The Armadillo / The Basket Beautiful [trade catalog]

8vo, 31pp. Halftone photographic illustrations with magenta accents and coloring to the basket pages. No date; intro notes the idea of making armadillo products occurred to him about 25 years prior. Catalog in Fair to Good condition with nibbling to the covers, including some loss to the foredge and rear wrap; foxing to outer and center leaves of the textblock, center leaf detached, contents otherwise clean. [with] "We visited Apelt Armadillo Farm" gummed badge (Very Good, slight crease) [and] “How to keep and care for a live armadillo successfully" (bifold brochure, Near Fine) [and] 2 copies of "History of the Armadillo" (4p) with pictures of armadillo baskets and lamps, both VG- with a ring stain to p.2 of one copy, and abrasion to p.4 of the other.

Charles Apelt (1862-1944) was a German immigrant who arrived in Comfort, TX in 1887. He worked as a farmer and was soon enchanted by the armadillo, an animal native to the Americas. He began the Armadillo Basket Factory in the 1890s and found success at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. The company expanded to producing a variety of novelties and decorative items, including a wide range of lamps and sconces. The booklet is notable as a catalog of confounding products, as well as its documentation of how the business operated, with pictures of the farmers/hunters and the strangest retail interior, offering desk accessories, ashtrays, and “Southern Souvenirs” incorporating cotton and racist “pickaninny dolls” were advertised as "just the thing to send to friends in the north” (23).

The armadillo farm also became an attraction, with the most unusual shop interior, live armadillos being farmed outside and barbecued for lunch (“The meat is similar to that of the turtle in flavor,” the catalog advises). The company also sold live armadillos as pets and for medical research. Attempts to revive the business after Apelt’s death in 1944 were unsuccessful, and the site of the Apelt Armadillo farm was most recently marketed as a winery, on sale for $1.4m as of June 2025.