Aunt Jemima Tin

Hello everyone!!!!!!

I’m new to this group / site. I have a question on a collection that I’ve been unknowingly collecting. I’ve been collecting mostly vintage food tins. I would buy one here and there just for home decor but it’s turned out to be more than I realized, but my question is I recently came across a Aunt Jemima tin 5 gallon.
Not finding many out there on line & now with the possible logo and name change is this something I should purchase. I need suggestions on value, rarity, etc....
If I purchase this tin it will be the most expensive tin I will purchased but I love the graphics, size, plus this is the syrup my family uses. thank you.

 

Hi Waxpaper!

Welcome to Antiquers........

Fun ID!!

It's a great tin, but not in the best of conditions with all the rust.

If you plan on keeping it, rather than for resale, then it's really up to you what you are willing to pay for it.

You have heard that that the name has been changed because of all the race accusations? Or maybe even taken off the shelves?

I don't know more than that..... it is what I heard on the news.

So unnecessary.........I also associated Aunt Jemima as a symbol of a loving compassionate person......never someone in a demeaning role.

Wait for others opinions...................

 

I don’t plan on selling it but in time everything needs to move on to a new home. I’ve seen a couple sell on line at auctions, 1 on eBay in the same if not worse condition. I guess this really goes for all the tins, is there a market, have values gone up / down, etc...

 

Sorry I meant to reply to you. Yeah I’ve heard about the changes or possibly taken off the shelves & that’s another reason why I’m wondering if it’s worth buying. Just that piece of history we all know and love

 

Cool tin, but in rough shape. But I think the value these days would be less for "the tin" and more for "the subject". Depends what the seller is asking. Now that selling options might be limited, need to take that into account for resale.

An interesting time for Aunt Jemima items. Ebay has pulled most listings. I think there were roughly 1000 live listings a month ago if you searched "Aunt Jemima" on Ebay, now there are 67 listings. Or another way to see the change, today has 67 live listings, over 900 under "sold".

That said, Aunt Jemima items have been going for crazy prices in the last week or so (if they don't get pulled). There is an Aunt Jemima 1920s paper flour box under "Ebay sold" that looks like someone bought 2 weeks ago on Ebay for around $350, and turned around and sold it (using the same photos) a few days ago for over a $1K. Not sure why it wasn't pulled like other things, but you can find it under sold.

I find it hard to believe the prices will stay so high for this kind of thing, but I've been wrong before. Plus if you can't use Ebay to resell, need to take that into account.

 

Hello, Waxpaper. From what Lucille told us, sounds like there are others speculating about future value if the brand name disappears just as you are. It distorts the picture of what the collector market is. I think there will still be a market for Black Americana, some collectors are themselves Black. As Lucille pointed out, an issue will be whether, by the time you are ready to sell it on, platforms like eBay will be permitting open sale. I still see ivory for sale using certain code words, such as 'Dieppe'. Same thing may happen with this sort of thing, maybe Vintage Corn Oil Tin, Black History Interest.

 

Here's another opinion.
From 1939's The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 23, No. 3, "The Role of the Black Mammy in the Plantation Household" by Jessie W. Pankhurst:

"The present generation of Americans, both white and Negro, are acquainted with the "Black Mammy" as she has been handed down in tradition. They are acquainted with her as she is represented on the legitimate stage, in the moving pictures, and in fiction. Newspapers and periodicals from time to time print stories about this character, and people living who came under her influence relate their experiences with the "Mammy" to their children, friends, and acquaintances.

"Negroes and whites in the South held different attitudes toward what came out of slavery. To the majority of Negroes anything that savored of the period of slavery was objectionable... To whites the period of slavery has been sentimentalized and glorified. Because the "Black Mammy" originated in and came out of the period of bondage she is an acceptable symbol to whites and an unacceptable one to Negroes."

This has long been a bone of contention and, 80 years later, a mammy was still gracing the box of pancake mix.

 

I've always regretted a little that I did not buy right at the first time I saw it a cleaning product in a box with the brand name Chore Boy. Below, in smaller letters: Formerly Chore Girl.

 

That’s where I’m at. Hate to spend the money, not sure of the value, am I mixed up in this craze of buying this product right now, I like the tin, but don’t want to regret it in 3 months

 

I agree! People are going stupid about the whole colour thing. Please, leave it alone. By changing things, you just add to the idiocy of the move!

 

• Condition not great.
• 5 gallons has to be pretty big. Do you have space for it?
• It's not for pancake syrup, it's for corn oil. Is that still sentimental to you?
• Future salability in doubt.
• If it's more than you're comfortable spending...
  

 

It's a bit more than that in the US. The UK is not so acutely aware of being a country where the descendants of the owners & the owned/enslavers & enslaved are trying to find a way to live together peaceably & fairly. ('Fairly': now there's structural racism for you.)

 

@Bronwen - what brings it home to me is that every Afro Caribbean person I know - and that's a great many - is the descendant of slaves. And that not even their surnames are their own. I think the difference is that African Americans, unless they are descended from free immigrants, were enslaved in the country they still inhabit as citizens. Unlike the Caribbean nations, they have little political or economic power. We have our own issues of course and they seriously need fixing.Unless you live in stasis, that which was acceptable a few decades back, may well not be any longer.

 

Symbols like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben have their origin in enslaved people who were forced to provide service and comfort to their enslavers. As such, for so many people, they are a hurtful reminder of a painful past, so I am glad this is a time when we in the US are again attempting to reckon with and remove these symbols.

 

This is a similar oil tin in somewhat better condition. It sold in 2015 for $125 but don't have any idea what it might be worth now.

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/33212762_aunt-jemima-cooking-oil-tin

 

well said.