Gladstone Bag

Lately, with the dearth of good television shows (I miss you Mad Men!), we’ve been watching tons of movies. It seems that in every old movie, at some point, there is one particular prop that makes an appearance. It’s the holy grail of flea markets and antique store, a doctor style Gladstone bag. Barbara Stanwyck had one in You Belong to Me There was another in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Baby’s daddy had one in Dirty Dancing. There was even one in Magnum Force for crying out loud!

I’ve had my eye out for one for ages but most of them seem to be located in the UK (they were named after William Ewart Gladstone, the four-times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who was noted for the amount of traveling he did). I’ve seen a couple at antique stores around town but they were pretty much falling apart. I want one that’s seen the world but still has some life left in it. There’s something about those careworn bags that conjures a romantic vision of travel. No one says it better than J. Peterman (these always crack me up and make me think of Elaine and her urban sombrero):

Try looking in the attic first.
You don’t have one? Then it’s time maybe to go to the secret barn. Somewhere there is one.
And it’s filled with everything.
Look…there under that huge pile of saddles and hats…it seems to be the hood of a car. Oh no. It’s the Packard. It’s the 12-cylinder Packard convertible somebody (Emily?) once drove across the country. The doors are locked.
…but inside the car seems to be stuffed with old clocks, framed oil paintings, a leopard skin, books, boots, brass fishing reels, stamp albums…
You can’t take it all in. At the other end of the barn you notice a marble table, a beautiful slim-wheeled two-seat carriage, a stack of a dozen carved chairs, a leather trunk…it’s all too much at once…
You trip on something. What is it? A leather suitcase of some kind. You lift it by its handles. It has old European hotel stickers on it. You grab it and practically run…you’ll come back to the barn some other time…
In broad daylight you examine it. A beautiful, mellow old leather Gladstone. (That’s what they used to call them.) Rather defiantly and ruggedly old-fashioned looking. Strong enough to go down the Nile, across the Alps, through the Canal, over the oceans, but still small enough to carry aboard a plane. A thing like this would cost a fortune these days…