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= Everlast Metal Products Corporation =

Everlast Metal Products Corporation was an American company that produced beautiful forged hammered aluminum household wares from the 1930's to 1960's.

Formed by two Russian immigrants in 1932, brothers-in-law Louis Schnitzer (1894-1966) and Nathan Gelfman ( 1892-1982) transformed their New York City silver plating firm into the Everlast Metal Products.

=History= Aluminum giftware for the home became fashionable during the 1930s, at a time when most Americans could not afford luxury metals like silver. One of the most prolific manufacturers of aluminum giftware was Everlast Metal Products Corporation of New York City.

The brothers-in-laws, Louis Schnitzer and Nathan Gelfman had both been experienced metalworkers in their homeland of what was then Kiev, Russia.

The two immigrated to America, in the early 1920s were polishing and plating silver at their silver housewares business in Brooklyn called Western Silver Works, Inc. This became Western Silver Novelty Company but when the Great Depression hit they converted to the more affordable aluminum housewares forming the Everlast Metal Products Corporation in 1932.

As the Great Depression gripped the country during the 1930s, the demand for consumer products fell as many people struggled just to get by in the faltering economy. With few buyers for silver products, Schnitzer and Gelfman decided to try working with the more affordable and modern metal, aluminum. In 1932, the men formed Everlast Metal Products Corporation and began producing high quality hand-forged aluminum giftware.

=Giftware= Aluminum giftware for the home became fashionable during the 1930s, at a time when most Americans could not afford luxury metals like silver. One of the most prolific manufacturers of aluminum giftware was Everlast Metal Products Corporation of New York City.

Aluminium giftware was stamped with “Hand Forged Everlast Metal” with an anchor & an arm holding a hammer and a number below.

Everlast collaborated with industrial designers Russel and Mary Wright in the early 1940's. .  Machine made products sometimes looked like they were made by hand, and vice versa. Mary Wright’s designs for Everlast Aluminum, for example, had the hand-made properties of hammered aluminum, although they were a factory production.

=Closure= 1930s ,40s, and 50s were great years for the Everlast Metal Products Corp. Decorative aluminum giftware was very popular, lightweight, didn't tarnish like silver, and it came in so many different patterns.

However during the early 1950s plastic Tupperware's sales and popularity exploded. Pretty metals were forgotten as poeople went plastic. Everlast went out of business, closing in 1961.