“In just a handful of years, vintage nylons will completely disappear from the face of the earth,” says vintage stocking collector Steve, who also runs Stocking Showcase. And that’s enough motivation for him and others like him.

But aside from the stockings themselves, and perhaps pinups, what is there for collectors to covet in the realm of vintage stockings?

Vintage nylon stockings have a history as long and lovely as their back seams, for it took twelve years and $27 million to create, refine and develop the industrial processes for nylon.

This naturally leaves a paper trail for collectors who desire to document the birth of nylon.

Du Pont chemist Wallace Hume Carothers invented Fiber 66 — or nylon as we now call it — and it made its debut on the lovely legs of Miss Chemistry at the World’s Fair in 1939.

Miss Chemistry emerged from a test tube, a testament to modern science. (She may not have been a test tube baby, but she was a test tube babe!)

This same exhibit of Miss Chemistry and her test tube was shown again at the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, and the theme was often repeated in advertising as well.

Collectors desire such early photographs and items showing Miss Chemistry, such as the Du Pont publication shown below. Some collectors have even started collecting World’s Fair memorabilia for its connections to nylon’s debut.

Nylons went on sale to the general public in May 15, 1940, aka N-day. In that first year, DuPont sold 64 million pairs of stockings. That year much nylon was used to create the tornado in the movie “The Wizard of Oz.” (I’m sure many a vintage nylon stocking collector would love to get their hands on that tornado!)

Not long after N-Day, “Nylon Mania” ensued. In part because Du Pont spared little expense in promoting nylon, but also because nylon was a thrilling ‘modern marvel’, the product of science. Ads from this time period are plentiful, and pretty to display.

Of course, World War II meant Du Pont would cease its nylon stocking production to meet wartime needs. They produced parachutes, airplane tire cords, and glider tow ropes for the military, and some collectors also seek these items to preserve the integrity of this time period. The nylon stocking shortage created such a demand in the US that women began paying as much as $20 on the black market for stockings which had previously cost just over one dollar. This time is referred to as “Stocking Panic”.

Stocking Panic was so intense that nylon stockings made the new. For example, police in Chicago ruled out robbery as a motive in a murder case just because six pair of nylon stockings (that would be $120 worth of valuable property) had been left at the scene of the crime. Collectors love to get such news clippings.

In August of 1945, a mere eight days after Japan’s surrender, Du Pont announced that it would immediately return to producing nylon stockings. Thus ends “Stocking Panic” — and begins “Nylon Riots”.

The riots began because Du Pont could not make the wartime conversions fast enough to keep up with consumer demands. Nylons once again made newspaper headlines as women, who had been standing in line for hours were turned away without even seeing the stockings, began to fight and riot. Collectors love the headlines, sure, but the photographs are most sought after.

It took until March of 1946 for Du Pont to meet consumer demand and end the “Nylon Riots.” But by then, Du Pont wasn’t using nylon only for fashion hosiery. Now Du Pont’s advertising featured a woman in a nylon dress, and nylon was adopted for use in lingerie and foundation garments. Many vintage nylon stocking collectors willingly accept these ads, and even the garments themselves, into their collections. And why not? Just as stockings do not make the whole outfit, neither are they the entire story.

All black and white photographs courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library.

Somehow, over the past decade or so, cephalopods have slowly but surely plodded over and engulfed my life. While my preoccupation with them is both more casual and scientific than, say, my preoccupation with Green Arrow, it’s still one of those driving forces that pilots me from one suction-cupped appendage to another.

I’m not sure where it started, though it just may trace its origins back to a can of Wel-Pac California squid that I’d found for not much more than a dollar at a strange Asian market in my college town. I’m not one to pass up anything for a dollar, so I brought it home, and it’s served as both companion and mascot for the past 5 years. Its creepy red label and unappetizingly rendered whole squid are reminders that… well, reminders that there are whole squid trapped within the can.

But I must correct myself. I think that the origins of my cephalophelia find themselves rooted in my frequent excursions to Japanese restaurants with my first girlfriend, back in high school. So charmed was I with the baby octopus that we’d been served that I took it home with me in a small cup and preserved it in the freezer, completely fascinated by its biology and forcing it to star in any number of lurid, naked octopus photographs.

As a result, a plethora of jiggly, eight-legged creatures find their way into my paintings and drawings, and I find myself inexorably drawn to nearly all things octoped, from rubber toys to lamps to clothing, and all of those little trinkets that friends give me when they immediately synonymize ‘octopus’ with ‘Collin and what’s wrong with him’.

The urban vinyl world skirts my obsession, giving my a fair number of anthropomorphic squid to display around my room. I’ve unconsciously collected a fair number of Doctor Octopus action figures, even if he’s a relatively poor excuse for an octopus-man and shares almost no unique attributes with a true octopus, like ink jets and the innate ability to lay down a funky dance groove.

I went on a date with an aspiring mime once, and we decided to go to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. The best part of the date was the enormous squid vs. whale diorama that was darkly hidden under the stairs, donated (as the placard read) ‘for the delight of the children’. My mime-date and I never saw each other again, and the war-torn, plastic whale probably had more charm anyhow. Mimes aren’t known for their conversational skills.

This love of cephalopods also led to an attraction to the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and his abject terror and disgust with all creatures aquatic, most prominently displayed in his creation of Cthulhu, the tentacle-faced elder god monster. While there are a fair number of dedicated Lovecraft vendors located throughout the internet and comic conventions, there’s no such reliable source for all things octopus. One is forced to accumulate items through unusual tag sale discoveries and random encounters, which is usually the most exciting and absorbing way to collect things anyhow.

Gifts of tiny glass octopi and the odd trinket comprise most of a relatively small, unfocussed collection that has formed more of a ‘lifestyle choice’ than a ‘hobby’. It’s hard to keep certain specimens of your collection around when they’re so damned delicious.

This summer my family and I went to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI, which is a fun place to visit for those of us who like old stuff. Greenfield Village is 90 acres of exploration into American history. It was founded by Henry Ford, the automaking legend, in 1933 and is built to resemble a village of the 1800s.

The Main Street portion of the park features shops that might be seen in a village of the era. A millinery shop has a display of original hats from the 1800s, as well as replicas for visitors to try on. The tintype studio shows tintype photographs and the equipment used to make them, and a jewelry store contains jewelry that would be found in a typical jeweler’s of the late 1800s, including a nice selection of mourning jewelry. And the Wright Cycle Shop, the original building where Orville and Wilbur Wright earned their income while building their famous airplane, shows old-time bicycles and the equipment the Wrights used to make them.

In addition the the Wright Cycle Shop, buildings like Henry Ford’s birthplace, Thomas Edison’s workshop and the home where Noah Webster penned his first dictionary were moved to Greenfield Village from their original locations. Greenfield Village also contains many plantation houses, cabins, cottages and family homes including a Cotswold cottage from the early 1600s.

Kids can ride on a 1913 Carousel with the original brightly colored horses, frogs and chickens. An old-fashioned steam engine train carries visitors around the perimeter of the park, with whistle tooting and black smoke issuing from its stack. A horse drawn omnibus stops at different locations around the village, and car enthusiasts will enjoy riding around in a restored Model T or a 1931 Model AA bus.

While older kids and adults will most appreciate a visit to Greenfield Village, smaller ones can also enjoy themselves, and my little Thomas the Tank Engine enthusiasts particularly loved the train ride and the engine roundhouse and turntable.

If you nearly lost fingers during the Linoleum Block Carving lessons in art class, you know a little bit about how printing blocks work. Both processes are far rarer today: offset presses and digital processing have ended the hand-setting of printing. While the process hails back hundreds of years, modern technologies made the development of type and other blocks simpler and faster. Linotype machines, huge typewriter-like mechanisms that melted lead and cast entire lines of text at a time, sped up production of text, and photographic processes made images and logos easier to produce. To create a single page, letters and images were laid out by hand, filled in with spacers and tightened with quoins, and sent to the press. When the printing was done, the frame was loosened and all the tiny pieces of the single page clattered out onto the table. The letters went back into their organized drawers or were remelted for the Linotype machine, and the images went into storage for possible reuse later. When printing was done, the only pieces recognizable from the page were the images, logos, designs, and borders.
In the late 1960s or early 1970s, many presses phased out the letterpress printing in favor of newer, simpler processes. The printing supplies were divided up and scattered, quite often into the hands of collectors. Type often followed the press, but the custom non-type blocks went elsewhere.

The miscellanous printer’s blocks could be a boon to collectors for their size and rarity. Because the blocks were often re-used, and if not they were stored poorly and possibly ended up in the dump just to get rid of them, specific printer’s blocks can be exceedingly rare. Remember, for it to have shown up in print, a corresponding block would have been produced. Every Ford dealership ad had a logo, every Harley-Davidson repair manual had images, every packaging sticker had to be cast in metal. For the thousands of copies printed, an extremely small number (possibly only one) of print blocks would have been produced. Memorabilia collectors often overlook printer’s blocks in favor of the printed end product, not realizing which one is the rarer of the two.

Print blocks are often quite small, making them easy to store and display. With a little ingenuity, mirrors can be used to make them a bit easier to read, as printing blocks are a ‘negative’ image in reverse. Most print blocks are also quite resilient. Designed to withstand several tons of pressure experienced during the printing process, very little can destroy them. They can, however, be scratched, and in some cases the metals used will corrode, resulting in an unattractive block. Depending on the severity, these could be overlooked. A sharp, readable printer’s block should have clearly defined surfaces, without rounding or dents, and the raised ‘ink’ surfaces should shine like a mirror when buffed.

In my experience, brewery and industrial equipment print blocks have sold quite well, but automobile brand and household products sell less often than I’d expect from the number of collectors. Collectors who focus on collecting a single brand, association, or product should not overlook printer’s blocks as a source for unique and rare additions to their collection.

What’s round on the ends and Republican in the middle? That’s right, Ohio. I spent the last week of my life buried neck-deep in the thick of it. The Little Caesars restaurant with the faded ‘Pizza Pizza!’ guy still proudly thrust atop the roof despite his total obsolescence, the deeply-sunk stadium in Toledo, and the endless expanse of I-80 during the 9.5 hour drive there. One of the highlights of this fabled Ohio trip was the Maumee Antique Mall. Such a mall might be commonplace in the midwest, just outside of my range of usual travel, but it was a beautiful and new experience for me. Being an avid connoisseur of junk is not an easy life to live.

Imagine your average indoor flea market, rife with obscure goodies and trinkets in every expansive corner. Ceramic owls, old clocks and dinner trays, more than a few over-loved baby dolls. Double it in size. Now, eliminate the hungry-eyed dealers trying to talk you into a sale and replace them with neat little labels on everything. This is the Maumee Antique Mall. You come, you’re greeted by life-sized replicas of subservient old people at the door, you browse the booths of items that vendors have entrusted to the watchful eye of the mall owners (and security cameras), you select your wares and you bring them up to the front counter. What it lacks in haggling it makes up for in the no-pressure sales approach, which usually makes me sweaty and irritable, like Taco Bell cuisine.

I spent my time there poking through bin after bin of my favorite quarry, LPs, attracted to those things with men in leiderhosen or semi-nude women on the covers, and anything that used the phrase ‘hi-fi’ as if it were going to change life as we know it. For one dollar each, I purchased 13 various records in differing states of completeness and disrepair, under the philosophy that you can’t really lose for a dollar. Collecting these unwanted LPs is always an experiment in mining for the rare gold that’s been forgotten for whatever reason. It’s likely that these albums have been sifted and resifted through until there’s nothing left of any monetary value, but I could care less. I’m the guy with the medschool 45s of the sounds of heartbeats on the bookshelf.

While I was seriously tempted by a set of four Search for Spock glasses, I abstained. Who can say that they’ve never wanted to drink a cool glass of Pepsi from the angry face of a Klingon? Productive members of society, that’s who. Instead, I unearthed an original ‘Portrait of Bobby’ LP, and admittedly, I’m too young and too heterosexual to know exactly what I’d found. Later research indicated that I was looking at a Bobby Sherman, bubblegum pop star. The record didn’t indicate this in any way, but I presume that this was simply a staple for any young girl’s record collection in the early 70s, and in being so, defied the need for any explanation. I just liked his tight little purple pants and obviously radiating charm, and so did my six-year old niece. We know where it’s at. She didn’t dig the leiderhosen squad quite so much. Even if they WERE yodeling my ‘favorite German melodies’. Man, there are so many! I hope they didn’t leave any out! It’s at this point where I don’t really care what’s on the album itself - the cover is enough to delight.

I was ridiculed for my decision to vacation in Ohio, which many of my friends saw as a place to vacation as far away from as possible and not venture towards, but as long as there’s the Maumee Antique Mall, satisfying our need for all things owl-themed or inscribed into musical discs, I’m set.