Face it, we’re all a haircut away from obsession.
You’ll probably think I had serious issues and needs when I sat down in that salon 10 years ago. But I swear I did not. I was as happy as a lark. Make that a partridge.
Grant me this, that the glass of gewurztraminer the salon girls poured on Friday evenings after work, and the fragrant shampoo being massaged into my head, made me especially susceptible to beautiful things.
So when I flipped open the 50-pound Vogue on my lap, I was intoxicated . . . and vulnerable to the tiny works of art on the very last page. Gasp. They were a dozen brooches, 12 Christmas tannenbaums of startling originality. Enchantment leapt from the page. The accompanying blurb said people were crazy for Christmas tree pins. If I had noticed the “Where to Buy” guide, it might have dissuaded me from desiring even one (several began in the $800 range). Instead, I thought, hmm, I wonder if there’s one in stores now.
There was.
To think: If I had not commenced reading on page gazillion of that magazine, I never would have seen them. But I did, and today when people boast with Yuletide pride they have 500 holiday tree pins, I feign envy and admiration, really thinking, please, how pathetic.
My own collection has grown into an unbridled 2,000-plus pins done as pines, and, of course, that’s part of the vexing, needling question: How many ways could there possibly be to design a Christmas tree?
Ten years ago I would have guessed 50; today, 5,000.
I didn’t know women and men as far away as Singapore (and all points in between) love their Yuletide confections and hunt them all year long. Part of the tree appeal is their unfathomable variety — and the fact that most major jewelry houses and designers tackled a tree at some point in their lives. Aiding and abetting the insanity for people who love everything Christmas were other joyful factors: the coverage of Christmas tree pins in jewelry books; the boom in antiques malls; and the Internet.
Before the advent of these venues, collections grew slowly. After them, the deluge. Jeweled forests grew wild.
There are tree pins being decorated by Mickey Mouse; rare and coveted creations by Cartier and Bulgari; trees that look like the Chrysler Building and others like hideous growths from a holiday nightmare. Everybody wants the plastic Xmas tree premium Woolworth’s had that promoted Ideal Toys. Conversely, few even know about a rare vintage Hollycraft tree that looks both ancient and Space Age at once.
(A friend of mine pursued this masterpiece along the West Coast for years, finally getting the owner to free it from encasement in a framed box of pins. No doubt she paid for it. It’s the only time she didn’t confess the cost.)
Go for the gold ring
Becoming Head Forest Ranger or Queen of Treedom is not something one sets out to do, but when the title is in reach, you go for it. This leads to unnerving adventures and can turn a tree-hunter cold blooded.
To wit:
One of the gods of Christmas pindom is Chicago’s Karl Eisenberg, whose family’s company, Eisenberg Ice, made some of the greatest jewelry of all time. I had an interview with Mr. Eisenberg for a book and had to leave my husband writhing in pain on the floor to get to the interview. I felt a little bad dashing off as he choked out, “Good . . . luck,” grimacing as he waved. He was certain he was having a massive coronary. Duh, it was only a traveling gallstone. I had an interview with a tree god.
You know you’re in deep when you become part of the lore of a thing. There’s a famous cult jewelry designer named Lea Stein, renowned for her figural pins of foxes, deco dames, felines with finesse, you name it. It seemed she designed everything there is, so I was sure she must have done a Christmas tree pin. I looked to no avail for 10 years and then learned, sacre bleu, Stein –who everyone thought was dead, was alive and well and living in Paris.
I went to the source and learned, sure enough, Madame had designed a tree decades ago. The design was in her archives, but Stein had never actually made the tree. She would make it for me, though! Oh, joy! The only catch was, I had to buy 999 others, an exclusive 1,000.
Did I mention her work is, er, uh, how you say, not cheap? I’m still paying the tab. But no one said being part of history came cheap.
Eisenberg Ice Classic
Then there is the case of Chicago’s own 1994 Eisenberg Ice Classic, a bountiful, exquisite piece, a shower of layered navettes (think faceted stones in an oval shape squashed into a skinny, pointed sliver of ice). That year, the Eisenberg Co. decided to celebrate some of its past designs by reproducing them. The tree story goes that, after a short run and plenty of trouble with the platinum-plated cast itself, the Swarovski company of Austria ran out of the unique navettes required to make this tree.
All of Europe was scoured for more, but alas, none was found. The stated production number of this Eisenberg tree varies, but one number oft mentioned is 88 in two subtly varied colorations (hints of lime and rose). A friend purchased six when they appeared in Chicago stores in 1994, and eventually, generously, let me buy one from her. I’d show it to you but needed to buy a car last year and had to sell it.
In a never-say-die act of courage, Eisenberg decided to try a version of that tree again this year. Orders were heavy, but once more, production difficulties foiled the birth of this complicated construction. I cajoled and begged the wonderful person at Wisconsin headquarters enough to be able to show you the sample. Yes, one goes to great lengths to be a collector. It always bothered me Picasso hadn’t designed a Christmas tree pin, so I designed one for him and just know he’d be pleased. Then there was the Christmas tree Vogue deemed “most-coveted” when it, on rare occasion, came up for auction at Sotheby’s or Christie’s. Done in diamonds and gold, it was the 1930s work of a European designer in whose waiting room one might have found Fred Astaire, or Clark Gable buying a bauble for Carole Lombard. I knew as sure as the Grinch grabbed Christmas, I’d never lay eyes on this prize . . . so I had a version made by a costume jewelry company.
In an arbor addict’s life, every year must have a pinnacle, a treetop if you will, a climax with waves that radiate out and knock over lesser collectors with its magnitude and surprise. This year’s main event came none too soon. And it was huge.
The old “found in an abandoned warehouse” story is one of the most notorious scams going in many collectibles niches. For instance, much money has been made by those selling Christmas tree pins marked on the back “KJL,” the recognized signature of legendary jeweler Kenneth J. Lane. To make a long story short, suspicious over the actual roots of some of these trees, I carried a forestful to Lane’s Manhattan offices.
For a moment it seemed he and his staff might throw up, looking at the pins I spread out on the table. Ptooey! Turns out he had designed but one pine of Noel, and it was for The Franklin Mint . . . not even signed with his initials. All the rest were frauds. But the story has thrived for years that a trove of Kenneth J. Lane Christmas tree pins had been found in an old warehouse that once belonged to him.
Warehouse story
Now, when a version of the warehouse story rings true, it’s big, baby. And so my Coup d’02 is the procurement of an old cache of stained-glass Christmas tree pins made in Austria for Laguna, a jewelry company founded in the ’40s and never known to have made a tree. Roughly 35 old trees with geo-industrial-look candles and 35 with circles-as-ornaments each was pinned on an old green-velvet Laguna card. It has an abstract Modernist design with splashes of color reminiscent of Sister Corita Kent or Robert Delauney. My Christmas tree pin club doesn’t even know about it yet.
Can you feel the frisson? Maybe not quite as much as I do, but you just may be scenting a hint of pine by now. How do I love trees? Well, let me count the ways. Have you read my epic poem, Ode to a Christmas Tree Pin? Have you heard any of my original jokes? (What do you call a Christmas tree pin collector? Punch line: A real sap.) Who else would have the only all-Christmas tree pin Web site on the Internet? And how else would I close all my correspondence but this way:
Very treely yours, Kathy Flood
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Kathy Flood is a journalist whose e-mail address is christmastreepin@aol.com in case you’re ever in the mood to talk trees.
Christmas tree pin pointers for new addicts
Uh-oh. You too? If you’re getting that old Christmas feeling — a sudden compulsion to hunt and gather holiday tannenbaums — here are a few things to know before you dig in.
1. Snag the new trees that fell you before the oldies . . . unless an ancient arbor is so fantastic you can’t walk away. This is because, with only some exceptions, the elders will come your way again. That’s oft not the case with contemporary trees, which may vanish with the snows.
2. Vintage bargains still abound (I paid $2 last week for an old battery-lit plastic monstrosity I’ve always wanted), but if you’re serious about building a forest, you can’t fear chopping a budget to bits. That means if the rare 1975 Eisenberg glass-cone tree pops up in your path, buy it even if it’s $500. (At that price, the foil should be intact.)
3. Where to look? Antiques malls, antiques shops, the Internet, catalogs and any store you wander by, whether it sells cough syrup or lingerie. Collectors have found treasures in incredibly unlikely places. Know a retired grade-school teacher? Ask if she has saved all those holiday tree pins given by students over the decades. She might be happy to exchange them for the kind of green preferred in the first place.
4. If trees intrigue you but you have limited living space, budget or grip on reality, go with a niche collection of Christmas tree pins: promotional, pop culture, single designer (whether Weiss or Radko) or theme (trees with presents beneath; patriotic trees; trees being decorated by characters from Mickey Mouse to Santa Claus).
5. Oldest collection? The oldest I know of grows somewhere in southern Missouri, where a grandmother has hundreds of her own old trees, plus all the arbors left by her mother. Rumor is they have great history.
6. Oldest tree? The famous Cartier design dates to 1928, and an eccentric precious-metal-with-diamonds tree (the one I had copied in costume version) harks back to ’30s Paris. Oldest common trees are probably the plain-Jane celluloids.
7. Priciest pine? Deck the hall of fame with that Deco Cartier, or a ruby-studded Bulgari, or any of the precious gems-and-gold brooches by the most glamorous names in jeweldom. (None spring in my forest.)
8. Not that costume trees are slouches. Limited editions by big names sell for $100 to $300. What will it cost for a perfectly terrific tree to light up your life? Sweet trees are for sale all over for $10 to $50.
9. Trees graced lapels of several first ladies, including Barbara Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Laura Bush. Bar’s has pearls, natch, and Hill’s is a simple light-up model she loved. The current first lady’s is petite and spunky.
10. Christmas pins have beauty, novelty, history and tremendous variety going for them. On top of that, collectors feel extra smug, since size does matter enormously: Great things come in small packages. The more the merrier . . . and you don’t have to rent storage. Pity the poor lovers of primitive night stands!
— Kathy Flood
