21" Tall Wood Carving of a Nude Woman

21" Tall Wood Cerving of a Nude Woman, likely unfinished.  Circa 1950 Studio piece.
Collection Jim Linderman

BAIT Vending Machine with Worms

Original press photograph 1957 Collection Jim Linderman

Man in a Hurry Antique American Folk Art Carving

Man in a Hurry  Antique American Folk Art Carving circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman

The Bizarre Easter of Margaret Halpin

Drawing of Easter Egg decorating.  Margaret Halpin, New York, Circa 1950
Collection Jim Linderman
See also the book Eccentric Folk Art Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries HERE

Cultural Detritus of Horror: Truck Stop Pornographic Eight Track Tapes

Imagine a guy hauling a double trailer-rig, jacked-up on speed with one hand on the wheel and one in his pants.  The CONCEPT is as bad as the vision...but here comes "Spanky" with a big load.  Pun reluctantly intended.  File these pornographic eight-track tapes under "Cultural detritus" which should  have never happened. 

Someone is driving at dark and listening to cheap, truck stop smut EIGHT TRACK TAPES! 

Online, I find a few sources for information about pornographic eight track tapes.  I CAN tell you there were at least 57 in this series, as I have both number 000 and 057 here.  Collect them ALL.  Local entrepreneurs likely churned them out in seedy neighborhoods along the highway.

These obscurities would fall into the "spoken word" category of recorded sound collecting, but I don't think the fellow who purchased these originally would have alternated the playlist with a stirring speech from Winston Churchill or Robert Frost reading his poetry. 

Everyone understands by now that every advance in media is taken over by sex somehow.  From the camera to the VCR and beyond.  But eight tracks?  Don't come knocking if the rig is rocking SOLO.

All three here were decorated by the same artist.   I guess "cartoonist" is more appropriate.  The scrapheap of popular culture has spit out yet another relic of horror.

Group of X-rated Eight Track Tapes.  No date.  Circa 1970. 

Errol Flynn Amateur Watercolor before the Fall

A Tasmanian Devil smoking.  Errol Flynn was literally the "In like Flynn" guy and it is estimated he slept with 10,000 woman.  He drank "like Flynn" too and by the age of 40 was an alcoholic only offered roles playing an alcoholic, so he took to his boat and sailed the seas.  I wouldn't say he lived as a swashbuckler, but he had a hell of a short life. The studio had plenty of reasons to drop him.

Eventually he began to accept the drunk roles. 

Errol became a member of an elite club I fear is not too select, despite his fame.  That would be the club which drinks a fifth of vodka or more a day.  Wrong decision for anyone.  The fifth became a quart, then two quarts.  When he passed at the age of 59 he was one of those guys they say "had the body of an 85 year old man" about. 

He was married three times. but  who knows how many woman had his children over the course of his film career?  So there must be offspring out there.  Yup.  Sean Flynn, his son, was quite possibly captured by the Khmer Rouge, executed and later became the subject of a song by the Clash. 

Yes, Errol Flynn was born in Tasmania.  He may have been a real-life spy.  He may have been bisexual.  Here he is seen in his handsome Hollywood days.

Amateur drawing of Errol Flynn, circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman 

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

Trio of Handmade Folk Art Marble Game Boards made by the same hand circa 1955

A trio of folk art game boards by the same hand.  Odd to see three like this together now… but they  collectively make up a "mid-century modern graphic" oddity for the wall.  Cabin decor class!   Circa 1955?  Each just over 16" x 16.

A commercial version of the game was manufactured in 1960, but I am going to guess guys had been making this marble game for decades in the basement.  Hobbyist and woodworking magazines were full of this kind of thing around the 1950s.  But how were three boards by the same hand re-assembled into one collection 50+ years later?

I speculate each was eventually given BACK to the maker long after they were gifted. Maybe Pop made a set for each of his kids?  All found and assembled into a collection by a picker?  All three have bread board ends, which were hand built, and all drilled with the same precision.  Each shows different use and wear, each has age and all three were found together at an antique shop.  One has a taped "rules" sheet affixed still.

Trio of Handmade Folk Art Marble Game Boards circa 1955 Collection Jim Linderman

Mysterious and Thrilling Atomic Energy Circus with Dancing Static Girl

Well, it's not really Atomic Energy which makes the little guys twirl, it's static.  Still, static seems to be a powerful force!  It's ripped the panties right from the paper-thin dancing woman!  Thrilling! "Mysterious"  Sorta like Fukishima!
BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY THE AUTHOR OF DULL TOOL DIM BULB ARE AVAILABLE HERE

Big Blly Cox and his Football Friends Art from the Sports Trades

Billy Cox and a few of his locker buds from 1950.  Source material for Billy, but the other two are, as yet (or as forever) anonymous.  If I liked football, I might take the time to ID them. Football, for all the gizmos and flying cameras and million dollar talking heads, is probably no better than it was in 1950.  I didn't watch then either, of course.  The last game I saw had Tom Brady, supermodel dater and super deflategate cheater.  He makes around 10 million bucks a year shilling products and the team pays him 20 million a year.  He used to support Trump until someone in the upper office told him to shut up.

Anonymous crayon drawings of football players, circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman