Advertising and Souvenirs
Several companies that make milk-based products have either adopted a cow as their symbol, or at least use cows to advertise their products. Perhaps the most famous of these is Borden’s “Elsie”. Elsie started as an artist’s drawing of a advertising mascot for Borden’s many dairy products. Following their popular exhibit at the New York World’s Fair where they had several cows, the company decided to select one to satisfy children who wanted to know which one was the REAL Elsie. The one they selected from their herd was a Jersey originally named “You’ll Do Lobelia”, and she became a national favorite…indeed, she still is. Borden produced a number of creamers and pitchers of Elsie (among many other advertising products) - as well as of her husband, Elmer (of glue fame), who often accompanied her as a sugar bowl.
Elsie is sufficiently popular that not only have there been innumerable look-alike creamers and pitchers, but many that bear little or no resemblance to the Borden originals are mislabled as her. She even has her own web page, www.elsie.com.
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Here are two ‘official’ versions of Elsie (back as well as front of the white one to show off her pretty blue bow), bearing both a sticker with her name, and a Borden’s copyright stamp… |
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…and here’s what makes them “official” – a copy of the design patent issued to Walter Oehrle as assignor to Borden, in 1943…I can’t find much about Mr Oehrle (pronounced ‘Early’) on the web, except that he was a quite well known ‘cartoon’ artist, who in the 1920s and 30s produced images of bears for Union Pacific, as well as some paintings that were rendered into woodcuts, and then into cut glass, that hung in the Bear Pit Lounge and dining room of Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn. .. |
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And here are some ‘look-alikes’, some more closely modeled on the original than the others. There are more examples in the ‘Modern Variations’ theme section. |
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Here is Borden’s pitcher version of an Elsie head creamer, with Elmer as the sugar bowl. Elsie seems to have come in a variety of colors and sizes. Borden’s also made a plastic version, which would certainly have been more child-friendly for use at the breakfast table. |
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These ‘head’ versions of Elsie pitchers were copied by folks exploiting her fame – here are a set (Elmer’s missing his hat) stamped ‘Hand Painted, Japan”, and another also marked Japan. There are even more examples in the “Heads” theme section. |
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Carnation, which makes condensed milk, of course has to have its ‘contented cow”… |
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And naturally Hershey, with its milk chocolate, features cows as well. The creamer on the right in this picture came from the Hershey chocolate company’s gift store at their plant in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Although the connection to the product isn't quite clear, folks do put milk on Jell-O. Thus they got in the act with the creamer on the left, which is Sebastian Miniature catalog #LC-13, one of the many figurines created by Preston Baston and his son Woody. Baston did a series of miniatures for Jell-O from 1951-56, and at the end of that series designed this cow creamer for the company. Jell-O had a hundred thousand of them made in Japan and offered them for $1.00 and a coupon from their advertisements. They're considerably more pricey these days. See Sebastian World. |
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Here’s another one from Hershey, this time on a pudgy creamer that’s quite a popular mold – there are a number like it from various places, near the bottom of page 2 of Modern Variations. |
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Cows are certainly a good advertisement for a dairy products company, albeit few of them seem to have actually used them. This delightful little made-in-China plastic guy pretty obviously comes from Horizon Organic, which I must admit I hadn’t heard of until I got this little beauty for the hefty sum of $.99. They’ve got a neat web page, full of games for kids and stories about their farms as well as products, and a history section that tells us that they “began in 1992 with a cooperative of small organic dairy farms in Wisconsin,” when “natural products industry veterans, Mark Retzloff and Paul Repetto, embarked on a search for organic milk in order to make organic dairy products available in the marketplace.” Given the growing interest in organic products, these days they “proudly source organic milk from over 500 family farms and cooperatives across the country, and that number is growing every day. We have contributed to converting hundreds or thousands of acres to organic farmland. We continue to help hundreds of farmers throughout the country transition to organic production to help provide more great tasting certified organic dairy foods to our consumers.” This little plastic ad must be mighty proud! And Mark and Paul must be doing very well. The ad for another of these creamers on eBay in late 2011 added that Horizon Organic is owned by Dean Foods, and its products distributed by White Wave Foods. |
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Here’s an interesting modern variant, carrying both the logo (LBL) and web address of Lampire Biological Laboratories. Following the directions on the collar, we find that LBL “specializes in polyclonal and monoclonal antibody development, cell culture devices and services, and a wide variety of blood-derived products. Founded in 1977, the Pennsylvania based company offers an extensive line of secondary antibodies, purified IgGs, human and animal blood products, plus a comprehensive line of animal tissues and organs. The latest product releases include New Zealand sourced animal blood products, the gas-permeable LAMPIRE® Cell Culture Bag and exclusive antibodies to chemotherapeutic agents. Support services include peptide synthesis, antigen design, antibody purification, custom conjugation, and immunoassay development. In addition, Lampire has earned primary vendor status with biopharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device manufacturers worldwide.” Presumably the cow has offered its blood and parts for the company.
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Here’s a British take on the cow as advertisement…with your stock in Dairy Crest comes this gift and the wish to “milk your money for all it’s worth”. |
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And here are a couple of Australian examples. The dairy one seems pretty straightforward, but the wine connection is less clear, at least to me. Perhaps the good folks from Grevillea will stumble across this web page and offer an explanation (and a bottle?). |
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These “Moo-Cow Creamers”, made by Whirley Industries, Inc. of Warren PA, were very popular in the US in the ‘60s. Their web site notes that the folks who started the company began with a car wash…which led to a line of custom-branded drink containers for marketing. In 2004 they bought a California company called DrinkWorks, and now they’re Whirley Drinkworks. I can’t find a cow on their web page…just pretty girls, kids, and sports figures. I guess marketing has changed. In their heyday, however, the Moo-Cow creamers were widespread in restaurants and as souvenirs, and came not just as creamers, but with accompanying sugar, salt and pepper shakers, etc. See the Modern Variations theme for more examples. |
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Here’s a Canadian version of the same idea…from Fifth Wheel Truck Stops. |
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What worked in plastic also seemed to catch on in ceramics. These made-in-Japan versions come marked for many different states…perhaps all 50, who knows. |
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Here’s another British approach to souvenir cow creamers - import them. These 2 little guys are both stamped for Germany. I included the one with the single rose in the Miniatures section, and only later acquired the Letterkenny souvenir and noted that the creamers were identical but fore the decorations. |
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Here’s another imported example…this cute present from Great Yarmouth, although unmarked and in a Cornish dress, is almost certainly made in Germany…there’s one like it stamped for Germany but without the souvenir mark near the bottom of page 3 of Modern Variations. I was delighted to get this one – at £3.97, less than a tenth of the price of the other one, it was a super bargain. Makes me feel almost sorry for the seller, but that’s eBay... |
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The Staffordshire factories are in the souvenir game as well of course. Here’s two that are obviously from the same mold, and presumably the same maker. The darker brown one is simply marked for Clovelly, which is on the coast of North Devon. I find from Hertiage Britain that “The picturesque, ancient, fishing village of Clovelly is uniquely special in that it has no cars and no individually owned houses. Its flower-strewn cottages "tumble like a waterfall" down a cleft in the 400' cliff along cobbled streets to the tiny working port and C14th quay.” It’ll be a ‘must’ for our next visit to the UK. Of course, the right time to visit Devon has to be the second Tuesday in September, which is when the Widecombe Fair – advertised on the light brown creamer – is held. The picture depicts Uncle Tom Cobley and his friends riding to the fair on on a grey mare … from an old Devon folk song which you can find at http://www.spreyton.org.uk/tom_cobley.htm. Wikipedia informs us that “The phrase ‘Uncle Tom Cobley and all’ is used in British English as a humorous or whimsical way of saying et al., often to express exasperation at the large number of people in a list”, since the song ends with Tom listing all his buddies. This creamer is marked, thankfully: for “H A Wain & Sons Ltd, Melba Ware, Stoke on Trent” whose factory in Longton, Stoke on Trent, opened in 1946. Thanks to them for leading me to this information. |
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From the Victorian era (1837-1901) - when cow creamers were extremely popular – up until around up until around WWI, German porcelain makers produced some very lovely souvenir cow creamers with photo-transfers on their sides. This was a quite expensive process, I’m told, and as shown further down this page the more modern souvenir cows have decals, paintings, writing, or some other less costly process. The black and white cow here is from Plauen, a city in Saxony that was founded by Polabian Slavs in the 12thC. The picture depicts Friedensbrücke, the world’s largest stone arch bridge (Wikipedia has great write-ups about many German cities, and is the source for most of my brief descriptions). The brown cow is from Baden-Baden in the western foothills of the Black Forest, famous for it’s baths since Roman times. |
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Here are two versions of an interesting variant – both German made after WWI, as evidenced by the “foreign” stamp. As noted elsewhere, this was used during the post-war period when the Brits were very keen on acquiring crested or otherwise marked souvenir china, but were reluctant to buy anything recognizably German. The creamer with the picture of 3 ladies reads “Welsh Costumes”, and has “RHSL” on the other side; I have no idea what that may mean. The other creamer bears the coat of arms of Edinburgh…thus here we have a cow that seems to have been popular in both Wales and Scotland. For those of you with an interest in the arcane, here’s a description of the coat of arms:
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This creamer – from the same mold as the two above from Bournemouth and Brighton, also bears (as do they) the ‘foreign’ stamp. I find it sort of ironic that although the British public may have been reluctant to purchase items that were obviously made in Germany, the peddlers were by no means shy about using German imports as souvenirs for some of their most beloved places…here, Windsor. |
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These two are identical but for the shape of the hole on top, and only the one on the left – with the picture of a “Scottish fishwife” - is stamped for Gemma. Gemma produced a lot of crested china, and it usually fetches quite a good price on eBay. I haven’t been able to find out anything about the company, but from www.villagenet.co.uk/collectors/crestedchina.html we learn that “Collecting heraldic porcelain miniatures, or crested china as it is now popularly known, became a national craze in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. During the period of its production, around 1880 to1930, it is thought that around 90% of all homes contained some pieces. Indeed, no holiday or seaside outing was complete without the purchase of some piece of souvenir porcelain. The introduction of Bank holidays in 1871, paid holidays for workers and improved wages, combined with improved travel facilities such as trains, paddlesteamers and charabancs, boosted the sales of souvenirs considerably.” Apparently the first pottery firm to come up with the idea was W.H. Goss of Stoke-on-Trent, and they initiated a national craze. Cheaper products from Germany, Austria etc soon flooded the market, pushing out the more costly British china…as seen from the many German cows here. |
   The more modern (here post-WWII) creamers remained popular as souvenirs but the pictures and crests are quite a bit less refined, and much cheaper to produce than those with the earlier transfer process. These five are all from the same mold – and all, I believe, are manufactured by Goebel, although only the ones from Cham and Tegernsee (both have bells) are marked for them…with the TMK-3 small stylized V-bee, used from 1960-1972. The other three are simply marked in blue (as are the Cham and Tegernsee cows) “Made in W. Germany”. Part of the fun of these is learning a bit about the towns they depict, largely via Wikipedia: Hartberg is a small town in Styria, Austria; it was first referred to as a ‘civitas’ in 1286, but settlements there date back to 3c BC, and presumably the tower visible on the hill is one of the remnants of that early fortification. Monks founded a church in the Bavarian forest near Cham (pronounced Kam) in the 8c, and the town itself has borne this name since late 10c. Wiesbaden is an old spa town on the north bank of the Rhine in Saxony, continuously occupied since the Romans build a fort there in 6AD. The creamer’s picture depicts the neo-classical spa-house, built at the request of Kaiser Wilhelm from 1904-07. Butzbach is in Hesse, Germany, and housed many US Army troops until they pulled out after the end of the Cold War. Tegernsee is a spa town in Bavaria, about 50 miles south of Munich, on the lake of the same name. It’s Benedictine abbey was founded in 746, and secularized in 1803 at which time it became the summer home of the Bavarian royal family, the Wittlsbachs. |
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Here are three from Austria and Switzerland…the one on the left, with the flowers and “Bergenz Osterreich” is a Goebel (small V-bee mark) creamer. I particularly like the little Swiss guy. A bunch of other Swiss ones are scattered throughout |
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This unpretentious little brown cow provided quite a history lesson for me when I went to the web to look up the name on its side. From www.nationmaster.com, with a bit of added spice from wikipedia merged in, we learn that “Hondschoote is a commune of the Nord département, in northern France. It lies on the French side of the Franco-Belgian frontier, just inland from the North Sea. The North Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, located between the coasts of Norway and Denmark in the east, the coast of the British Isles in the west, and the German, Dutch, Belgian and French coasts in the south. ... In the Middle Ages, Hondeschoote was part of the Spanish Netherlands. A thriving wealthy cloth-town, it had thousands of small workshops making serge cloth from locally-grown linen flax. But in the 16th century, when French armies attacked the Spanish army, battles raged over Hondschoote. The French burned and looted the town. The cloth-makers of Hondeschoote fled as refugees to what is now Belgium and to England, taking their skills to benefit France's rivals. “The famous Battle of Hondschoote was a key event in saving the French Republic after the Revolution. It was fought from September 6 through 8, 1793 during the French Revolutionary Wars and resulted in a French victory under General Houchard and General Jourdan against the British under the Duke of York. The English king sent an army via Flanders to capture
Dunkerque as key invasion port to rid the country of revolutionaries. They
were joined by troops from Hanover and Austrians from neighboring Austrian
Flanders. 40,000 Frenchmen defeated 24,000 British and Hanoverian soldiers,
capturing 6 flags and all of the Duke of York's artillery. This strategic
victory resulted in the British lifting the siege of Dunkirk. Despite his
triumphant entry into the city, General Houchard was later tried and
guillotined for failing to pursue the British." Really sweet guys, those
French revolutionaries. |
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Here are a couple of devilish-looking Austrian souvenirs, the one on the left from Kitzbühel, a medieval city in the Tyrol, Austria, that’s now a very fancy ski resort. Its picture nicely displays the old buildings of the town set against the mountains. The one on the right advertises Bruck an der Mur, in the Austrian state of Styria at the confluence of the Mur and Mürz rivers, founded in 1263. Once an important medieval trade center, in addition to remaining an important rail and river junction it’s now known for it’s annual artist and clown festival. The picture shows its famous 15c Kornmesser house. |
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Here’s an interesting German contrast to the two Austrian cows’ souvenir pictures - a creamer advertising Bad Windsheim, which is an even older (~741) small historic town in Bavaria, now known mostly for its waters, spa, and an open air museum. Why would such a lovely old town choose to show off such an ugly modern building? There’s another conundrum here as well: this creamer appears to be from the same mold as the Goebel creamer shown here with it; but it’s unmarked, and bears the black and gold sticker of E&A Böckling, Neudenau, which is in Baden Württemberg. But…the Marchenhein Goebel-marked souvenir creamer here bears both the Goebel mark and the E&A Böckling sticker. I can’t find anything about E&A Böckling on the web; an anyone tell me about them or the relationship, if any, between them and Goebel? |
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The French aren’t shy about seeking the cow-loving tourist’s francs (or euros these days) either…this is a fairly common mold with Delft-like coloring and decorations, marked with a ‘e’ with a crown on top of it inside a wreath, underneath in script: “Peint a la main, Elvesa, France”. Somehow the picture of the Eiffel Tower doesn’t look hand painted to me. Nor do the flower sprays. I guess they mean the little blue slashes… |
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Nor, it appears, were the French averse to the same sort of German imports that the Brits favored…as per this lovely example from Cherbourg. |
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Here are two more from DC |
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I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Holland Michigan chose a Delft-like pattern for its souvenir…but I don’t have any idea why Knotts Berry Farm chose to give its cow green ears and hooves. |
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Here are two more Niagara Falls examples – another large V-bee Goebel with the same decal as the one above, and a brown German porcelain creamer with the location hand-written. This is a popular German mold, marked “3672, II”, most likely from Gerold Porzellan. You can read more about them, and see other examples of their creamers, in Modern Variations. |
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Adding to the ever-growing Niagara Falls part of the collection, here are three more examples: a Japanese short-horn, a German porcelain bearing the “3672, I” imprint, and yet another Goebel large V-bee, stamped “WG, Germany” and with the mold imprint “S465”. The latter two at least are well made and quite expensive for souvenirs. |
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Jumping back across the Atlantic, this very modern little creamer is my only Irish souvenir – interestingly marked, although only with a yellow and green paper label, “A Present from the Ronald Reagan, Ballyporeen”. I couldn’t pass it up. The seller noted that this pub is now gone, the interior having been moved to the Ronald Regan Library in California. I haven’t visited, but perhaps someone who has can confirm or deny… |
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