It made news in January 2010 when a photo of President Obama wearing a Weatherproof Garment Co. jacket was used on a billboard on Times Square.

The photo was taken when the president visited China, but he did not give permission for his image to be used in an ad. Weatherproof was asked to take the picture down and did. Presidents do not endorse products, although they do endorse candidates.

The earliest “presidential” ad was for a magazine. It was a copy of an 1811 letter written by Thomas Jefferson to say he was a subscriber to the magazine. It too was probably not approved by the president. During Victorian times, many ads appeared that pictured a president or mentioned his campaign and suggested he had made a product endorsement. Recently one of those advertising posters sold at a Cowan’s auction for $3,500. It was an 1890s ad for Warner’s Log Cabin Sarsaparilla picturing President William Henry Harrison and his grandson, President Benjamin Harrison. The poster says the liquid medicine cures scrofula, biliousness, dizziness, headache, constipation, salt rheum, erysipelas and other diseases. Also pictured is the log cabin symbol used in William Henry’s presidential campaign and the logo of the medicine company. A poster with both a medicine ad and a presidential picture sells for a premium price. This brought $4,112.

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Q: I have a 1939 New York World’s Fair combination purse-muff that belonged to my mother. One side is black velvet and the other is Persian lamb. It’s 14 inches wide by 10 inches high. The zipper pull on the velvet (purse) side is a chrome circle surrounding the Trylon and Perisphere symbols of the fair. It’s in pristine condition. I wrote to a group of World’s Fair collectors, but no one there had ever seen a souvenir like mine.

A: A few souvenir purses were made for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The ones we have seen are decorated with images of the Trylon and Perisphere and sell for $250 to $350. One that matches the description of yours was offered at auction 10 years ago but didn’t sell. Today a World’s Fair collector would probably pay at least $100 for it.

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Q: My mother has an oak hutch with an inscribed mark that says, “A Genuine Kuehne Product.” Is this piece of furniture a rarity? I can’t find any information about the company.

A: Kuehne Manufacturing Co. made kitchen dinette sets in Matoon, Ill., from the time of its founding in 1932 until it closed in 1965. Its early sets were wooden, but by the 1950s Kuehne was making the chromed metal breakfast-room sets so popular during that decade. The value of your hutch is not likely to be more than $100, but its price depends on size, condition and what it’s made of.