Mishawaka Ball Band Rubber Boots Trade Sign Overshoes Galoshes Collection Jim Linderman Folk Art

Ball Band Rubber Boots were first manufactured in 1898, and the wonderful boot trademark with a red ball on the boot was registered as the official logo in 1901.  The company was Mishawaka Rubbers, and a pair ofcirca 1935 rubber boots manufactured just like the one of the sign belong to the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they were added to the collection in 2004.  Mishawaka Rubber & Woolen Company, in Mishawaka Indiana, operated from 1874 to 1969.  The link to the Met with illustrations of the boot shown is HERE

The Resseguie General Store which displayed this sign was located in Middleton, Michigan.

Tin Sign circa 1900  24" x 9" Collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb

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Elmer the Optician Optical Goods Eyeglasses Folk Art Trade Sign RPPC Collection Jim Linderman

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I suppose most know the folk art trade signs of figural form from days gone by were intended to identify the store for those who could not read. The technique was obviously particularly important in the case of eyeglass makers, as their clients couldn't read OR see!  Consequently, the giant pair of glasses is one of the most common and recognizable early trade signs.

The sign here, mounted on Elmer the Optician's place in Muskegon Michigan dates to 1920.  Elmer was Elmer P. Heimer, who had the top floor.  It appears a  shoe sale was going on below.


Elmer the Optician Perfect Fitting Glasses Optical Goods Trade Sign Real Photo PC circa 1920 Collection Jim Linderman

Two Million Dollars of Folk Art Cigar Store Indians Trade Store Figures Real Photo Postcard (And a Favorite Photograph)

The June 8, 2010 auction at Heritage Auction Galleries which set a record for a Cigar Store Indian (over $200,000 for the splendid figure here) may mean what you are seeing above is a few million dollars worth of wood. A Real Photo Postcard, circa 1940, of a most extraordinary collection of carved trade store figures. Quite a group. The piece sold above had exceptional original paint, and often these figures have had repaints over the years. The last photograph, a particular favorite of mine, shows my father and a friend, circa 1935, likely in upstate New York.
Anonymous Real Photo Postcard (Group of Carved Trade Figures and Cigar Store Indians) circa 1940 Kodak "EKC" logo on reverse Collection Jim Linderman

Big Giant Kachina and a Cigar Store Indian Authenticity Spirit Trade Sign and Antique American Indian Art

Many a young girl received a doll today, Merry Christmas, by the way. They may teach, but they aren't spirits.

Hopi and Zuni dolls are and were used to allow young women from the tribe to participate in sacred dances performed by the men. A rich, complicated cultural ritual I am not qualified to discuss, and I am not really sure anyone of European origin can, to tell the truth. We can "own" kachina dolls, but can we understand them? I guess as interlopers. There are some 400 identified, each with distinctive features represented by adornment and design.

Once you have an appreciation for cottonwood carvings from 1900 and before with flaking natural pigments, you may desire to own them as well. Not easy today, as the early ones, or what could be called "real" ones are for the most part tucked away. There are different levels for collectors...19th century, of which I have cribbed a few here from the catalog of an exhibition at the Galerie Flak in Paris from ten years ago (link here to the catalog) those from 1900 to before World War two, and those since. The later ones are purely decorative and produced for tourists, and although fine carvings are still produced by Native American artists they are far more elaborate in design and far less transcendent than the early ones.

The earliest kachinas were flat, simple, rudimentary wooden objects with sparse adornment but great magical power. The later ones can be beautiful but are more decorative, and it is quite common for dealers to date them earlier than they really are. There are literally hundreds of identified and collected kachina carvers working today, and there are festivals and such to display their work. You can even take a bus tour right to the carvers, they don't have to set up outside train stations any more to sell to Paleface. (I am sorry to use what is now a derogatory, and likely Hollywood invented term, but after what we did to those who took care of our land before we got here, and what we have done to it since, let's face it...some of us have earned names worse.)

The photograph above is dated 1944 on the reverse. It is, of course, a Southwestern trading post with a symbolic gigantic Kachina out front. (A "Cigar Store Indian" as it were...another large sculptural object with racial and cultural baggage!) The rugs would indicate this is a shop of Navajo goods...I hope the women asked if they had any old Hopi or Zuni ones behind the counter, as the Navajo didn't make them then, but they do today. I understand now you can even find Kachinas carved in Korea. Ugh.

Snapshot 1944 Collection Jim Linderman

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