Fancy groceries, anyone?

A second curious term in the signage at Sam’s Dairy: fancy groceries . Like table luxuries , the term is missing from the OED and from Merriam-Webster’s Second and Third. My casual browsing suggests that the term was typically paired with staple groceries . Here’s an explanation of the fancy from Proceedings of The Second Pan American Scientific Congress (1917):

The fancy grocery. — To solve the problem of the downtown store two means have been tried — one, to secure larger margins; the other, to seek greater volume. The former has given rise to the fancy store. In nearly every community there are some exceptional people who will pay an extra price for the best, and there are many people who will buy extra-priced articles for exceptional occasions. This trade, like the shopping trade of the textile lines, tends to concentrate, but unlike the shopping lines, the goods are bought without comparison of value, hence there is nothing to prevent a single store securing a monopoly and frequently a single grocer does secure a marked leadership if not a positive monopoly of fancy lines. The chief difficulty with these stores is to secure sufficient volume and to supplement the rather limited trade in fancy groceries. In many large cities the fancy grocers have added wines and liquors.

Though the term has long since fallen out of use, specialty shops, with high-end items in tins and jars and bottles, carry on in the spirit of the fancy grocery.

Here’s a sampling of fancy groceries, in an extraordinary Macy’s advertisement from 1927:

[The New York Times, February 10, 1927. Click for a larger view.]

Do click for a larger view: the oh so precious text is worth reading. Then reach for the bicarb.

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Table luxuries, anyone?