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Thursday, May 13, 2010

Florida is a dish best served old

No one is ever going to find this post...other than accidentally, thanks to the poor pun above.  It does relate to the post, however:


While visiting my family on vacation, I convinced myself that I had bought this 5" x 3" coin/souvenier tray years ago and presented it as a gift. Whether I actually did, or not, is beside the point because this is the exact kind of thing I look for. Going to as many sales as I do and seeing as much kitsch as I see, it is hard not to see things that have a coincidental connection to the people around you.  Nostalgic items like these make good gifts because of their view of the past and the irony for what some of these images mean to Floridians now.  This tray in peticular, became an interesting exercise in dating souveniers and is a good conversation piece.
Can you guess it's age?  Other than the fact that it is pitted and stained (though some might refer to this as "petina") and with no mention of Disney or the space coast it is easy to say the early 50's, but further inspection-

-has me thinking the 40's. The mention of Daytona beach and the racing cars above have me split.  The first Daytona 500 was in 1959, but they were racing on the beach years before that.  But those cars don't look like any I've seen. The design is a much older car (earlier 20th century) but not with a closed cockpit. I am lost. My search for a match has come up empty. The tray which was probably a dime-a-dozen at the drugstore, doesn't show up anywhere in this cyber-souvenir museum that is the internet.

 This is probably more than enough of this forensic look at a simple zinc-tin-? plated copper tray. The only information on the reverse is of course-
I have been away from blogging for so long I find it is like exercising.  My muscle (the one between my ears) is weak and finding my groove is difficult.  I need a good DIG to get me back in shape. I will be on the hunt this weekend and my goal is to make it to 100 posts with some good material.

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