Box of Antique French Thread

Adorable little boxes of black or white thread: "enchantillons gratuits" (free samples) given out by haberdashers in the 1910s. The one-inch wooden spools are unused, but only one of the boxes has its full complement of a dozen bobines. The black thread is "retors supérieur" or high twined, the white is marked "fil aux ciseaux", scissor thread --not sure what that is.

Wallaert Frères, founded in 1815, was the first cotton thread factory in Lille, France, and remained a family firm until the end (1989 after merging with DMC).