2000? Tortoise and Hare cross-stitch with French "goal" sign. 8½" x 20". $30 from Tess Moran, Poolesville, MD, through Ebay, May, '22.
Though the seller notes a small flaw among the flowers, this is still a lovely creation! Framed and ready to hang.
Tortoise and Hare cookie tin. No identifying markings other than a TH illustration on its circular pink cover. Plain white sides. 7¼" in diameter, about 2¾" high.
1960? Tortoise and Hare Cookie Jar. 12" x 13" x 8". Marcia Ceramics. $19.99 from Mark and Rhonda Cohen, Walton, OR, through Ebay, June, '00.
The base of this cookie jar is exactly the same as that in the first jar I had found. But here the tortoise on the jar cover is entirely different in conception. He holds up cookies that he is eating, apparently while he lounges on the roadside. Marcia Ceramics of California was established in 1942. The sellers found an ID mark "9.USA" but I have not been able to locate it. Click on the image to see an enlargement.
1960? Tortoise and Hare Cookie Jar. 12" x 11" x 8". $30 from Jody Seibert, Baltimore, MD, through Ebay, April, '00.
My first fable cookie jar! The plodding turtle carries the hare--complete with carrot--on his back! Now where in the world would something like this have come from?
1980? Tortoise and Hare Checkers Board Game. Board, supporting base, instructions, and thirteen pieces each of tortoises and hares. Beige. About 12" square. The supporting base is broken. Hand-made in China. Hen-Feathers, King of Prussia, PA. $17.50 from ReturnBuy, Inc. through Ebay, May, '01.
I should have expected that someone would create a tortoises versus hares checkers game! This is a heavy set of pieces. The board has nice raised tortoise and hare motifs around its border, while the base has two sides depicting country roads. One of the curiosities of this item is that it misspells its own address as in "King of Prussla, PA." Click on either the overview or the detail view to see it enlarged.
1980? Tortoise and Hare Candle. Hand painted. Animal Antics. 5" high. Made in Hong Kong. Unknown source.
This candle is still readily available online. The candle-makers use the tortoise's shell as backing for the candle. The tortoise looks down with paws at his ears in wonder over the sleeping hare. The hare, who has eaten half of a carrot, sleeps on. Is it a sense of humor that fills out space with an alarm clock?
2023? Tortoise and Hare Bookplate. Set of 50. Etsy.
Here is our first bookplate, meant to be pasted into a book to ensure that people know who had this book earlier or even first. Here in 2025 is a new category for us!
1999 Tortoise and Hare baby's bottle. Nine-ounce, boilable, plastic, with a pure latex nipple. Oyster Bay, NY: Baby's 'n Things. With a matching bib $4 from C-N-C Treasures through Ebay, Jan., '01.
This bottle came with one exemplar of a cotton bib for children and features a similar design. On the bottle's design the hare not only sleeps in the middle of the road, but he blocks the way for anyone going by. I never would have thought that a fable-related baby bottle exists! Click on the image to see it enlarged.
1990? Two circular cards advertising Tonimalt: "The Lion Going to War" and "The Coach and the Fly." "Lion" for €3.50 from babiyjeu679 through Ebay, August, '22. "Coach" for €3 from segpascal through Ebay, Sept., '22. FS for €3.50 fromalarikepelagi through Ebay, Oct., '22.
My first impression is that these are two less frequently cited fables. And of course my next question is: where can I find the rest of the set? I would say that the handkerchief in "Coach" and the frog in "Lion" make the pictures the interesting presentations that they are!
1949? Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare Picture Puzzle. Harvey Famous Cartoons. No. 1230. Sta-N-Place Inlaid Puzzles. Made in USA. Unknown source and date of acquisition.
Now this is surprising. Recently I bought a picture puzzle, complete and boxed, of TH. It is the item just above. I soon realized that it was the same picture as a picture puzzle that I had found earlier, but missing two pieces and having no box. It is indeed the same picture, but slightly different in size, with a different border, and -- most remarkable to me -- with differently cut pieces. That is why I provide a small sample and a signature in addition to the overview of this puzzle.
1949 Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare Picture Puzzle. Over 70 large pieces. Ages 5 to 10. Harvey Famous Cartoons. No. 1017. Warren Built-Rite Puzzles. CFC 2020.0152.1. $3.99 from Bob & Veronica Quinn, Trimble MO through Ebay. June, '03.
This picture has the Tommy on a bicycle upending Moe with bowling pins flying before a large human crowd and a clown. All the pieces are there!
1982 Fourteen (of sixteen?) numbered postcards by Nikolai Romadin of fables and stories by Leo Tolstoy. 4⅛" x 5⅞". Moscow: Sovetsky Khudozhnik. Seven of them for C$14.99 and five for C$22.50 from Lovelystamps, IL, Israel, on Ebay, Sept., '21. Card #6 for AU$15.98 from postcardsworld through Ebay, Sept., '21. Card #3 for C$4.99 from block36 through Ebay, Sept., '21.
Many of these illustrations present Tolstoy’s renditions of standard Aesopic fables. Others may be "adaptations." For example, "The Shipwreck" (#2), seems an adaptation of Aesop’s "Hercules and the Wagon Driver." Still others are stories I have not yet been able to pin down, like "Sea, Rivers, and Streams" (#3); "The Monkey and Other Animals" (#4); "Fisherman" (#9), and ""Ram, Cat, and Boy" (#14).
1915? Four card colored-photographic postcard series of TMCM featuring children. "3127." "SE" or "ES" symbol at the lower right on each card. Each card features drawings of the fable in the upper portion, a text "bubble," the fable's title, and a large lower portion of the photographic presentation. Printed in France. $6 each from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne-Ricouart, France, Sept., '20.
My, there was lively competition in the early twentieth century in Paris in producing colored photographic postcard series of fables! The piling on of specifications in that last sentence surprises even me! This set is closest to Chloro-Platine WL and shares the same symbol, "SE," in the lower right corner. As that set has the number 3142 on each card, so this set has 3127. That is a five-card set, apparently complete, and I believe that this four-card set is missing a third card in the middle, especially because those four verses are the only ones left out of the fable on the cards we have. Here, as there, we have lovely coloring distinguishing the two "mice" as they are played by children. How was that coloring done at the printer's? Especially fetching in this presentation, I believe, is the scene of the two mice devouring the city banquet! Now to find that fifth card! All four were sent in 1918 to the same "Cher Cousin Alfred Pepin" (?) in "Secteur 125."
1904 5 postcard series featuring adult women portraying TMCM. Postmarked all to Mademoiselle Brugere. February 1, 1904. $35 for the set from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '20.
I never want to disagree with Monsieur Cocq, but I wonder if there is not a missing fourth card in a series of six. This set quotes La Fontane but, at that point, excises a few lines of his text. Is there an extra card out there somewhere, to complete this series? As it is, this photographic series presents a strong contrast between the luxuriously dressed city rat and the simpler country rat in her plain red dress.
1910? Two (of apparently five) photographic postcards presenting La Fontaine's TMCM. #3143/1 and #3143/5. Ch. Fontane, Editeur. Paris: Croissant. $12 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '20.
Compare this pair with Croissant's similar work on MM and Croissant and Fontane's GA and TH. Here again children carry the roles. Again the first card presents the ornate title. Again we have less colorful images inserted showing the parallel scenes among animals, here rats. Are these cards hand-colored?
Tissot Bonbon tin. "Bonbons Frescomint Rafraichissants." Made in France. Cover features FC with an apparent mint dropping from the crow's beak. About 3" in diameter and ¾" high
1900? Tissage Imagé. Six completed woven paper images and two not yet completed. About 7" square. CFC 2020.0148.1.1. F.N. Paris. Unknown source.
About six months ago, I catalogued an extraordinary and delicate single piece presenting TH found by Bertrand Cocq, a woven paper picture puzzle formed by weaving twelve strips of paper through a perforated sheet to create a picture. Now six months later, I discover that I had a set of eight of them that I had purchased sometime earlier – who knows where and for how much? – beautifully boxed and called “Tissage Imagé.” I have left the overhanging paper strips on FG so that you can sense how these puzzles work. I also present both the the lovely original box and a sample of what the two portions of "The Horse and the Ass" look like before the second is cut into strips. Seven of the eight fables are from La Fontaine. “The Blind Man and the Lame,” known as a story in antiquity, is best known to the French from Florian’s presentation. I will be so hoping that I can locate the record of when and where I got this set!
