Ad blocker detected: Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker on our website.
A topic for recording information regarding the Alvin Corporation and their predecessors, the Alvin Mfg. Co., the Alvin-Beiderhase Co., and the Alvin Silver Co.
If you have any details of the above company, advertisements, examples of their work, etc., anything that you are willing to share, then here's the place to post it.
The Alvin Mfg. Co. of Sag Harbor, N. Y., have commenced the manufacture of silver plated flat ware. Heretofore only sterling-silver wares have been made but both lines will now be manufactured. C. A. Dunn of Meriden, Conn., has taken charge of the plating department.
Source: The Brass World and Platers' Guide - September 1907
The main office of the Alvin Mfg. Co., manufacturers of sterling silver ware, has been moved from New York City to Sag Harbor, N. Y., where the factory is located. The showrooms in Maiden Lane, New York City will be continued as heretofore.
Source: The Brass World and Platers' Guide - August 1911
Representatives of the Alvin Mfg. Co., Submit Reports and Enjoy Outing
Sag Harbor, N. Y., June 27.—The annual meeting of the salesmen of the Alvin Mfg. Co. came to a close here last Friday with a shore dinner. The meeting began last Wednesday afternoon and was attended by about 28 representatives of the firm.
On Wednesday afternoon the salesmen held a preliminary meeting at the American Hotel. The following morning at 9 o'clock the meeting was again called to order in Redmen's Hall and was addressed by G. Fahys, who presided. H. F. Cook and C. W. Harman were also speakers.
Many encouraging reports were received from the salesmen in various parts of the country, after which a general discussion was held. H. G. Leavitt delivered an interesting talk on the manufacture of silverware, after which a buffet luncheon was served. Shortly after 1.30 P.M. the meeting was again resumed. The first subject taken up was the discussion of hollowware, sterling flatware, toiletware and plate. This discussion consumed the entire afternoon. At 6:30 o'clock in the evening the party started for the Sea View House for dinner.
Friday morning the salesmen went through the factory of the concern and later met at the factory office. At 11 :30 A.M.. the members of the party were taken in automobiles to participate in the annual shore dinner at Springfield Casino near Good Ground.
The following attended the meeting:
G. F. Fahys, H. F. Cook, C. W. Harman, H. G. Leavitt, H. B. O'Brien, A. Christman, F. S. Sherry, George Weidig, M. E. Savvis, W. E. Hayward, G. B. Beiderhase, George Holden, W. H. Williams, W. E. Somers, H. A. Wires, J. S. Paine, J. Harnden, O. A. Edwards, L. G. Meyerson, W. Meyerson, H. N. Lorish. Louis Schaefer. J. E. Grassick, G. R. Robinson, Frank A. Johnson, A. G. Young, Edwin T. Harman, J. R, Grabach.
The Alvin Mfg. Co., 860 Broadway, New York, are showing a handsome line of silver deposit perfume atomizers in a variety of styles and sizes, quite new and readily salable. As a genuine novelty in canes, they have a line of goods in bright nugget finish that is finding a ready sale. Their usual large assortment of stationery novelties, jugs, decanters, colognes, and flasks is supplemented this year by a line of silver deposit lamps that can be fitted into any candelabra.
Source: The Jewelers' Circular and Horological Review - 30th September 1891
Alvin Silverware has found a Dominant Idea for an entire campaign, departing widely from the accustomed manner of such advertising, wherein it has been almost a tradition in the business to show very large reproductions of the service, with aristocratic environment. Thus we find the user as the advertising theme and the actual silverware put in second place.
Investigators found a number of exclusive clubs and equally aristocratic homes, the country over, where Alvin Silverware was in use, and a photographer was sent to make pleasing visualizations of them. The main illustrative feature, therefore, is, in every case, these homes and clubs.
In a sense, the copy is of the "testimonial" character, as in the following:
"Mrs. Richard T. Wilson. whose name is associated with the Newport Country Club and the most fashionable Metropolitan Clubs, has added her approval to the endorsements already given by these distinguished in Society: ‘At a luncheon I recently gave at my home, I specially selected the George Washington pattern in Alvin for use on my table, and the many expressions of admiration which this beautiful design elicited from my guests made me feel that it contributed not a little to making the occasion a pronounced success.’ "
The interesting expedient is employed of advertising, not silverware in the direct sense, but the user and the suggestion of an aristocratic following. It will be at once obvious to what extent this permits of new types of illustration as well as of text. When sameness seems to “take hold" of an advertising account, particularly in its physical aspects, the Dominating Idea comes nobly to the rescue.
J. D. Grassick, of the Alvin Silver Co., is making a short trip through the northwest. A. T. Stuebner, also, of the above firm left last week for his Kansas and Missouri territory.
Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 9th November 1921
Court Holds That Alvin Silver Co.'s Design Infringed Patent Held by Whiting Mfg. Co.
After deliberating for a week, Judge Learned Hand in the United States District Court, New York, issued an opinion last Thursday upholding the Whiting Mfg. Co., in its equity action against the Alvin Silver Co., involving the alleged infringement of a sterling silver flatware pattern, claimed by the plaintiff to be covered by design Letters Patent No. 54,452. The opinion enjoins the defendant from continuing the alleged infringement and decrees for an accounting in favor of the Whiting concern.
In the action which was started several months ago it was claimed that the "King Albert" pattern, manufactured in flatware by the plaintiff was being infringed upon by the Alvin concern which, it was maintained, was putting out flatware of a colorable imitation under the name of the "Richmond" pattern.
The answer to the action filed by the Alvin firm was a general denial of the allegations set forth in the bill of complaint and averred that the defendant never infringed on the plaintiff's letters patent. Shortly after the suit was instituted the court refused to issue an injunction against the defendant and also denied a motion referring the case to a master. As the result the action was placed at the head of the general calendar and on Tuesday, Jan. 24, and Wednesday, Jan. 25, the matter was brought before Judge Learned Hand. After all of the testimony had been submitted, Judge Hand reserved decision but last Thursday handed down his opinion. This opinion reads in part as follows:
Learned Hand. D. J.: The validity of the patent has not been challenged, and wisely, because it is apparent by a glance at the prior art that if the design be taken as a whole, i. e., outline and decoration, there is nothing which comes near it. That it is valid is therefore beyond doubt. But what is the patented design? Certainly not the decoration alone, or the outline alone. The patent under all the books must be taken as a unity and only that infringes it which imitates that unity.
This being true, the real question at issue is whether the defendant has adopted the design so taken as a unity. The cases cited have uniformly followed the rule first laid down in Gorham v. White, supra, which is this. Some departures from the design the patent covers, but they must be small. They are to be ascertained, not by comparing the design with the infringement, side by side, to see whether they are then distinguishable, either by experts or laymen. The test is whether there is a substantial number of the common run of buyers who having seen the design will carry it inexactly enough in their minds to buy the infringement without any conscious choice between the two. So much latitude the patent has in application. Now it is clear that any such test depends altogether upon the relative emphasis of the different features of the design in the more or less inaccurate memory of those who have once seen and liked it. One man will be impressed with the decoration, another with the outline, a third only with the combination of both. And since our memories are entirely the creatures of our interest, what each will carry away depends inevitably upon what has struck his fancy.
For myself, I feel reasonably sure that I should never have made any mistake between the two. While the defendant's decoration is substantially an exact copy of the design, it is laid upon a spoon-end which chances not to be to my liking, which indeed seems to me ugly, while the whole design
happens to please me. I think this difference would have prevented any confusion in my mind. However, it is extremely hard now, after so much study of the two side by side, to get any just idea of what one would have remembered of the design, had one seen that alone, and then only once. Any conclusion on that score is of the most questionable validity. Besides, a judge is not justified, unless he is forced to do so, to assume that his own judgment is a proper measure of other people's, but he should have recourse to the opinions of such witnesses as by their experience know the habits of buyers in general. The judgment of these alone is of any consequence when the issue is of the future conduct of the buying public. That was certainly the attitude of the Supreme Court in Gorham v. White, supra, in which the absence of any answer to the plaintiffs evidence that ordinary observers would be confused, was made the very turning point of the decision.
In the case at bar there were called only five witnesses, all told, who had any actual experience in selling silverware to the public. Brogan, Jackson and White for the plaintiff, and Nash and McCarron for the defendant Brogan and Jackson thought that the confusion would arise in the minds of those who did not have the two before them, and Nash and McCarron thought not. Each was well qualified to speak firm his or her experience. White in his direct examination was not examined on the issue at all; all he said about it was upon cross examination. He thought that a person not having both spoons before him would be mistaken, unless he owned one and had got used to it on his table. As a casual observer comes within the scope of the rule, I think that White must count with the plaintiff. His own refusal to carry the plaintiffs pattern was based upon its similarity with the defendant's, itself a circumstance of some moment.
So far as I could see there was nothing in the appearance of these witnesses to help one to distinguish between them on the score either of credibility or competence, and I should not wish to decide a case upon a merely numerical preponderance of witnesses. The disagreement between them may, however, have arisen only because they were thinking of different kinds of customers. They were faced with an abstraction, necessarily no doubt, but still an abstraction, i. e., a normal customer. Now each one of them constructed his answering conception depended probably in part any way on reasons of which be was not thoroughly aware himself. It appears to me to be a mistake to assume that any of them inevitably fused in his mind customers of all kinds, or that they would necessarily have disagreed, if they could have done what is probably in any case an impossibility. The important point is that some of them thought that at least a substantial number of customers would in practise confuse the designs, and that these seemed to them not persons of exceptional carelessness. The answer of those who said yes seems to me inherently better than of those who said no, when the inquiry as here does not involve the majority of all customers, but only whether there are numerous persons, not noticeably careless, who would make the required mistake.
There is another circumstance which somewhat corroborates this conclusion. The decoration is new, the outline old, exactly illustrated at least once before, and approached more than once. It is natural that a new element should catch the attention and remain in the memory of those observers at lease to whom it appears as new. What has interested them would be likely to absorb and exclude what has not. If so. the decoration which has predominated in their fancy will be likely to control their decision to buy, rather than the outline.
The case is indeed a close one, and my past experience has taught me an extreme diffidence of my own judgment in this branch of the law, but upon the whole the balance seems to me to lean a little towards the plaintiff. The patent is highly meritorious, and the distinctively new feature of it has been frankly imitated, no doubt in good faith, if by good faith one means that the defendant was satisfied of its rights. Still I see no reason why a court should be over-solicitous to protect an imitator in such a case. No doubt the plaintiff has always the burden, but when the most original part of the design has confessedly been taken and it is open at best to grave doubt whether that is not the element which will stick in people's minds, there is no reason to press too hardly upon the sufficiency of the proof that the less striking feature will not always serve to distinguish the two.
Judge A. N. Hand's refusal to grant a preliminary injunction was not, it is true, by way of compromise, nor was it the condition of an early trial. Yet it must be a very clear case which could authorize a judge to grant such a motion, and it was natural that when the evidence of infringement was in dispute he should have been unwilling to solve it in the plaintiff's favor. If the test was the impression which the two designs make upon the judge alone, the decision of such a motion might indeed be conclusive, and as I have said, I should myself decide for the defendant, but if it is not that, it is hard to see how on such a record anyone could grant a preliminary injunction.
Decree for the plaintiff for injunction and accounting before William Parkin, Esq.
February 2, 1922.
Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 8th February 1922
Silver Deposit Process Protected.—The suit brought by the Alvin Mfg. Co., New York, in the United States Court at Trenton, N.J., against John H Scharling, of Newark, for infringement of their patent relating to silver deposit ware, has been decided by Judge Gray in favor of the Alvin company. The patent involved relates to the decoration or ornamentation of glass articles with an open or net work of silver, and covers both the process employed in depositing the silver and the article itself.
Alvin Mfg. Co., of Sag Harbor, Suffolk county, have been incorporated to manufacture and deal in watches, jewelry and silverware. The capital is $100,000, and the directors are William A. Blythe, 54 Maiden Lane, New York; Frank C. Beckwith, Sag Harbor, L. I., and Frederick P. Delafield, New York.
Source: The Jewelers' Circular and Horological Review - 17th February 1897
