Dear Lee,

Is Ivory soap sinking? In August 2014, Procter & Gamble announced it was getting rid of many of its brands—and Ivory may be one of them.

Advertising collectibles for a major brand like Ivory, introduced in 1879, includes signs, boxes, displays, magazine and newspaper ads, labels and even actual bars of soap in different packages. The word “Ivory” is part of the name of only six P & G products and one of those is a laundry detergent, Ivory Snow. I used to write that the soap bar floated because it was whipped full of air bubbles when a workman left a mixer on too long—that the finished floating bar was made in error. But Procter & Gamble’s archives include records from James Gamble’s experiments with aerating soap and his patent for the procedure. Other myths suggested that Proctor & Gamble’s logo was satanic (not true) and that the model on a 1970s Ivory Snow box was a porn star (that’s true—the model posing as the mother was a porn star, which makes the box a $50 collectible).

Ivory soap is an icon, a part of popular culture. It was the first branded product made for retail stores. We have lots of Ivory soap collectibles: a sign with the familiar slogan “It Floats,” first used in 1891, six of the earliest labeled bars of soap, and an early labeled wooden crate we “rescued” from a tree lawn on trash day. Best of all is my folk art bar of Ivory soap carved from white marble. It is an exact copy of the unwrapped soap and I like to put it in the powder room for visitors who would get the joke. The back of the bar has the engraved names “W.S. Van Law, By W.O. Menkel.” We have no idea who they were.

Our country store collection is great, but be careful how you store old boxes and products that contain any type of food or anything that smells sweet. We once had even more bars and boxes of soap, but mice found them and ate part of the labels and all of the soap. And we know of other collectors who have come across sugar bags and cereal boxes with partially eaten contents. Cans of tomatoes may explode, and cans of carbonated beverages may slowly “leak,” leaving the cans empty and dented. Even worse are bottles of poisonous medicine that could be opened by children, and early medical jars made with radium that expose their owners to radiation.

The good news is that all the publicity about Ivory soap disappearing should make Ivory collectibles go up in price.