cardboard box collection

i had a couple of spare hours in a studio a while ago so i loaded up as much of my cardboard box collection that would fit into my van and headed to the room where Agnes Lloyd-Platt was waiting to take a photo for me. After unloading all of the boxes and carefully stacking them up, Agnes took one shot to start framing and lighting the picture but the wall started to wobble, slowly moving forwards and in a huge plume of dust and with a muffled crash the entire wall collapsed. Without time to start again the boxes were loaded back into the van to try again another day, hopefully i'll stack them to the ceiling next time to hide the window (click on photo to see larger).

cardboard box collection fail

yesterday i attempted to photograph part of my vintage cardboard box collection. i failed.

i only had the studio space for 2 hours including the time it took to get the boxes into the building, stack them, light them, photograph them, unstack and get out. sadly just as the first photo was being framed ready to capture, the whole wall collapsed with a huge plume of dust...

 ...with no time left to re-stack the wall of boxes i had to take them all home again!

maybe another day...

cardboard box love

Selfridges

 regular readers of my blog will know i'm a bit of a cardboard box nerd. here is a selection of what i call 'shop shirt boxes'. These were all found in car boot sales and house clearances. Originally produced by high end retailers to present or post goods, garments and alterations to customers. Always constructed from a hard-wall cardboard with metal stapled joints, never from cheaper corrugated cardboard. often, but not always designed with an area to label the recipient's address. double click images to view larger.

Burberrys

John Lewis 

Jenners

Asprey

Harrods 

Harrods

Harvey Nichols

Liberty

Liberty

Simpson - great carry handle detail

Garrard & Co Ltd

Peter Jones (John Lewis)

Anderson & Sheppard, Savile Row

Tobias Bros

Beale & Inman Ltd 

Marshall & Snelgrove

Schofields Ltd 

Lovely telephone number change/correction on the Schofields box

Detail on John Lewis box: 'Must arrive Wednesday, Customer going on holiday' 

Ron Hickman 1932-2011

found amongst the rubbish in the rain at the end of a car boot sale in london last week. original carboard box for the WM525 Workmate. a rare find but sadly no workmate inside the box by the time i got to it.

Ronald Price Hickman 1932-2011.

gone but not forgotten. designer, inventor and champion of diy.

running total: 1 box and 9 vintage workmate variations in the collection.
more vintage workmates on my blog here and here and here

box fascination - a ongoing study of boxes in public places

spotted today on top of a pile of 'fly-tipping' on Long Street, Shoreditch, but good enough to show in a gallery; a large bail of crushed wooden fruit crates with screen printed product details. these crates must have gone into a bailing/crushing machine to achieve the overall cube shape tied together with only two thin strings. before scrap metal prices went crazy you used to be able to find some amazing fly-tipping gems around the dimly-lit back streets of east london, these days you only find the very worst, very hard to recycle materials such as plaster board and hardcore dumped everywhere and this bail would disappear in seconds for fire wood during the winter. i'm rather tempted to go back for this bail and put a clear glass sheet on the top to use as a side table/coffee table or retail display piece.

the picture above is not my own, i can't remember where i found it but it's a good collection of crushed and bailed cardboard fruit trays and boxes- maybe at the back of a supermarket?

a fantastic mountain of assorted smaller cardboard boxes from a second hand book sale visited by Reference Library (thanks for the photo)

  

a smaller box mountain outside the main entrance to pitti ummo, italy 2010. the installation inside the main entrance was made from new plastic crates meanwhile the cardboard boxes where shunned and dumped just outside.

Slug Death - one taste and they are dead

 

Another great find from Steve at Spitalfields Thursday Antique Market. fantastic slug graphics and even better when you look inside to find that the base of the large tin can is made from a printed but unused sheet of car oil packaging.

two new vintage boxes

Heinz Baked Beans 2 Doz 16oz shipping box / display box.
a really nice box, unlike any other of my other heinz boxes. good clean graphics, chalk number to one end, display 'cutting instructions' on inside flap. found in a car boot sale in Dauntsey, Wiltshire.


An interesting, small, single cake box, Pailin's Original Shewsbury Cakes. An Ebay purchase.

Another new box...

A very nice 'Harris Wiltshire Sausages' box.
Purchased today from Steve at the Thursday antique/collectors market at Spitalfields market.

tea chest city - ALL SOLD -

new stock today; a huge amount of vintage tea chests, mostly dating from the 1930s-70s. originally used for the transport of loose-leaf tea from the plantations to warehouses worldwide and onto the retailers, most of these chests have been via either Liverpool or London docks. as you can see, the warehouse currently looks like the end scene in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. Fantastic for display or storage, for domestic or commercial use. a large number are currently on hold but approx 100 are available now p.o.a. - ALL SOLD - Please email for new stock.

oxo tins for christmas not tea chests

i bought a huge collection of vintage oxo tins last year from a man who attached brass index card label holders to the ends of every tin and used them on shelves for storing nuts, bolts, screws etc for years in his shed. i sold the entire collection at spitalfields market last year and a friend that remembered them just sent me this image- apparently the dealer who bought them from me made this christmas tree display in the window of his shop last year. i always wonder what happens to the items i sell and where do they all go? but it's amazing (and very sad for the items) how many items also just go round and round dealer circles, i prefer to think of myself as a housing-officer for unwanted items.