Featured Help with Vintage Christmas Ornaments - Cali-Col? Other questions.

Just a note on the caps: I've got quite a few older ornaments that I'm pretty sure have original caps - boxed sets from my Mom - and I notice that a great many of the caps don't fit well. Some too big, others too small, but consistent in the whole set, which one would not likely see with replacement caps. I'm thinking that was pretty common with older ornaments; the glass-blowing was just not accurate enough to make every cap fit properly.

 

Cali Col (Columbia) was a brand imported from Columbia by Caramoor Products New, York under the brand Holly Jolly. The link to German immigrant) made ornaments in Columbia is correct. Incidentally the president of Caramoor Products was Harold J. Eckhardt -- Does that sound familiar? Yes, he was part of the family of Max Eckhardt & Sons of the SHINY BRITE kingdom serving for a while as it's president following his service as a pilot in WWII. (so I guess one could call him the King of Shiny Brite.) He was president of Caramoor Products later in his career. As he passed away in 1977 we can assume he served as president during the 1960s. While I do not know the current status of Cali Co., there are items under the Jolly Holly Label post 1980. We can postulate that Cali Col ornaments were made from the 1950s through at least the 1980s. Age and condition should help identify the period of your Cali Col ornaments. Also if it has a package a UPC it will be post 1974. If it does not have a UPC it is pre-1974. Also keep in mind that typically the simpler the box, the older the ornaments. Post WWII many ornaments came in simple un-decorated boxes. Boxes with single colors up to 3 colors started coming out typically in the 1950s. Slightly fancier boxes with gold decoration about the 1960s.

Other Ornaments out of Columbia are more than likely made by German Emigrant ancestors. In fact many ornaments from Columbia were in fact also Kurt Adler ornaments. Imported by his company. I have a full box of those from ca. 1960s.

To add to the topic, I noted that there are many ornaments from Brazil that look Identical to the ones from Occupied Japan... ...and yes, there was a large emigration of Japanese into Brazil. So the conclusion is that those are Japanese designed and made ornaments out of Brazil.

Pretty cool so I think. Hope this is helpful.
--Kevin

 

@Bookahtoo

Hi @Kevin M. Wheeler & welcome to the forum!!

This thread has been around for a while & it may well be that she has sent most if not all of these ornaments to their new forever homes. However, you never know when someone else will come across these ornaments so thanks for taking the time to add this information.

 

Welcome to Antiquers Kevin!

Very informative post.