Featured Bostonia

I found this beaded bag marked Bostonia. Its dated 1903 I believe and I'm having no luck with any info on the company. Any help would be awesome

 

It doesn't look very 1903. Got a picture of the marks?

 

Originally a shallow leather coin purse

 

Trying to come up with the right term. 'Miser's purses' are different, & reticules all seem to have draw strings. 'Beaded stocking purse' was surprisingly unproductive. Does the lid itself open? It looks like it could be a vinaigrette?

 

Apparently it's a Tam Oshanter style coin bag. Looking at the construction I believe the glass beads are original to the item but at this point I cant find anything about the company that made it. However, I did find another beaded item by them in a different style with the same patent date. Bostonia may have just made the top and closure.

 

http://www.adadealers.com/antiques/index.php?page=out&id=6590

 

Rare and difficult to find Native American beaded coin purse, with an image of an Indian chief in full regalia, with a headdress and frontal Indian decoration. Manufactured by "Bostonia" (embossed on underside of the lid), and dated "Dec. 15, '03. We can presume the company was in Boston and therefore American made. The Indians were commissioned to do the bead work and forwarded their handicraft to "Bostonia" to complete the silver plated embossed Indian design. These purses are very unique. The bead work is similar to that of the tribes in the Great Lakes region in America at the turn of the 19th century.

I do not validate any of this to be the truth !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I can not say any of this is true??>>>>?<<<<<<<<<**(&^%$$&*)

Antique Indian Beaded Coin Purse
This Antique Indian Beaded Coin Purse is a lovely treasure that came to us in trade. Made for the tourist industry, the Native American warrior is cast in silver-plate by the Bostonia Company with a patent date of December 1903. It was then hand beaded by Native Americans, who were commissioned by Bostonia. Possibly Ojibwe or Algonquin, we can't be sure. An eight pointed star or flower was hand sewn in white and blue seed beads on a threaded ground. It's about 2-3/4" wide and is in extremely good condition for its age, early 20th century. This Antique Indian Beaded Coin Purse is one of a kind and it is delightful!

 

This is probably the case. Patent date puts a floor under the age, but doubt this style made it very far into the 20th century. Also doubt any of the beading is NA, no matter what is on the lid.

 

thanks......just workin a little harder than normal...

 

The only thing a patent date tells you is the date it was issued and not the date a piece was made. Ezra F. Bowman engraving tools have had the company name,city location and a patent date of 1889 on their engraving handle locking collars for over 100 years now.

 

I found your board when I was looking around for information on a tam o' shanter coin purse that my mother gave me years ago. She said that a cousin or aunt had made it, and that this lady was in "an asylum" for unspecified reasons, where she died in 1937. I'm the family genealogist, and have tentatively concluded that she was an aunt-in-law who was hospitalized for a mental illness (depression?) perhaps for years. I wondered if this purse, whose lid is unmarked, but would appear to be German silver made/marketed by Bostonia (the one with a design of antique coins), might have been some form of occupational therapy. I reason that if Bostonia supplied Native people with the means to make souvenirs, perhaps they supplied hospitals with hardware and patterns as well. (Or perhaps someone just bought a kit for her.) If any Antiquer could point me to more information about this theory, I'd be grateful. For what it's worth, the purse is still very usable, and I'll pass it along to my daughter or a granddaughter.

 

@M.E. Lawrence I have no knowledge about your purse in question but I would like to offer another idea that perhaps you have or haven't explored about a relative being in an 'asylum'. This winter I've started doing a lot of genealogy work on my family tree and have been surprised at how many people died from consumption (tuberculosis). Hospitals/sanatoriums often treated only TB patients. Just thought I'd throw that idea your way.

 

Thanks, wiscbirddog. My great-aunt was almost certainly being treated for mental illness, but my mother also used to talk about a friend her age who died young of T.B. (c. 1928) after being sent to a sanatorium in a western state for treatment. A dreadful illness--it's easy to get nostalgic about the so-called good old days, but the epidemics of the past were also pretty terrible.