Matchbox labels

Go to Google Images and click "Indian Matchbox Labels".  You will be astounded by the endless list of images and you will find an amazing array!  I also learnt that this is a hobby called 'Phillumeny"!  

Used in our home during the 60s and later, it was 'Cheetah Fight' matches which was very popular.  But I have not been able to retain even one.  The label was pasted on the little box made entirely of thin wood shaving and dressed with paper, including the sliding tray that contained 50 wooden sticks.  The label had a forest scene in the background of a villager with a sickle fighting a cheetah.  Later it was changed to a simpler logo of a fighter with a sickle held up against a pouncing cheetah. 

Matchbox labels in the 1960s and 70s were an outrage among the boys here who staked them for various games with marbles.  The loser of the game has to give the winner the agreed number of labels.  Due to its demand among the boys many small shops sold a packet of ten labels for 2 paisa.  Cheeta Fight brand was not accepted for games!  "Chavi" brand [key] was valued very low.   These values were fixed on popularity and scarcity!  The more scarce [rare] its value was higher. There also used to be ordinary labels of film heroes mixed up with the packet.  These were unacceptable for the stakes as they were considered worthless.  Sometimes these were found in the little packets tied with a thread when we bought.  We had no choice.  Invariably the one on top would be a very attractive and rare label!  So we fell for them only to find these hero labels mixed up along with other low value and 'common' labels.  We were taken for a ride and we knew it.    

Many labels in my collection have been 'won' by me, mostly playing the marble games with other street boys.  He who boasted the most number of matches won in total was a hero among the boys!  Counting them was great fun! Later when its popularity died and having outgrown playing these street games, I decided to put all the collected labels in an album type book.   A Rotary Club souvenir came in handy.  There was even scope for classified themes now. 

Googling, I discovered that there are dedicated match label collectors who collect thematically and I was doing no different. The only difference is that I have stopped adding to it 35 years ago.  I do not belong to the 'collector' category but these things have 'accumulated' due to my wins and also many I had purchased in those packets. 

These match labels have funny spellings also.  Observe as you scroll, click on the pictures to 'enlargify'.

Flowers

Big matches were rare to find!  They came on match box packets. 

I have used my 7th standard notes for the album. 

Animal Heads

Elephants.

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Vintage Button Collection

"Households have long followed the practice of snipping buttons from clothing headed for the ragbag. Do you remember playing with your mother’s or grandmother’s button box or jar or tin? The impulse to collect is a basic part of the human psyche, and buttons have been admired and collected for centuries." says National Button Society [formed in 1938], in its web page.   How true!  It is somehow an item too tempting to dispose away with the clothing.

Buttons are fascinating because they can have myriad varieties. There were a few buttons in a little box in the tool draw of our sewing machine and a few in possession of my aunt who knew knitting.  That box was a mixture of some new buttons as well as buttons salvaged from old clothes, with snipped pieces of thread still in tact!  Almost all of them were either shirt, trousers or coat buttons while only a few were sweater buttons which were in my aunt's box.  My mother had saved a few tiny buttons from my childhood shirts.  They can be seen here in the picture below [not in the first four colourful rows].  Notice the tiny buttons and one square button a few rows down.  

They are all '2-eyed' buttons.

Here are the 4-eyed ones:

There are a couple of aluminium buttons also in the above set.

The larger ones above are from my grandfather's coats.

For persons that love knick-knacks buttons never fail to fascinate.  Buttons have been used in traditional board games also, in the absence of finding suitable objects to play with.  Buttons are very important parts of the clothing and we all know how it will be with a missing button.  Sometimes we have noticed a fallen button or two on the streets and we have used a safety pin as a standby until a new button is stitched. When we could not find a match, we have used odd ones also.  But now with ready made shirts and garments, one or two spare buttons are provided with the dress, just in case we break or lose a button.

On closer examination of the items that were in the sewing machine's tool draw, some cuff links and other types of buttons were noticed.  It made me curious and wondered why not I start looking for more variety.  

I had an old man friend who was a renown coin collector [Numismatist], Krishnappa.  When I just mentioned of my new interest, he right away handed me a box full of beautiful old buttons which he had collected over decades.  He did not want them anymore.  Most of those are shown here.  Some sandal wood buttons, a few leather buttons, brass, other metal ones, etc.  

Close to him was another old man friend, Mr.Brown.  He too gave me a few vintage buttons with logo and patterns which are seen below.  Most of them are from some famous company uniforms of that era:

Shirt cuffs with different buttons was a great fancy.  There used to be two button holes at the cuffs for this purpose.  So different designs could be worn on the same shirt.  They were called 'Cuff links'.

This is a brass cuff link.

Netaji's  tiny picture on a cuff link.

Famous Qutub Minar [at Delhi] on a cuff link.  Two pieces snap fit - 'press button'.  The other piece also has the same picture. 

Dog design cuff links.

Some ivory and wooden cuff links given by Krishnappa. 

 These are sweater buttons. They have a metal bottom with provision to sew them to the dress. There are also a couple of cloth-coated buttons at the bottom right.

My grandfather was a founder member of Mysore Sports Club [1930s].  Picture below is also from that period.  See the sports blazer. 

Fifteen years ago, I converted that blazer which had been damaged in parts by silverfish, into a cap..... 

....... but not before removing the buttons from it. 

This one is a button from the Royal Durbar coat that was given to my great grandfather, may be around 1930.  Elite citizens who were invited by the Mysore King were to wear the Durbar Dress when they attended. 

I would like to remember the white thread buttons my mother used to make by hand and stitch them for my pajamas.  They would often survive the life of the pajamas as they were soft and withstood beating on stone by the washerwoman. They were something like this:

Web grab image

Storing buttons is easy.  It does not occupy much space. So do not throw them away.  All it asks is a little box - to start with!  You don't know what you will end up with.

Missing locks, orphaned keys

We usually hear of lost keys, but seldom, lost locks!  As a matter of fact, it is true, in our house. As such, 'orphaned' keys have got accumulated over decades.  They had been scattered in various places in the house like drawers, boxes and shelves which were reached less often.  Slowly, I began to gather them and found many including some that may have been used by my great grandfather 80 years ago, going by their shapes.  They are mostly padlock keys.

Antique items have always attracted me.  So it was no wonder I did not discard a single key, even though they are not very grandly spectacular or special.  When I was fingering through the 'collection' one day, I found there were different types of keys, fit for a classification.  The internet is such a boon when we want to look up at anything.  It helped me know the names of the three basic parts of the key.  The handle which we operate is called the 'bow' and a 'shank' connects it to the 'bit' that operates the levers inside the lock.  If you want to know a bit more, click here.  There are many who collect keys as a hobby.

There are many types of keys as well, but here let me show 'my collection'. 'Accumulation' may be the right word.  I classify them into three broad categories:

1. Flat Keys.

2. Solid Shank.

3. Hollow Shank.

Now see the full array I have arranged.  There are some interesting shapes of the 'bow'

Below are pictures of the lot with the solid shank.

Now, you will see the hollow shank. 

More hollow shank...a few here are may be more than a century old. You will certainly know by their shapes.

Some more of hollow shank.

This is what I did to my favourite lock and key, lest they left each other.   I may need them some day!  Securing them together is the key!  They stay connected.

Some close shots of a few keys.

This was my father's bicycle wheel lock.  Notice the keys. 

The lock is German.

 Miller Lock Co., Philadelphia, USA.

 Chubb's, 126, Queen Victoria Street, London. Patent Lock!

A vintage key. 

Notice the brass bow to the iron shank.

A locksmith will make you new or duplicate keys for existing locks.  But if keys are orphaned, they stay orphaned. 

This locksmith works in a small space on Rava Street, near Gandhi Square and he has this space occupied for more than 50 years and he is continuing his father's profession there.  Expert.   Most of these are blank keys out of which he will pick up to make duplicates or new ones depending on the lock.

I will show the locks with keys in a separate post.  This is all for now.

Tricycles and Bicycles

Latha's parents had moved into their own newly built house, just a stone's throw away.  They were tenants at our house [upstairs] for some years prior to it.  Latha, a year younger to me was also my 'first childhood friend'.  There was a little tricycle with her.  It had a separate seat and also a back rest for the pillion.  We used to ride it in the narrow space between the compound and her house. When she rode, I became the pillion and when she rode, I became the pillion.  Since I had no tricycle of my own, my enjoyment was manifold when Latha graciously allowed me to pedal it.  It was great fun for a 5-year old.

Latha's nephew Srinivas who was my classmate and lived in the next street.  All of us went to school together.  Srinivas had a toy 'scooter' like this, red in colour:

It had only two wheels and the rider had to know balancing.  It was a funny feeling when I attempted to ride because I had never before had the feel of the two-wheeler or the courage to venture on it.  At the same time, our new upstairs tenant had got his daughter Nandini such a scooter.  Any child could ride it because it was a 'three wheeler'.  When the squeak of its wheels was heard downstairs I used to climb up and beg a ride.

There was my father’s childhood tricycle, unusable and dumped in our toilet's attic for decades.  Long later, I was to get this front wheel replaced when our children arrived to ask for the tricycle!  

This is that old tricycle, may be from the 1920s.  See the replaced front wheel.  My daughter recalling her younger days on it!  I had made a new wooden seat.

In my 6th year, I was bought a little kid's blue bicycle with support wheels at the rear axle.  This prevented toppling over and helped learn 'balancing'.  The more it was ridden this way, the quicker we learnt and gained confidence, which I did and got 'its feel'.  It had hard rubber tyres and was bought at Sachidananda Cycle Mart, [next to Olympia Theatre], whose owner was a client of my grand father and a very reliable bicycle dealer.  Even now the shop continues to function.

It did not take very long for my uncle to recognize that I could ride without the supports. He removed them.  Bicycle riding was a new feeling!  Soon, I was on the street. Streets were bereft of traffic in those days with just an occasional bicycle or a scooter that slowly passed by.  So the entire street belonged to playing children.  It was a virtual playground buzzing with activity.  Even in such a 'peaceful' scenario, my grandmother was scared.  She was ever watchful of me taking out the little bike.  I have made hundreds of rounds in our spacious hall itself, but my outside boundary was set by her.  It was supposed to be only within the sights of our Devaparthiva Road.  I dared cross this "Lakshman Rekha" she had set.   At times I would break out to the next road to make a ‘round trip’.  Because of fear of my grandmother, it seemed like an adventure in itself!

For the bike's minor repairs Shivaram would do them in his shop at the 'T' junction at the end of the road and visible from our house . 

My daughter who had learnt to ride without support wheels on the second day itself brought memories of my own time with my blue bike in the mid 60s.  Mine was was smaller to this bike. 

I was adventurous to some extent with the blue bike.  Had I known about doing the 'wheelie' stunt in those days, I might have tried it too.  I used to thud-thud down the couple of steps in our yard!  Looking back now, I wonder why the fork did not snap.  I had soon learnt taking off both the hands from the handlebar, on the move.  Scraped knees and elbows were not one bit a deterrent to continue the various acrobatics and stunts which I enjoyed performing, mostly to please myself.  I was in full control of my bicycle.  I had seen bicycle stunts in circuses but I did not know at that time they were manipulated ones!!  Another stunt I tried to emulate was of a motorbike and a car at the circus speeding up a ramp, being airborne and landing with a thud!  3 bicyclists in a globe riding their bicycles with speed went round and round. I wondered why they did not clash or fall! 

My blue bicycle served me well and saw me graduate to the senior bike.  I get the feeling that it must have been ridden by me for a thousand miles in all!  I must say it even survived and passed the test for sturdiness which was a testimony of quality of goods in the 1960s.  It was still good enough when this was given away to my twin cousins who used it for a short period before finally disposing it off.

My street mate Raju [Ravishankar], two years senior to me, learnt balancing on this little bike for which I was instrumental.  He may not remember. I had the chance to help him learn it!  The little blue bike lived more than its full life.