Some
years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some
called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items.
Over
time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different
reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage
items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more
interesting than others.
So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.
Actually, I already started talking about today's small collection a few years ago as part of a homage to needles, I just didn't know then this would turn into a collection of its own.
I have used and broken quite a few needles since I started beading. Bead embroidery, especially on the beaded sneakers (no idea why Blogger insisted to have extra space between the lines in that post) and the HeatherCat sneakers (this is the last post of four which has all the links if you are interested), was extra hard for them (well, and my hands).
In the homage post, I talked about how I discovered vintage paper needle packs while looking for beading needles and how I fell in love with some of the labels.
Most intriguing to me were the Princess Victoria needles because there were variations, and I thought they deserved a post of their own by now because there will probably be one or the other addition to them.
That means I will then update this post instead of the other one which might get a bit too long otherwise.
In fact, this one is also quite long already.
It's nice that the packs don't take up much space, though, and of course I can always use the needles if I need them as most packs are full, this isn't just decoration (or so I tell myself). The packs are scattered throughout my Steiff collection, rather fitting I think as most of it are sewn animals.
So what are Princess Victoria needles? I honestly wish I knew how they got that name.
When I got the first tiny pack - not even an inch - of size 12 sharps, I started searching, but without any success.
What I do know is that there are all sizes, that the packs can have a red or a golden edge and "banner" around Victoria, and that there are different pictures of Victoria. Some have a more vintage look, some look quite modern, some have a blurry or messy print, some a very clear modern looking one.
Some
labels are all English, some are all German (saying Prinzess instead of
Princess and using the German terms for the needles, such as
Frauennadeln), some are a mix of English and German using the word "Prinzess"
and "feinste", but the term "sharps", for example.
I even found a picture on eBay UK with an Italian label (and now wish I had bought that pack)!
There
are those without a country of origin, but also some that specify it,
"Germany", "Made in Germany", "M.i W. Germany, Imp. Allemagne OCC" (between 1949 and 1989), but also "Made in Czechoslovakia" (which means between 1918 and 1992) or "Made in the Czech Republic" (after 1992).
Last but not least, most of them that I have seen don't have a company name printed on, but there are exceptions. So far I have seen "Prym", "Rhein Nadel", and a name I'm not sure about, "St. Witte", "Stowitte"? What's up with that?
Did the needle production go from one company to the next?
And who is this Princess Victoria, anyway?
Does the name refer to an actual Princess Victoria, such as Queen
Victoria's daughter (who eventually became the German Empress) or the daughter of Edward VII.? Or does it refer to the Queen herself? I think that's possible because there are also Queen Victoria needles with a similar Victoria on a slightly different background (I don't have any of those). Doesn't it make sense for it to be the same one?
As you will see further down, the needles have been around for a long time, but after all Victoria was crowned in 1838, so could it have been that long?
I doubt she was really important enough for someone to think the name would appeal to buyers before she was a Queen.
At some point, someone must have said "let's call them that forever and ever", but why? Because, you know, you can actually still get a mix of sizes from Prym, but in a plastic tube and not with silver-plated or gold-plated eyes anymore to "protect the
environment".
Possibly the manufacturer(s?) intended them mainly for the
British market and therefore used the name to appeal to buyers there? Why would they bother to make a difference between the "Princess" and the "Queen" needles at all then?
Then I found this older blog post by Papergreat again that I had already commented on in 2022 and then forgotten right away.
Chris had found the following in The Economist of November 18, 1899, page 1629 - 1630 from the correspondent in France:
"A deputation of cravat manufacturers was received this week by the
Minister of Commerce to make representations on the use of false trade-marks on importations of the articles they sell from Germany,
Austria, Belgium, and Italy. These goods, the deputation declared,
are marked with the words "Made in London," or other words implying
that they are of English origin, which appears to be a recommendation
with buyers, and the Minister was consequently asked to put in
operation Article 2 of the Madrid Convention, under which they may be
seized. ... The prices at which these goods are sold are probably
lower than those at which they can be imported from England, and
French makers are sufficiently protected against imports from England
by the higher cost and the heavy duty. It is, however, a common
practice to import German goods marked as English, and recently the
attention of the British Chamber of Commerce was called to the sale, in
France, of packets of needles bearing a portrait of the Queen, with
the words, "Prinzess Victoria Needles" and the name of a fictitious
manufacturer at Redditch (Note: makes me wonder if it said Redditch on the packs). The spelling of the word princess betrayed
the origin of the article, but would escape the attention of the buyer."
So does that mean that a bunch of German companies used that name for the needles trying to disguise where they came from - but why the mix of languages and why the different Victorias? Might they be able to tell me something about the age of the needles, like different Steiff buttons indicate the time period an animal was made?
This is only getting more intriguing. I'm afraid I'm not done with this rabbit hole yet. I'm a librarian and determined which means I'll probably be having a look at some of our databases to see where I can get with those.
Ok, so I'm probably not just determined, but obsessed with these now.
Click on the photos for more detail.
This was the one that started it all. Such a tiny pack, only about 1 inch!

Update Victoria needles April 2025:
I
got some more packs. One pack is as tiny as the one above. This time we
actually have a name, but I'm not sure what it is.
Googling, I can find
one result for "St. Witte & Co." which doesn't help in any way, but
there is something between the T and the W. Could that be a badly
printed O (I found the name Stowitte, but again without any more info) or is it a kind
of abbreviation?
The only other name I found was "Schmidt, Witte &
Co.", a shipping company, that didn't help much, either. Or could this be a fictitious company?
Anyhow, this
time we have German words for these size 10 sharps and even the
Prinzess is written with a z as it would be done in German.
I
got these three packs for a great price. All of them are unused and
full of big, fat size 2 needles. As you can tell, we are back to English
words, too.
To show you the size difference, I took a picture of all of my new acquisitions together.
Then I got these - some sharps and some "betweens", two of them with a German
print and one by "Rhein Nadel", another former needle producer in Aachen
(which changed their field
from needles to automation eventually, so this pack must be from before 2003).
How
funny that the one "Made in Germany" has the English print, but still the
Prinzess with a z. Even funnier is that the print is very clear and
looks more modern, but the "Prinzess Victoria" got mirror-inverted!
This pack looks identical to one I have seen marked with Prym. Did a company make these and then marked them for different companies or did Prym just take over from Rhein Nadel?
Is this a plot to drive me crazy? 😂
Then I went on a bit of shopping spree, but that's going to be it for a while, I swear!
If I get something new, it will have to be some kind of variation (uh-oh, I may have ... in May ...).
This is one result of the shopping spree. It's old new stock from a seller who gets her items from warehouses.
Now I have all the sizes for sharps and finally some packs with the red "banner" instead of the golden one. The edges are golden on all of them - except one which is yellow!
I think the one marked "gold ey'd" should be the oldest, it's also the only one with the "Princess" print and without a country of origin.
All the others are marked "Prinzess" and "Made in Czechoslovakia" except for one that says "Made in Czech Republic", but I don't think they all have the same age as there are different fonts. My guess is that the ones with the red banners are younger, also because one of them is from the Czech Republic which we know must have been after 1992.

Here's a comparison between the two packs of size 0 sharps.
The print is so much more beautiful and elaborate on the old pack, the crowns are completely different, Victoria has a lot more details down to the pendant she's wearing! Even the flowers are more beautiful.
By
the way, this is what "gold ey'd" (later gold eyed) looks like. Some of
the needles are corroded, but I bet they are around 100 years old if not older,
so that's to be expected.
Update May 2025.
This little cutie is also one of the tiny ones.
It's the first one I have with both the German and the English description of "Frauen Nadeln" and "Sharps" and once again Victoria looks different.
The color print is quite messy, though.
This one is my favorite so far. My guess is that it was a sample card, maybe used for representation in haberdashery shops.
It has the sizes 1 to 10 safely tucked into cord loops and an extra needle pack marked 1/9 with the /9 added in handwriting, but actually there are 12 different needles in it.
The numbers under the sample needles with the article number 126 and "Et. 925" (no idea (yet) what that could mean) are also by hand, very carefully done.
The pack is marked "Gold Ey'd Sharps" and "Made in Germany".
Also - yet another "Prinzess Victoria"!
This is a bit of a different needle book that my last acquisition is glued to. I found several examples of this early 20th century needle book in past auctions and one of them showed the exact same needle pack, but in different condition, so I know it wasn't mine.
Victoria looks the same as in the sample card, but this time we got "elliptic gold eyed sharps" in the sizes 3 to 9.
Does someone need a needle? I happen to have one or two ...
Here's the Princess/Prinzess gallery of different faces so far.