1989 "Fractured Fables for Fabulous Sons (Especially those having birthdays!" Hallmark Cards. $5.99 from Rubber Stamp Attic through Ebay, July, '18.
This birthday card for sons is really a twelve-page booklet offering parodies of nursery rhymes like "Jack and Jill" and "Simple Simon." The parodies regularly turn to routine parental advice, "family phrases that stick through the ages."
1990? “Fox and Grapes” tin. I. Krylov. 3.25” x 4.6”. Marx Street, Kyiv: Zhast Jar Workshop. Unknown source.
This little tin in its artistry is very much like candy wrappers from Russia. Might the box have been used as candy packaging?
1998 "Fables." Reading Words Flip-Overs. Four flip-over pages using TH, GGE, GA, and FG. Bryan House Publishers, Inc. Printed in the USA. $1.75 from Kim Douglas, Baytown, TX, through Ebay, August, '00.
I had not known of the existence of this learning tool. Each of the four stiff pages has a full-color cartoon image of its fable in the upper half with fifteen numbered items. The lower half of the page consists of the names of these fifteen items with an open rectangle beneath each name for the insertion of the correct number. When the page is flipped over, the young reader can check her or his numbers against the correct numbers below each word. Sentences at the top of this page use some of the emphasized words.
Invitation from The Pierpont Morgan Library to the opening of an exhibition "Fables from Aesop to Thurber." January 13, 1965. The invitation's front features WC from Pierre Sala, about 1520. The invitation is accompanied by a New York Times review of the exhibition by Sanka Knox, January 14, 1965.
1980? Large (11¾" diameter) single plate with a banner on its face "Fables de La Fontaine." Brown, blue, and green. €15 from "MK" at St. Ouen, June, '19.
This encounter at the St. Ouen flea market was unusual. I asked about fable books and cards. As they presented me with a simple book, which I bought, they also alerted each other, reached in the back and, as I recall, cleaned up a plate that they had: this plate! I can find no other identifying marks. The most popular characters from La Fontaine are here: fox, crow, cicada, tortoise, town and country mice, hare, bear, frog, and heron. The interplay of the three colors in the bodies and dress of the characters, as well as in the sky and the tree, is pleasing. A pretty plate!
2022 "Fables de La Fontaine: Memory." Dessins André Hellé. Memory game: "Reconstituez les Fables de La Fontaine." Made in France. Lily poule: Bibliothèque nationale de France. €12.95 from Little Marmaille, August, '22.
Each of 16 fables has a brown-backed and a green-backed paper disc. In each case, half of a moral is on one and the other half on the other. The Hellé illustrations are such wonderful old friends! One starts by laying out all the cards face down. Then you start making matches as in any memory game. However it happens, this is fun!
1991 One "USOPS Fables" First Day of Issue envelope featuring The "F" Stamp. Postmarked Washington D.C. Jan. 22, 1991. Handpainted and signed by Doris Gold as #92 of 200. $12.52 from Dave Fletcher, Dallas, TX, through Ebay, Sept., '99.
The seller's description of this item on Ebay identifies it as "Doris Gold's Hand-painted First Day Cover for Scott #2517 'F' Nondenominated Sheet Single show by Doris as part of the ongoing 'USOPS Fables', 200 made." Is USOPS the United States Office of Postal Service? The picture is of a golden and red flower enclosing a number of fairies. A butterfly looks on. The stamp itself presents a rose and seems to offer "Flower" as its word for the "F" designation.
2018 Long-sleeved t-shirt featuring "Everyone wants to steal your cheese" with images of a fox and crow. $27.99 from Amazon, Oct., '18.
The crow in this fable does not really ride the back of the fox, but it is nonetheless wonderful to see the fable's wise lesson take hold broadly in our present culture. Well, maybe not everyone does!
1988 One "USOPS Fables" First Day of Issue envelope featuring The "E" Stamp. Postmarked Washington D.C. Jan. 22, 1988. Handpainted (?) and signed by Doris Gold. $6.02 from Oceanic Stamps, Coins & Artifacts Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia, through Ebay, Feb., '01.
The seller's description of this item on Ebay identifies it as handpainted, but I am less sure of that. Likelier is that the Doris Gold's signature is original. Apparently, the "E" stamp was originally worth $.25. The picture here shows an eagle holding a cube aloft against the background of a blue sky. I have not been able to find Scott particulars for this stamp.
1985 One "D Stamp" First Day of Issue envelope. Postmarked Los Angeles, Feb. 1, '1985. Signed by James B. Paslay. $12 from gumball99 through Ebay, Oct., '22.
I have come to believe that this envelope does not belong in this collection. I had long sought the "USOPS Fables" envelope announcing the "D" stamp, since we have all in the series, from "A" through "H" except for "D." When I saw a "D" envelope offered, I thought it was that missing member of the series. I see now no indication that it belongs to the series. It seems to be rather an envelope announcing the "D" stamp with Number 72 of 80 hand-painted illustrations by James B. Paslay. There is surely some irony in picturing a US rocket and commenting "Rates Going Up!" "Rates going up" is of course the dynamic behind having ever new alphabetical stamps with successive higher values. So far I have failed in my efforts to find out whether there may not be an official "USOPS Fables" "D Stamp" envelope from the Post Office.
1981 One "USOPS Fables" First Day of Issue envelope featuring The "C" Stamp. Postmarked Memphis, TN, Oct. 11, 1981. Doris Gold Cachets. $5 from RKA Covers, Lafayette, IN, through eBay, August, '04.
"Doris Gold Cachets" here will become simply "Doris Gold" in the next FDC I have, namely from 1988 for the "E" stamp. Apparently, the "C" stamp was originally worth $.20. The picture here suggests that the "A" stamp was worth $.15 and the "B" worth $.18. Consumers may not be happy to read that "Raising postal rates is as easy as...ABC"! How many envelopes and stamps might there be in all?
1950? "Buvard a Conserver" ("a blotter to keep") from Joannic Fabrics, featuring a crow holding a piece of cloth over an expectant fox. 5¼" x 8¼". $5 from Dany Wolfs, Roeselare, Belgium, Nov., '01.
This very large cream-colored blotter with a black-and-white design of FC advertises a fabrics store "that impresses through its prices." It seems to sell all sorts of cloth. Might the telephone number with only three digits be a clue to its date?
1927 “Bughouse Fables.” 22 newspaper cartoons by Paul Fung and (Clarence “Billy”) De Beck. King Features Syndicate. From Wes Baldwin, Bartow, FL.
I learned in researching these cartoons that “bughouse” means “crazy.” Billy De Beck was the creator of Barney Google. This is a typical case of “fable” not referring to the sort of thing associated with the name of Aesop. Since I have come across them, I preserve them here. The basic movement of these cartoons is role reversal, as when a criminal asks a police officer where he can best sell a used car. In the simplest and last of these, a child in his crib smokes a cigar. Fun still 98 years later.
2006? "Beasts and Citizens" Forty Fables of La Fontaine." CD. Translated and red by Craig Hill. Recording by Point One Audio, Lincoln, MA. Concord, MA: Palm Press. Unknown source.
It is pleasant to hear the translator read his own work, work we have in several copies, including an advance copy provided to me so that I could offer a review. The complete fables edition was by Arcade Publishing in 2008. The CD jewel case includes a simple leaflet offering a T of C of the fables read and their place in La Fontaine's twelve books. It refers to illustrations; I wonder if something has been lost from the simple foldout. Craig Hill is not an excited reader. Rather, as he is a careful translator, he is a careful reader. I find his title telling, especially since, of the first fables that I read, FK is particularly well done – and particularly telling for us in the United States these days! The rhymes often fortify the sense well. I can find no references to this disc online, but reviews mention the illustrations in the published edition, and the references to illustration here may well be pointing there.
1984 B.C. “Bad Hare Day.” Johnny Hart. Creators Syndicate. Unknown venue. Unknown source.
Yet another play on the word “hare.” Part of the fun here is the way ants live in their below-ground home.
1981 One "USOPS Fables" First Day of Issue envelope featuring The "B" Stamp. Postmarked San Francisco, CA, March 15, 1981. Doris Gold Cachets. $1.43 from AAO, LLC, Indianapolis, IN, through eBay, Sept., '22.
This envelope fills a gap in this series. This image and presentation has fun with this stamp as the "B Sting." I still wonder how many envelopes and stamps there might be in all. For this one, the price was right!
"An Ivory Soap Fable (With apologies to Aesop and Geo. Ade)." Ivory Soap advertisement from The Literary Digest sometime apparently in 1908. Art by Clyde James Newman. 8½" x 11".
1920? "Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera." Card showing two boys on a raft. Librairie d'Education Natinale, Paris. $6 from Bertrand Cocq, Nov., '20.
The verso presents a story of Louis and Paul. One of them learns to raise his jacket as a signal to sailors of their need for help. La Fontaine, of course, quotes this saying as the last line of his fable on Hercules and the wagon-driver.
"Aessemblage" advertisement. 4" x 6". "Aesop's Fables Recycled by Artist Scott Rolfe." With message on the obverse, "Print will be mailed separately. Thanks so much. Scott Rolfe." One extra copy unsigned.
Newspaper advertisement for "Aesop's Tables," a restaurant in Wellfleet, MA. The advertisement is taken from page 134 of Cape Cod Guide for July 18, '86.
1995 "Aesop's Fables": "This is a Little Wooden Book." 054. Wooden book containing four fable character pairs. DS; TMCM; GA; and TH. Each piece signed "Anita." Unknown source and time of acquisition.
What delightful, exquisite work! The eight pieces fit perfectly into the little "book" with its pivoting cover. Exquisitely cut and painted. I am unsure whether I have correctly identified as the hare in TH the character who proclaims "Can't -- too busy."
