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Josef beaded and embroidered handbag, early 1950s, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. 1952 advertisement for the same or very similar bag directly below. It appears to be a photo, which was not common in ads of that era. Sketches of bags appeared in ads much more frequently than photos. 23 Nov 1952, Sun Asbury Park Press (Asbury Park, New Jersey) Newspapers.com |
Gold Seal Importers and Bags by Josef
Josef was a high-end handbag line founded in 1939 by Joseph J. Newman under the umbrella of his company Gold Seal Importers, Inc., which started out as Gold Seal Jewelers in the early 1920s.
When The Vintage Purse Museum began gathering information for this article several years ago, we spoke with a Newman family member. They were very kind, but didn't know much about Joseph and his wife Fannie's lives. We recently reached out to other relatives, and one from Fannie's side (the Alvis family) kindly responded, but hadn't known the couple personally. It seems likely that this is due to the Newmans traveling quite a bit for business and pleasure. Another factor is the passage of time, with family and friends of the Newmans' generation no longer with us to share their memories. We did, however, find an abundance of online documentation, which we present here, along with photos of bags from our collection.
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Josef beaded and embroidered bag, 1940s, made in France. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.
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| Original 1946 magazine ad for Josef handbags, priced at a whopping $125 each, plus US Federal Excise Tax. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Josef/Gold Seal was perhaps best known for its intricately beaded evening bags, many of which were imported to the US from France. The company also manufactured and imported handbags made of fabric, leather, and straw, as well as beaded bag accessories such as coin purses and eyeglass cases.
Josef handbags were alternately labeled "Bags by Josef" and "Bag by Josef." We also saw a label on a 1950s-1960s bag (not in our collection), made in Japan, that said "Bags by Gold Seal" in the Josef font. The Josef handbag line was not connected to Joseff of Hollywood jewelry or Josef Originals figurines.
Some of the other descriptors used in the company's advertising were Josef Suede'ra, Josefaille, and Joseframe. Many midcentury handbag makers created semi-eponymous or catchy marketing monikers for their fabrics and styles.
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| Josef/Gold Seal advertisement from Vogue magazine, April 15, 1943. This ad is meant to honor the women who served during WWII, but also shows some of the marketing names of Josef/Gold Seal fabrics used in their handbags (bottom left). Screenshot via the Los Angeles Public Library database. |
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| Josef brown rayon clutch with facile frame and bow decoration. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Joseph Julius Newman was born in 1890 in Omaha, Nebraska to Jacob Newman (1853-1943) and Hannah Zipser Newman (1860-1924). Jacob and Hannah Newman had four other children: Abe, Lillian, Bertha, and Rose. Rose's son Bennett Somberg (1919-2003) was a key employee of his uncle Joseph’s company for about seventeen years.
In 1927, Joseph married Fannie Louise Alvis (1901-1979) in Manhattan at the Hotel Ambassador (est. 1922, demolished 1966). According to a 1962 newspaper article, Fannie was a graduate of Parsons Institute of Design. While we couldn't confirm her attendance at Parsons, we did find a 1919 reference to Fannie Alvis, a student at Manhattan's Washington Irving High School, receiving an industrial arts scholarship. Fannie’s parents were Isaac Alvis (1864-1935) and Henrietta Frank Alvis (1864-1936). Isaac and Henrietta Alvis had a younger daughter, Marion (1907-1998), who, according to the 1930 US Census, worked as a secretary for an unnamed importer. This may have been Joseph's company Gold Seal Importers.
Joseph and Fannie Newman in 1953 in Hawaii.
Joseph Newman reportedly chose the spelling “Josef” with an “f” for his handbag line as homage to Fannie, who was active in their business as a bag designer. One online record mistakenly indicates that the couple had two children, but they did not have any direct descendants. We believe he may have been confused with other New York-based Joseph Newmans also born around 1890. Many family trees on genealogy websites are created by individual site subscribers rather than official sources, and the information is often unintentionally incorrect.
Joseph Newman went to the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago to become an engineer, and specialized in sanitation. Among his published works is a 1917 paper called “The treatment of stock yard's sewage by the activated sludge process.”
His 1917 WWI draft card lists his residence as Chicago, Illinois, and his job as chemical engineer for the Sanitary District of Chicago. He is described as tall, of medium build, with blonde hair and gray eyes. He served in the Sanitation Corps. (part of the US Army Medical Corps.) as a first lieutenant, investigating sanitation conditions at various military sites. In 1918, at the end of his military service, he'd achieved the rank of captain.
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| 1918 announcement of The Sanitary District of Chicago by engineer Joseph J. Newman, screenshot from Google Books. |
He made a complete change in career paths shortly after his military service. In the 1921 publication Jewelers Circular, under the column “New York Notes,” it’s reported that “J.J. Newman of the Gold Seal Jewelers, 87 Nassau St., returned from Europe on the Aquitania. Mr. Newman will leave on his western trip early in May.”
A 1922 Jewelers Circular announcement states that Gold Seal Jewelers moved from Nassau St. to 366 Fifth Ave., and is a "manufacturer of mesh bags and importer of pearls." We believe he likely imported this style of handbag from Germany, but a number of jewelers of this era (including Mandalian) made mesh bags at their workshops in the US, mostly in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Joseph and Fannie would take numerous trips to Europe and Asia over many years, which was common for US handbag makers and importers searching for wholesale and manufacturing sources with inventory to import, or as inspiration for in-house manufacturing. The Newmans also traveled frequently on vacation, and may have had a home or homes in Europe.
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| Josef bag labeled "hand beaded in France," with heavy filigree hinged frame. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
A brief mention of a 1924 court case that appeared in the publication Manufacturing Jeweler indicates that Joseph Newman’s partner at Gold Seal Jewelers was Abraham Quint. This could be Joseph’s brother-in-law Abraham J. Quint (1889-1937), who was married to Joseph’s sister Lillian.
There were multiple Abraham Quints, including one from New York whose 1953 obituary says he was "in the pearl necklace business," which is why we can't state with 100 percent certainty that the Abraham Quint in the court case was Joseph Newman's brother-in-law. However, Joseph's sister's husband owned the wholesale jewelry business A.J. Quint & Co. in Chicago, and may have influenced Joseph Newman in his decision to leave the sanitation industry after his WWI stint. Mr. Quint and his family were Chicago residents, and it does not appear that they ever lived in New York, where Gold Seal Jewelers was located.
An interesting side note is that Abraham J. Quint was among those who testified in the 1931 federally-prosecuted tax evasion case of Chicago gangster Al Capone, to whom Mr. Quint had sold over $5,000 worth of jewelry and silverware from 1928 to 1930. Among the items purchased by Mr. Capone from Mr. Quint were 33 cigarette lighters with small watches mounted in them.
Per Joseph Newman’s 1925 US passport application (passport photo directly below), he was owner of Gold Seal Jewelers, 366 Fifth Ave. Then, in 1927, it was announced in the jewelry trade publication The Keystone that the company’s name would change to Gold Seal Importers, with the address now 358 Fifth Ave. It also mentioned his buying trips to Germany, Austria, and France. In another 1927 industry publication announcement, it was said that his firm "specializes in beaded bags."
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| Photo from Joseph Newman's passport application, screenshot from Familysearch.org. |
The 1927 convention of the American National Retail Jewelers Association (founded 1893; now called Jewelers of America), featured among its exhibitors Gold Seal Jewelers, which “exhibited a stunning array of French steel and petit point bags, and German knitted bags, both in pictorial and abstract designs.”
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| 1930s colorful rhinestone and gold wire lace evening bag with the Gold Seal emblem inside. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| Gold Seal emblem that resembles a traditional wax seal, inside bag above. |
Gold Seal Importers, Inc. was filed as a business name in the state of New York in 1940. We thought this was curious, as the name Gold Seal Importers was used as early as 1927, but perhaps the company was not officially incorporated at that time. There is no evidence that Joseph Newman’s Gold Seal handbags were connected with 1940s Gold Seal corde handbags, made in Canada. (There were numerous businesses in a variety of industries that used the name Gold Seal.)
The brand name Josef was first used in 1939, but it was in 1940 that a trademark was filed for the distinctive Josef cursive logo. The Josef logo appeared alongside the Gold Seal "GS" ribbon logo under the category “Baggage, animal equipments, portfolios, and pocketbooks" in the trademark filing. ("Pocketbooks" was a word that was routinely used in reference to handbag labor unions, factories, and classifications rather than the more formal marketing terms "handbags" and "bags.")
There are 1920s to early 1930s Gold Seal-labeled handbags that used an entirely different logo featuring a side profile of a person with an ivy leaf pattern beneath. We were unable to verify if this was Joseph Newman's logo prior to creating the Gold Seal ribbon logo.
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| Josef and Gold Seal logos, filed 1940, from the Official Gazette of The United States Patent Office, 1941, screenshot via Google Books. |
A snippet (which was all we could access) from a 1946 edition of the trade publication Handbags Illustrated says that Joseph Newman “started Josef in 1920, shortly after the first World War.” This is incorrect as he did not marry Fannie, the purported “f” in Josef until 1927, and the brand name Josef for Gold Seal Importers' handbags was not in use until 1939. It seems more likely that it was Gold Seal Jewelers that was established in 1920, perhaps after Joseph Newman spent some time working with his jeweler brother-in-law Abraham Quint in Chicago after WWI.
Early newspaper advertisements used the Gold Seal name for the company's handbags, then, after the establishment of Josef, the line was referred to in ads as "Josef," "Bag(s) by Josef," “Josef of Gold Seal Importers," and other variations.
In the 1940 US Census, Joseph Newman is listed as an executive in the manufacturing and importing business, and Fannie Newman as a designer of ladies handbags. They were living at 160 Essex House, Central Park South.
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| Gold Seal 1930s-1940s handbag with sparkling green beads and rhinestones, made in France. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| Interior of bag above, with plastic comb and mirror case marked with the Gold Seal emblem. |
In 1942, at age 52, Joseph Newman once again registered for selective service. (During WWII, this was referred to as “the old man’s draft,” in which men beyond the usual draft age would register so that they could be utilized in non-combat positions if necessary.) Per his draft card, his and Fannie’s residence at that time was the Pickwick Arms Hotel (est. 1920, demolished 1972) in Greenwich, Connecticut. His business, listed as Gold Seal Importers, Inc., was at 30 E. 33rd St., a popular address/neighborhood for many midcentury handbag manufacturers' offices and showrooms. Greenwich, Connecticut is about an hour from New York City.
Joseph Newman was a 1934 member of The Ladies Handbag Code Authority, and part of a sub-group referred to as the "Beaded Bag Importers."
The Ladies Handbag Code Authority was created for bag makers to adhere to labor regulations and production standards established for multiple industries by the short-lived National Recovery Administration (NRA).
The Vintage Purse Museum found a 1936 NRA document that covered many topics relevant to the handbag industry. Among these were the Beaded Bag Importers' insistence on rectifying erroneous statements that had led the US government to propose a raise in tariffs on imported handbags. The following are some of the corrections made by the Beaded Bag Importers.
1. There were not 25 makers of beaded bags, but 15, and 10 were importers.
2. There were not 5,000 workers making these bags, but 1,000, with many of these craftspeople sourced by different companies.
3. The duty (tariff) cost was not always 60% on imported bags, but often 90%, with 70% of bags imported from France coming in at 90% in duties.
There is, of course, much more to the history of US imports and exports, but this is a glimpse of the uphill battle fought by US handbag makers and importers that extended well into the 1960s.
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| Black suede bag with green satin interior by Josef, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Gold Seal manufactured some of its Josef bags in the US, but the company was primarily an importer from its very beginnings until its closure four decades later. As explained in the 1936 document, these bags were sourced from the same makers, which explains why you will often see a beaded handbag made in France that greatly resembles a Josef bag, but has another maker's label or imprint. Or, it might have a department store label or imprint, or a country of origin label or imprint, or a combination of two or more of these, or no label or imprint at all.
As many handbag manufacturers, importers, and department stores sourced all styles and types of bags from the same manufacturers in France, Belgium, Italy, Japan, and other countries over decades, The Vintage Purse Museum has a policy of never definitively identifying an unmarked bag as being by a specific maker. Unless we have other firm proof of authenticity, we generally forgo attribution, or say "possibly attributed to (maker)." Which leads us to the following conundrum.
Among the most prized Josef bags are those with spectacular bejeweled frames, which are often said to be by Hobe, the costume jewelry company. We have not seen firm documentation of Hobe's collaboration with handbag companies, such as an announcement in a vintage jewelry trade publication. We've been told that some of these frames are, indeed, marked Hobe, but we have mostly seen them online unmarked, but still listed definitively as being by Hobe or "attributed to Hobe" or similar verbiage. Keep in mind that Joseph Newman was in the jewelry business before switching to handbags, and likely knew several jewelry manufacturers that could make this style of frame. We tried to find his name in connection with Hobe Cie Ltd. owner William Hobe, but nothing came up in our search. We also pored over dozens of jewelry, handbag frame, and bag ornamentation patents to no avail.
14 Dec 1944, Thu The Sandusky Register (Sandusky, Ohio) Newspapers.com
We've seen handbags by other makers—as well as unlabeled bags—with this extravagant style of unmarked jeweled frame. The 1944 newspaper ad above shows a Josef bag with one of these frames, but does not mention Hobe. We found two 1940s Josef magazine ads online (not pictured here). One says the "exquisite beading" (on the frame) of the Josef bag is from Paris, with no mention of a jewelry collaborator. The other Josef handbag features a tiara-like frame with the style name "Diadem," but no attribution to Hobe or another costume jewelry company. ("Diadem" was also the 1934 name of an unrelated style of Nat Lewis handbag.)
Hobe had its own handbag line in the 1930s-1940s, which included bags with and without their signature bejeweled embellishments. Interestingly, we found a 1942 newspaper advertisement (directly below), with sketches of multiple bags, including three by unnamed makers, two Josefs, and a Hobe handbag with jeweled ornamentation. (The word "diadem" is mentioned in the description of one of the unidentified bags.)
Another potential clue to an association between the two companies is the following 1945 fashion advertorial which mentions Hobe bags and Josef bags in separate paragraphs of the same column.
Could this be a coincidence, or did Josef and Hobe have a contractual relationship that led to combined promotional marketing? Conversely, did Hobe contract with Gold Seal/Josef to produce the fabric portion of Hobe's handbag line? If Hobe did make these frames, did they wholesale them to other handbag makers, or were similar frames made by competing costume jewelry makers? If you have definitive proof, such as a historical document, please email us at vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com. (It is not our intention to disparage anyone who states with certainty that an unmarked bag frame is by Hobe. All we seek is firm documentation to verify a connection.)
While we don't have a Hobe-framed Josef bag in The Vintage Purse Museum collection, we do have the Josef bag shown below, which has a gold (possibly gold-plated) frame and clasp featuring jewelry-style butterflies with prong-set gems, which we have yet to confirm as either glass or semi-precious stones. (We're leaning toward glass.)
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| Velvet bag with gold frame and clasp featuring bejeweled butterflies. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| Top view of butterfly and colored-rhinestone encrusted frame and clasp of bag above |
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| Bag by Josef imprint inside bag above. |
The Josef brand was heavily promoted in newspaper and magazine advertisements and fashion articles (advertorials), and at trunk shows. A name that stood out in these promotions was Viola Shefer (1902-1957), a fashion publicist and Universal Newsreels commentator who worked as a publicist for Gold Seal's Josef bags. At various times, she also represented Mark Cross, Lilly Dache, Hattie Carnegie, Delman shoes, and Trifari jewelry. Viola Shefer was a physical education teacher earlier in her life, and had been national physical director of the Kyrias Institute (est. 1891), a girls' school in Albania. Photo of Viola Shefer at lower left in the Josef advertorial directly below.
Another name connected to Bags by Josef was sales manager Joseph Neikirk (1911-1990), whom we’ve seen mentioned in other handbag histories. As we've often reported, the industry was quite small in terms of everyone knowing nearly everyone else, with people often going to work for multiple makers throughout their careers. For instance, Joseph Newman’s nephew Bennett Somberg worked for Koret after his employment at Josef.
1944 ad for an exhibit of Josef bags led by Joseph Neikirk.
13 Nov 1949, Sun The Atlanta Journal (Atlanta, Georgia) Newspapers.com
13 Nov 1949, Sun The Atlanta Journal (Atlanta, Georgia) Newspapers.comBennett Somberg began working for his uncle Joseph Newman in 1945 and was responsible for many facets of the company including importing, manufacturing, and selling. In a 1957 trade directory, his title is secretary/treasurer, although he was listed as vice president in other documents. He testified on behalf of Gold Seal in several instances of litigation with the US government, mostly having to do with the picayunish nature of importation regulations, particularly when it came to identifying proper materials' classifications of imported fabrics and ornamentation.
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| 1964 promotional photo of Bennett Somberg, Joseph Newman's nephew and key employee, clipped via Newspapers.com. |
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US-made black beaded Josef clutch, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.
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One notable court case was a 1941 legal dispute by Gold Seal Importers versus several other bag makers' alleged patent infringement of a design created by Leo Freidman for Gold Seal. This was a frequent occurrence in the history of handbag makers, with patent and design infringement often being very hard to prove.
The 1940 US Census says that Leo Freidman (1898-1991) was a handbag designer. Per his 1942 WWII draft card, Leo Freidman was an employee of Gold Seal Importers. By the 1950 US Census, he was working as an electrical appliance distributor.
We could not find advertisements for Josef's imported beaded bags during the period (1941-1945) in which the US was involved in WWII (1939-1945). This could reasonably be attributed to the war causing the stoppage of European products exported to the US, something we covered in our article about Czech wood-bead handbags. During the war there were more newspaper ads for Josef bags made of leather, faux leather, and natural or synthetic fibers. These Josef handbags were likely made at their factory in the US.
While leather shoes were rationed to US consumers during WWII, leather handbags were not. However, handbag makers were under ration orders, so they often had to use alternative materials for their products.
Gold Seal Importers was in the news in 1957 when it laid off 33 of its 50 employees. The newspaper article did not identify the company owner by name, but said that he claimed to have "ill health and advanced age," which led to the layoffs. Working on behalf of the New York pocketbook workers union, Theodore Kheel (1914-2010; a well-known New York labor lawyer and mediator) believed that the layoffs were actually due to the company’s importation of handbags from Europe rather than manufacturing them using in-house workers. Gold Seal was instructed by an arbitrator to pay severance to the ousted employees, and was told it could no longer import bags similar to those that led to the layoffs.
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1960s bronze-beaded bag by Josef, made in Japan. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. Very similar bag sketched in the ad directly below. 16 Nov 1961, Thu The Terre Haute Tribune (Terre Haute, Indiana) Newspapers.com 10 Feb 1955, Thu Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas) Newspapers.com |
In the years following the labor dispute and subsequent legal action, Fannie and Joseph Newman's names occasionally appeared in newspaper society columns. They were also still promoting their handbag line in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
A 1958 Arizona Republic article says the couple had just bought "the entire beauvais output of several French factories...done on faille or grosgrain." Beauvais is a type of tambour embroidery, and was often used along with beadwork on handbags.
Two years later, in 1960, another article in The Arizona Republic mentions Josef's "luxurious straws in Picasso colors" from Italy, and their wood bead bags from Japan, "lacquered and enameled in brilliant colors."
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| 1960s pale blue straw (raffia) bag by Josef, made in Italy, similar to the bag sketched in the ad directly above our photo. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| Label inside bag above. Joseph and Fannie Newman in Arizona in 1962.  18 Mar 1962, Sun The Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona) Newspapers.com |
When asked about his partnership with his wife, Joseph Newman was quoted as saying, "We work on the same bags because we have the same ideas, the same tastes." A "particularly popular" trend that year and the year prior were Josef's wood bead bags. They also spoke of their fine, glass-beaded bags, imported from France. Fannie Newman said "One bag may take two weeks to make because each bead is attached individually." (As they imported these French-made evening bags for several decades, they may be difficult for today's handbag collectors to properly date.)
According to the article, they were away from New York six months out of the year, spending summers in Monte Carlo, Florence, and Paris. They were said to have factories in France, Belgium, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, and New York. However, it's unlikely that they owned these factories, and much more reasonable to assume they contracted with them on behalf of Gold Seal Importers.
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Josef "softly shirred" wood bead clutch, with label marked "hand beaded in Japan." 04 May 1961, Thu Muskogee Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat (Muskogee, Oklahoma) Newspapers.com |
The March 1962 Arizona Republic article was the last promotional piece for Josef featuring Joseph and Fannie Newman. 1962 was also when their nephew Bennett Somberg went to work for Koret. These events are a portent of what followed later that year.
In December 1962, the Josef trademark was assigned by Gold Seal Importers, Inc. to Aristocrat Leather Products, Inc. A certificate of amendment for Gold Seal Importers, Inc. was filed in the New York state business name database in 1963. We were unable to see the details of the amendment, so we don’t know if the Newmans kept at least a partial business interest in Gold Seal.
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| 1962 document assigning the Josef trademark to Aristocrat Leather Products, Inc. Screenshot from Google Books. |
Aristocrat was purchased in 1963 by Evans Rule Co. (a ruler and tape measure company), and became Evans-Aristocrat Industries. Evans Rule Co. was absorbed by tool manufacturer L.S. Starrett in 1986. It is unclear what happened to the Aristocrat division, but Aristocrat Leather Products was re-registered as a trademark in 1990, then canceled in 1998.
The most recent advertisement that we could find for Josef handbags was from 1967. (Ad pictured directly above.) It was for an attache, which falls in line with products made by Aristocrat, and it was listed at a budget price, which is quite different from Josef bags of earlier decades.
Fannie Louise Alvis Newman passed away in July 1979 in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Joseph Julius Newman died three years later in 1982. Gold Seal Importers was dissolved in 1983, the same year that the Josef trademark expired. It's possible that Joseph Newman was still somehow attached to the Gold Seal and Josef business names after they were assigned to Aristocrat, and that the executors of the Newman estate chose not to renew them after his passing. This is only speculation, and exactly what occurred after Joseph Newman's death is more than likely lost to time.
Fannie and Joseph are interred at Beth-El cemetery in Ridgewood, Queens County, New York. Together they left a legacy of beautiful, well-made handbags that remain highly collectible today.
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| Josef billfold and coin purse, which came to The Vintage Purse Museum sewn onto a beaded bag by Calvaire. We decided to leave it as is. |
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