Clara Johnson Scroggins was a collector and author on the subject of Christmas ornaments, and was considered an expert in the field as well.

Biography

Scroggins started

collecting The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining items that are of interest to an individual ''collector''. Collections differ in a wide variety of respects, most obvio ...

ornaments in 1972 following the unexpected and sudden death of her then-husband from a

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

a few weeks before Christmas. She recounted that she "needed something to really consume me, to help me." In a jewelry store she purchased a second edition Reed and Barton silver Christmas cross and started researching how to obtain a first edition one. By the following year, Scroggins's had collected nearly 1,000 silver and silverplated ornaments from past years and editions. Through meetings with secondary market dealers and other collectors, she learned about ornament values and eventually documented ornament history. Scroggins's collection grew to 40,000 Christmas ornaments, from manufacturers such as Hallmark Cards,

American Greetings American Greetings Corporation is a privately owned American company and is the world's second largest greeting card producer behind Hallmark Cards. Based in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland, the company sells paper greeting ...

, Bacarrat,

Cartier Cartier may refer to: People * Cartier (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) * Cartier Martin (born 1984), American basketball player Places * Cartier Island, an island north-west of Australia that is part of Australia' ...

Enesco Enesco (Enesco, LLC) is an American company specializing in the sales and distribution of giftware. The company was known as an industry leader as it carried the Precious Moments porcelain figurine line of products during the 1970s, 1980s, and 19 ...

, Gucci, Lenox, Orrefors, Pfaltzgraff, Precious Moments, Rosenthal,

Royal Doulton Royal Doulton is an English ceramic and home accessories manufacturer that was founded in 1815. Operating originally in Vauxhall, London, and later moving to Lambeth, in 1882 it opened a factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in the centre of Engl ...

, Tiffany,

Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...

Wedgwood Wedgwood is an English fine china, porcelain and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons Ltd. It was rapid ...

and materials including German keugel or blown-glass, porcelain, pewter, tin, paper, and crystal. Many ornaments in the collection are from Europe, particularly Germany. By 1994, Scroggins's ornament collection numbered 250,000 pieces. Scroggins was the author of a number of books about Christmas ornament collecting, values and history. She focused her writing on ornaments from Hallmark Cards because they were the most popular at the time. In 1973,

Hallmark Cards Hallmark Cards, Inc. is a private, family-owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded in 1910 by Joyce Hall, Hallmark is the oldest and largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. In 1985, the company was award ...

started manufacturing Christmas ornaments. The first collection of 18 ornaments, including six glass ball ornaments. Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments are dated and available for just one year. In 1996, the ornament industry generated $2.4 billion in total annual sales, an increase of 25% over the previous year. Industry experts estimated more than 22 million US households collected Christmas ornaments, and that 75% of those households collected Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments. By 1998, 11 million American households collected Hallmark ornaments, and 250,000 people were members of the Keepsake Ornament Collector's Club. There were as many as 400 local Keepsake Ornament Collector's Club chapters in the US. Scroggins was instrumental in influencing Hallmark Cards to introduce African American-themed ornaments, including its first Black Christmas ornament, "Cheerful Santa" in 1992. She also wrote an ornament column for Collector's Mart - The Magazine of Art Collectibles.

Publications

References

External References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scroggins, Clara Johnson 1931 births 2019 deaths African-American writers American collectors Women collectors 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people