Dull Tool Dim Bulb: March 2017

Miniature Drawing of an Undertaker's Invoice Calligraphy

Miniature Drawing of an Undertaker's Invoice Calligraphy 1895 Collection Jim Linderman

Fotofun The Two Forms of Fotofun! Regular, and Real Photo Postcard LAUGH YOUR HEAD OFF

One of my favorite finds is Fotofun! There were two...one for regular snapshots and one which produced real photo postcards (of a sort) Both are pretty scarce. Those of you manipulating photographs might be surprised to know W. J. Glassmacher thought up the gimmick in 1934.

Pair of Treasure Chest Fotofun Novelty Photograph beheading games! Laugh your HEADS off! Collection Jim Linderman

Surfa-Tone Tex Products Mid-Century Modern Wall Slurry! Antique Color Chemical Soup for the Wall.

It's SURFA-TONE the Rubber Paint! In the "antique color" series here, I generally tell a bit of company history, but a brief search is all it took to learn there are too many variations of the "Tex" name in companies. This one was based in Newark, New Jersey and has probably morphed into some other company by now. The history is as murky as the waters around Newark. You know, as you drive towards the big apple you go through a dead zone of swamp before hitting the tunnel? That murky chemical blend THING?

Search for "Rubberized Paint" and that goofy "Flex Seal" product is what you'll find first. You know, the guy who paints the bottom of his boat and scoots over the alligators without springing a leak! I love when he dips his tools into it and makes a hand-grip like magic!

Now I suspect this product was invented for the parents of the baby boomers. They all got tired of rubbing crayon off the walls, so they sealed it off with this magic covering. I've run my fingers over the paint chips here, and it does feel a bit different. Oddly, the patter here claims you can wash off lipstick too! Who kisses a wall?

Surfa-Tone Wall Finish by Tex Products. No Date (c. 1960?) Mid-Century Modern Wall Covering pamphlet. Collection Jim Linderman

Risky Risque Sequential Real Photo Postcards

Risky Risque Sequential Real Photo Postcards circa 1940

Cracker Jack Spacey Spectacles from the 1950s

Cracker Jack Spacey Spectacles. Said to date around 1957. Collection Jim Linderman

Mattress Swing Hammock Spring Longing photo by Jim Linderman

Spring Longing. Mattress Swing Hammock South Carolina Circa 1992 Original Photograph by Jim Linderman

Machine age paper die cut stamp

Machine age paper die cut stamp, both sides! Collection Jim Linderman
Courtesy BOX LOT on Facebook.

Toy Walkie Talkie set made of Cardboard and String c. 1950

Toy Walkie Talkie set made of Cardboard and String c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Schoolgirl Handmade Sewing Instruction Book Antique Vintage Old

I haven't quite figured out the date on this remarkable handmade sewing instruction book, but she received a 95. What was the teacher looking for? The cover alone is a 100. You women out there could date the work inside by the fashions...there are tons of designs, color wheels, mini-pattern projects and all done with beautiful folky precision. I'll post more one day. Yes, the cover is 3-D! The little pattern book on the table has pages! A great reminder of what a school student was required to do before computers.

Mid-20th Century Sewing handmade sewing class book. Mixed-media. Collection Jim Linderman

The Dull Tool Dim Bulb collection of Bigass Cameras

Various Press Photographs of HUGE Cameras 1924 to 1970. Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Gem Duplicator Grainy Pinup Girls on Colored Paper

Likely created by a Gem duplicator which was sold out of St. Louis. A crappy little machine no larger than a hankie box. It was marketed as a way of "making your own postcards" in the 1940s, I believe. These could have been run off on a competing product. It isn't too hard to find the mechanical duplicator in a box on the web, but actual prints are less common. These are good examples of cheap home technology meeting the gals and gams of post-war folly. They have a nice "etching" like shading.

Group of home duplicator pinup girls on paper Collection Jim Linderman
Books and Ebooks by the author available HERE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Linderman

"...Linderman is widely regarded as one of the foremost figures in a field of vernacular art collectors working beyond the margins of most institutional axioms and impulses, in what is essentially it's own self-taught art form."
Ursula Magazine Hauser & Wirth 2019

"Linderman produces the most sublime books on dreamy, arcane subjects, sexy stuff, too, all with rare one-of-a-kind images." Craig Yoe 2017

"...disclosing an underground history of American popular culture one oddball tale at a time"
John Strausbaugh in The New York Times

"...one of the blog writers to watch for"
ARTSlant

"...wonderful, extraordinary, fascinating, remarkable and profound" Fans in a Flashbulb International Center of Photography Museum 2016

"Brilliantly Astute, Acerbic and Aesthetic Jim Linderman"
The Museum of Everything 2014

"Dull Tool Dim Bulb is always worth a visit" THINGS Magazine 2016

"...grumpy..." The Austin Chronicle 2014

"Perpetually ahead of the collecting curve...a one man Taschen. An authentically curious individual...diligently archiving the forgotten curiosities of American History"

Emma Higgins in Art Hack May 2012

"Jim Linderman likes Art, Antiques and Photography and his collection of Vernacular Photography, Folk Art, Ephemera and Curiosities is a wonderful place..."
LifeElsewhere with Norman B. 2014

"...collected over the years by Jim Linderman, a character who seems the perfect subject for a Harvey Pekar comic. Linderman treats collecting like a calling, and his finds have a resulting air of authority, stunning in their capture of bygone picturesque moments."
Derek Taylor Dusted

"The pictures, discarded artifacts of ecstatic Americana, come from the stash of Jim Linderman, who in his introduction recalls advice he’s plainly taken to heart: “Collect the heck” out of whatever you find interesting."
Drew Jubera Paste Magazine

"His interest in art is rivaled only by his interest in music, and one expression informs the other. He pursues objects with thoroughness and an innate sense of curiosity..."
Tanya Heinrich Folk Art Magazine

"Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.... His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish."
Joe Bonomo Author of Conversations With Greil Marcus, Jerry Lewis Lost and Found and No Such Thing As Was

"...he's one of the world's greatest pickers."
Brian Wallis in The New York Times

"Documenting--one clipping at a time--the scrapbook of a leg and garter aficionado that was dumpster-dived in Virginia in the 60s" "...an outstanding image-archaeologist who has compiled a shelf-ful of worthy and unique photographic histories."
William Smith Hang Fire Books

"Linderman has a knack for discovering untold stories and introducing them to a wider audience"
Joey Lin Anonymous Works

"Jim Linderman...makes us all look a little puny"
Could it be Madness-this?

"...insatiable collector of ephemera and ringleader behind an incredible circus of blogs — including the treasure trove dull tool dim bulb"
The Cynephile

"Yo no sé ustedes pero creo que es uno de los mejores sitios que he visitado en mucho tiemp"
Color Me in Blog

"...there's something beyond the endless photos and postcards and weird propaganda from another time that he lovingly documents - I think it's the collection as a whole, the portrait of a person fascinated with culture and communication. I have met people like this before, and in reading Dull Tool Dim Bulb I feel I have been lucky enough to meet one more. This site is a goldmine in terms of links..."
The Hyggelic Life October 2009

"Linderman is always on the lookout for the new and exciting"
Chuck and Jan Rosenak Contemporary American Folk Art

"...an amazing collection..."
Revel in New York October 2009

"Jim Linderman has a nice little colllection of interesting books and blogs...But every so often he just loses it."
American Digest March 2010

"FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, COLLECTOR JIM LINDERMAN has searched high and low for authentic things--unique and special objects that define the artistic culture of the American experience. From folk art to popular culture, from pulp fiction to Delta Blues-- Jim is a walking authority on so many things American they are too numerous to mention. One thing is certain-- his collecting interests are for things that have fallen through the cracks, those things lost and forgotten--the box of material under the table at the flea market booth. If it wasn't for dedicated collectors like Jim Linderman-- so many important objects about our culture would have surely been lost to time and indifference."

"Jim Linderman maintains a most interesting blog about the most amazing things from his collection—a site he calls “Dull Tool Dim Bulb,” the only curse words his father ever uttered. I love it, and read it everyday."
"...an excellent writer and I devour your blog daily. I am impressed at your deep knowledge of things within your niche..."
John Foster Accidental Mysteries

"I am grateful to Jim Linderman for first alerting me to the existence of the 1930s Spiritualist hymn "Jesus is My Air-o-plane."
William Fagaly New Orleans Museum of Art, Author Tools of her Ministry: The art of Sister Gertrude Morgan

"Linderman describes a long gone world...(he) claims not to be a writer but he is most certainly an excellent researcher..."
BOOKSTEVE

"Jim Linderman, King of the Internet Ephemeral Arts"
Spaniel Rage

"Jim is a fantastic historian...show him some love"
Astrid Daley Fringe Pop / Sin-A-Rama

"Almost an experimental narrative"
Idiopath

"He came to us with hundreds of jaw-dropping baptism photos that he'd been collecting for 25 years," Ledbetter explains. "By the time he found us, he'd already done half a lifetime's works, and he trusted us to handle it properly." Lance Ledbetter in Creative Loafing 10/13/11

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