Purse Collections Excavated from Storage

Last week I shared my summer 2022 collected home and all the furnishings I've placed since winter. In that post, I mentioned I would show you how I styled various curio cabinets in my 'girly' room with my vintage and antique purse collections.

Full disclosure: what I'm about to share with you is still only a portion of my collection of vintage and antique purses. 

But today, I'm excited to at least have these displays to share and show you. The gateleg table in the left frame of the collage below was a new, old love since moving into this cottage house. The DuBarry Beauty Preparations display case sitting on it was something I've had for years. I've also owned the French curio (middle frame) and purse 'tree' (right frame) for several years.

Let's look at what's inside the DuBarry Case first. There are three shelves with layers of handbags.

My bezel-set French rhinestone handbags ...

French-made sequin, beaded & enameled purses, as well as two of Whiting & Davis' Star Series (Silent film stars Renee Adore and Charlie Chaplin)...

On the bottom shelf are my first purchases of beaded 'rug' and beaded figural (after Francois Boucher's 1737 "Charms of Country Life"). The beaded figural handbag also has a matching compact and hand-painted snuff box with the same figural depiction.

Atop the beaded 'rug' and figural are my chatelaines. I did an entire post on these fascinating accessories, here.

The leather chatelaine was a recent acquisition in the past couple years, and it is actually on the mannequin in this room's reading corner with other early 20thC period clothing and accessories.

On the table beside the DuBarry case is a small display stand of mostly 'finger' - or dance - purses, as they were called in the 1920s-1930s. These were worn by Flapper women while they danced, often by the ring attachment at the end of the design of many. 

Here's a sampling of some of my finger and dance purses. They ranged in functionality from being an entire makeup compact to carrying just a coin, some even with built in clocks!

The French curio has a plethora of purses, vanity items, and other related antiquities relating to the [mostly] Flapper Flapper era.

Here is just a sampling of the many snuff boxes, vanity compacts, and unique leather purse fit for a small pistol (with the imprint still clearly visible) from this case.

On the wall where my girls' photos are hung, I have another curio that is mostly vintage and antique children's purses and vanity items.

Children's purses and vanity items are not easily found, as children would wear their items, so finding them, and in good condition, is always a treat. The collage below is just a sampling of mine, with recurring themes such as Clara Bow faces, Scottie and Airedale dogs, and children's classic stories and rhymes. Materials may be oil cloth, felt, vinyl, leather, plastic, silk and/or metal mesh.

In the corner near this curio is my purse 'tree'. This displays most of my vintage and antique mesh purse collection.

Again, here's just a sampling of those on the purse tree:

A couple other displays of French beaded and mesh bags are atop the French curio and to the left of the children's curio. I also have a shelf in my bookcase dedicated to reference books on purses and chatelaines.

As I said, what I'm sharing today doesn't even begin to touch my collection of beaded purses, some of which are true collectors' rarities, and book referenced pieces. Here's a sampling collage I created some time ago, a few of which are repeats in today's post and are not beaded.

I have many beaded purses that I need to figure out how to display that are either in individual Riker boxes (no affiliation, only linked for illustrative purposes), or individually wrapped in a storage box since downsizing. I think perhaps a wall shelf for lean-to displays might be a good thing for those in the Riker boxes. 

I've even had a mess of a World War I beaded purse I bought and had restored (top left in collage above). I did an entire post on that restoration, and to see the before and the history behind the purse, see this post. Here's a photo of the after: 

She's a beauty now, but was a complete mess before. I was able to - years later - win a hankie serendipitously at an auction, which now accompanies this purse. It's made of silk, and the note inside the original gift box reads: 

"To Mrs. W.B. Rullings 

Wishing you a Mery Xmas 

& Happy New Year. how is the 

electric lights. Ha. Ha. From a 

Soldier Friend Raymond Whitcomb

2nd Rgt Engn bat AEF" 

(AEF is an acronym standing for American Expeditionary Forces)

I have been a member of the Antique Purse Collectors Society since 2008, and consider it a privilege to be friends with many of the collectors featured and even authoring some of my reference books. I've inventoried my entire collection via photo albums and an Excel spreadsheet, but there's always room for improving my cataloging system. If you are interested in the other links to various posts I've written on my purses, the list below will conveniently take you to each of them.

• Flowers and Bird as Inspiration in Beaded Purse Collection
• A WWI-Era Beaded Purse Restoration - Before and After
• Chatelaines - Keys to the Castle (and a Collector's Heart!)
• Crossover Collectible: Purse Ephemera
• "A Panoply of Purses" - 1st Edition, 2013

Thank you for allowing me the guilty pleasure of visiting some of my old friends that have been in storage for so long. If you've stuck with me all this time, you are gracious readers, indeed. Leave me a comment, let me know if you have an obsession a collection like this or any other, such as dishes. Believe me, there's more from where this came. 😜

Rita C. at Panoply

A special thanks to Pam of An Artful Mom Thursday Favorite Things Link Party #548, Bev from Eclectic Red Barn Thursday Favorite Things #548, Amber from Follow the Yellow Brick Home Thursday Favorite Things #548, and Barb from French Ethereal's Share Your Style #353 for featuring this post!

Parties I Share With: Pieced Pastimes, Love Your Creativity, BNOTP Met Monday, where showing befores and afters is a key topic!, All About Home Common Ground, All About Home Follow the Yellow Brick Home,  A Stroll Thru Life, My Wee Abode,  French Ethereal SYS, Happiness is Homemade, Traffic Jam Weekend, Katherine's Corner TFT, Eclectic Red Barn TFT, Follow the Yellow Brick Home TFT, Grace at Home, My Thrift Store Addiction, Our Hopeful Home, Karin's Kottage, County Road 407 Farmhouse Friday