PLACE REPRESENTED: Cairns, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Small Dish
NOTES: A tear drop or fish shaped dish showing Cairns in North Queensland. This is not a reproduced photograph or line drawing but an artists impression of Cairns at the time. It is small but quite stunning.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1950s
MADE FROM: ceramic material
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 23cm long x 12cm wide x 2.5cm deep
PLACE REPRESENTED: Queensland (specifically North Queensland) , Australia
ITEM: Fan
NOTES: Beautifully kitsch plastic souvenir fans from the 60s or early 70s. The fans fold in on themselves or open up.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1960s
MADE FROM: plastic
MADE IN: Hong Kong (It’s written on the red bit at the bottom)
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 18cm tall , 3.5cm wide (when folded up) 25cm when opened up
PLACE REPRESENTED: Kuranda, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Wall Ornament
NOTES: A large wood map of Australia (sorry, no Tasmania) depicting the Kuranda scenic railway train around Kuranda, located on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland, Australia (about 25 km from Cairns). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuranda,_Queensland
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1970s
MADE FROM: wood
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 36cm across x 28cm wide
PLACE REPRESENTED: Nambour (specifically the Sunshine Plantation), Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Fan
NOTES: Beautifully kitsch plastic souvenir fans from the 60s or early 70s. The fans fold in on themselves or open up.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1960s
MADE FROM: plastic
MADE IN: Hong Kong (It’s written on the red bit at the bottom)
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 18cm tall , 3.5cm wide (when folded up) 25cm when opened up.
PLACE REPRESENTED: Emerald, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Container
NOTES: Small container adorned by Queensland’s green tree frog. Mass produced this seems to be a case of “insert town name here”. Still, the frog is cute.
Emerald is a town in the Central Highlands Region, Queensland, Australia about 883 km NW of Brisbane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald,_Queensland
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 2000s
MADE FROM: Hard resin
MADE IN: China
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 8cm long x 5.5cm high x 6cm diameter
PLACE REPRESENTED: Whitsunday Islands, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Fridge Magnet
NOTES: A tacky souvenir for the Whitsunday Sands Resort, the beautiful islands off Queensland’s central north coast. Croc having a BBQ
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1980s
MADE FROM: plastic
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 8.5cm across, 5.5cm high
PLACE REPRESENTED: Coolangatta, Gold Coast, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Small Dish
NOTES: A small dish depicting Marine Parade at Coolangatta, on the Gold Coast. It certainly doesn’t look like this any more, though it did up until the 1970s. A pity. The size of the row of pine trees along the left indicate this is from the 1930s.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1930s
MADE FROM: china
MADE IN: Czechoslovakia
MANUFACTURER: Victoria
DIMENSIONS: 12.5cm diameter
PLACE REPRESENTED: Boreen Point, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Dinner Bell
NOTES: A cute, delightfully retro kitsch dinner bell. Made in Japan (it’s printed clearly on the inside) for the Australian market (what’s more Australian than a koala, or err a kangaroo?) all you had to do was insert a locality name and put it on shelf for sale. At least, the craftsmanship allowed for the place name to be written on in paint. By the 70s this would be plastic and a sticker would be used. The population of Boreen Point is 264 today, who knows how many people lived there in the 1960s, but I suspect the koalas outnumbered them. It is a locality north of Tewantin on the Sunshine Coast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreen_Point,_Queensland
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1960s
MADE FROM: ceramic material
MADE IN: Japan
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 11.5cm high x 6cm diameter
PLACE REPRESENTED: Canungra, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Hand Towel
NOTES: Canungra, is derived from the local Aboriginal word “gungunga” which means “a long flat or clearing” or “caningera” after a small owl, or “coonoongra” meaning “the small grey owl that has its home along the creek” or, perhaps, “good place with plenty of game”. Either way, Canungra, is also called the “Valley of the Owls” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canungra,_Queensland
This is hand stitched onto a normal hand towel. This sort of Nana (grandmother) embroidery still exists. Perhaps it’s a dying art as more women flock to careers in the post-feminist world – do people sing the praises of knitting, quilting and home crafts? They should … the arts / crafts are evocative as expressions of identity, both individual and group.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 2017
MADE FROM: Cotton
MADE IN: Australia
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 41cm x 64cm
PLACE REPRESENTED: Ingham, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Bottle Opener
NOTES: Ingham, Queensland. Famous for its sugar cane. Many a migrant spent their time cutting cane thereabouts. Well, many a non-English speaking migrant, to be specific. Well, many a Italian, Croatian, Hungarian, etc etc. So many Italians worked and settled in the area during the last century, but especially during the 1950s and 1960s that Ingham is known as “Little Italy” and has an “Italian-Australian” festival. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingham,_Queensland
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1970s
MADE FROM: steel
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 12cm long
