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The 34th annual International Perfume Bottle Association convention was held in the Chicago suburbs on April 28-May 1, 2022. After a successful 2021 virtual convention, our members were thrilled to have an in-person gathering, as we reconnected with friends, learned more about our perfumes and compacts, and of course shopped 'til we dropped!

What a wonderful event it was!  Seminars, presentations, guest speakers, collectors marketplace, vintage fashion show, auction and a fabulous exhibitor hall was on the agenda for this annual event.

The convention is the most exciting weekend in perfume bottle and compact collecting! It was a four-day extravaganza featuring the world's premiere exhibition and showroom with the field's leading dealers offering thousands of bottles, compacts and ladies vanity items for sale. The convention drew together collectors and dealers from around the world.

Highlights of the weekend included a Friday vintage fashion show that featured the vintage clothing collection of host Bette Sherman. She entertained us with fashion and accessory history and the models were our own IPBA members! The Saturday events included IPBA day at the Sanfilippo estate featuring a Made in Chicago presentation by host Jeffrey Sanfilippo. Chicago has a fascinating history about early perfumery and toiletry companies and the products they made throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

Keynote speaker Veronique Coty, great granddaughter of perfumer Francois Coty, provided us with a wonderful history of the company and their iconic fragrances. She also introduced new fragrances produced from original Coty formulas!

The Perfume Bottles auction featured nearly 200 lots of vintage perfume bottles, compacts and vanity items and was also held Saturday afternoon. Director Ken Leach offered a fantastic variety of perfume and vanity items for every level of collector. Auction results can be found on Liveauctioneers.com.

Tours to Perfume Passage were offered and dozens of new exhibits and displays were unveiled for the first time. Please visit the website at: https://www.perfumepassage.com or their facebook page at "Perfume Passage Foundation."

Specialty groups within the IPBA allow members to share their knowledge and their passion within their specialty collecting field. It's a unique opportunity for like-minded specialty collectors, at last, to come together and focus on what they love. It's a venue for networking, developing new friendships and enhancing your collecting experience.

The "Compact and Vanities Specialty Group" within the IPBA allows compact and vanity collectors to share their love of compacts, perfume solids and related vanity items. The compact specialty group will continue to send out a quarterly Vanity Views eNews to our members. As with all specialty groups, we try to schedule a gathering at the annual IPBA convention.

The 2023 convention is scheduled for the Dallas area on April 27-30, 2023 and registration packets will be sent out to IPBA members in early 2023. Please also visit the IPBA website for more information at perfumebottles.org.

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The IPBA began in 1988 with 18 members. Today the Association has almost 900 members from 19 countries. The IPBA provides information about all aspects of perfume bottle and related vanity items including their uses, history and manufacture. They promote collecting of perfume bottles, compacts, powder boxes, purses and vanity items.

Membership includes a quarterly full-color magazine --  The Perfume Bottle Quarterly, regular informative email updates, a lending library of over 250 books on bottles and related subjects, a youth membership -- IPBA Young Collectors -- for youngsters aged 7 to 18 years old. The Association's website includes a virtual museum with 24 categories of perfume related collectibles to scroll through and drool over!

The annual convention for collectors around the world is held each year in a different city. The exhibitor hall includes over 20,000 vintage perfume bottles, compacts, powder boxes, purses and related items for sale and on exhibit -- the largest selection ever brought together in one place.

Click here to view the IPBA website for more information on the convention and Association!

Inquiries about the BCCS to: secretarybccs@hotmail.com

Inquiries about Membership to: bccs.uk@virginmedia.com

Click here to visit their website at: http://www.compactcollectors.co.uk/

email : Sales@strattonofmayfair.com

The following books on compacts are a great reference for collectors and all have great photographs!

At last! A new book on compacts! American Compacts of the Art Deco Era features Elgin American, J.M. Fisher and other companies that produced deco compacts in the late 1920-30s. Written by collectors Howard W. Melton and Michael A. Mont, the book features over 1,100 color photographs and includes the history of Elgin and Fisher compacts. Other major compact manufacturers such as Marathon, Pilcher, Volupte and Richard Hudnut are also included. Click here for information on purchasing the book.

1) Ladies' Compacts of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, by Roselyn Gerson (1989 from Collector Books)

2) Vintage Vanity Bags & Purses, by Roselyn Gerson (1994 from Collector Books)

3) Vintage Ladies' Compacts, by Roselyn Gerson (1996 from Collector Books)

4) Vintage & Contemporary Purse Accessories, by Roselyn Gerson (1997 from Collector Books)

5) Vintage Ladies' Compacts, Second Edition, by Roselyn Gerson (2001 from Collector Books)

6) The Estee Lauder Solid Perfume Compact Collection 1967-2001, by Roselyn Gerson (2002 From Collector Books)

7) Vintage Compacts & Beauty Accessories, by Lynell Schwartz (1997 from Schiffer Publishing)

8) Compacts and Smoking Accessories, by Roseann Ettinger (1991 from Schiffer Publishing)

9) Collector's Encyclopedia of Compacts Carryalls & Face Powder Boxes, by Laura M. Mueller (1994 from Collector Books)

10) Collector's Encyclopedia of Compacts Carryalls & Face Powder Boxes (Volume II), by Laura M. Mueller (1997 from Collector Books)

11) Compacts & Vanity Cases, by Laura M. Mueller (2008 from Collector Books)

12) Powder Compacts: A Collector's Guide (Miller's Collector's Guides, 2000), by Juliette Edwards

13) The Art of Allure: Powder Compacts of the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries, by Noelle Soren (2004)

14) A Collector's Guide to Estee Lauder Powder Compacts, 1963-2015, by Ann Schweiger

15) A Collector's Guide to Estee Lauder Solid Perfumes, 2002-2015, by Ann Schweiger

Popular Compact Companies

Bliss Brothers:  BBCo., Attleboro, MA. The mark was usually a small "B" and "Co." within a larger "B."

Bourjois, Inc.:  A. Bourjois & Co., Inc., NY. They made the Evening in Paris vanity items.

Briggs: Maker of nice quality compacts in the 1920-30s, Attleboro, MA. Marked DFBCo.

Clarice Jane: A compact trademark of Elgin American and the Illinois Watch Co.

Coty: A perfume and cosmetic company from New York.

Divine: A trademark found in tiny glove compacts with decorative lids, often done in silhouette.

Djer-Kiss Kerkoff: A trademark of Kerkoff, a Parisian cosmetics firm. Their most famous design is the silver “kissing fairies” compact.

Dorothy Gray: A NY cosmetic firm that flourished in the 1950s-60s.

Elgin American Manufacturing: EAM Co., Elgin IL. Elginite was a trademark for their white metal cases. They made great deco compacts.

Evans:  The Evans Case Company from Attleboro, MA was one of the most prolific producers of high quality compacts and carryalls, as well as cigarette lighters and cases, costume jewelry and handbags. Along with Volupte, this company dominated the carryall market in the 1940s and 1950s.  Mayfair was a trademark of the Evans company.

Finberg Mfg. Co.: Attleboro, MA. Makers of good quality guilloche enamel compacts in the 1930s. Signed FMCo.

Fisher: The J. M. Fisher Company, one of the oldest established jewelry firms in Attleboro, MA, was formed by John Melatiah Fisher and Charles R Harris in 1879. In the 1920-30s it was noted for its stylish and colorful compacts with unusual shapes and original, often abstract designs. The compacts are rarely marked but can be identified by their shapes, their one-link chains and the fragility of their brightly colored enamels. Ironically, the poor quality of the enamel means that few survive in top condition. They are very collectible.

Paul Flato: He was a famous jewelry designer who catered to the stars of Hollywood from his shop on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. In the 1920s and 30s he also had shops in Beverly Hills and New York. He designed high quality compacts, usually in sturdy cases with matching lipsticks. Many of Flato’s designs had whimsical detail and they are all known for their high quality.

Theodore W. Foster & Brothers Co.: Providence, RI. They made great sterling and guilloche tango compacts in the 1920s. Signed F&BCo.

Girey: An American company known especially for its “kamra-pac” compacts made to resemble small cameras. They often included powder, rouge and lipsticks.

Gwenda:  An English company noted for foil back scenes resembling butterfly wing.

Henriette: A New York company noted for novelty compacts such as military hats and ball-shaped compacts.

Annette Honeywell: A noted artist and designer in the mid-20th century. She created a series of designs with images such as a bullfighter, oriental dancer and a child on a merry-go-round among others. Her designs were used for a series of zippered compacts with the Lady Vanity trademark.

Houbigant:  A perfume and cosmetics company founded by Jean Francois Houbigant in Paris in the late 1800s. Compacts featuring Houbigant’s flower basket logo and vanities with abstract deco designs are very collectible.

Houpette: A French trademark noted for the telescoping Pli compacts.

Richard Hudnut: A cosmetic firm of New York, they were known for the DuBarry, Deauville and Debut deco compacts. He began his cosmetic career in 1903. His company became one of the foremost cosmetic companies in the US.

Italian compacts were ornately engraved silver compacts that often came with matching lipsticks and combs. They usually had hand painted enamel scenes of couples in countryside settings. These scenes were often taken from 18th and 19th century paintings. Marked 800 for the silver content or “Made in Italy," they became very popular after WWII when the compacts were exported to France and the United States. Department stores like Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Saks and Neiman Marcus sold them. They are very collectible today. Visit Noelle Soren's website at: http://davidandnoelle.net for a great history of these compacts.

Kigu: An English company that made compacts until the 1950s.

Marathon: Makers of nice quality deco compacts in the 1930s from Attleboro, MA.

Mondaine: A trademark found on novelty vanities that resemble small books. Some also have cigarette compartments and are called Cig-Vanettes. Mondaine was also known for flat rectangular vanities with rope handles and round compacts with small lipstick compartments in their lids.

Parker Pen-Wadsworth: They were the maker of novelty compacts like the Ball and Chain and the Hot Air Balloon.

Plate: House of Plate, Detroit, MI. Makers of the Trioette vanity in the 1940s.

Princess Pat: Princess Pat Ltd., Chicago, IL.  Makers of the Vaniteen and small rouge and powder compacts.

Pygmalion: An English company noted for their novelty compacts, such as the Sonata piano compact and the globe.

Rex Fifth Avenue:  A New York company and maker of compacts in the 1950s. This company later joined with Dorset, to become Dorset-Rex in 1951. Zell, Rex, Dorset and Columbia all had “Fifth Avenue” added to their names and so they are often called “the Fifth Avenues”. They all made moderately priced compacts.

Ripley & Gowan Co.: Attleboro, MA.  Established in 1874. They marketed compacts and jewelry in the names of R&G, R&G Co., LaMode, and the R&G letters within a padlock. Their earliest compacts date from the late 1920s. They made top quality guilloche enamel compacts.

Schuco: A German toy company that manufactured teddy bears and other plush toys between the World Wars. They made several collectible compacts and perfumes in the forms of plush bears and monkeys. Very collectible.

Stratton: A company founded in 1860 in Birmingham, England and one of the manufacturers of fine British compacts. They are still making compacts today.

Hilda Terry: She was a well-known cartoonist and artist who created the character “Teena”, the quintessential teenage girl of the 1940s-1960s. Her cartoon strip was syndicated in newspapers from 1941 through 1966 in the US. Several of her cartoon scenes appeared in popular magazines and on Rex compacts during this period. The artist was also a teacher and taught at the New York School for Social Research in New York and the Phoenix School of Art and Design in Phoenix.

Thomae Co.:  The Thomae Co., Attleboro, MA, made top quality sterling guilloche enamel compacts in the 1920.

Vashe: A maker of small fashionable compacts in the 1930s and 40s.

Volupte: A New York company that along with Evans, dominated the carryall market in the 1940s and 1950s. They also made some very collectible figural compacts such as the hand compact series.

Wadsworth: The Wadsworth Watch case Co., Dayton, KY was established in 1890 as a maker of gold filled watch cases. In the 1940s and 1950s they also manufactured nice quality compacts. They were eventually purchased by Parker Pen Co. and became Parker Pen Wadsworth.

Zell: Zell Fifth Avenue, one of the Fifth Avenue compact companies along with Rex, Columbia and Dorset.