K&S Stock Victorian Lady

Comments:
Although many K&S trays have a production number on them, to our knowledge K&S did not use stock numbers like most of the other major tray manufacturers (even if some of them were inconsistent or intermittent users). While K&S did provide copyright dates on many non-stock designs, they did so infrequently on their stock designs. We should point out, as we did in some of our Meek & Beach descriptions, that copyright dates are not necessarily synonymous with production dates. In many cases, the image (often from an external artist) was copyrighted and then sold to a manufacturer like K&S, who may not have used it right away. Most of the copyright dates we are aware of for K&S are from the 1910s, when the application of copyright protection for advertising was well established; the one exception is the “Lady and Tiger” stock design, which carries a 1902 copyright.

The purpose of all that preface was to establish the basis for our assertion that this design is one of the earliest K&S stock designs. Astute observers will notice that this design bears a striking resemblance to H D Beach’s third stock design, most likely produced in 1902 when Beach got his new Coshocton-based plant into operation. Really careful observers will note some very slight differences in the design but will conclude that this is meant to be a replica of the same “Rose Girl”.

Until 1903, advertising was not considered protected under copyright laws, when the Supreme Court ruled in Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. that it did apply (the advertising at issue were chromolithographs produced to advertising circus performances). Since the ruling in Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. was issued in February 1903, we conclude that this design was only produced for a few months in the later half of 1902 into the first two months of 1903. This would explain the very limited number of examples we’ve seen of this design (with only two known issuers—something that seems to be a K&S “thing”).

The design is rather basic—just the girl with a red rose in her hair; however, the perspective of K&S’s version is from further away than Beach’s and includes a bit of her gold dress. As we’ve noted in other designs the red rose symbolizes romantic love and perhaps this design was meant to represent a young, betrothed woman. Aside from some minor differences in the artwork and the perspective being further away, the only other difference we note is the background.

Size, Shape & Advertising Placement
We have only seen this K&S in the flat pie version depicted here with the characteristically flat lipped rim typical of early pie shapes from multiple manufacturers. We assume this is the result of the various manufacturers using stamping equipment from the same machinery providers. Advertising appears on the rim, which is red, using gold text highlighted with black. None of the few examples we’ve seen feature advertising text on the face.

Price
Most of the examples we’ve seen have been only average or worse condition with prices in the low triple figures. The few that we’ve seen in better than average condition have commanded high triple figures. For examples of similar condition, we have not seen a significant price difference between Buffalo Brewing of Sacramento, CA and Frank Fehr’s Malt Tonic versions.