I’ve never been much of an Avon buyer. Avon to me was perfume and cologne – which I don’t wear because it irritates my nose – but who can forget “Skin So Soft,” its much-promoted product that became an urban legend cure-all.
So wasn’t I surprised when I wandered into the box-lot room at one of my favorite auction houses recently and saw two tables of Avon products. Most were still in boxes, and they included just about everything – stuffed toys, bud vases, snow globes, pomanders, dolls, tea lights. Stacks and stacks of them.
What didn’t this company make? And whose stash was this? A seller? A buyer? A collector?
Collecting Avon products, I found out later via the internet, is pretty popular. There are tons of sites selling the items, and there’s a collector’s club, the National Association of Avon Collectors, which is holding a convention in Kentucky in June for people to meet and greet.
Avon products apparently are good to collect but not for investments; they can be had for very little money. They look good in a curio cabinet – the way my sister displays her Avon Cape Cod ruby red pieces – but you won’t be able to retire on them.
According to one site, the most collectible items are figurines, dolls, plush products, ornaments and steins. Also popular are the annual porcelain Christmas plates, the most collectible of which were made by Enoch Wedgwood (Tunstull) Ltd. from 1973-1980, according to another website. I could find very little on the Avon website regarding its collectibles.
Want to see what else you can collect? Check out findavon.com, which includes an array of products for sale. Here’s a guide on collecting them.
It feels like Avon has been around forever, with its marketing plan and its Avon Ladies – from your aunt and sisters to the woman next door to the coworker sitting next to you, peddling products to make your skin soft and smooth, and your body smell good. The company was begun not by a woman but a man named David McConnell who started out selling books door to door and giving out small perfume samples as a gift, according to Wikipedia. He found that women were more interested in the perfume than the books, so he ditched the books.
In 1886, he started a company called the California Perfume Co., and its first product was the Little Dot Perfume Set with five fragrances. His first saleswoman – the first Avon Lady – was a widower from New Hampshire who recruited and trained other women to sell door-to-door, according to Wikipedia. The company was renamed Avon Products in 1939.
The company has come a long way from just selling one product. The Avon website says that it markets jewelry, clothing, gifts and collectibles. It says that it sells to women in more than 100 countries, and has more than 5 million independent representatives.
My sister’s collection of ruby red glassware is small. I’m sure she collected the pieces because as a July baby, her birthstone is ruby. Called the 1876 Cape Cod Collection, it was made from 1975 to 1993 with 37 different pieces.
Not a collectible, but the product I remember so well was Skin So Soft, which people said was good for soothing mosquito bites (there’s some question about whether that is true). The product has been cited as effective for everything from killing lice to removing gum from hair -which is probably not true, either.
Back at the auction house, I didn’t hang around to see how much the products sold for. Usually, lots of this size are sold in groups to speed up the process, and I’m sure a lot of people walked away with bargains. But for me it was an education.
By the way, remember that ubiqitous “Ding Dong Avon Calling” ad campaign? It got started in 1954. Seems like it lasted forever.
