M&B Stock: No. 51 "A Tea Party"

General
Ironically No. 51, A Tea Party, is the only explicit design depicting tea or tea drinking among a line that was initially advertised as “tea trays.” Since the Revolution, Americans had something of an aversion to tea (a British beverage), but that began to change with New York tea importer Thomas Sullivan’s inadvertent invention of tea bags in 1908. It occurred when he sent tea samples to clients in small silk bags to cut costs, and they mistakenly steeped the bags whole. The customers were more interested in the brewing convenience of the novel silk bags than his bulk teas. Sullivan did not realize this until they all started to complain that the orders, they received were not in the same small bags the samples had been in. Silk was too expensive for everyday disposal; therefore, he invented tea bags made of gauze.

Catalogs and price lists in our possession only cover through late 1903 and as yet, designs did not carry copyright dates (as discussed elsewhere, advertising was not considered covered by copyright laws until a 1903 Supreme Court decision). We are basing our dating of the design on No. 50, Alton B. Parker which was produced for the 1904 Presidential election. This would mean that the design was initially produced by Meek & Beach, although it may have remained in the catalog carrying over the Meek era (1905-1908).

We have never encountered a version with an artist’s signature (which would have been unusual at this point in time) and while there a numerous paintings of tea parties, none of them seem to be a direct inspiration for this design.

Shape & Rim & Ad Text
All examples we’ve encountered have been oval trays with light brown rims and vignette windows at three and nine o’clock that feature images of a steaming teacup. Advertising generally appears on the rim in black text, although some examples feature the advertising text on the back of the tray.

Hager & Price
Hager does not discuss this design or include it in his date table; he also does not include it in his catalog, most likely because he never encountered a brewery example. We’ve seen this from slightly more than a dozen different advertisers, only one of whom was a brewer (Horlacher of Allentown, PA). Not surprisingly, among the small retailers and sundry other miscellaneous advertisers there are a number of tea companies. Somehow we missed capturing a price for the Horlacher tray. Prices for most non-brewers are unremarkable, although a few of the tea company version went for mid-three figures.