The 19th century is called the Oyster Century by gourmets. Oysters, a popular food since ancient times, became the rage. Every town had a saloon or hotel that featured an oyster bar.

There were oyster houses and oyster cellars, which were the centers of social life. They were just like the coffeehouses of today. The best of the oyster houses had customers in spirited conversation about politics and life.

The oysters were served in glamorously furnished rooms. There were linen tablecloths, silver forks and special plates. The all-you-can-eat bars were popular. It is claimed that a big eater could consume 100 oysters in one sitting.

The oysters were harvested from rivers and waterways. The beds near New York City were soon depleted, and the fishing boats moved north to New England or south to Chesapeake Bay. Most Maryland oysters are now farmed.

Collectors, especially those on the East Coast, search for anything “oyster.” Shipping tins, cookers, dippers and other preparation equipment are collected. So are plates, forks and serving spoons.

The most popular are the oyster plates that hold from three to six oysters in small “wells” shaped like oyster shells. Plates were made of silver, glass, pottery or porcelain. Look for examples made in the United States, France, Germany, England or Czechoslovakia.

My aunt gave me an oval bar of pink soap in 1926. I was only 4 years old, but I still have the soap in its original box.

One side of the bar is shaped like a baby’s face with eyes shut and mouth open. The other side shows a smiling baby with eyes open. The word “Kirk” is imprinted on both babies’ foreheads, and “Pat. July 1925” is on one. The colorful box has drawings of clowns, rabbits, bears and other figures.

I’m pushing 80 and wondered if you could tell me if this bar of soap is worth keeping.

Don’t throw your bar of soap away. With its box, it is a good piece of old advertising, worth about $100.

The James S. Kirk Co. was formed in 1839 in Utica, N.Y., and moved in 1859 to Chicago. It became famous for its soaps and was bought by Proctor and Gamble in 1930.

Today, Kirk’s Natural Products Corp. of Chicago owns the brand and still sells Kirk’s Coco Hardwater Castile Soap. It is advertised as a low-priced, all-natural soap.

I have a mint-condition Cootie game in its original box. It comes with four hard-plastic bug bodies, heads, legs, etc. in different colors. There’s also a single playing die. The box is red and yellow with a picture of an assembled Cootie on the front. How old is Cootie, and what is mine worth?

Cootie was introduced in 1949 by the Schaper Manufacturing Co. of Minneapolis. It was a favorite of baby boomers through the 1950s. Players toss the die and put the bug together based on the number thrown.

Herb Schaper invented the game and copied the bug’s shape from a fishing lure he had carved. An early Cootie game in mint condition sells for about $25.

I am buying a lithographed tin tray that pictures a woman in an off-the-shoulder dress. The tray is marked at the bottom: “Adeline, American Art Works, Coshocton, O.” It is similar to a tray I have seen with an ad for a beer company. Since this tray does not have an ad, is it worth as much as an advertising tray?

American Art Works of Coshocton, Ohio, made many lithographed tin products from 1910 until the early ’30s. Most of the products were advertising pieces ordered by beer and soft-drink companies, retail stores or other wholesale customers.

Collectors today are as interested in the ad as they are in the tray, so the value for a tray advertising a well-known product is much higher. Coca-Cola trays can be hundreds of dollars; beer trays, $75 to $300; and plain trays with no name, about $50.

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