Mystery Item from Dull Tool Dim Bulb

I will admit to knowing what this beast of burden is...do you?  3 feet long with neck extended.  Whatzit collection Jim Linderman

Real Photo Postcard of the Week Ride 'em! RPPC

Real Photo Postcard of the Week  Ride 'em!  (detail) No Date  Collection Jim Linderman

Sherlock Holmes solves the puzzle of the Plummeting Pound

That globalization is a bitch, eh?  Some tousle-headed Donald Trump wannabe who looks like Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits on a REALLY BAD DAY effs up the whole world's economy with his ill-planned racist myopic campaign to reach the similarly ill-informed voter.  They ruined my 401K and I didn't even get to vote!   Look at that tool.  Remind you of anyone?

Damn that Murdoch and his media domination.  Every time I hear some Republican complain about the "lame stream" media, I want to tell them that little evil prick Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, Sky News in the UK and that filthy rag The Sun Newspaper over there too.  Trump just had lunch with him while the UK watches 40 years of stability and progress leave town.  Murdoch is the real mainstream media.  Together, the whole lot has the journalistic credibility of that closeted Matt Drudge, the fake Walter Winchell.  We have let journalism shrink to the stature of a supermarket pet cage bottom.

Brexiter is just another way to say Idiot…which also happens to be the very same group of constituents supporting Trump.  (Shudder)  I hope some of them learn their lesson from this debacle and try actually thinking before pulling the handle down.   You want a REAL return to recession?  Vote for Trump and watch the dollar sink like the sun goes down off the white cliffs of Dover.

Still, globalization is here to stay, as our real leaders are big corporations and big brands…not buffoons like Trump.  I just wish they had seen Brexit coming.  They underestimated the stupidity of the scared, white voter who won't ever fit into the world coming.  I wish the news reporters would call them that instead of xenophobic.  None of them even know what the word means! 

The Brits should be used to globalization by now.  Here, we see their greatest creation, Sherlock Holmes, was repurposed in TURKEY or somewhere.  It is a small world.  MY vote goes to Serlok Holmes.

Antique Erotic Folk Art Debauched Bacchanal Nude Women Carving

Erotic Folk Art Antique Carving Two Nude Women in Debauched Revelry! Circa 1930 Pennsylvania origin Collection Jim Linderman. Thanks to Mark Smerkanich

With Love to Cleveland Folk Art Carving

African-American folk art carving circa 1960 Collection Jim Linderman

19th Century American Folk Art Drawing c. 1865 Collection Jim Linderman

19th Century American Folk Art Drawing c. 1865 Collection Jim Linderman

Now Available ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES from Blurb.com.  FREE PREVIEW BELOW

Eccentric Folk Art Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Linderman Collection

By Jim Linderman

Giant Pin Ups on the Road ! Vintage Handpainted Billboard Signs of the Past

There is no real evidence that billboards are effective in generating profit, but they do aid in brand recognition.  Signs offering a "petting zoo" and clean bathrooms probably worked during the glory days of road travel, but today it is mostly the big yellow hamburger sign drawing in customers.  The concept of sex in advertising also comes to play here.  That we KNOW is effective. There is no way to measure how many riders have been killed by the wandering eyes of the driver in these snaps. The photographer stood close enough to the signs to eliminate any skid marks on the ground.

Lady Bird Johnson tried to eliminate billboards during the Johnson administration.  To preserve beauty, not the money in your pocket.  Some countries have outlawed them for safety, but texting while driving is far more dangerous now.  

I would have looked at these while passing, but I don't think I would have gotten off to buy tires.

Vintage (1940?) Pin-up Billboard Snapshot photographs.  Thanks to CURLEY'S ANTIQUES.

Primitive Handmade Electric Motor with Certificate of Accomplishment 1947

Primitive Handmade Electric Motor with Certificate of Accomplishment 1947 
Collection Jim Linderman

Hand-painted Wedding Watercolor

Painted by Hand wedding watercolor with applied felt hat, picture frame and wedding veil.  No date. Collection Jim Linderman

Sideshow Banners Vintage Photographs of a Ten-in-One

A "Ten in One" is a sideshow with ten different shows.  This one had a dozen.  
Sideshow Banners Vintage Photographs of a Ten-in-One Anonymous, no date.
Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Folk Art Valvoline Hand-Painted Sign Easy Flow Oil c. 1950 Petroliana

Original vintage Folk Art Valvoline Hand-Painted Sign Easy Flow Oil c. 1950.  I heard that Frank Fritz and the American Pickers are coming to Michigan.  Got this JUST IN TIME!  Pretty unusual to find a painted by hand petroliana sign, and whoever made it designed his own logo!  He even remembered to paint the V upside down when letting the oil out. 

Antique Folk Art Valvoline Hand-Painted Sign Easy Flow Oil c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Erotic Folk Art Antique Wood Carving Two Nude Women and a Dog

Erotic Folk Art Antique Carving Two Nude Women and a Dog  circa 1930 Pennsylvania origin Collection Jim Linderman.  Thanks to Mark Smerkanich

A HUGE Barn RPPC Collection Jim Linderman

A HUGE Barn!  Note tiny cows headed to pasture! 
Real Photo Postcard photograph  Collection Jim Linderman

19th Century Folk Art Drawing of a Woman with Bustle collection Jim Linderman

19th Century Folk Art Drawing of a Woman with Bustle (Emma Naylor) drawn on the reverse of an Ashtabula Railroad Company receipt dated 1866.  Collection Jim Linderman
SEE ALSO THE BOOK (and instant download Ebook) HERE for Orders and Free Preview

Hell's Playground White Cargo and the Socialite who visited Africa Hedy Lamarr Stars in Blackface!

What does this woman have in her hand?  HELL'S PLAYGROUND, her expose of the effect marauding colonialists had on the people of Africa.  Watching the new production of Roots on the box gives me pause…we tortured the ones left over there too, unfortunately.   This is Ida Vera Simonton.  The socialite visited the French colony of Gabon in 1906.  Her "expose" is hardly that, as the entire point of the book was to present the inhabitants as savages, and she tromped through Africa protected by a handful of big white men with big guns. 

It appears her trip was more an excuse to avoid testifying in a murder trial than it was fact-finding.  Her rich family sent her off to try to avoid scandal involving the case of a murdered architect. 

Hell's Playground was published in 1912, and ten years later Broadway producers ripped her off, creating the far better known play White Cargo.  She sued to be compensated.

The later film version starred Hedy Lamar as Tondelayo, a femme-fatale who I guess tempts the fellows…and then murders one or more.  Witchy woman!  They darkened her skin so she could appear African.  The New York Times called her "mahogany" and Hedy became a star!

Watch the trailer.  Then watch the hilarious catchphrase.  What are those natives UP to.
Original Photograph collection Jim Linderman  

Itty-Bitty Tintype Bowser Photograph of a Dog 1/16 Plate

Tintypes were the far cheaper yet far less attractive child of the daguerreotype and the ambrotype.  Still, they brought ownership of a photograph to the masses.  Here a loving friend has documented his dog for the ages.  GOOD BOY!  STAY! Stay...

Original miniature tintype of a dog circa 1870.  1/16th plate.  Collection Jim Linderman
Courtesy Curley's Antiques

ONE DOLLAR DINNER Hand-Painted (twice) Antique Folk Art Sign

Dinner for a Dollar Hand-Painted (twice) Antique Folk Art Sign.  Once to announce a gas station had moved, again to announce dinner was reasonably priced.  Michigan origin.  
Collection Jim Linderman

American Folk Art in Place: IN - SITU The BOOK by Jim Linderman Available NOW!

AMERICAN FOLK ART IN PLACE: IN-SITU by Jim Linderman is NOW available.  A large format vintage photography book which reveals hundreds of folk art environments and unique folk art sculptures as installed over the years.  The book documents numerous outsider art installations (many previously unknown) and photographs of known and unknown artists at work.  All photographs will be drawn from the collection of Jim Linderman, whose previous vintage photography books include the ground-breaking Take Me to the Water,  The Birth of Rock and Roll and Arcane Americana.  The book will be the companion to Eccentric Folk Art Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Linderman Collection.  Same size, same format and also available as an affordable instant download e-book. American Folk Art In Place: In-Situ is a much expanded and revised edition of the now out of print original book of the same title.  Details and a free preview of the book will follow.  Inquiries to J.Winkel4@gmail.com 

Shown:  Untitled snapshot (Feed the Monkey) unknown location, circa 1950.  Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Pin Up Girls Drawn by William Fitzgerald 1935 - 1950

Pin-up drawings by William Fitzgerald 1930 - 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Sewer Tile Head from Grand Ledge Clay Product Company of Michigan End of Day Art

Michigan had several clay sewer tile factories, and like the others (particularly in Ohio) their workers would take unused clay at the end of the day and make whimsical pieces of pottery for friends.  This sewer tile head (with a pile of tiles stacked ready for transport in the Real Photo Postcard) is signed on the base Curtis Rugge who was a pretty good sculptor.  See also the essay by Marsha MacDowell and Kurt Dewhurst from 1980 titled The Sewer Tile Clay Pottery of Grand Ledge, Michigan. Interestingly, they point out that Michigan drew employees from Ohio to work for them...a small rivalry, but likely also an exchange of skills and ideas for pieces like this.  

Grand Ledge folk art Sewer Tile Head and Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman