PLACE REPRESENTED: Great Barrier Reef, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Ashtray
NOTES: The Great Barrier Reef as an ashtray?
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1970s
MADE FROM: ceramic material
MADE IN: Japan
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 16cm x , 16cm
PLACE REPRESENTED: Uluru, Northern Territory , Australia
ITEM: Wall Ornament
NOTES: The famous Uluru … though probably still called Ayres Rock at the time of this travel trinket (as it was until 1993). Usually referred to as the largest rock in the world, it’s not. Mount Augustus in outback Western Australia is. Still this is pretty and, unusually, it is a night time or dusk scene of the rock as opposed to the more common daylight one.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1970s
MADE FROM: wood
MADE IN: Australia probably
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 28cm long x 11cm wide x 1.5cm thick. .
PLACE REPRESENTED: Warwick, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Ashtray
NOTES: A homemade ceramic ashtray celebrating the Warwick rockswap in 1973. The Paris Exposition it wasn’t. But, it is still going having started in 1967!
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1973
MADE FROM: ceramic material
MADE IN: Australia
MANUFACTURER: Handmade
DIMENSIONS: 9cm across , 3.5cm high
PLACE REPRESENTED: Cambodia
ITEM: Key Ring
NOTES: A key ring bottle opener and nail clipper! Perfect for travelling. The handle depicts the Angkor Wat temple with Vishnu is one of the Hundu deities hovering, perhaps Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, or Maheshvara?
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 2000s
MADE FROM: Steel
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 11cm long (including chain) x 43 across (at widest)
PLACE REPRESENTED: Nicaragua
ITEM: Whistle
NOTES: A beautifully detailed ornament that doubles as a two hole whistle. You blow air in through the tail and change pitch by opening and closing holes on the birds back. The bird depicted is a woodpecker of some kind I think. Nifty though my mastery of the instrument is limited. There is a story behind the “Nicaraguan Bird Whistle” rise to tourist trinket : https://www.fmscmarketplace.org/products/colorful-bird-whistle They are made around the Granada town area by Heliberto & Family Handcrafted Ceramics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPZgdtoFqIE or a round Masaya.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 2016
MADE FROM: clay
MADE IN: Nicaragua
MANUFACTURER: Heliberto & Family Handcrafted Ceramics
DIMENSIONS: 9cm long , 8cm high
PLACE REPRESENTED: Surat, Queensland , Australia
ITEM: Mug NOTES: Surat, Queensland … population 426 … country Queensland, remote Queensland, small town Queensland. So small the pictures on the mug are generic ones from the surrounding region.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1990s
MADE FROM: ceramic material
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 13cm wide x 10cm high x 8cm diameter
PLACE REPRESENTED: Sydney, New South Wales , Australia
ITEM: Tray
NOTES: A bamboo tray (which could double as a wall ornament) with a vivid printed Sydney harbour depicting the Harbour Bridge and, of course, the Sydney Opera House.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1970s
MADE FROM: bamboo
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 27.5cm diameter
PLACE REPRESENTED: Grindelwald , Switzerland
ITEM: Wall Plate
NOTES: A suitably rustic wall hanging declaring Grindelwald, a village in Switzerland’s Bernese Alps in the south which had a population of about 3300 in the 1960s at the time of this souvenir (and about 4000 now). I’m no expert but the flowers could be the Mountain Avens (or maybe Edelweiss), perhaps a Dissecta and maybe an Alpine Forget-me-not (the “King of the Alps”). This is simple and pretty.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1960s
MADE FROM: wood
MADE IN: Switzerland probably
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 20cm diameter
PLACE REPRESENTED: Grand Canyon, Arizona , USA
ITEM: Oven Mitt Holder
NOTES: How many oven mitt holders do you come across? This stylish piece of timber has room for the keys in the half urn whilst your mitts can hang from below. How do I know it as oven mitt holder? By the writing, “Take a holder from this hook, save your fingers when you cook”. The “Grand Canyon Nat’l Park” in a different font and writing indicates this may have been a “insert place name here” souvenir. Still, an oven mitt holder!
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1960s
MADE FROM: wood
MADE IN: unknown
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 11cm wide x 14cm long x 5.5cm deep.
PLACE REPRESENTED: Fiji Islands
ITEM: Clock NOTES: An ornate clock from Fiji depicting all the island of Fiji. You could see this hanging in a tiki bar.
YEAR (APPROXIMATE): 1980s
MADE FROM: wood (“treated wood” apparently – probably specified so tourists can take the same back to their country of origin, or think they can, or have, in this case).
MADE IN: Fiji probably
MANUFACTURER: unknown
DIMENSIONS: 22cm across , 29cm high