Back in the 1950’s and the ’60’s and even later, it was not at all uncommon for a woman to have little or no spending money under her private control.
This was brought home to me as the only girl-child of a fiercely independent woman, most vividly in my mother’s consignment shops.
One of my mother’s shops, called Pin Money, was in Roslyn, an affluent New York suburb. I started going to “the shop” with Mom when I was just 8. I loved to eavesdrop on my mother dealing with her consignors as I swept the dust-bunnies from under the racks, straightened hangers on the back porch, or lined the index cards on which consignment records were kept.
“What do you need?” the ladies would ask my mother. They stood there in their lovely expensive chic ensembles, with matching hosiery, shoes, even gloves, and asked my mother in her wraparound Madras skirt. They’d take out a little gilt notepad with a cunning little mechanical pencil attached (how I lusted after those!) from their alligator handbags and write down “size 12 lavender tweed suit” or “Jantzen swim ensemble, greens mostly, size 8” and off they would go.
The next time I saw them, they were picking up the proceeds from the sale of these items. They had gone directly to Bonwit Teller’s or Saks or Bergdorf Goodman from my mother’s consignment shop, there to purchase on their husband’s charge accounts specific items…then back to Pin Money to
consign…on demand.
These women were controlled by their husbands, my mother explained to a wide-eyed little girl, by being given very little money of their own. But, on the other hand, they had free access to their husband’s house charge accounts at local stores. So, for these women to have even a modicum of freedom and privacy on how they spent their money, they would charge a sure-seller on their husbands’ accounts, consign it, and receive a small portion back in cash.
While their husbands blissfully shelled out hundreds, the wives tucked mere twenties into those reptile-and-gilt handbags.
As a matter of fact the very name of my mother’s businesses, Pin Money Shops, was a reflection of that era. Pin Money is the term for money given by a husband to his wife for private and personal expenditures. So Pin Money, the shop, served to supplement, her personal expenditures for some women with clueless husbands. Makes you view “Mad Men” in a new light, doesn’t it?
Another definition of pin money is “a small amount of extra money earned to buy small luxuries”, which is much more gender-neutral, but not near as much fun.
Vintage handbag photo from vintageskins.com which has some great stuff.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
[…] Here’s a flashback to what I grew up knowing about consignments. […]
[…] To my mother, thanks for having me. If you like, you can read a little bit about my mother’s life as a mother here and her life as a consignment shop owner in the 1950′s here. […]
My mom did this when we were young – all the mom’s did. But there were no shops around – they held ‘white elephant’ sales at our Episcopal church. S’why our stores are called what they are.
Thank goodness I wasn’t an adult woman in the sixties – it was frustrating enough in the 70’s. I was hired for my first job, and told so in the interview, only because they had to meet their EEO requirements. The first day my ‘boss’ asked me to get him a cup of coffee and clean his window blind. I reported him to the EEOC. Man – those were strange times. Stranger and sadder yet is that many women around the world are still under male thumb’s.
[…] How this Consignment Story Takes Me Back…to Pin Money! […]
Wow. I am so naive. I never would have dreamed up such a thing – but then again, my husband gives me free access to all of our assets.