My husband Frank is a collector. His soft spot for beautiful old tins regularly leads us the way to flea markets, no matter in what country we might be. Quietly I observe the procedure over my cup of tea. During the first couple of days after arrival, the daily paper is bought and he begins to read with devotion- in English, Finnish, Swedish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Icelandic- all pages from the very beginning with the politics, to the very end, with sports and the general. Frank is no particular genius when it comes to language, but subsequently there is a plan for the day, which mostly means a visit at the local flea market. We keep our eyes open to this and that, but especially we look for small old licorice tins and containers. Until in the fifties the recommended usage of the black pastille, preferably with salmiak or menthol, was communicated and printed onto the tin: for the sportsman, the smoker and the talkative person! Some opens with a sliding lid and some lets the small black pills out portion wise in the hand by pressing a little lever. Kadó has quite a little collection by now with each tin telling its own story of the past times it used to belong to.
During the last 20 years kadó has come to collected not only lovely little tins but also managed to build a net of stabile suppliers from all over Europe. And with times changing and research trips in person becoming more of a rare activity, these three little treasures were won through online auctions instead.
