Champion Whittler C. A. Hughes Wooden Figure and Uncle Sam Folk Art Arkansas 1927

Champion Whittler C. A. Huges Wooden Figure and Uncle Sam Folk Art 
Original press photograph edited by hand before publication 1927 Arkansas
Collection Jim Linderman

How to Milk a Cow Handmade Folk Art Mechanical Postcard Wisconsin 1907

How to Milk a Cow?  Pull on the Udders.
Handmade Folk Art Mechanical Postcard Wisconsin 1907 
Courtesy Shannon Regan

Antique Pipe Cleaner Cowboy, His Trusted Steed and a Large Cardboard Six Shooter Folk Art Sculpture

Antique Pipe Cleaner Cowboy, His Trusted Steed and a Large Cardboard Six Shooter Handmade Folk Art Toys circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

What Does a Window Screen Have to do with Climate Change ? Duh.

First of all, you ignorant Republican climate change deniers should think a bit about tropical diseases.  Decades ago, environmentalists were reporting increasing spread of tropical disease north of the equator would be one of the early serious tip-offs of ocean warming.  Since you haven't had enough flash floods and deluge rain spots yet, consider the Zika, which spreads anywhere it is warm and there are mosquitoes.  I guess you have all been too busy limiting women's reproductive rights to notice.  There is NO IQ test for an elected official, and the dumbest I know ride elephants and force their stupidity agenda on everyone else.

Second, while I am in a good mood…Stop it with the "vaccination could be bad for you" shit.  That's right.  The notion is shit.  How about doing some research before letting the kids here who didn't get vaccinated spread disease to other kids, okay?  Ever hear of "Herd Effect?"  It means the more who are vaccinated, the better off even the non-vaccinated are.  Get the shots, clowns.

Flu Shot?  Duh.  No, it doesn't "make you feel like you have the flu."  It keeps you and your loved ones from getting the flu.  Again?  Get your ignorant nose and ears off the Rush Limbaugh show and take advantage of whatever scientists, REAL scientists, suggest.  Respiratory disease caused by the flu is capable of killing you and everyone you touch.  Now magnify that by 100 and you have the start of an epidemic.  I'm not kidding.  Remember the "Great" Flu Pandemic of 1918?  It wasn't so great.  As in it killed nearly 5% of the world's population...and 600,000 Americans, which seems to be the only people you care about.  Furthermore, because big agriculture puts antibiotics in our food, the tools we have for curing the flu are reducing every day. 

By the way, there IS no "clean coal" and the reason the EPA is closing some power plants around you isn't a Government take-over either…it's as much to keep your kids from getting asthma and poisoned as it is reducing our gigantic footprint.

Now…what does a screen have to do with Climate Change?  If you don't have them, and don't empty the water from the tires abandoned in your backyard…you might find out.

Burrowes Rustless Copbronze Salesman Sample Screen Netting pack Circa 1910 Collection Jim Linderman.  The screens were 93% bronze.  I guess that is a good thing.

Antique Evil Clown Folk Art Carving Sculpture 19th Century

I attribute the concept of "evil clown" to John Wayne Gacy, but Wikipedia calls him "killer clown."  Same difference.  Gacy's character's name was "Pogo the Clown." The fear of clowns is known as Coulrophobia.  Detroit has the lesser evil "Insane Clown Posse" who have gone platinum somehow, but my favorite is Doink the clown.  Doink was one of those fake wrestlers on TV.  I think he had just about the same audience as the Clown Posse.  Have you forgotten Doink? 

Early Folk Art Carved Clown Head turn of the century.  Collection Jim Linderman.

The Unusual (and bizarre) work of Tom Yab aka Cobb Shinn

Forgotten illustrator Cobb Shinn!  The first image is a heavily embellished postcard from 1913.  It is most unusual to see a painting added to a printed postcard, but this is certainly one of the craziest..the reverse is odd too, but I'm not scanning it.  An original card is shown below it.  Tom Yab drew Yab's Kids, but so much more...and the best place to learn about him is on the Tattered and Lost website HERE.  It's great.

Hand-painted Cobb Shinn postcard 1913 Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Colors of the West Coast Turn of the Century NITROKOTE

Don't paint it, NITROKOTE it!  W.P. Fuller put out Nitrokote in the early 1900s.  Fuller was the largest paint supplier on the West Coast.  I guess you could say he was the Fuller Brush Man with a painting brush.  Today when you see old paint on furniture and objects from the Pacific coast, it might have been Nitrokoted!

Salesman Sample color brochure Nitrokote Paint Collection Jim Linderman

Kenneth Hetrick Fills the Skies. Bulbuous Airships in Yellow

Army Plnes (Planes) by Kenneth Hetrick 1931.  Collection Jim Linderman
You may also enjoy ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES The Book and Ebook

Superman reveals his secret Michigan origins Vintage Woodward Avenue Parade Float

Towering over Woodward Avenue is M man, brother to Superman and representing the planet University of Michigan!  Woodward is Detroit, and the parade began in 1924.  
Original Miniature Snapshot Collection Jim Linderman.
Thanks and a tip of the huge balloon to Curley's Antiques.

19th Century Folk Art Portrait Drawing

19th Century Folk Art Portrait Drawing Collection Jim Linderman
You may also be interested in ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES available as a paperback or an ebook HERE.

Not unless you have a warrant (and say hello to the whirligig when you leave) 1959 Vernacular Folk Art Photograph

Not unless you have a warrant (and say hello to the whirligig when you leave) 1959 Vernacular Folk Art Photograph COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

A Sexy Chair Risque Drawing by Willard Fitzgerald c. 1945

A Sexy Chair   Risque Drawing by Willard Fitzgerald c. 1945  Collection Jim Linderman

Early American Folk Art Carving of a Man

Articulated Early Folk Art Carving (detail) Collection Jim Linderman

Rubber Stamp Hair A Dame with Nothing on her Mind but Dates

November 16, 1941 Rubber Stamp Hair.  Caption "Ever see a dame with nothin' but dates on her mind?"  Drawing by Willard Fitzgerald 1941 Collection Jim Linderman
You may also be interested in the book (and cheap ebook) ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES.

How to Read a Tintype

How to read a Tintype? Tintype photographs were created (and are today found) with a mirror image.  That is, they reversed reality.  To "read" a tintype with text, scan it and use your computer tool to flip horizontal.  


"Tickets" Tintype circa 1880 Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Cowboy and Cop Drawing

Career Choices for Men circa 1900 Anonymous Schoolgirl Drawing 
Collection Jim Linderman

Life Size Antique Folk Art Baby Sculpture Carving

Big Baby!  Collection Jim Linderman

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

The True Story of One Real Photo Postcard : How Small Town History was Preserved and Distributed

Real Photo Postcards were a way to "mass-produce" and distribute an image to others.  Mass is a misnomer…usually the photographer or studio printed only what they thought they could unload, so quantities seldom exceed a few hundred.  More popular images run into the thousands, but for the most part the photographs printed on postcard stock were limited editions.  They tell the true history of America.  Shot with little pretense, seldom doctored up or enhanced (except for novelty items) and cheap.  They document small towns and rural places.  Newspaper wire services always had an Eastern bias, but anyone with a camera and access to a Folding Pocket Kodak (introduced in 1903) and a printer could produce their own. 

The story here is well documented for a Real Photo Postcard and it might provide some illumination on the photos and how they were used.  A story of one 1919 parade float created by the Holland Michigan Furnace Company.  As you will read, the good ship "Warm Friend-Ship" was used on July 4th and some of the fixtures were made of mashed sweet peas!  NOTE:  Only one of the women on the float was married.

Real Photo Postcard and accompanying documentation Collection Jim Linderman