Honoring the Photomatic Photograph Machine Your Selfie ALREADY FRAMED

Let's take a minute to thank the International Mutoscope and Reel Company! No one provided better value for your time and your dime. Photomatic photographs are but one example of their product line, but the one which is the most fun.  An early robot with an eye.  The company also had the horrible taste to produce "The Atomic Bomber" in 1946, unfortunately. They called it "timely" as the radiation hadn't yet dispersed.

Photomatic machines were plopped down where folks killed time. Railroad stations mostly...and the same places Starbucks wedges their six dollar a cup baristas today. The company created numerous "peep-show" type things which were among the first general circulation machines to display moving pictures. Drop a coin, peer in and see something you think you never saw before! Often "what the butler saw" type things. Mutoscope Co. could suck a coin out of a pocket or a parking meter. They created weight, fortune and and arcade machines, but as far as I know the Photomatic was the only one with a chemical bath built right in.

Time magazine profiled the owner of International Mutoscope Reel company William Rabkin in 1934 calling him a "fast-talking Jew"...don't they all? In the article they credit Rabkin with inventing THE CLAW! That's right...the machine at the carnival which allows one to move around a tiny steam shovel and pick up useless trinkets instead of the valuable watch sitting on a pedestal among the junk.  Now-a-days the crane is a little steam shovel, but it still drops and closes JUST as you get close to the prize.

Should we give credit or praise to a company which referred to their customers as "marks?" Yea...it was all in good fun. No one kicked Mutoscope machines if they lost (or rather WHEN they lost) as the process was as good as the prize.  Junior and Dad could hear the gear grinding out the photo at the train station!  They took a little time to develop your photograph...but you were stuck there anyway. Back then, unlike today, of course, modes of transportation were always late.

Soon, the machines spread.  Here, some goober has blocked the entrance of his arcade palace with one.  See any customers? Maybe the next thing which went in was a back door.

                                                      The Photomatic patent, sans mechanical guts.

What I have not yet figured out is how they got the cool metal frames on the photo. As you can see from the reverse, they were not only smart, they were brilliant. One here allows the owner to peel out a built in stand for displaying the photo on your dresser.  Note also the space for identifying yourself?  Imagine how big a business THAT came to be.  These often turn up identified as ID Badges.

Eventually the Photomatic machine produced GIANT photos!  3" x 5" for those with large egos.  There was also a machine which would spit out six photos at a time.

One of parent company Mutoscope's most profitable products was cheesecake. Proto-porn dispensed for Dad.

Founder William Rabkin was often criticized by moral monitors for making risqué girly photographs available to all. In 1956 he fell (or was tossed) to his death from the window of his 6th floor apartment on Central Park West.  Was someone or somebody trying to muscle into his coin-op business?  Unlikely.  From Jukeboxes to pinball machines, a small tribute to wise guys was often skimmed off a sack of dimes in those days, but Rabkin had gone out of business in 1949.  It wasn't until seven years later he dropped. Even the name "Mutoscope" is no longer a trademark, apparently. Need a nice name for your website? It is available.  Still, when the owner of a cash heavy dicey business falls from a window, it is not out of line to wonder if someone owed someone money.  After finding his body, his son said the old man "suffered dizzy spells" but I'd still think about re-opening the case.
 
The most famous person photographed by the photomat was Franklin Swantek.  He took 455 of them, all self-portraits!  Well, they are all self-portraits, but "self" is a camera here.  See his story HERE.

In my mind, the best part of a pile of photomatic photographs is that they make noise when shuffled. The cheap metal frames have a nice solid clunk as one flips through them.  The company also made cheap cardboard frames for their photos, but the metal is more fun.  There appears to be a hierarchy of value for them today. Especially bright color frames and especially goofy faces are among the desirable formats, but so are the few which are well-focused and haunting.

Photomatic photographs collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Candid Charlie Comic Books Paparazzi Photographica from B. Gordon Guth

Comic Book Photographica  and the first paparazzi Candid Charlie of Target Comics!

For the record, I do not collect comic books, and I do not own those shown above.  For this post, I defer to the experts Steven Thompson and My Comic Shop, though in this case even they don't know too much.  Both are linked below.  Let's call this a query.  Who the hell was B. Gordon Guth, the artist who conjured up "Candid Charlie" a red-headed kid with camera?
 
Every boy with a handheld is Candid Charlie now, but back when these came out, one had to lug it around their neck.  I guess the stereotype of Japanese tourists snapping photos is finally retired too…now that we all take too many pictures with our cellphones.  But back then, a shutterbug was nerdy and with thick glasses to go with his hobby.

By far the best place to find anything about Guth is Steven Thompson's blog Four Color Shadows.  Mr. Thompson is the expert (truly) but even he seems stumped. He does reproduce an entire story HERE. 

Candid Charlie appeared in Target Comics, sometimes as a cover model, and the rest of the time within.  Some of the covers of Target are so cool they almost make me wish I collected them…but not all were done by B. Gordon Guth.  In fact, it looks like once in a while (for "composite" covers) Candid Charlie was drawn by another artist…unless the ginger head bespeckled hero of B. Guth was a generic type.  Note no camera on Charlie on the cover of "4 Most Comics" as he, or his look-a-like is hurled to the sand.

In one issue, a three-headed Charlie has to decide between a dame and his Brownie.  Take the dame Charlie.

There is another Charlie looking dude slumped down after sniffing ether too, but it is drawn by Nina Albright.  Nina was super cool.  Check out this issue of Target with Kit Carter obfuscating the eyes of the bad guy with his sand wedge!

Another Guth cover shows a seemingly now grown-up Candid Charlie shooting a shark while the world's smallest one-man speedboat heads towards shore.

The census lists a B. Gordon Guth of the Bronx born 1910.  I reckon that would be him.

As I said, I'm no comic historian, but Guth seems to have been hooked up with L. B. Cole, who I wrote about HERE and Art Helfant, like Nina both far better known.

Steven Thompson's fantastic comic book site Four Color Shadows is HERE
My Comic Shop (which has a few of these in stock) is HERE



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New SUN-FOTO the Fun Chemical Way to Have Fun in the Sun Photographica

It's MISS SUN-PHOTO (presumably the inventor's daughter) showing how to create wonderful SUN PHOTOS on fabric! 

I dunno…inside the box is TWO pair of wooden tweezers, a bottle full of what looks to be both illegal and unsafe, and reams of instructions for making the sun create an image from your own negative onto a shirt. 

One thing we know, whenever a product is called "FOTO" someone already owns the copyright for "PHOTO" I guess. The other thing we know is that no one seems to have written about this little device yet, so as it would appear henceforth anyone searching SUN-FOTO will land here, so I better be factual.

SUN-FOTO contained enough poison solution to create 150 pictures, and "anyone" can do it.  The product came out of Hollywood, a sunny place, and the instructions do indeed say to use the sun, not a lamp to burn your picture onto a piece of cloth. 

They even linked-up with the Cherrin Brothers in Detroit to run some kind of bogus contest.  "All entries become the property of Sun-Foto Mfg. Co."  Hey, just like Facebook! 

SUN-FOTO (No Date)  Collection Jim Linderman
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CDV Photographer Trade Card Salesman Sample Photographica collection Horton Grand Rapids Jim Linderman

 

Photographer O. W. Horton of Monroe Street in Grand Rapids Cleans his Studio.  Circa 1855.

Orsamus W. Horton was one of the first daguerreotype photographers in Grand Rapids, MI.
Later he created Stereo photographs.  In 1916, on his passing, he was referred to as "Grand Rapids First Photographer" and was also the first to install a skylight.  He was also known as "Practical Photographer" and listed his location at "Foot of Monroe St."

Original Carte de Visite Photograph circa 1855 Collection Jim Linderman
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Pair of ORIGINAL 19th Century Painted Photographer Studio Backdrops (For Sale)

I put together a book on Painted Backdrops and their use in the transitional period from painting to photography last year, it is a modest attempt at describing the relationship between the two art forms at the turn of the century. Having collected examples of tintype photographs with unusual backdrops (and photos of studios with them on display or being painted) I know how scarce original 19th century studio backdrops are.

A gentleman with two extraordinary ORIGINAL examples contacted me last week and asked if I was interested in obtaining these two remarkable survivors. I have moved on to other projects after finishing The Painted Backdrop...and since I have not the room to display these quite striking historical pieces, asked the owner if I could share them here (with his contact information for a purchaser.) I am very grateful, and hope this post helps these find a good home! ANY museum of photography or a serious collector knows how scarce these are.

Condition looks remarkable, and the owner even has an example of a photo taken here to show you one of the drapes "in use." If you are interested in purchasing or asking questions about these early photographic backdrops, contact the owner at email nypopa@aol.com or I would be happy to forward your request for information to the owner.

I can tell you the price is QUITE modest, and these really should be in an institution or a very serious collection. Thanks to the current owner for sharing, and to any photography collector who wants a wonderful addition to their collection, these are quite nice.

I hope they find a good home.

(For those of you interested in my book The Painted Backdrop: Behind the Sitter in American Tintype Photography 1860-1920 see it HERE)

VISTASCREEN! From the Littered Landscape of Photographica

The landscape is littered with camera technology failures. Something about capturing an image brought out the inventors, and today there is even a collector category known as photographica. They collect camera detritus. There is no shortage.

Competing technologies drive the market and pictures of pretty woman drive men. Thus, the Vistascreen! An enterprising gent named Stanley Long in the UK decided to get into the three dimensional photographic business in 1956. View-master was up and running, but unlike Long...they were short on babes. The only thing better than a beautiful woman is one who is poking her whatnots out at you, so capturing a babe in 3-D has always equaled the moon shot as a noble goal for man. (Having just been to the Grammy awards and suffering a headache along with the rest of the well-heeled audience during the Michael Jackson "extravaganza" I can tell you not only has 3-D not progressed far, it certainly is NOT going to save Hollywood. 30 seconds into the flick, the stars were taking off their glasses to see what Celine Dion was wearing) But I digress.

Vitascreen faded with time and the Glamour shots Stanley took and sold faded as well. Today they are collector items...and guess what? REPRINTED. Modern re-issues of Stanley Long's Lifelike British Babes are available again, but the link doesn't work. I'll try to post it later

SIMULTANEOUS POST on VINTAGE SLEAZE

The Greatest Masterpiece and The Missing Painting

Circa 1935 postcard with "missing painting" gummed insert "canvas" to affix a picture of a loved one (or to mail a picture of yourself to one) Unmailed. Colllection Jim Linderman

The Large, Light Airy Room Where Your Order Is Filled

Well, here are 30 Cincinnati jobs taken away by digital film. (Not to mention the fellas who worked in the dark, stuffy room where your orders were developed) We might also mention the folks who took your negatives to the post office, the folks who sold you stamps, the folks who filed your pictures by alphabet on their return to the shop (possibly sneaking a look at one or two of them) the check-out clerk you paid and on and on. When I see unemployment figures, I'm not so sure digital photography is such a good thing. When I see dwindling piles of the physical object to sort through at the flea market, I'm sure of it. (Univex film was popular around 1949, Bantam from the late 1930's to the late 1940's)

Photo Developing Inc. Advertising card c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman