1, 1963.

Twenty Years Before ZIP Codes:

1943: The United States Post Office Department divides cities into zones. This was a precursor to the Zoning Improvement Plan Codes, or ZIP Codes.


In some if not all areas, the zones wound up as the last two digits of the new ZIP codes.

[ann]

I'm having a "those were the days" moment. My phone number as a child was 3-3506. I know there were two other numbers before the 3, but I didn't have to know them, 'cause I didn't have to dial them to call home . . . (I'm coming right now, the canoe sank, the roof of our camp fell in, I got chased onto a porch by a dog, there was a snake in the road . . .)

[BobBlock]

My youngest son (age 9) said to me last night "Dad, I was watching a show on tv and the person was using a phone where they held a piece up to their ear and they spoke into a cone and it didnt have any numbers on it. How's that work?". By the end of the discussion I pretty much had him convinced that yes, telephones did used to have wires attached to them. He was especially fascinated at the concept of a switchboard and couldn't believe that Grandpa used to have a switchboard operator that sat at an actual switchboard at his company and plugged wires in when people were calling the company (I still remember this from when I was about 8 or 9).

[Steph]

Well, my call for ephemera didn't turn out how I expected, but this has been fun.

[kbobam]

Matches? ( :

[flanco]

I may have posted this one here before. More matches.

[Steph]