This is the coolest place I have seen, you could buy a car and a pocket watch all at once.

Herdliska Jewelry Store, Princeton Minnesota.

Mr. Herdliska, August Schlesner, Fred Mueller and August Meyer standing in front of photo.

Photo courtesy Mille Lacs County Historical Society.

Fine looking lads they are. For sure the car is not going out the door behind the lads.

My money is on August Meyer in a dust-up.

I think he killed the bear/bison/moose, skinned it out and made that coat on the way into town.

The license plate is dated 1913... even has spare tires hanging on the wall... bicycle tires?

I was researching watch cases today and saw a coat like his , they called it a Russian bison I believe. It was a catalog from the mid west .I look at all those cases and watches and wonder how many went to the war effort.

The big guy has a moose call around his neck. Messin' with sasquach.
Nice store, sounds like a topic - post store pics?

The car is "up on blocks" suggesting it is in storage for the winter.

I do have one more jewelry store photo but they are very specific about permission to post so I am waiting for a reply.


Good eye Dave, those tires wouldn't get you far during a Minnesota winter.

Terrific photo. Thanks for posting it, Lorne.

It's interesting to speculate as to what was in the jewelry case. Waltham? Illinois? Elgin? Hampden? Rockford? Southbend? Howard? Swiss?
What did they specialize in, if anything? And were they carrying the latest watch models out, or hanging on to earlier stuff? Or both?

I see a lot of what appear to be big, silver 18s cases, which suggests more of a legacy inventory. The shop is not heated very well, and that owl perched on the back wall looks alive, or very well staged as such!

kh

The car could be in storage, or just supported on jacks as a display car for possible sales to save the tires.

As to the 18s watches in the case, if we go by the date on the license plate, it's 1913, so they would still be in 'play' by the major watch makers.

They sold fountain pens too!

GREAT photo!

Regards! Mark

This one is a bit more spartan. It is from a booklet published by the Canadian Northern Railway in 1915 so would date a few years earlier. The context puts it in eastern Saskatchewan and there is a jewelry store in Yorkton SK of the same name but the proprietor, named Park, maintains that it is not affiliated.

How in the heck would they keep dust out of moments when they were being serviced in that shack??!!!!

Regards! Mark

I noticed you could also buy a sewing machine.

Does anyone have a guess what the image is on the wall behind the car?

A fish?

Judging by the heavy-looking silver cases in the foreground, I'll hazard a guess that we have some older Walthams and/or E. Howard's in the case. I say E. Howards because of Mr. Fancy Pants leaning on the auto mobile. He likes selling, and he likes selling high profit- margin items.

Mille Lacs county "burst" from a census of 1500 in 1880 to over 10,000 in 1910 (today, 105 years later it is 26,000). Princeton was sort of the county seat (sort of) and enjoyed a population shift from 816 to 1550 during that same period. It is my guess that the watches in the case would be priced for the Great Northern RR employees, farmers and small business people that contributed to the population growth. Of course the census did not count the Ojibwa Indian population which would have easily increased it by 50% which was borne out in the census after they were declared "citizens" in the 1920's. The Princeton/Great Northern RR station still stands as a museum.

In that case, there might not have been enough support among such a populace for carrying many high-dollar items, but it does appear that they had some choices.
Anyway, I'd like to encourage more of these photographs because they really help bring the Industrial age era to life.

kh

Ken, in no way did I mean to discredit your estimation of what watches were in the case. With the main population of that area of Minnesota being Scandinavian, German and second immigration Scottish-Irish (from Canada) what people could afford may well have depended on the time of year and the degree of exuberance with which they wanted to express their passing fortunes. In a more fundamental way, the real "paying jobs" were largely RR, Land and grain Barons along with Commercial Town folks all sharing the "feast or famine" enjoyed as an agricultural community. So there could have been many of those people finding cause to spend a little extra to "celebrate" their fortunes.

I imagine the store carried carried a variety of grades ....just like today; 90% 7 jewel wonders, NYS, Swiss fakes and lots of other sugar frosted junk that everyone could afford, 7% RR grades for working professionals and 3% exotics and super high-grades for the occasional wealthy customer, but mostly for image. Always catalogs with everything!

William

The sign above the door says: "Standard Sewing Machine"

Wayne's cool pic just for fun pic of shop prompted me to post another here.

H.B. Lund Jewelry Store, Morris MN. 1909 or later.

Courtesy Stevens County Historical Society & Museum, Morris MN.

If only we could go back in time.What a trip that would be!

Roger

What is the approx. date of the H.B. Lund Jewelry Store photo? Is it known?

Lorne Thanks for posting the pics. i have always enjoyed history and there is no better way to study it than by looking at pics. Wayne

Look at left side of the photo there must be 30 watches that they have hanging to time. And the Jewelers Regulator clock is right beside them.

quote:

Ken Habeeb

What is the approx. date of the H.B. Lund Jewelry Store photo? Is it known?

Ken, H.B. Lund Jewelry was at one point in Kreuger's Drug Store.

Then this:
Taken from the Sun Tribune of April 22, 1909.
H. B. Lund has rented the building formerly occupied by Mr. Wunsch as a saloon, and as soon as the building is remodeled he will move his jewelry stock to that place. Mr. Wunsch is having the building raised and is putting a new foundation under it. A new plate glass front will also be put in, and when completed, the building will be very much improved.