William Bliss Store and Shopkeepers, "We Belong to the Working Class," RPPC, 1906 small drawings There is a string tied

There is a string tied around the nail holding one leg in place

It appears that one can take the whole thing apart (if for example one just wanted to wear the handshake pin around)

somehow calling Jules Verne to mind

which I found at the estate sale of an actress and philanthropist in Brookline

also known as the Staff of Aesculapius

William Bliss Store and Shopkeepers, "We Belong to the Working Class," RPPC, 1906 small drawings There is a string tiedSuch a special one, I think! Hard to know which of this proud shopkeepers of William Bliss scrawled the note at the bottom of the front of this real photo postcard from 1906, but what a wonderful proclamation, and how poised and ready for business these six look! I tried searching for records of a William Bliss store in Whitman, MA, where it seems this postcard originated, but while I found many families with the name of Bliss in these parts, I didn't