By Caroline Rodgers

Part of the fun of antique collecting is stumbling across a real find in an unexpected place. Sometimes that find is not an object discovered in a flea market or yard sale but a surprising collection in a museum. Such is the case with the Monmouth Museum’s collection of sewing birds or “grippers” – a treasure trove of the increasingly scarce collectible that, under normal circumstances, never would be found there.

“We’re not a collecting museum,” explains Marion Kanaga, Curator of Education at the private nonprofit institution located in Lincroft, NJ. The museum is best known for its interactive children’s installations and changing exhibits in the fields of art, science and cultural history. However, a 1980 bequest from Eugenie Bijur of some 400 sewing birds, which collector Helen Griggs characterized as “immense,” was an offer museum officials could not refuse.

A typical sewing bird has a thumbscrew to which a vise or clamp is added, topped by a bird-like figure. Pressing the hinged tail of the bird opens the beak, which when released, clamps down to grip fabric placed there. It held fabric taut while seamstresses stitched or hemmed clothing and household goods. Variations might also include a pincushion, emery ball, spool or thimble holder or winding reel for thread or yarn, helping to earn the title “seamstress’s third hand.”

When the museum asked Helen Griggs – a collector who had become personally acquainted with Mrs. Bijur – to photograph and catalogue the bequest in 1985, she declared: “You’ve got the best collection in the world.”

“I told them not to ever sell any of it,” Mrs. Griggs said in a phone conversation from her home in Lake Oswego, OR, adding, “I also told them to build a display case for it.”

The museum took her advice. Embedded in a corridor is a custom-made nine-by-three foot showcase, the contents of which are changed about three times a year. At various time one peer through the heavy locked glass and see intricately carved ivory sewing clamps from the Orient; painted wooden ones with mirrors from Sweden; silver boxes from Russia, grand multifunctional and elaborate Victorian specimens; brass ones made in Britain depicting cherubs, shells, animals (both real and imaginary) and people. Also on display were the type first available in the United States – simple grippers forged by local blacksmiths in the beginning of the 18th Century, as well as a selection of metal birds manufactured by Charles Waterman of Meridian, CT, in the mid-1800s that was widely distributed.

Antique toy collectors also would be interested in this collection: many of the Monmouth Museum’s wide variety were made by English toy manufacturers who mounted small cast iron figures from their toy stock of dogs, butterflies, fish and mythical creatures into sewing clamps and sold them in toy stores as novelties; only later did this type appear in stores’ notions departments.

The history of sewing birds even has romance: they were often betrothal gifts given by a man to his intended months before their wedding date, when she would be busy working on her trousseau.
These ingenious and decorative collectibles have appreciated considerably over time. California antique dealer Robert M. Soares, who has collected 75 sewing birds over the course of 40 years, estimates that their value has “gone up at least a third, maybe doubled,” since the mid-70s. He says he pays up to several hundred dollars for a good one, lamenting that the good ones are “increasingly difficult to find.”
Mrs. Griggs, who owns 125 sewing birds, ventured to say the value has increased at least 300 percent in 30 years, and in special instances, even more.

The Monmouth Museums’ collection once even outnumbered the Smithsonian Institute’s until its national Museum of American History made two major acquisitions. According to Doris Bowman, who curates the American History Museum’s textile collection, an acquisition from collector Mable Whitely numbered 261 and another, from Dr. Manton Copeland, 280. (In an interesting sidelight, Dr. Copeland, who was a biology professor at Bowdoin College, published a tongue-in-cheek article in 1950 categorizing sewing birds according to the scientific system of order, family, genera and specials to identify 160 birds “variations.”) However, unlike the Monmouth Museum collection, none of the American History Museum’s collection was on exhibition at the time this story was written.

Ironically, in 1854, around the same time Waterman was manufacturing sewing birds on a large scale, the sewing machine that eventually rendered them obsolete was invented. However it was not until Isaac Singer began peddling his revolutionary invention door-to-door that sewing birds fell into disuse.
The smallest “bird” in the Monmouth Museum’s extensive collection measure a mere one-and-a-half inches, while the largest is a heavy-duty device one foot tall. Currently the museum has than six dozen items on display and individuals may request appointments to view more of the collection by contacting Director Avis Anderson in advance.

Caroline Rodgers is a published writer who specializes in writing for nonprofit institutions (http://CarolineRodgers.web.officelive.com). Her love of sewing birds began when her grandmother anchored three strands of embroidery floss in the beak of one and taught her how to braid.