Fairbanks-Morse Refrigerator Posters, ca. 1935
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GUEST:
I got these posters at an antique/junk store in the small town where I live. This was the only one that was hanging up. It was in the window when I drove by. I thought it would be perfect in my kitchen, because my kitchen is like a retro 1950s red kitchen. So I went in to see if I could buy it, and it turned out there were actually the other two, so I purchased all three of them.
APPRAISER:
With the idea of hanging them in your kitchen.
GUEST:
Yes. I was going to cut them up, have them framed, hadn't gotten around to it yet, so I thought I would bring them in here and see if there was any value before I chopped them up.
APPRAISER:
You were going to cut them up.
GUEST:
I was, yes. Well, I think a rat... it had torn here, and there was some rat damage. So I figured I could probably cut it up.
APPRAISER:
And what did you pay for them?
GUEST:
$15.
APPRAISER:
How long ago did you buy these?
GUEST:
I bought them about six months ago. The man who I bought them from, he cleans up estate sales, the stuff that's left over. And I guess they were from a man who used to own an appliance store, I don't know how many years ago, at least 50 plus.
APPRAISER:
These are obviously posters for a brand of refrigerator. And it's the Fairbanks-Morse company. I have to say, I am not a refrigerator specialist. My specialty is posters, and I'm likely to say something now about the history of refrigerators that will offend somebody who knows an awful lot about refrigerators, and I apologize in advance. It's not my area of expertise.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
But I have done a little bit of research. There's no date on them, and we can only date them by the image and by the product. And to the best of my research, these are from the late 1930s, which is when the Fairbanks-Morse company introduced the Conservador. And I hear "Conservador," and I'm like, oh, it sounds like "conserve." But the Conservador was in fact an inner door to the refrigerator, where you would put the most used items. So you could open the door, grab eggs, grab milk, and not let all of the cold air out of the main refrigerator, where you kept the more perishable materials. It even says, "Saves more money. Gives greater convenience." So they're explaining this new, exciting development in refrigerators. But the posters are this fabulous retro appeal, sort of June Cleaver, the mistress of the kitchen. The advertising psychology that they use and the words that they use seem a little bit out of place in contemporary times, a little bit sexist, perhaps. In the middle poster it says, "There are 15 points every woman should know before buying a refrigerator." The kitchen was the woman's domain. That's where the woman should be, in sort of classic, midcentury America. The other thing about these that is great from my point of view is that there's no record of them online. Like, you can't look these up and find a price. I did a fair amount of research and I found no record, not only of these posters, but really of any other Fairbanks-Morse refrigerator poster. Now, normally, people can come into the ROADSHOW and they can look up what they have online, but when there's no record of it on the internet, this is where appraisers come in. Where the internet ends, that's where we begin, and that's what I really like. It sets my tartan all atwitter to see these. At auction, I would estimate these, conservatively, each one, between $600 and $900 for a total of $1,800 to $2,700.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER:
For all of them.
GUEST:
So I shouldn't cut them up and repurpose them.
(laughing)
APPRAISER:
No, you shouldn't.
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