I rarely buy reproduction items, but sometimes a repro is old enough to be considered "vintage" itself. Such is the case with these vintage "hornbooks" I purchased at an estate sale last month:
These hornbooks were probably sold at a museum gift shop, perhaps at Greenfield Village here in Michigan. What are hornbooks, exactly? They were used as "primers" to educate young children and typically have the alphabet, first and foremost, numbers, and usually a prayer of some type underneath printed on paper or vellum. This is tacked to a wooden paddle. The "horn" part comes in because the paper was protected many years ago by a thin sheet of horn or mica. The examples I bought were covered in plastic. That's one way I knew they weren't old!
This is the house my hornbooks came from, in Lake Odessa, Michigan. They had a lot of good stuff, a real "digger" sale, and I got there on the third day after it had been picked over:
Although the hornbooks I purchased are probably from the 1970's or thereabouts, I think they're old enough to sell in my antique mall booths if properly marked.
Mitzi
