Enid Collins

This weekend I went thrift store shopping. I discovered one of the joys of living in Texas: the serendipitous discovery of an Enid Collins box bag.

"Who is Enid Collins?" you ask. She was a woman who began designing purses in Medina, TX in 1959. Her little home business grew into a booming enterprise of quirky purses that have now become major collector items for aficionados of vintage accessories. I had no idea until my vintage-wise friend became obsessed by Collins of Texas' distinctive "box bags" a few months ago. Each design has a name. Mine is "for the birds!" and has 5 multicolored birds painted on the front. My find isn't one of the flashier, plastic jewel-studded creations, but it is still delightfully eccentric and probably worth more than the $5 I paid for it if I decided to put it up on ebay.

P.S. If you ever stumble upon a wooden box purse at a garage sale, thrift store, or your grandmother's closet, you can determine if it is an Enid Collins by looking on the inside for "Collins of Texas." The majority of the purses were designed with a mirror on the inside. Sometimes the mirrors are gone, but you will see a space where one was. It will usually have the design title written on the lower left corner. Most, particularly the older ones, will have an an "ec" logo in the lower right corner of the design; 1970s ones have "Collins of Texas" instead. She also designed canvas totes with wooden bottoms.