Shaker sets remind us of times, trips gone by

The idea of collecting just for the sake of collecting is a relatively new one. Before the Victorian “age of excess,” unless you were very wealthy, you didn’t amass a lot.

One had what one needed. Not much more.

But when it became fashionable to fill one’s home with trinkets and souvenirs, a new market for inexpensive and disposable items was born. And we never looked back.

One of the best illustrations of this kind of treasure hunting is collecting salt and pepper shaker sets. In the kitchen where I grew up, there was a small what-not shelf on the wall. It held the salt and pepper shakers that had been purchased on family vacations over the years.

The shakers were colorful and whimsical. And most importantly, they were cheap. The fact that they could be found at road-side souvenir stands and variety stores across the country enabled a family that was traveling on a tight budget, like mine, to bring something home with them.

It’s interesting to see what’s happened to the shakers that were made in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s. Now those funky shapes and quirky characters have garnered dedicated collectors and have new life in a secondary market. And, for the most part, they’re still pretty inexpensive.

Some people search for a specific set of shakers to replace what they remember sitting on the kitchen table when they were children. Others look for certain shapes to fit a general collection. For example, someone who loves the distinctive silhouette of appliances from the 1950s might be drawn to plastic shakers that were made to look like a “Mamie Eisenhower” pink washing machine and dryer set.

Someone outfitting a lake cabin might like brown pottery shakers in the shape of little coffee pots.

This summer, tucked up on a shelf in the beach cottage I had rented, I found a pair of vintage salt and pepper shakers that looked like a pair of little red crabs. We had a pair just like them, picked up on a vacation in New England, on the shelf over my kitchen table when I was young.

Until I spotted the shakers I hadn’t thought of those little crabs for many years. Because the beach house has belonged to the same family for generations, I imagine the shakers might well have been picked up years ago on a trip or in some dime store across the country.

Just as I did with the crabs and starfish we found in the tidal pools, I held the shakers out to my children and told them about the collection of salt and pepper shakers on the shelf in the kitchen of the little house I grew up in.

And then I put them back.