Metropolitan Block Building / Vortkamps Drug Store / Vintage Bottles and Postcard ~ Collecting Lima Ohio

This vintage postcard, circa 1910s, pictures Lima, Ohio's Metropolitan Block Building, erected in 1890. Click the photo to enlarge.

You can see: 

• The Metropolitan Cigar Store
• The HF Vortkamp Drug Store
• ''The Fair'' (no info yet)
• The Republican Party Headquarters.

• HF Vortkamp bottles -the top one belongs to a friend.
• The next two are my Vortkamps medicine bottles.
• The one says German Apothecary, with the Met Block address.
• The second bottle has 2 locations, and tells us Vortkamps was now a Rexall Store.

"In 1902, Louis K. Liggett persuaded 40 independent drug stores to invest $4,000 in a retailers' cooperative called United Drug Stores, which sold products under the Rexall name.  (The "Rex" in the name came from the common Rx abbreviation for drug prescriptions.)"

• Professor Vortkamp seems to have retired around 1920, according to an entry in the 1921 National Association of Retail Druggists Journal (NARD). 

Metropolitan Cigar Store token/advertising premium. 

Proprietor was a Mr. McCoy, but no other info found yet.

• A b&w view of the old Metropolitan Block Building morphed with the colorful 21st century modern stores on the ground floor. 
• Photo created by MotoMedia as seen on the Downtown Lima Facebook page.
• Read a short article about the beginnings of the Metropolitan Block Building. 
• The building was later called the American House, and the Stippich Hardware, and is now called the Met Block.
• It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, along with several of Lima's other noted buildings.

_______________

H. F. VORTKAMP, pharmacist, whose place of business is
at No. 300 North Main street, Lima, on the corner opposite the Court
House, belongs to the city's representative business men.  He was born
in 1858, at Senora, Preble County, Ohio, and is a son of Bernard
Vortkamp, long deceased, who was a faithful soldier in the Civil War.
   H. F. Vortkamp was reared and educated in Cincinnati and was
graduated from the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy in 1880.  He had
previously creditably passed through the parochial high school at
Cincinnati and before entering the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy had
read medicine in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery.  After
his final graduation in pharmacy, he engaged in the drug business in
Cincinnati until 1886 and then removed his interests to Milford, Ohio,
where he continued until 1893, when he came to Lima.  He has continued
here in the drug business ever since and has the confidence of the
public; his experience and medical knowledge make his establishment
regarded as the leading one in the city as to reliability.  He is
secretary of the Allen County Association of Retail Druggists and has
held every office in the Association except that of treasurer.  He has
held every office in the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association from the
lowest to that of vice-president, and has on many occasions been a
delegate to national and State pharmaceutical conventions.  He was
chairman of the Ohio delegation at the national pharmaceutical meeting
held at Boston in 1905.  At present he holds no official relation with
that body, having felt compelled to resign on account of many pressing
private matters of business.
   Mr. Vortkamp is a Democrat and has always been more or less
interested in politics.  He was a delegate to the State convention that
nominated Pattison for Governor, and was the only delegate that remained
all through faithful to his convictions.  He is a member of the Lima
Progressive Association and has served in the Lima City Council.  He has
other business interest in addition to those in Lima, namely: Stock in
the Hollister Drug Company, of Madison, Wisconsin; stock in the Sterling
Remedy Company, of Kramer, Indiana; and stock in the United Drug
Company, of Boston, Massachusetts.
    In 1880 Mr. Vortkamp was married to Carrie F. Fleischman, of
Cincinnati, a member of a distinguished family of that city, and they
have three sons and two daughters, viz:  Harry F., who has just
completed a six-year course at Niagara University, New York; George J.,
who is a graduate of the Ohio Normal University at Ada and has passed
his examination before the State Board of Pharmacy; Charles, who is a
student in St. Rose Parochial School, Lima; Henrietta, who is a Sister
of Charity, now teaching in Denver; and Elizabeth, who is a student in
St. Rose Parochial School.
    The family belong to St. Rose Catholic Church.  Mr. Vortkamp is a
member of the Catholic Knights of Ohio and is vice-president of Branch
No. 23.  His portrait accompanies this sketch.

Living In Vintage Cinderella Homes in Southern California

My old home, in Costa Mesa, artistically interpreted.

I lived in Costa Mesa, California for many years, and now watch eBay for collectibles. Here is an item advertising "Cinderella Homes", which I had never heard of, even though they were located just a couple of miles from where I lived. Apparently it was a big deal in the 1950s.

The autobiography of the Jean Vandruff, the designer/builder, has the scoop. It's a pretty cool story.

I love how antiques collecting is always fun and educational, and you just never know where it will lead you, or what you'll see.

 Excerpt from the builder's biography:

One day Shannon said, "Jean, instead of building custom homes, we really should be building tract homes. Individual building sites are becoming terribly hard to obtain, and the "boxes" that are presently being sold as tract homes are a disgrace to the profession." I heartily agreed, and we started plans for mass development of "Cinderella Homes."

We planned to have 4 floor plans and 20 elevations. They would be ranch style, wide and low, with clipped ceilings, long roof overhangs, rounded rafter-tails, shake-shingle roofs, lots of brick wainscoting and brick planters, brick fireplaces 8' wide and floor to ceiling, big wide windows with custom shutters and garage doors that tied in with the rest of the architecture.

They would be excellent open-space plans, where the wife was still in constant touch with her husband and children - instead of being isolated - when she was working in the kitchen. Every home that I ever designed has incorporated this concept, because I have always believed that "communication" is one of the primary keys to a successful marriage and a happy family.

Shannon was able to tie up about 40 acres of land in the west side of Anaheim, California, and went out to try to obtain a construction loan for 168 homes. Most everyone thought we were crazy dreamers. One lending institution after another said, "If you were going to build 10, 20, even 50 homes, we might go along with you, but 168? No way! But the Lord intervened, and he found an old gentleman who ran Hollywood First Federal S&L. He said, "I like your designs, I like your perfect credit record, I like your past performance, and I'm going to go along with you." We closed the deal on the final day of our being able to retain the land. Why does God sometimes test us right up to the last minute?

As we were under construction, we had hundreds of people stopping by to ask when the homes would be for sale. These houses were revolutionary. No one had ever seen anything like these, except in custom homes well above $20,000. These were going to be available for $14,000, with 4% VA loans.

When the houses went on the market, they were sold out in three days, and in a short time we had over 1,000 people on a waiting list who wanted a Cinderella home. The impact of these homes caused several local builders to go into bankruptcy, and others had to stop, in the middle of development, to redesign their homes.

At this time, we had what the advertising agency said was the world's largest sign. It was 200' long and 40' high, beside the Santa Ana Freeway - impossible to drive the freeway without seeing it!

After we started the second development, containing 701 homes, we didn't have enough to meet the desires of over 1,000 people, so we decided to separate out those who really wanted a Cinderella Home from those who weren't quite so motivated. We notified the people that there would be a 4:00 am grand opening. When the sun came up, we had sold over 200 homes.

This was an $11 million development. It would be a $200 million operation today. At the peak of construction, at the very end, we were producing 16 homes per day; a huge operation. Normally, this would have been an impossibility in one single locality, but housing starts were in a deep slump, and there was an abundance of tradesmen and material available. We had the largest building operation in Orange County in 1956.

During construction of those homes, the lending market had changed radically. Money became extremely tight, and we were unable to procure permanent loans (VA & FHA) for our buyers. Many builder-developers went into bankruptcy. This continued for months, and when we did find a permanent lender, we had to pay 9 points (9%) to obtain the loans. We had about 10% profit figured in, so this ate up virtually all of our profit. We barely skinned through in the black, and Shannon said he would never build again.

There were many builders who wanted to use our plans, especially in the San Fernando Valley, so we started a franchise program, licensing other builders to use our copyrighted plans, specifications, lumber lists, hardware lists, color schemes, advertising formats, contract forms, and the name, "Cinderella Homes." This operation lasted about six years before the appeal dwindled away. Altogether, there were over 6,000 Cinderella Homes built from those plans as far away as Houston, Texas and Wichita, Kansas.

 Updated 10/2013 -- Mark writes in:

I live in one of the early franchised Cinderella tracts (Cinderella Estates, Canoga Park CA) which was franchised to & built by the same builder as the Costa Mesa tract, Roven & Spiegel Construction Co. I was raised in a tract adjacent to a Cinderella development in Sylmar, CA. I am currently doing a period "restoration" of my Cinderella home. These homes were built in many areas, including (but not limited to): Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Tustin, Pomona, Claremont, Goleta, Lodi, Stockton, Sylmar, Mission Hills, Northridge, Chatsworth & Canoga Park (2 tracts). I have been in contact with Mr Vandruff. His designs still look good to this very day... I also provide consulting services for anyone wishing to restore their Cinderella back to it's period beauty. - mark van cleve 

Collecting Vintage Palmer Cox Brownies Advertising ~ Featuring A Rare Brownie Tobacco Jar

Thought I'd share this interesting item I sold on eBay back in 2009.

It was this Palmer Cox Brownie Character Head Tobacco Jar Humidor

• So interesting --sharp strong features -- from a great mold -- does justice to Palmer Cox's Brownie character.
• Unusual piece -- I guess you'd call it chalk ware -- if you rub the inside a little white does come off on your hand. But the top of his hat seems to be glazed - not cold paint.
• No makers mark or number -- approx. 6" tall
• Sold price, was around $50 -- I think it should have gone for more, but it didn't. C'est la vie.

Palmer Cox's little Brownie characters have always been favorites of mine. Here's a little history on the little guys...

The excellent toonopedia site says:

• THE BROWNIES
• Original Medium: Magazine stories and cartoons
• Appearing in: Wide Awake magazine
• First Appeared: 1879, or 1881
• Creator: Palmer Cox

• The Palmer Cox page on wikipedia
• The Brownie Empire of Palmer Cox article on the Winterthur Museum's website.
• I'm sure you've seen their images on advertising for Kodak Brownie cameras.
• 
  

The assorted images (above) are from antique advertising tradecards, cigar labels, and bowling pin toys, as well as google image search screen shots (below). And these are just a miniscule drop in a huge bucket -- the Brownies were really popular, and well merchandised.

Aren't they cute?! Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

And of course there were lots of BOOKS!

And toys, games, dolls, figurines, dishes and tea sets, and... well, so much more. Just start googling, and enjoy!

Baseball History in Photograph Books and Collecting Antique Baseball Cigar Box Labels

Thought I'd share some great antique cigar box label BASEBALL images. These are fabulous lithographs from the late 1800s-1910s. The colors are so bright, and the artwork is so detailed.

Why baseball labels? Well, they are called ''The Boys of Summer'', after all.

As I've written before, I am always amazed at the breadth of Arcadia Publishing's book topics.

Here are some from their line of BASEBALL history books.

Turns out that they have so much more than just small towns. I just go nuts for all their great books illustrated with antique postcards and photographs. You'll love 'em too.

WHO'S YOUR BOZO? Vintage Bozo the Clown TV Show Collectibles

Bozo the Clown died. 

That is, Larry Harmon, an early Bozo and owner of the Bozo franchise biz recently passed away.



Although not the original Bozo, Harmon portrayed the popular clown in countless appearances and, as an entrepreneur, he licensed the character to others, particularly dozens of television stations around the country. The stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos.




I never realized there were a zillion different Bozos. The Bozo of my youth is not necessarily your Bozo.

• My Bozo was: Bozo the Clown - Los Angeles --Vance Colvig (1959-1964) at KTLA-TV. 
• Vance was the son of the original Bozo the Clown.

• So, WHO'S YOUR BOZO?  There were dozens of Local Bozos.

• I remember Bozo as often saying, "That's a Bozo No-No."

• Did a kid ever really say back to Bozo, "Cram it, clownie!" on live TV? Maybe... Read what urban-myth buster site Snopes.com says.

• Check out tvparty.com for Bozo pix, and info on all your favorite tv shows from the past.

• To read: the author attempts to unravel who did what when in the creation of "Bozo, the World’s Most Famous Clown"

• From Wikipedia: Bozo the Clown is a clown character whose widespread franchising in early television made him the best-known clown character in the United States. (the wiki article gives a lot of detail on the different Bozos, worldwide).

• Bozo the Clown was very heavily promoted and merchandised. You can find tons of items to collect.