Friday, June 22, 2012

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.

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