Pictures to Color

 

1923 Aesop's Fables: Kroma-Paket.  Kroma Paket No. 1. Pictures to Color--A New Kind of Outline Reproduction. Sandusky, OH/NY: The American Crayon Company.  $18 from Lisa Bouchard, Melrose, MA, through eBay, Jan., '13.

The pictures are acknowledged as coming from The Aesop for Children with pictures by Milo Winter, published by Rand McNally & Company.  The cover shows the rooster telling the fox to come up, while the "doorman" dog awaits the fox inside the tree's opening.  The package includes two colored illustrations, SS and "The Cock and the Fox."  This set includes five "outline sketches" still waiting to be colored in and six rather well executed by someone with crayons.  "The Wolf and the Kid" may be missing, as it is indicated on one of the three sheets of specific color instructions for each outline.  The child is assumed not to need instructions for the two already colored illustrations.  The three added sheets are fascinating.  One advertises The Aesop for Children.  Another advertises "Kroma Paket Awards."  A third shows "How to Use Kroma Water Colors" and "How to Use Kroma Crayons."

 

1923 Argosy of Fables: Kroma-Paket. Kroma Paket No. 3. Pictures to Color--A New Kind of Outline Reproduction. Sandusky, OH/NY: The American Crayon Company. $3 from John Pacheco, Wallingford, CT, through Ebay, Feb., '01.

The pictures are acknowledged as coming from An Argosy of Fables by Frederick Tabor Cooper, with pictures by Paul Bransom. The cover shows the bear with its tail down a fishing hole. The package includes two colored illustrations, "If the ducks can swim there, why can't I?" and "They amused themselves by ringing it all the time." On top of each the following is written: "This serves to illustrate the effect a child can obtain after a few days' practice following the Kroma Paket instructions sheets." (Is this truth in advertising?!) The set includes eleven uncolored sheets and three sheets of specific color instructions for each. The set may be lacking the yet-to-be-colored page for the monkeys and their bell. Fables show up in the strangest places!

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