LW owns a miniature pine dry sink, the type, when in large scale, was used before indoor plumbing. They typically lined the basin with zinc, soapstone, or copper. The dimensions are eight inches wide, four and a quarter inches deep, and seven and a half inch high with a two and a half inch deep sink well. It bears a burnt-in logo stamp: “Ham-Made.” The words sit in an outline of a ham-hock on the bottom of the piece. I notice the plank comprising the bottom is hand planed, not cut with a modern circular saw.
All American households from Colonial times till the early to mid-20th century owned a piece of furniture like this, in large scale. It lived in the kitchen for washing and cleaning—more accessible than a bucket! The basin held a large pitcher and a wash basin for cleaning hands, vegetables, and dishes. Most of America gained access to indoor plumbing between 1900 and 1950, so the dry sink became a necessary piece of furniture.
A Miniature with Detail
LW’s little miniature is a salesman’s sample from the late 19th century. Like all salesman samples, these miniatures typically range in scale from one-to-six or one-to-eight, with the same hinging and hardware as the full-sized sink. Likely, when taken “on the road,” the salesman kept it in a special little suitcase used as a platform display. Because LW’s shows a company logo, as did all late 19th to early 20th century samples, one won’t confuse it with a patent model or doll furniture. The ones collectors consider of high value come with details, mechanically perfect, and intricate.
The male workforce in the US clamored for jobs after the Civil War. Many burgeoning manufacturers of farm and household goods employed young men as traveling salesmen, armed with these miniature examples of their wares. Because of the growth of railroads during the War, rural farms, country stores, and distant homesteads became accessible. Itinerant salesmen took their miniature farm equipment, appliances, and furniture to ride the rails. They put the little models directly into potential buyer’s hands. The fully functional models charmed and convinced. Salesman closed the deal, and in a few months, the full-sized model arrived.
Maxine Carter-Lome, for the Journal of Antiques writes: “Stoves, washing machines, working typewriters that can fit in the palm of your hand, shoes, a working grist mill, flexible flyer sleds, a brace and bit drill set, furniture, furnaces, stoves, ice boxes, toilets, farm equipment, working plows, reapers, hay-loaders, got downsized.” (“Salesmen Samples: Artfully Small Examples of the Real Thing,” 2019.)
Not a children’s toy or doll furniture
We see a Ham Made company logo on its side. Companies made salesmen’s furniture samples of the same wood and functionality as the real pieces. But for the wow factor, the miniatures came even more meticulously crafted. Selling a piece of furniture required convincing, because in turn of the century rural America, once a family purchased, they kept the piece for life.
The more intricate the miniature, the older the piece. After the 1920s shop owners used such miniatures in promotional displays solely for marketing and branding. Those miniatures came in handy for representing “newfangled” appliances such as electric or gas stoves, and mechanized washing machines. John Deere farm equipment company, for example, made promotional, nonfunctional marketing toys.
I remember my grandmother, born in 1900 in St. Louis, owned an “icebox” with real blocks of ice for refrigeration. She balked at the idea of a plug-in electric refrigerator. Resistance to the new? Yes: imagine a salesman demonstrating a tiny gas stove to a woman who prepared thousands of meals over a woodfired oven. Those demonstration miniatures came made of cast iron and enameled, fully functioning, with pots, and brand names.
LW, I didn’t find anything about ‘Ham Made,’ as quaint as that branding sounds. In fact, they burnt it into the wood of the base with a custom branding iron. The origin of the term ‘branding’ goes back to 1500 when cattle began to appear similarly branded. We know LW’s dry sink is no older than 1870 because registered trademarks (words, designs, shapes legally registered to a company) began in 1870 and became intellectual property. I mentioned the wood had been hand planed. The piece was hand-made, which puts it earlier than the mass-produced pieces of the 1920s.
The value of LW’s dry sink is $250.