Question:
Thought I'd post this auction in case anyone was interested. Time left: 1 day 14 hours- I don't know the seller, but thought someone here might be interested in these..
1919 Library Museum Lot~ 74 Fabric Textile Swatch Cards
Answer:
I'd say listing the 1919 date in the title is quite a stretch...

...however, this is still an interesting auction!

Cheers
Answer:
That is an interesting auction. You can see on some of the pictures that the writing was done with a fountain pen, so they are quite old.
Answer:
I've got a small file box of similar cards from my college textiles course in 1970. I even used a fountain pen to fill in the blanks (ballpoint pens were notoriously unreliable and messy), although I had type up my own cards with the headings, etc. The typing took longer than anything else!
Those are some pretty expensive fabrics in that box, in my opinion. The names of the fabrics are definitely from an earlier era than my college days in the late 60s/early 70s, but I'm not familiar enough with them to pin down a date without more research.
If I were doing online research on these fabrics and prices, I'd start with Joan Kiplinger's columns and the archives of the Vintage Fabrics list. Who else has good resources for this sort of thing?
Elaine (who is on dial-up on a borrowed computer and is getting tired of it....)
Answer:
Originally Posted by FiberGuy I'd say listing the 1919 date in the title is quite a stretch...

...however, this is still an interesting auction!

Cheers FiberGuy,
Would you tell us why you think the 1919 date is a stretch?
Might give us all some ideas for evaluating future items.
Elaine
Answer:
Hi Elaine,

I arrived at my conclusion for two main reasons: fabric widths (a 54" tweed fron 1919?) and more importantly, the prices listed.

I just whipped out one of our catalogs from 1929 (it just happened to be on top) and some of the more expensive garments (outer wear garments made of similar material) cost about the same as ONE yard of the tweed that is listed.

I'm no dating expert...that's for certain, but I'm a skeptic to the bone. Having said that, I'm one to always try and date something as late as possible, not the earliest. If you can see one red flag, there are probably many others, waiting to be found.

As far as the fountain pen...they were popular up until 1950 or so...but are still used to this day, so that's not a concrete indicator of anything, really. Speaking of which...that would be a good trivia question for today...when was the ball-point pen invented??

If I were a betting man...I'm not, fortunately, but if I were, I'd say MID-20th century.

BTW- my wife commented to me that we've had a similar set of cards several years ago...they were purchased at an old school auction, probably from the home-ec department!


Cheers
Answer:
The cards would be good for those of us who need help with what a fabric is called and would be even better if they had the fabrics dated accurately.