Whitney produced these boxes of seals sometime during the early 1920s. Whitney was a decided underdog in the realm of boxed seals and the like. Their design aesthetic was largely static and yawn-inducing. Their output was a fraction of the two big dogs they were trying to emulate, Dennison, the undisputed master of the boxed seals business, and Gibson, which tried for a few years to catch the leader, but never succeeded. I feel that some manager at Whitney urged the company to enter the boxed seals business, and they did so half-heartedly. The first season or two Whitney didn’t even bother to label their boxes with quantity or even their own name. The two boxes in this listing date from those first one or two seasons. After this they did label their boxes, no matter how small the dimensions, with what you’d expect. Today, collectors avidly search for Dennison boxed goods from the teens through the early 1930s. The Gibson boxed seals market is also quite strong, and has remained so for a decade. Whitney seals have struggled to break through, certainly due to their lack of oomph. It’ll be fun to see what this listing brings.
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Mark B. Ledenbach's vintage Halloween collectibles blog.
