Antique Personalized Shaving or Mustache Mug with Roses and Brush

Antique Shaving or Mustache Mug marked G.P. Goda with beautiful Roses & Gold Gild pattern. Included is an antique Ever Ready Brush. France Dimensions: 3.75" tall x 4.5" wide at the handle Condition: Excellent antique condition - no chips, cracks, or damage noted. Some wear of the gold gildTran

Translation: 

Hi, this is Jennifer with City Farmhouse Antiques and I want to share with you today our find of the week.  I want to talk to you about antique shaving mugs. This is actually part of my grandfather’s collection and he collected a lot of different shaving mugs over the years.  There were a lot of different types, but if you are not familiar with shaving mugs they were used between the 1870’s and 1920’s when there were a lot of people migrating here to the United States from different countries.  There were a lot of new occupations starting and so many new things starting here in America.  If you think back to what life was like during that time period it wasn’t near as easy for men to shave as it is now.  Of course, there were no electrical razors and lighting was poor and you actually had to boil your own water.  There was not hot water out of the tap like we take for granted today.  They would have to boil their water on a wooden stove and come back and pour water, this is a scuttle mug, into this area here where they could dip their brush and then of course they could shave.  If you had 10 cents to go to the barber, the barber had hot towels, and would do it all for you and thus these mugs became really popular.  The barbers, thinking outside the box, thought wouldn’t it be great if people could have their own mugs? You start to see antique shaving mugs going from these scuttle mugs (which have this design which holds the soap in the top and you dip your brush in here in the hot water and then of course you would use the soap to foam up and then shave) to mugs that have names on them. Barbers would sell men a mug and keep it there at the barber shop. Men had started developing rashes from infections from the razors, but they thought it was from sharing soap. They thought this would make it better to have their own mug. So men would have their own mug and that is where you see them commonly with different names and they would keep coming back for their shave so their barber would continue to make money and they would have their own mug.  Metal mugs were made, this one has a brush rest to keep a brush on and keep the hot water in there.  You can see mugs that were hand painted like this one.  This one was hand painted.  You can see they have nicks and damage, they were used.  There were also mugs with cars, different designs and styles.  These were considered decorative mugs and they had flowers and different things on them decorative.  Here you can see on this one a little bit of crazing.  Where you see a little crackling appearance giving you an idea of age. It is an older piece.  Antique shaving mugs are very collectible. People like to collect them because they are colorful.  Here is an example of another one with a car the size and shape of a coffee mug.  Some were even made out of wood.  Here is a different one.  The most collectible of the shaving mugs are what we call the occupational mugs.  Because we had so many occupations starting at that time…I don’t have one to show you…but the closest example would be this one.  It would be something as simple as a butcher or horse farrier.  Those mugs are very sought after today and very collectible and valuable and can be worth into the thousands of dollars.  Depending on what kind of mugs you want to collect this can be an inexpensive hobby to something that’s more upscale if you were to collect occupational mugs which are really fun too.  A lot of collectors keep them in cases or stands you can put up on the wall that hold several mugs like they used to be stored in the barber shop. There were also advertising mugs for Old Spice and different companies back then that are very collectable.  There were also character mugs.  Men like to collect a lot of these mugs because they can be very masculine with deer and different hunting scenes. So there are all types of antique shaving mugs on our website.  Check out our collection at www.cityfarmhouseantiques.com where we have other antiques, collectibles, and home décor items. Remember to go like us on Facebook!