Dull Tool Dim Bulb

A Folk Art Carved Parsnip! Ephemeral Folk Art

A Folk Art Carved Parsnip! From "American Scenery Lake George Views Stereoview card
Lamson and Smith Photographers. 19th Century. Collection Jim Linderman
Thanks to Invisible Commute.

Vernacular Architecture Folk Art Environment Unknown Location Vintage Snapshot

Location Unknown. Snapshot collection Jim Linderman

Antique Folk Art Room Mural Cabinet Card Photograph

Antique Folk Art Room Mural Cabinet Card Photograph. Likely in or near Merrimac, MA. Original photograph by "View Photographer" C. E Sawyer circa 1880.
Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Wooden Matchbox Covers from Russia

Antique Wooden Matchbox Covers from Russia.
Collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Things to MAKE Seal Kaps Milk Bottle Tops

Things to MAKE Seal Kaps Milk Bottle Tops. 1931
Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

An Unfortunate "Art Car"

An "art car" with particularly bad taste. "Shot by Otto Hedbany and Donald Strable" in near Glidden, WI. Things not to be proud of.

World's Record Black Bear postcard. Collection Jim Linderman

old time religion Drop a Coin in the Sock

old time religion Drop a Coin in the Sock. "Novelty" fundraising coin sock
Troy Church 1936. Collection Jim Linderman

Vernacular Architecture Folk Art Miniature Building constructed with One Hand

Miniature building on Original postcard c. 1950. I haven't identified the person who built this scale copy of the Colorado State Capital building with ONE HAND, but maybe you can. It's too nice a day to stay inside. Apparently the model no longer stands.
BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY DULL TOOL DIM BULB are available HERE.

Vintage Folk Art Game Board Two-Sided

Vintage Folk Art Game Board Two-Sided c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Doodle Bug Antique Folk Art Drawing Collection Jim Linderman

Doodle Bug early 20th Century Folk Art Drawing Collection Jim Linderman

Antique American Folk Art Sculpture Woman with Necklace 19th Century

Antique American Folk Art Sculpture Woman with Necklace Life sized. Three views. Collection Jim Linderman

Ed Bortz

I am proud to present the 4th installment of the worst comic artists in the world series. The horrendous two-tone fetishistic images of one Ed Bortz! Even with his unusual last name, I was unable to find anything about him. A shame. Imagine the duo-tone nightmares he must have suffered as cross-hatched beards and brick-hard bosoms danced in his head, forcing him to jot down his most recent hilarious ideas at 3:00 am. Grisaille? NO, these miniature marvels demand a full palette of TWO colors! I turned these up in Michigan, likely sent home to the spouse by hunters and fishermen up north to drink. As Milwaukee publisher L. L. Cook (shame on you) is across the lake, maybe the cards snuck over on the ferry and multiplied like weeds in bait and ammo shops of Northern Michigan.

To see previous entries of the most putrid postcards in history, click subject heading below.

Four red and black postcards by Bortz. 1954, 1955 Collection Jim Linderman

Topiary Bicycle

Topiary Bicycle snapshot collection Jim Linderman
THANKS TO BOXLOT

World's Smallest Mother rppc

Real photo postcard of Dolletta and her two cesarean babies.
Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Folk Art Drawing Nerves of the Telephone System c. 1955 High Schoolgirl Artist

Folk Art Drawing Nerves of the Telephone System c. 1955 by High School Artist Jackie Davis Watercolor paint on writing paper from her "Health Emotions" scrapbook.

Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

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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Though the images, which I have myself largely scanned from my personal collection of photographs and ephemera, some are subject to © by the artist, syndicate that distributed them or otherwise the individual artists. The use here is regardless covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
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