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Old
But Odd Gift Ideasby
Mike Cox | |
Finding
just the right Christmas
gift for that special someone on your list has been an issue for Texans since
the holiday first became commercialized.
The December 1911 issue of a
long-forgotten but fun-to-read iconoclastic monthly called K. Lamity’s Harpoon
offered a full-page ad from a Uvalde
taxidermist with some unusual gift items for sale that some modern readers will
probably wish were still available today.
Published in Austin,
the Harpoon’s masthead proclaimed: “Minnows are safe, I am after whales.” Like
most of that era’s practitioners of personal journalism, owner-editor John S.
“K. Lamity” Bonner wrote most of the content, sold and composed advertising, handled
the circulation list and kept the office swept.
Doubtless written by Bonner,
the taxidermist’s ad copy began:
“Don’t waste money on useless Christmas
presents. Give your friends or relatives something artistic, as well as valuable.”
Women, he continued, often send their male relatives or friends a box
of cigars “with Johnson grass wrappers and alfalfa fillers.” Such cigars, he continued,
“won’t smoke, and are not even pretty.”
But what about a deer’s foot thermometer?
Yes, long before all the wares offered via toll-free 800 numbers, from knives
that never need sharpening to singing bass, the Muter and Collier Taxidermy Co.
of Uvalde sold
preserved deer’s feet with thermometers attached, suitable for hanging.
“Beautifully
polished,” Bonner waxed on, the deer-foot temperature tellers were “an article
that is useful as well as an art treasure.” All cloven-hooved stocking stuffer
cost was $1.50 plus a dime for postage and handling.
Of course, the women
folks could not be overlooked.
“Gentlemen, as a rule, send books that
have been read [re-gifting apparently is not a new concept], glassware that breaks,
and is lost, handkerchiefs that won’t blow good, or glucose candy that makes ‘em
sick,” Bonner went on.
So, rather than giving any of those cliché articles,
“send them an art treasure – a beautiful and useful work basket, made from the
shell of an armadillo.”
Highly polished and lined with “dainty silk,”
the baskets are “not only a great curiosity, but valuable and handy, and will
last a life-time, and then some.” In other words, give a gal an armadillo shell
and create a family heirloom.
An armored basket cost $1.50, same as the
deer’s foot thermometer, plus “a trifle extra for express charges.”
Another
gift idea ran only $1, a Miller’s Lightning Nut Cracker. Manufactured by J.H.
Miller in Austin, the nut cracker, according
to an ad in the Harpoon, had been “wonderfully improved.” (Presumably from an
earlier model, though that is not explained in the ad.) Eighty per cent of the
time, the sales copy boasted, with Miller’s Lightning Nut Cracker “nuts come whole
from the shell.” On top of its efficiency, the ad continued, the device was “handsome
enough for parlor, or ladie’s [sic] hat ornament.”
Imagine how stylish
a young lady in 1911 would look while strolling along Congress Avenue with an
armadillo basket in her hand and a nut cracker on her hat.
For young boys,
the Harpoon editor could think of no better gift than a copy of his self-published
book, “The Three Adventurers,” an action-filled novel of the early days along
the Texas frontier.
“Beautifully illustrated,” the 350-page softcover
book cost 50 cents, payable in coin, money order or postage stamps.
Even
though the book retailed for only half a dollar, Bonner had one more offer to
sweeten the deal:
“Buy your boy a copy of “The Three Adventurers” for
a Christmas present. Let
him read it clear thorough, and then ask him how he liked the book. If he does
not say that it is the best story he ever read, send the book back to us (uninjured)
and we will return you your 50 cents.”
Alas, advertisers in this issue
of the Harpoon offered no specific recommendations of gifts for girls. Maybe they
got armadillo baskets just like their moms.
© Mike Cox
"Texas
Tales" December
18 , 2008 column
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