Posted 2 years ago
icalvert
(1 item)
My mother got these so many years ago none of us can remember when, and she is 74 years old and still baking! I can't find these exact ones anywhere on the internet.
Mom's Vintage Yellow Robin Hood Cookie Cutters | ||
| Cookie Cutters2 of 39 |  |  |
That one is similar anyway..they have ones like yours on etsy. Mom had some when I was a kid, but they were metal ones...possibly aluminum
Hi, icalvert. :-)
It sounds like these cookie cutters are among the "always there" items in your family's collection, huh? I know the feeling.
Given your mother's age, they could easily be a half-century old.
It looks like Robin Hood Flour was putting free cookie cutters into their flour bags as promotional items at least as far back as the mid-1950s:
Publication: The Times Leader
Location: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Issue Date: Friday, October 19, 1956
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/396551834/
However it sounds like those ones were Robin Hood-themed, e.g.:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1208146311/cookie-cutters-robin-hood-flour
Here are some Christmas-themed Robin Hood Flour cookie cutters, but I can't quite tell whether they're opaque or transluscent plastic. They do look like the same molds:
*snip*
SET OF FOUR ROBIN HOOD FLOUR PROMOTIONAL COOKIE CUTTERS CHRISTMAS TREE SANTA CLAUS BELL FROSTY THE SNOW MAN
*snip*
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/robin-hood-flour-vintage-cookie-469133967
Thanks for commenting! keramikos: Those ones on Worthpoint are so very similar as to be almost identical. The only difference being the handle to hold the cookies on Mom's are Robin Hood's head shape. Thanks for sharing that. It seems these were promotional, and I'm looking forward to telling Mom. I believe we can consider this Solved :D
icalvert, You're welcome. :-)
My hat off to you if you can discern a different style of handle on the Worthpoint listing ones. All I can tell is that they appear to be relatively high profile ones.
Here's another Worthpoint listing (Robin Hood figurine cookie cutters with plain, lower profile handles) that gives one more historical clue:
*snip*
Once there was a flour company in the early 1940's who figured out that the ladies would buy their flour if they put a cookie cutter in each sack.
*snip*
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/robin-hood-cookie-cutters-robin-hood-1793171569
So apparently, promotional cookie cutters in bags of Robin Hoor Flour goes back to the early 1940s.
I do have to wonder whether those earliest ones were metal, or perhaps bakelite, like these ones are advertised to be:
*snip*
8 vintage collectible 1940s bakelite large red cookie cutters. Santa, (2) Gingerbread men, Christmas tree, pumpkin, pig, turkey , happy birthday, What fun to use and pretty displayed.
*snip*
https://www.etsy.com/no-en/listing/893058023/vintage-cookie-cutters-bakelite-8
WWII is kind of the transition point for modern plastic:
https://www.sciencehistory.org/the-history-and-future-of-plastics
Given your mother's age, your family cookie cutters are probably post WWII, unless she inherited them.
Enjoy. :-)
You know I think you're right! The handles, upon closer inspection, do appear to be the same! Thanks so much for sharing all the information :) My mother was pleased to find out their origin, as she just couldn't remember where she got them.
icalvert, You're quite welcome. :-)
Thank you for marking your post as "MYSTERY SOLVED," because that's something that isn't alway done, and I have an unfortunate tendency to forget to ask users to do it.
Once I've identified something to my own satisfaction, my geeky brain marks it as "solved," and moves on. };-)
We have a veritable bone yard of posts here at CW S&T that are marked as "UNSOLVED MYSTERY." Some of them are legitimate unsolved mysteries, but many are not, because they were never marked as such by their owners.
So thank you again, and Happy Holidays. :-)