The Last from the Thirties

Holy Week can be a sort of "hell week" for church organists, such as myself. Simply because of the thousands of notes to practice and perfect. And the extra musical events, extra music, period, for which to prepare.

That explains why no tie got posted last weekend. I had my regular Sunday service in the morning, then several hours of practice, followed by a hymn sing that evening. The next day I played a 30 minute noon recital sponsored by the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists, of which I am dean.

I practiced Tuesday evening, Wednesday evening, and Thursday evening there was a Maundy Thursday communion service to play for, with the final Easter choir rehearsal afterwards.

Saturday afternoon saw a couple more hours of final practicing for the big Sunday Easter celebration, which included no fewer than six big choir anthems, culminating in The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, which has to be one of the most difficult pieces to play in the entire repetoire.

All of that effort comes together in a very rewarding fashion, but it's still very tiring, very labor intensive, a lot of hard work!

But this is supposed to be a blog about ties, not about church music. This is, so far as I have been able to determine, the last of my 1930 era ties. If I have any more, they're hiding. I call this one "Leaves of silver, blue and copper on a burgundy background." It's one of the more glamorous entries in these richly fabricated ties that I have been featuring since January first, this year.

I'm also loading a second image, of both ends of the tie from the back side, primarily to show another unique characteristic of 1930-era ties. These ties are invariably put together in an off-centered fashion. Look closely at the image of the back side of the tie, and you will see that the fold where the two sides of the tie come meet and are stitched together, are not centered, but are severely lopsided.

This is the way all of these ties are put together, and is quite distinct from most ties of later vintage, which, if not perfectly symmetrical, are generally more so than these. You can see a couple more examples, albeit only of the small ends, by taking another look at "Red Paisley" and "Red Spiderweb," both of which show the back side of the small end of the tie.

"Red Spiderweb" definitely shows the lopsided stitching, while "Red Paisley" is a little more centered, but demonstrates another aspect of these ties: looser stitching. These ties are typically only loosely stitched together in back, unlike later examples, which are generally more tightly and evenly stitched.

So, now that we're done with the thirties, at least for the time being, what next? I haven't decided, so you'll have to wait (with me) until next week to find out.

Maroon and Blue with Silver Trimings

I think I've finally figured out the trick to adjusting the images of my maroon ties so that they appear correctly on screen, at least on MY monitor. I can't guarantee how they appear on YOURS.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I have the red vs. cyan and blue vs. yellow sliders all the way toward red and blue, and then I adjust the green vs. magenta slider back just a little from all the way toward green, to get exactly the correct shade of maroon.

Then I can play with the automatic brightness and contrast, hue and saturation controls to further enhance the image. My goal is always to make the tie appear on screen the way it looks when I hold it in my hand. I am particularly pleased at how this one turned out. The blue is such a brilliant and vibrant shade that contrasts so vividly against the maroon.

Now that I've got a better handle on how this works, I probably ought to go back and play with some of the earlier samples that I couldn't get quite right before. If I ever have time, I will probably do so.

This tie's labels are showing, albeit upside down on the image. They read as follows:

The Bon Marché
Seattle

and

Fashion
Craft
Cravats.

Tiny Paisley Print

Are these really paisley's? The little pink/red shapes scattered evenly across this tie? They are too small, and don't have enough detail to be absolutely certain, but their shapes are certainly reminiscent of paisleys, so I'm going to assume that that is how they were indeed intended.

I don't know what to call the paired silver shapes that alternate with them. They could almost be commas or apostrophes, or perhaps bent bowling pins, or maybe telephone receivers (probably not). Whatever they are, they add their own glossy glistening glissade, gliding down the face of the tie like glad glib and glorious globules of glossolalia.

I have to admit that "glissade" and probably "glossolalia" and "globules" for that matter, are only marginally apropos to my usage of them in describing this tie, but I couldn't resist the alliteration.

This tie amazingly has two labels still attached, shown in the scan. The first reads

The H.C. Capwell Co.
Store for Men
Oakland

And the second a single word:

Eton

Maroon Coils and Silver Bubbles

Once again I had to struggle with my scanner's inability to handle shades of maroon. The scanner picks this range of colors up as a dull brown, with none of the real shades of red and blue that it should be resolving. I had to run the image through my image editing software (I use Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8) , and manually adjust the Red vs. Cyan, Green vs. Magenta and Blue vs. Yellow sliders, most of them heavily toward the right (Red, Green and Blue), to get an approximation of the right shade.

Until I ran this scan, and began trying to "fix" the color, I had never even noticed that in addition to the silver colored "bubbles" (that's what I'm calling them), there are also some red bubbles, almost identical in shape, but barely discernible against the dark maroon background. I don't know if you'll be able to spot them or not. It may help to click on the image for a larger version.

This is obviously another in my 2007 series of 1930's era ties. I think I'm getting close to the end of these. I know I have at least one more, and there might be some others lurking in my myriads of tie racks that I will be able to seek out if I hunt for them. At any rate, it probably won't be too much longer before I'm back to the more colorful 40's era ties that I started out displaying on this blog.

This tie has no labels to report on, so that's about it until next week! See you then!

Green and Brown Swirled Lines

So far all the thirties era ties I've posted have been either red, maroon, or blue. So I decided it was time to switch colors, and the result is this brown and green exemplar. Although the thin lines with the more brightly colored dots and dashes on them include a red color, probably not highly visible in the scanned image.

I've decided to load a second image this week, showing the inside of the tie, or to be more accurate, the reverse side of the fabric, so that you can see you these designs are created.

When you look at the image, the brightly colored parallel stripes you see running across the fabric are the little brightly colored dots on the narrow stripes on the front. Those dots are created by threads that run clear across the fabric, but somehow they are only allowed to show through to the front whenever they cross one of the swirly lines that curve across the face of the tie.

Incidentally, those lines you see on the reverse side of the tie would be running in absolutely straight lines across the tie, if the tie weren't folded a little. It's hard to keep the tie absolutely flat while trying to close the scanner lid down on the tie, since I've unfolded the tie along its creases, to show more of the fabric backside. So the lines all curve where the tie managed to fold in on itself.

Well, I'm sure I'm boring the life out of anyone who is actually trying to read this entry. Just look at the tie, and ignore my unnecessary verbiage. So until next week, au revoir.

P.S. I have just (8/12/07) reloaded a newly edited version of the primary scan for this tie. The previous version was so dark that it was almost impossible to make out any detail on the tie. I certainly don't recall it being that dark when I originally loaded it, but it certainly looked dark now. This version still isn't accurate color wise, but at least you can make out some of the detail.

Brushstroke Swirls

Another '30's era tie. This one I'm calling "Brushstroke Swirls" for lack of anything better. My scanner really seems to have problems with dark shades of maroon. I had to really run this scan through the image enhancement software process in a major way to get it to come even close to the actual color.

It's pretty close now, but just a bit on the dark side. (Not the dark side of the force, mind you 8^)

I believe I mentioned embroidery in one of my previous 2007 entries. These ties have a unique kind of fabric that resembles embroidery, but unlike embroidery, the design is not stitched on TOP of the fabric, but is embedded into the fabric itself. I wish someone with more knowledge of fabric would explain it to me. How this fabric is made, that is, and what the proper terminology for it is.

I have said several times before that these scans don't really do it justice. But then, the ties themselves, from any distance at all, appear rather plain and ordinary, dull even. It's only when you take a look at them up close that you can perceive the richness, the sheen, the jewel-like colors, the elaborate stitching effect that is created. These ties are much more subtle than those from the next decade, but are not nearly as dramatic and flashy. But seen up close, they are just as stunningly beautiful. That's my view, anyhow, and I'm sticking to it!

Maroon and Silver

Here's another Christmas present tie. This was part of the group of ties my wife purchased from the little antique shop in downtown Olympia, and gave me for my Christmas present from her. See my post from two weeks ago for the first one.

I'm not happy with the color cast from the scanner, and despite all I could do with my graphics editor, I couldn't really get the on screen version to match what I see when I hold the tie in my hand. Of course, I'm looking at the tie under incandescent light, and often colors look different than they do under either sunlight or fluorescent light.

The real color is more of a classic maroon than what I've captured on the scan. The contrasting patterns are fairly accurately captured, shiny silver, with occasional blue streaks in amongst the silver.

Not much else to say about the tie, except that like most of these thirties vintage, it is narrower, and looks fairly prosaic until you get up close and examine it carefully at close range. Then its brilliance and glamor become more apparently visible. No tags to record.

Blue Number Two

Here's another blue beauty from the thirties. This on is more monochromatic even than last week's, but is still exhibits a brilliant sheen and shine replete with jewel like colors embedded into the fabric.

It doesn't really come through in the scan, but each of those patterns which dribble down the face of the tie, which somewhat resemble rivers on a map, is actually bi-colored, one side a lighter, glossier silverier shade of blue, and the other an almost maroon or reddish hue. The two colors cross over each other occasionally as they meander down the tie.

The small independently floating shapes are likewise made from the same two colors, paired together. It's a very subtle yet beautiful effect, especially when seen directly, not through the computer's attempt at recreating the colors. Click on the tie for a slightly larger version, where the two colored embroidery is a little more visible, though still not as clearly as in the actual tie itself, unfortunately.

This tie has a label which has survived! Fastened to the inside of the large end of the tie, it reads:

Li-Ro
Cravat
Hande Made
Wool Lined

Blue Beauty

Take a look at this blue beauty! Narrower than the other thirties era ties I've posted, but just as dramatic in its own way. This tie has an almost patchwork quilt like quality to its design. For once, I think the scan has captured at least some of the brilliance and opulence of the fabric in this tie.

This tie was a Christmas present from my wife, who found it at a little antique shop in downtown Olympia, Washington, with three more, one of which I may post next week. Another is a forties era, which will have to wait until I decide to slide back into that decade, which won't be for a while yet. And the final one looks like a homemade tie, perhaps from the sixties. Attractive in its own way, but not appropriate for the blog at this time. Maybe someday.

We need to go back and check out the antique shop again, as they told my wife they thought they had more vintage ties, but that they just weren't sure exactly where they were. In a box in their storage somewhere, undoubtedly.

It's rare for labels to have survived in these thirties era ties, and this one is no exception. That is to say, there are no labels in it. And I've yet to wear it. I'll have to find the right outfit and occasion! I have a pair of navy corduroy slacks which have a bit of a sheen to them that will probably work nicely, perhaps with my gray-blue shirt. Time will tell.

Red Paisley

No tie last week. I was out of town, not that far, but there was no time or energy for blogging, not to mention that I didn't have access to my scanner or tie collection in my hotel! I was attending the American Library Association's Annual Midwinter Meeting, which was conveniently held in Seattle this year.

Not only did I have umpteen meetings to attend, in some of which I had a significant leadership role, my body chose this moment to rebel on me, and I came down with my second dose this season of the "stomach flu," more accurately known as gastroenteritis. Not fun, I assure you! But I couldn't go home and collapse, since I was staying in a hotel, and had all those meetings to attend! Sometimes you just gotta do what ya gotta do.

Well, here is my third 1930's era tie for your appreciation (or not, as the case may be). It is really difficult to capture the real look of these opulent ties. On the surface, they can appear fairly boring. Just another red tie with paisley designs evenly spaced across the surface, you might well be thinking.

But if you could see this tie in person, in real life, you'd be impressed by the richness of the fabric, and the designs which have an almost embroidered look to them. Machine embroidery, to be sure, but the effect is rich, sumptuous, gilded and luxurious!

It is also difficult to capture the true colors accurately. To my eye, this tie is really a slightly brighter shade of red than it appears here, but the green is less so. It should have more of a grayish towards turquoise color, and less green to it. I play with my photo editing software, adjusting the color balance, hue and saturation, brightness and contrast, but to little or no avail.

This tie has no labels to record.

Red Spiderweb

Here's the second in my series of thirties era ties. I had real trouble with the color in scanning this tie. To my eye, under an incandescent bulb, admittedly, it appears to be a more maroon shade of red than it shows up here. It's not maroon, just a maroonish shade of red.

What this tie has in common with last week's is the jewel-like quality of the fabric and design. Each spiderweb pattern has a little blue fabric jewel set right smack dab in the middle of it. They are only barely visible in the scan, I'm afraid. Click on the image to load a slightly larger view.

The spiderweb patterns themselves are made from a shiny silver colored thread, and the base fabric also has a lustrous shine to it. Opulent is a good word to describe the overall effect.

This tie is a fairly recent acquisition to my collection. In order to scan it, I took it off the dry cleaner's tie card it had been hanging on for the past several months. Which means I probably haven't ever worn it. My wife found it at one of her junk store haunts. Like pretty much every vintage tie we find, we sent it off to the cleaners first thing.

This tie has one label, shown in the scan, although I'm not sure how readable it is there. Even when I scan the labels, and provide a closeup view, as I've done for several ties in the past, I still transcribe the label text in the blog itself.

Why? For the benefit of the search engines, if nothing else. Google can't index the text in a picture, not yet, anyhow. Well, I probably shouldn't go so far as to say they CAN'T, but as a rule, so far as I know, they DON'T. By including the text of the label in the text of the blog entry, I insure that someone who might be looking for that brand, or label, will find my blog entry.

Anyhow, this tie's label reads as follows:

Reg. Trade Mark
Gold Bond Cravats
Resilient Construction

Purple and Rose Thirties Era

It's been one full year since I began my vintage tie blog! Hard to believe. One tie a week for a year, except for one week when I didn't have time to post. I haven't actually counted, but I assume that means 51 ties.

I just went and checked the calendar. It appears that there were 53 Sundays in 2006, which should mean that I posted 52 ties last year. I'm not going to take the trouble to go through my entire blog and count up. I guess I could just go to my blog stats in my account and look there! But not while I'm writing a post.

Last year, New Year's Day fell on a Sunday, so I began this blog appropriately on January 1. So last Sunday was actually closer to being the anniversary date, being it was December 31. But it was also still in 2006. This is the first 2007 vintage tie posting.

Well enough with the self-congratulatory prose, and on with the ties! I've decided that for a while, at least, in 2007 I'm going to jump back a decade, and feature some of my 1930's era ties, of which this is the first.

How do I know whether a tie is from the thirties, as opposed to the forties? I don't, really, other than kind of by instinct and hints from what I've seen here and there. Going by what I've seen, ties in the thirties were a little more conservative in appearance, typically a little narrower (this tie is about 3 1/2 inches at its widest point, for example), and less obviously flashy in design. Yet no less elaborate. When you look at this tie closely, you find an ornate almost quilted design with beautifully colored fabrics with an almost gem-like quality to them.

The real colors on this particular tie were difficult to scan accurately. The large stylized leaf shaped objects are really a deep, beautiful plum-purple color which doesn't come through well in the scan. The background is a lovely rosy shade of pink which is fairly accurate on screen. And embedded in it are the small jewel-like shapes of pale blue, silver and plum. The overall effect is incredibly ornate and almost three-dimensional in effect. But you have to get up close to the tie to perceive all of the detail. From a distance, it doesn't splash and grab your attention the way a typical forties tie does (like last week's floral starburst just below).

Flower Starburst

This is the other tie most recently added to my collection, purchased from the second-hand store in Seaside back in the last week of November. I had originally planned to post it last week, but then remembered that I had for months been planning to post the wintery tree in honor of the Winter Solstice, instead.

Not to mention that this tie seems especially appropriate for posting on New Year's Eve, as the stylized floral "starburst" pattern, as I'm calling it, does resemble a burst of fireworks, at least a little.

I'm not sure that the scan does the true color of the tie justice, at least not exactly. To my eye, the real color is just a bit more "peachy" and less orange than it appears on the screen.

I've posted a second, full length shot, taken with my digital camera, to help you gain the full effect of the tie. You'll notice how the color and pattern abruptly changes to the darker orange with the polka-dots so as to insure that the knot would be tied in that color, contrasting with the rest of the tie.

Beyond that, I can't really think of much to say about the tie. No labels have survived to transcribe. The tie has no brocade woven into the fabric itself, but relies on its warm colors and vibrantly dramatic design for its stunning effect. A very nice tie, indeed! Especially since it only cost me $2.00!

Winter Solstice

Well, I lied. Last week, that is, when I promised that this week I would post the second of the two recent acquisitions to my collection. But I had forgotten that this week brought us the Winter Solstice, the longest day of the year, and that I had mentally promised myself that I would post this wintery beauty in recognition of that event. So my other new acquisition will have to wait for next week.

I have to confess that I have never understood why the first day of winter is also the shortest day of the year. And that the days will be getting longer from here on out, and the sun will be spending more time in the sky each day, with the weather presumably getting warmer. It seems like the winter solstice should come smack dab in the middle of winter, not at its beginning. Oh well, I'm not the one who makes these kinds of decisions, obviously.

I have seen pictures of this tie elsewhere, but can't recall just where right now. Ah yes, here's one place. Which is a page on Knot, Kollectors of Nasty Old Ties. Anyway, it's definitely a favorite. The tie's one label reads:

Wembley
Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.

Blue and Yellow "newbie"

This tie, along with another (to go up next week) is the latest addition to my collection. While on the "vacation from hell" a couple of weeks ago (my wife and I both came down with the stomach flu), we managed to visit one junk store--oops, make that a second-hand store (we always refer to them as junk stores) in Seaside, down on the Oregon coast.

This tie, and its companion were tagged at $4.00 each, a real bargain, but not only that, they had pink tags, and all pink tags were half price that day, so I actually only paid $2.00 apiece for them. They're undoubtedly worth much more than that. If the prices at vintage clothing sites such as RustyZipper are any indication, they are easily worth $15-$20 each, possibly more.

Blue and yellow together aren't my favorite color combination, but it is nevertheless a nicely designed tie, much more interesting than plain old stripes would be. Note the stylized leaf-shape brocade pattern woven into the fabric, or could those perhaps be incipient paisleys? Nah, I don't think so. Most of them aren't twisted enough at the end for paisleys.

I've also loaded a full length image of the tie, so that you can see how the pattern progresses up the tie, and notice the abrupt line where the yellow comes back. As with so many ofther ties I've posted, the knot is intended to be entirely in the yellow color.

The tie has two labels, both a seller's label and a manufacturer's label. The latter is so interesting that I decided to scan and load a picture of it as well. There are three cockaded and booted gentlemen resembling the Three Musketeers of Alexandre Dumas fame. Each has a capital letter "W" emblazoned on his lower half. An early example of "WWW!" It almost looks like the three are drummers, and that the "W's" are written on the drums, with each fellow rapping out a drum roll, but I can't make out quite enough detail to be sure of just where their arms are placed.

The label reads:

Wilcrest
All Silk
Pure Dye
Wilson Brothers
Made in U.S.A.

The seller's label reads

Desler's
Seaside, Ore.

Based on that label, this tie never made it very far from its original point of sale, as Seaside is where I picked it up, well over half a century after its presumed original date of sale.

A fine addition to my collection! And a lucky find, to boot.

Blue and Gray, Black and White

Here's another vintage beauty, this time with a color scheme featuring blue, gray, black and white. Still a suitably wintery palette. The swirling, branching patterns woven into the fabric itself are almost more dramatic than the tie's own pattern.

This is another of those ties in which the knot was intended to be tied with its own different but coordinating pattern. I've loaded a separate image of the upper portion of the tie, showing the abrupt break in the pattern where the knot would have been tied.

The tie has one label which reads:

Wembley
Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.

Navy Blue Op Art (sort of) Design

It's time, regretfully, to move away from all of those wonderful autumn leaves, as winter has definitely arrived, at least here in the great Pacific Northwest. We were on the road, down in the Willamette Valley, west of Portland, where we received several inches of beautiful snow on Monday and Tuesday last week.

While we were away, they had ice and snow here in the Olympia, Washington area. On Monday, initially only five (5!) people managed to make it in to work at the State Library, or so I heard tell when I got back.

The ice was long gone by the time we returned, but the cold weather lingers. So, here's a tie that seems more appropriate to winter weather, it's pattern perhaps suggesting streaks of rain and wind, if you wish to let your imagination flow in that direction.

The "crop circle" like images you see near the base of the tie, and a few inches higher, are actually the brocade, woven directly into the fabric. As are the slightly curved, more or less horizontal parallel lines you can see nearer the top of the image, some sweeping over the dark triangle, and some just higher up, curving in the opposite direction.

I decided to scan and mount a picture of a portion of the backside of the tie. Interestingly, in this case, the pattern of navy blue lines from the front is not carried over onto the back, which gives a better opportunity for viewing the interesting patterns woven into the fabric.

The tie has a single label, sewn into the small end, which reads:

Haband
Paterson, N.J.

Purple and hand painted but faded

I quickly loaded this image this past Sunday, but didn't have time then to write any commentary, as my wife and I were leaving on a road trip from which we only just now (Thursday afternoon) returned.

Since then, I came back and loaded a different version of the image, on which I applied less color balancing. I think the painting is slightly easier to see in this version.

This tie is somewhat similar to the much nicer specimen I posted last week, sharing a purple background, and hand painted image featuring leaves. However, the paint has faded over the years, and the image is barely discernible these days.

My best guess is that the leaves are grape leaves, as there appears to be a gnarly old grapevine stem extending below the small leaf at the lower left, and running up into the third leaf from the bottom.

So are the three globes supposed to be grapes? That is possible, I suppose, but they seem large in comparison to the leaves, and grapes usually appear in bunches, not singles. Not to mention that the two barefly visible leaves placed highest on the tie are a different shape altogether than those further down on the tie.

So the intended subject matter remains ambiguous, at least in my view. The tie preserves only a faded remnant of the glory it presumably once had. There is one label, sewed into the large end of the tie which, strangely, is sewed right across the middle of the label, making it difficult to read. I read it as follows:

Towncraft
Exclusive creation
by Rapsons
Rayon
Dry clean only

Autumn Leaves Number Eight

This beauty really IS hand painted. You can actually see AND feel the texture of the paint on the fabric, or you could, if you were me, and you were holding the tie in your hand.

The tie's label confirms it, although you can't prove it by the scan, because the label has, over time, folded itself upside down, and I didn't notice when I scanned it. I would have turned it over otherwise, but now that the scan is completed, and the image adjusted and resized for the web and all, I'm not going to redo the scan just because of that. So you'll have to take my word for it.

The tie's one and only extant label reads, and I quote:

André
of California
Hand Painted

The term "hand painted" is used more loosely these days. I recently bought a modern tie featuring the Seattle Space Needle on eBay. You may be able to see it still, searching by its item no: 130044997222. This tie's label says that it's "hand painted" but it very clearly is NOT. The label apparently means that the design itself was painted by an artist by hand (how else would someone normally paint a picture, than by hand?). But the design is clearly printed on the tie for mass production.

I'm not complaining mind you; it's a beautiful tie, and I'm delighted to have it, since one of my other collections is Seattle Space Needle kitsch, and this tie fits both categories: ties and Space Needle. But it's NOT hand painted, not in the traditional sense of someone sitting down with this very tie in hand, and painting directly onto its surface, the way today's autumn leaves tie is.

This tie that I've posted today is very reminiscent of one that my father had, but which did not survive the fire that burnt the old farmhouse I grew up in. That was in the spring of 1971. Dad's tie was purple, like this, with hand painted leaves, like this one, but it's been so many years since it was destroyed that I honestly don't recall how close in resemblance the leaves actually were. Still, I was delighted to find this tie, since it is reminiscent of the one that was lost.

I apologize for cutting off the pointed end of the tie in my scan. The image loses some of its grace, and "tie-ness," by not having the traditional pointed end completely present, but I just HAD to get all of the painted leaves on, and given the size of my scanner bed, that meant I had to move the tie down a bit, so that some of the end was off the scanner bed, in order to insure that all of the hand painted art was included in the scan.

Autumn Leaves Number Seven

This used to be one of my all time favorite autumn leaf ties, and still would be, if I hadn't ruined it. Accidentally, but even so . . .

I can't even remember what I was trying to do; I might have been preparing a display of my ties, or something, but I was cutting something, maybe a paper background, with the tie on top of it, or very nearby, I just don't recall. Carelessly, I cut about 3/4 of an inch into the tie itself. I've been kicking myself ever since.

You can't really tell in the picture. The cut begins on the left side, just about even with the top of the first dark blue square nearest the bottom of the tie. You can see kind of a little jog in the edge of the tie where the cut begins. You can't see it, but the cut extends almost all the way in to where the dark blue square begins. It stops short about one and a half of those little grid marks short of the dark blue.

VERY ANNOYING! And there doesn't seem to be any easy or safe way to fix it. So I don't wear the tie any more, but I still love the design. That wonderful close-hatched grid of lines across the entire surface of the tie, which appear to be hand drawn--that is, the original design would have been hand-drawn, I would imagine, not the design on the fabric of each individual tie. (That last is an incomplete sentence, but I don't care.) And of course, the leaves themselves, bright red, close-set inside the white diamond shape to make them stand out, then surrounded by the deep blue square, all together creating a rich and dramatic feeling.

You'll note the solid red portion near the top of the tie in the full length image I shot with my digital camera. This is another of those ties in which the knot appears in a complimentary color. That's the purpose of the solid change in color, to make the knot appear red.

Of course, they wore their ties much shorter back in the forties than we do today. To make this tie long enough to reach my belt buckle, the modern requirement, I have to tie it with the small end really short, and the solid red end extends several inches below the knot. Unfortunate, but that's the way it is. Moot point, since I can't wear the tie any more. But it's still worth showing off here.

The tie is also one of those high quality models which includes a pattern woven into the fabric itself, what I refer to--rightly or wrongly--as a brocade. It's difficult to see in the pictures here, but it's most visible near the bottom of the short end of the tie, where you can see another diamond shape, almost exactly the same size as the white diamond surrounding the red leaf, but just below it, located between the blue square and the slash of red across the bottom of the tie.

There are four smaller diamond shapes, themselves arranged into a diamond square, in the center of each of these brocade diamonds. In the example I refer to above, you can see them hinted at as slightly darker blobs in the middle of the larger diamond.

The tie has two labels, both sewn into the back of the large end of the tie. The seller's label reads

CARR'S STORE
Fairbanks, Alaska

while the maker's label states

by HOLLYVOGUE
Made in California

Autumn Leaves Number Six

The leaves on this beauty are somewhat more restrained than on some of the previous entries. Just three of them, one in each panel. They appear to be oak leaves. The ones on the yellow panels are half red, half white, in a pattern reminiscent of a harlequin costume.

The one on the red background is half yellow, and half white, the same color as the scalloped designs running up the right side of each of the three panels, although it is difficult to see the color difference on such a small leaf, even on the original tie. I've posted a closeup of one of the leaves, to make it easier to see.

The fabric of the tie contains a beautifully visible brocade pattern of leaves and vines, although they are not necessarily autumn leaves. One could argue, I suppose, that this is not an autumn tie at all, and perhaps I am guilty of excessive association, putting almost all of my ties that depict leaves into the autumn category. Your comments are welcomed.

At any rate, this is a spectacularly gorgeous tie any way you look at it, in my humble opinion. There are two labels to transcribe. One, attached to the inside of the wide end, has in large letters:

ARCO

and in smaller type, on a separate line:

ROYAL

The other label, sewed directly onto the fabric of the small end, reads as follows:

Resilient construction
Towncraft Deluxe Cravat
Fabric Loomed in U.S.A.

I've separately scanned and loaded a picture of the labels for your edification. These labels are somewhat unusual, in that normally when two labels are present, one represents the manufacturer, and one the seller. In this case, it's not clear to me if the ARCO ROYAL label represents a seller or not. There is no location listed, as a seller label usually has. "Towncraft" is, of course, the well-known JC Penney men's apparel brand name.

Autumn Leaves Number Five

Well, I missed getting a tie uploaded last week. On Sunday, the day I normally post to the blog, I was en route to a week-long leadership seminar, and I had no opportunity to scan, photograph or post a tie. I had hoped I might get it done a day early on Saturday, but there were just too many other things I had to attend to that day, so it didn't happen.

I considered loading two ties today, and backdating one to last Sunday, but eventually decided against it. So I missed a week. Big deal! I'm sure the world will survive. There aren't more than a handful of people checking this blog on a regular basis, and I don't flatter myself to think that any of them will suffer too much from enduring a week without a new tie here.

So, this week's tie might well be described as the ultimate in depiction of autumn leaves. An endless procession of leaves, small in the distance, and growing steadily larger as they progress toward the bottom of the tie, brightly colored in orange and yellow--what more could one ask for in depicting the vibrant colors of the fall season?

Certainly this tie could easily symbolize the current state of affairs in our yard! I raked the leaves in our small back yard this afternoon, and they made quite an enormous pile. We've had some good stiff wind the past few days, and the several large maple trees in the vicinity are shedding at a furious rate, albeit with many more leaves yet to come down.

This tie is a relatively recent acquisition. It is one that my wife found somewhere, if I recall correctly. It has no extant labels to transcribe. There is also no brocade pattern woven into the fabric. What you see is what you get.

The second picture shows the entire length of the tie, which gives a better perspective of the diminishing size of the leaves as you travel up the tie. The scanned image, shown first, provides a better appreciation of the tie at its widest point, nearer the end.

As a postscript, I received notice this week that my blog has been linked by the Collectible Detective.com in the area of Men's Vintage Clothing & Accessories. Certainly I appreciate the link!

Autumn Leaves Number Four

Here's another example of autumn leaves in autumn colors, more or less. The background is a deep dark brown, while the leaves themselves are in shades of gold and silver. Kind of like that verse from Proverbs I cited on a previous entry.

I'm going to have to upload at least 2, maybe three images of this tie in order to do it justice. That's because when I shot it with my digital camera, the glare was so awful that the color varied drastically from side to side, and many of the leaves and portions of the background appeared drastically washed out.

So I reverted to my scanner. But this tie had two elements, both of which need to be shown, and only one of which at a time fit on the scanner bed. So the first image shows the primary lower portion of the tie; the second image shows the higher up portion as it approaches the place where the knot would be, and the third image, from the digital camera, puts it all together so you can see how the tie looks when tied. But trust the two scanned images for the color and detail.

Not (or should that be "knot") to mention that this tie also has a lovely brocade pattern woven into the background of the tie. You may actually find the brocade pattern easier to view on the digital camera image, where the flash and glare do contribute to making the pattern more visible.

How to describe it? You could almost say that it is made up of a series of necktie shapes, laid out next to each other in a curving row, with little triangles between. Or you might say (given the time of year) that they resemble a jack'0'lantern's toothy smile. They are intriguing and give the tie an additional flare, whatever you might think they look like.

This tie has a manufacturer or designer's label, which has the words

ARTcraft Creations

placed inside an artist's pallette, and the words

Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.

below. You can see the label on the second scanned image. All in all, a very nice tie, albeit just a bit worn, and losing some of its original resiliency.

Silvery Gray Leaves on Burgundy

Not all ties sporting autumn leaves have to necessarily show traditional autumn colors. Several of my vintage ties featuring leaves are in other kinds of color combinations, such as this one, with gray leaves on a deep red background.

This is my first experiment using my new inexpensive digital camera to capture a tie image, rather than my scanner. The scanner produces higher resolution images, I think, based on the size of the image in KB, anyhow. And this picture shows some glare from the camera flash. It's like only the second or third picture I've taken with the camera, so obviously I haven't a clue as to what I'm doing as yet.

But the reason I used this shot instead of the scan I made prior to trying the camera was that I couldn't get an accurate on-screen color using the scanned image. If I got the red to display the proper shade of deep burgandy, then the leaves were far too purple. If I got the leaves to the correct pale shade of silvery gray, then the red was much to light a shade, not at all like the tie itself. It was frustrating, to say the least.

I may try shooting the tie with the camera again, later, when I learn more about what I'm doing, and see if I can come up with a better image. In the meantime, at least, these colors appear more or less accurate to my eye.

This tie has no extant labels to transcribe. Hopefully the gorgeous slightly stylized leaf pattern imbedded into the fabric itself is visible. This is a beautiful tie, even if this low-quality image may not entirely do it justice.

Autumn Leaves Number Two

Here's another of the more spectacular specimens from my collection of vintage ties featuring autumn leaves. This is a fairly recent addition to my collection, which means, as it generally does, that I've added it within the last 2 or 3 years. Unfortunately, neither my wife nor I can remember just where we picked it up, or where it came from.

The tie does have one label which reads:

Haband
Peterson, N.J.

Typing the words "autumn leaves" naturally made me think of the song by that same name, and most especially, when I think of that song, I think of the version by Roger Williams, which apparently spent a month at #1 on the pop charts back in 1955, when I was a mere toddler.

Much later, my freshman year in high school in fact, I sang in the men's chorus. The men's club always put on the fall talent show, and the men's chorus always sang "Autumn Leaves" as the "title song" so to speak.

Later on, probably my junior or senior year, we had this remarkable pianist on campus named Bob Silverman (so far as I know, no relation to the well-known classical Canadian pianist of the same name) who could play virtually anything in any style, and who could imitate the Roger Williams version of the song to perfection. Later he went on to play for the Heritage Singers, an Adventist gospel singing group. I haven't seen or heard of him in years.

Anyway, that song still evokes bittersweet romantic emotions whenever I hear it. To me it's the perfect evocation of the autumnal season. What's that got to do with this tie? Not much, except that this tie, too, provides a welcome reminder of autumn.