Beautiful old Christmas box from The Emporium in San Francisco

I recently purchased some vintage Christmas Cinderella stamps, and they came packaged in something even more beautiful than the stamps themselves — this old box from The Emporium department store in San Francisco, California.

The box measures 9½ inches by 6¼ inches by 1 inch. The illustration on the top is in black, red, green and blue. It features a tree-lined village and a trio of figures decked out in wide skirts and/or scarves. No artist is noted. The box originally contained "12 All Different Parchment Folders Colorful Christmas Designs." Perhaps they were done by the same artist who did the design for the box.

There's a price tag for The Emporium stating that this cost 50 cents at the time. I think that helps to confirm that this is many, many decades old. Emporium Capwell Co. was a San Francisco department store chain that was founded in the late 1800s and was known as The Emporium from 1896 to 1980. It then underwent some branding changes before going defunct in 1996.

If I had to hazard a guess as to when this box was produced I'd probably say the 1940s. But nothing from 1930 to 1960 would surprise me as the right answer.

Christmastime was huge at The Emporium, as was the case at many big department stores in the 20th century. This 1995 article on SFGate details some of its Christmas spectacles and readers' memories of them. There are also a lot of comments on this 2024 Facebook post.

Saturday's peaceful postcard

This undated postcard (probably from the 1960s) features the "Waiting Room for ceremonial tea" at the Mikyato Hotel in Kyoto, Japan, a city that dates to 794. It's a beautiful location, with its waterfall, boulders, bushes, gravel and small structure that blends perfectly with its surrounding. It believe it's called a chashitsu, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

According to Wikipedia:

"The term chashitsu came into use after the start of the Edo period (c. 1600). In earlier times, various terms were used for spaces used for tea ceremony, such as chanoyu zashiki (茶湯座敷, "sitting room for chanoyu"), sukiya (place for poetically inclined aesthetic pursuits [fūryū, 風流]) such as chanoyu), and kakoi (囲, "partitioned-off space"). An account stated that it was the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa who built the first chashitsu at his Higashiyama villa in Kyoto. It was described as a small room of four-and-a-half tatami and was separated from the main residence."

This location may still exist, though it's surely been modified over the decades. And of course tea ceremonies for tourists are much more commercialized. It's likely there are multiple hotel-based ceremonial tea room experiences offered in Kyoto. This website for Miyako Hotel Kyoto Hachijo offers a "Japanese tea ceremony experience wearing kimono" for 10,000 yen (about $64 today). 

And I found a 2023 article by The Mainichi newspaper that features some photos that look like they might be of the same location shown on this postcard. 

Ringing in the holly-jolly month with a vintage Christmas postcard

Somehow, December returned.

We're now in the Yuletide countdown and the countdown to 2026, so there will be some holiday-themed posts sprinkled across this month, even though it's 70 degrees today in the Sonoran desert.

Papergreat has featured more then 200 posts themed "Christmas" over its decade and a half of existence. I haven't actually updated the directory since 2000, but this post will get you to dozens upon dozens of past posts, if jingle bells are your jam.

Today's postcard is a Whitney Made card that was postmarked at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve in 1915 and mailed to Clara Hoff of Berkeley, California. The short cursive note on the back states: 

Dear Clara

I wish you all the good things your stockings can possibly hold.

Mrs. Schneider

The image on the front of the postcard features Santa Claus holding up a lantern so he can double-check his list while on someone's porch. The message states:

I'LL BE THERE TO-NIGHT

SO TURN DOWN YOUR LIGHT

HANG UP YOUR STOCKING

AND CLOSE YOUR EYES TIGHT

The idea that you're not supposed to see Santa Claus is a superstition that has persisted through the decades. When being interviewed for the Dartmouth Folklore Archive in 2021, 18-year-old L.M. stated:

“Me and my younger cousin Mallory every year had an app on our Mom’s phones called Santa Tracker. We would track Santa while he was flying around delivering presents around dessert time to make sure he wouldn’t come to our house before we were asleep because we wouldn’t get any presents. Santa’s not going to give you any presents unless you’re in bed and asleep. If you weren’t in bed when Santa came it meant you were naughty and got Coal in your stocking, that's what our Moms told us.”

A pair of mystery snapshots

Today we have a pair of small old snapshots. Found photos for which the stories and histories are no longer attached and may never be reunited. First up is this snapshot, which is 2¾ inches wide by 4½ inches tall. It shows a woman in what appears to be a bathrobe standing in mostly dirt yard with a child. A dog lays in the background, near a gate. 

The writing on the front states 1924 and "Marie & Caroline."

The names also appear on the back, where the date is now June 1925, one full century ago.

That's it. We don't know where this is, whose scrapbook it came from or what ever happened to Marie & Caroline.

This photo, just 3½ inches by 2½ inches, features a couple reclining in a bed. There's a cursive caption on the back, but it doesn't help us with who they are or when this was taken. It states: "Here is our bed. We were going to be silly but that is what the head of our bed looks like."

If I were forced to make a guess, I'd say this one was taken sometime in the 1940s or 1950s.

Upon closer examination, the photo is a little weird. At first I thought maybe it was taken from outside, through a bedroom window that caused some reflections. But upon closer examination I realized it's a double exposure. If you look closely, you can see the faint image of another woman to the right of the woman in the bed. No, it's not a ghost. Definitely a double exposure. Possibly of the same woman. I miss the days when I might have excitedly claimed it to be a ghost photo, though.

I've had a ton of mystery photos and mystery real photo postcards on Papergreat in the past. Alas, there's no single directory of all of them, but one good place to dive in, if you're interested, is this 2021 post.

Shades of Clark Ashton Smith

I had the high (only?) bid on this thing at a recent fundraising auction to help folks recover from early autumn flooding in Miami, Arizona, my favorite small town that I've discovered since we moved here in 2021. 

Now the thing sits on my bookshelf. 

It reminds me a little bit of the eerie sculptures of Clark Ashton Smith, which I wrote about in 2017.

Also, I've read enough paranormal short stories and seen enough episodes of "Night Gallery" — not to mention those episodes of "The Brady Bunch" with Hawaii, the tiki idol and Vincent Price — to realize that I'm now cohabitating with a cursed object, and I should probably tread very lightly.

Sci-fi book cover: "Roller Coaster World"

• Title: Roller Coaster World
• Secondary cover text: "Their world was dying of madness"
• Author: Kenneth Bulmer (1921-2005)
• Cover illustrator: Frank Kelly Freas (1922-2005), who was known as the "Dean of Science Fiction Artists," according to Wikipedia
• Publisher: Ace Books 
• Publication date: July 1972
• Pages: 173
• Format: Paperback
• Price: 75 cents
• Teaser blurb on first page: Once upon a time there were people who had asked for an electrode to be inserted into their brains to stimulate the pleasure centre. Then they had starved to death experiencing the ultimate pleasure. The law had outlawed that pretty game. Did the Exisensis call on forbidden lore to give their brand of pleasure? Would being number one in the Exsensi business bring him pleasure? He was concerned over the pleasure it would bring; it was a drug he craved and he meant to taste it somehow.
• First paragraph: He thought he could get in a couple hours of sleep before they removed the last of the city. Sleep wasn't too important; but it was as well not to neglect it. He stood for a moment by his bed making up his mind which Dream to programme, unable to choose between the offerings on the catalogues of Dream-a-Scheme and Snooze-a-matic, finally deciding on one of the old faithfuls from Dial-a-Dream.
• Last paragraph: "I feel weary," he said. He looked at Shari as she crouched over him, empty of tears, as they flew above a new planet that had no need of artificial stimulants. "I feel so tired," he said. "Isn't it wonderful?"
• Sexism/objectification-of-women rating: Moderate to high.  
• Excerpt #1: Marsen looked surprised. "I didn't think anyone looked at tv anymore." "Very few do. It's a dying medium." "Why bother with it?" asked Flora, craning her head to look up against the reflected light where the transportation crews hung in their antigrav control units. "Excess is so much more fun." "News are current affairs are regarded as ephemeral. When R returns to power," commented Wormleigh, his face composed, "there will be many changes."
• Excerpt #2: This man Wormleigh both fascinated and repelled Marsden. "I understood R subscribed to the views of Hobbes," he said, probing. "As Leviathan says, one must subsume the rights of individuals into  the right of the sovereign — if I have that right." Wormleigh faced him. "R is developing a philosophy of government. We await from day to day fresh resolutions. All pre-atomic and pre-googologic systems are in decay."
• Excerpt #3: The landslide victory of Leyden's party had been shaped by means that Marsden did not inquire into with any strictness. Corruption as a means of acquiring power had long ago been invalidated; but there were other means. He was an assemblyman, a member of government, and his duty lay plainly before him.
• Excerpt #4: They didn't bother to call in on his screen. They simply opened up his personal keyed-lock with a sonic-pick and bashed the door down. They jumped into his apartment, spraddle-legged, tough, leather-clad, wearing crash helmets and visors. Between them they were armed with a motley collection of weapons — sporting rifles, target shooters, one man had an aralest. The only thing the weapons had in common was — they all pointed at Douglas Marsden's chest.
• Rating on Goodreads: 3.25 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review excerpt: In 2012, Toby wrote: "Surprisingly enjoyable for Kenneth Bulmer's books. A bored, burnt-out athlete/socialite's quest for meaning in a decaying society full of unproductive hedonists."
• Rating on Amazon: 3.9 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review excerpt: In 2022, M Carley wrote: "I don't read a lot of sci-fi, so maybe this is normal, but I wish there had been more focus on the unique aspects of the world and the way the cities moved from place to place. Up until the end of the book, it just seemed like the book was about Doug and his job/love issues. It had potential, I just wanted more sci-fi I guess."

1907 Thanksgiving postcard

Happy Thanksgiving. There's a lot to unpack in this 1907 postcard published by The Rose Company. Let's start with the illustration on the front. At the top, there's a golden crown. Underneath the crown is a turkey. And the turkey is standing on a shield that has the design of the United States of America's flag, over the top of which is printed these words:

Europe has its turkey

Asia has the same

But the turkey

of America

Is King ~

of all the game

With the crown and the turkey and the pro-America message this card hits in some disconcerting ways in 2025, but that's all my personal projection based upon our current moment with kings and "turkeys" and America First.¹

If I had to speculate, I'd say this is a fairly harmless Thanksgiving postcard that's being a bit playful in touting American exceptionalism during an era when the United States' global power was rising. If anyone has any insights or alternate interpretations of this card, I'd love to read them in the comments.

There are cursive messages on both the front and back of this postcard, which was sent from Newton, New Jersey, to Lowell, Massachusetts, in late November 1907. The message on the front states:

Did you know Mr Hiles [?] has the Typhoid Fever?

Someone having typhoid fever in 1907 would have been a serious medical issue. Though mortality rates were on the decline at that point, thousands of Americans were still dying of the disease. Within just a few years, though, sanitation measures including water filtration, chlorination and pasteurization tamed typhoid's spread, and the military was using a proven vaccine to protect troops in high-risk areas.

The note on the back is a rather perfunctory:

Dear friend:

Rec'd your postal and hope you think of me again real soon. Thanking you for same.

Previous Thanksgiving posts

• Public service announcement that's still relevant
• Bettina's Thanksgiving in the country (and more meal suggestions)
• Nostalgic school bulletin-board material for Thanksgiving
• Three colorful vintage Thanksgiving postcards featuring turkeys
• Stock photo of pilgrims and a dead turkey from a 1940 magazine
• 1971 Thanksgiving gift edition of Ideals magazine
• If you still need a Thanksgiving dessert, make some strawberry pie
• I'd blame the tryptophan, but cat pileups like this happen every day
• 1950 Thanksgiving ads
• (Missing) snapshot & memories: Thanksgiving
• Happy Thanksgiving: Enjoy vintage anthropomorphic vegetables
• Thanksgiving postcard from 1914, plus a little guffaw

Footnote

1. I had a whole rant forming in my head, but I'll be good since today is a holiday. My head is spinning, anyways. I'm not sure if we're barreling toward a repeat of 1789, a repeat of 1933 or some new mixture that future historians simply refer to as "shades of 2026."

Unintentionally unsettling eBay listing

I did a double-take and then uttered a deep sign when I saw that these two vintage mid-century books being offered together on eBay were titled And So the Wall Was Built and A Story That Has No End. Hits a little too close to home these days.