I was chatting with my Mopar friend the other day (he owns a Ford Model A and a 39 Mercury, but I won't hold it against him) and we got onto the subject of fuzzy dice. When did they come into fashion, and why? Is there a significance? We wondered the same about the coontails on the antennas and the deal with hanging baby shoes from the rearview mirror. Just one of those things that makes you think "I wonder WHY..." and sticks in your brain. I surfed around the Net, but just found stuff to buy. Can anyone enlighten me?
Im not sure of the origin of the things in question.....but Mom gave me my baby shoes the other day - said she came across them while cleaning. ....I thought about hanging them from the rearview as my Buick GS IS my Baby
Think that was a fifties thing with Davy Crockett and his "coonskin cap". Couldn't put a cap on an antenna...hence the tail. Sounds logical to me. o No:
Seems like knit dice came in during the mid 50's. At least that's when they came into prominence at my school. The dice were a simple love offering from your girl friend and in a small way marked you as going steady once they were hung in the car. In almost all cases, the dice were hung on the interior rear view mirror and in areas where the cops busted you for obstructed vision due to the dice, they would be hung from a dash knob. The girl friend would knit them herself, usually from fuzzy angora. In the color of your choice sometimes, but most times in the color of her choice. Many times, the colors were the school colors. The usual size was 3" square and it took two skeins of one color and one of another to make a set of matching dice. Matching as in; red body, white dots. Some girls would buy two skeins of yarn, one red, one white for example and make a pair of contrasting color dice. IE: one red body, white dots and the other a white body with red dots. Most times there was enough yarn left over to make a mirror 'muff', a simple knit band of alternating colors looking a bit like a modern day sweat-band. This would stretch and go around the small interior mirrors in the cars of the day - in my case a cherry 50 Ford sedan, lowered, pipes and all. For a while there, a few girls were making dice 6" square, but the 3" square ones were big enough and small enough at the same time. Pep Boys and similar places started making dice out of colored foam with printed black dots, but not many bought those. Those who did were looked down upon because the for-real knit dice had a meaning and store-bought dice didn't. The rules were simple. If you had a girl friend, sometimes you'd get a pair of hand knit dice and sometimes you wouldn't. There was a certain depth to the relationship required before it got to the dice stage and like most things it was the girls who decided. Although with some girls, it was no dice no matter what.... p
"Although with some girls, it was no dice no matter what.... : Wonder if there is where the saying "NO dice" came from.......
C9, Great photo and fascinating info! I'm still wondering...why dice? Does it signify taking a chance, roll the dice, ya never know? Taking a gamble on love? haha Just curious, too...did the wearing of the letter jacket come before or after the offering of the dice? (Or is that custom newer than the dice?) Good thing I came along after all that - you'd never get me to actually PRODUCE fuzzy dice. You might get two rocks tied together with a haystring!! Thanks!
I want some dice from my girlfriend now... hand knit color matched ones too... I'll trade her for a back rub or something. Kimson
what about the blue dot inserts on the taillights & the windshield inside blue or purple corner lights ? 50's for sure , but any purpose to them or just a craze ?
My girlfriend wants to sew up some vinyl dice from leftover NOS red vinyl used in my interior...a follow up to the red fuzzies she bought out in Vegas for the Wildcat!
I think the dice thing came along because it was a knittable (izzat a word?) goodie that did pertain to cars. Open wheel race cars specifically. Old photos show circle burners with the famed 7-11 dice logo on them. And since most of us guys figured our cars were almost race cars - even though 99% stock - dice fit the scheme of things quite well. The lettermans sweater goes clear back into the 30's and maybe farther as far as I know. My dad had one and it was traditional for girls to wear them. Like the dice, a going steady deal. The lettermans jacket came in during the early 50's I believe. Baby shoes on the mirror - I believe - came into being from either young marrieds with a baby or those who were at the least engaged. After dice became popular, you didn't see baby shoes on the mirror very often. I'm not sure when, where or why the coontail came in. I've seen photos of them hanging from the radio antenna of some cars, but the usual seems to have been a coontail tied onto the windshield frame of a roadster. I think it was just a comment on how the owner wished to be perceived. Kind of an 'in' kind of guy, the type who would wear a racoon coat. I guess you had to do somethng with all the leftover racoon tails. Blue-dots in the taillight lense are done nowadays simply to copy a fad that started in the late 40's. Done at that time to change the color of the taillights. Once the blue dots were in the small taillight lenses of the old cars - which were hard to see without the blue-dots - the light went from red to a soft purple. Guys with these cars got busted by the cops in my locale due to the police bikes ran blue lights on the rear fender - along with the red taillight - and the cops thinking was a blue-dot equipped car could be mistaken for a cop bike. That was their reason for writing a ticket anyway and probably the only real ordinance against the blue-dots was the one that said you couldn't paint your vehicle or alter it to look like a police vehicle. In any event, I have the original, from the 50's pattern for knitting your own dice. If anyone is interested, let me know.
I always thought dice had a symbol that meant"hot-rod" whenever you saw dice.o No: After all, it reminds me of some old movies I have seen...with a 1949 mercury, customized, black with orange flames on the front clip, loud pipes, custom chromed out bumpers/grill, white walls, and of course, lets not forget the dice! I always thought "hot-rod" was the keyword used for dice.o No: Good info on them though:TU: -Cody
Okay you guys and gals here the REAL story. The first girl to make dice for her boyfriend was hard of hearing. He asked to to "make nice" and the rest is history..... :moonu: :laugh: Harvey
Hey, I thought girls didn't ever do that stuff until the late 60's? At least until I read Smokey Yunick's book. :laugh:
