Score!! 2 New American Tourister Train Cases

Score, a photo by by Shelley Faye on Flickr.

Just brought these two babies home. They STINK! and are filthy. No worries... they will be beautiful by the time the sun goes down today.

Luggage tags on Vintage American Tourister suitcases

In my quest for information on vintage American Touristers I've found that I'm really enjoying looking at the details and the differences.  I have found very little factual information on how to date these cases so all I can do is keep collecting information.  One special little detail on the American Touristers is the cute, kitschy little tag.  The style is iconic but if you look closely, they aren't all the same. 

The above one is totally smooth and printed on the rubber or plastic or whatever these things are made of.  The one below is embossed and embossed without a color. 

The thing about these tags, is that they can't really be dated by the case that they are attached to because they are on a ball chain, which is removeable and can easily be added or moved from one case to another.  This one pictured below, came from an eBay auction and as you can see... the font is slightly different from the first picture above.  Someone could easily buy the tag and add it to any case.

To be honest, I've done it myself.  That is not the original tag for the red one at the top, it also came off of a gold Tiara overnight case that I sold a few years back.

If I were to guess, I'd say that the embossed tags were the older ones and the smaller font would be the most recent of the ones pictured.

Craft Show displays made from Vintage Suitcases

Probably the place that you'll have the most vintage hard-shell suitcase sightings would be at a handmade crafts show.  Especially the indie ones! They are so handy for craft shows because they double as storage. You can store your crafts inside, carry them into the show, open up the case and boom.... display is done. (ok, so there is a little more work than that in setting up a craft show booth but still... you get what I mean)
The other day I was surfing around the web looking at suitcases when I came across this

http://pommes-frites.blogspot.com/2010/07/craft-fair-booth-display-vintage.html

Adorable right? I've bee using my vintage cases for my craft show displays for awhile, but I've been using just the plain case... as is.  Mine didn't have anything fancy, I just open it up, arrange my softies inside and sling my banner over the top, see... here's me

(above picture taken by Eric Bojanowski for the Sun-Sentinel article about Odd Duck)

But, I've got one case that I never used because it is HUGE and any softies that I prop up indie just don't fill the vertical space. So, I figured I'd get crafty.  I dug out the saw and managed to cut a piece of peg board the right size to fit inside.

I didn't permanently attach it because the interior if this case is pristine and I just couldn't bring myself to make permanent changes.  Surprisingly I was lucky enough to get the size of the board just right and it just sticks in there by itself held on by the interior trim! Honestly I don't know what I am going to use this for because I don't really sell anything that would be displayed hung from a peg board, but oh well... I am still proud of my handiwork.  Next I'll paint the peg board to match the suitcase and sometime between then and my next show... maybe I'll find a use for it.
Below is a picture of my kids trying it out to make sure it holds strong enough.  They were running around just hanging up anything they could find.  Here we have a pac man plush, a sugar skull plush, two aprons and a wii remote.

I found a seller on Etsy who makes and sells these sorts of vintage luggage display cases already made for you.  I also found several tutorials on how to make Vintage Luggage into craft show displays.

http://www.lynnminneydesigns.com/2011/07/12/tutorial-tuesday-vintage-suitcase-to-craft-show-display/
http://greenupgrader.com/15758/vintage-suitcase-craft-project/ 
http://leafytreetopspot.blogspot.com/2011/01/friday-finds-craft-show-display-ideas.html

If you are looking for a vintage suitcase to upcycle,  eBay is an easy way to find one without having to take repeated trips to the thrift store with your fingers crossed.