License Plate Collection of Harvey Wilson (Cosmo Kramer the Assman)

License Plates used to be made by the same folks who "turned big rocks into little rocks" and lived in the "Graybar Hotel"....prisoners. They still do in Michigan! The prisoners also make little fake toy ones, I would link to the site but it has an address a mile long.

Despite Detroit's woes, it is still car country out here, and antique auto shows happen all the time...fellas in their second childhood bring them out, put on Gatsby caps, take the top down and clog side streets at 30 miles per hour. On a given weekend you can follow an oldie but goodie to the nearest show. I guess they all need a plate to go with their cars. I can't really think of any other reason to collect license plates, except as roofing shingles.

Except maybe for the money. A 1921 Alaska plate sold ten years ago for $60,000 in a Wendy's parking lot. Many of the most valuable seem to be Southern license plates from around 1912 and 1913...20 to 30 grand is not uncommon. In general, I think the lower the number, the better.

Mr. Harvey Wilson was Champion Michigan License Plate collector, at least in St. Charles. There is no date, but as the last two 1940 plates look fairly clean, so that's how I'm going to date the photo.

There is an Automobile License Plate Collectors Association but since I am not a member, I can't look up "The Plate of the Year."

My favorite license plate of all time was Kramer's vanity plate on Seinfeld. "ASSMAN" I can't link to it, but the 5 minute version on you tube is precious. It might just be the funniest half hour ever created for television. "Wait a minute, i'm not the Assman" "Sir, according to the state of New York you are." I wish Harvey had lived long enough to see it.

Vernacular Photograph Harvey Wilson License Plate Collector, circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman

Hand-painted FLO-PAQUE salesman sample card

If I am not mistaken, Flo-paque used to be a brand of Floquil, which if I am not mistaken again, was purchased by Testor's...the folks who help your kid paint his models. This salesman sample card not only shows "the actual colors" it was hand-painted! I assume the card was passed along a line and dabbed by each "color specialist" who specialized in...oh, let's say "maroon" before it went on to another expert. Pretty cool. Of course, after "copper" it would be set aside, likely overnight, before the reverse "lime" artist would start the back.

Paint salesman sample trade card, circa 1950? Collection Jim Linderman

Homemade Handmade Folk Art Amateur Stereograph Stereoviews of E. C. Allen and Andy Warhol 3-D

Let's face it. 3-D motion pictures are just an excuse to ignore a plot and they always have been. Not only are documentaries filmed under the sea the only ones worth seeing, the technology really isn't much more effective than the primitive ones with Moe repeatedly sticking his fingers towards the camera followed by a quick cut to Larry reacting. (OWW!) As I've said before, the best one ever made is the trashy Frankenstein movie Andy Warhol foisted, and that is only because it was so bad. (But the TRAILER is great! See below)


It is really nothing new. Here are a handful of somewhat unusual Handmade and hand-tinted amateur stereographs taken and assembled by one E. C. Allen in 1914. Allen apparently roamed the American South, shown are four from St. Augustine, Florida and one of a steamboat taken in Memphis.


Allen wasn't very good actually, but he was ambitious and in the right place. Primitive but interesting, and if you cross your eyes are you are almost there!


Handmade Stereograph Photographs by E. C Allen 1914 Collection Jim Linderman

The Early Gigantic Upskirt Silver Foam Soap and the Clean Billboard

Silver Foam Granulated Soap seems to have "left the (grocery) building" and joined the league of dead brands, but it certainly wasn't for a lack of taste. As you can see, their logo featured a hard working scrub woman with giant cheeks. She is working up a lather to match Lawrence Welk's bubble machine!

So falling under the category of "World's Earliest "Upskirt" photo (if you don't know what that is, check your son's phone camera) I have posted this on the Vintage Sleaze blog as well. But how many upskirt photos do you know with a robot featured in the middle of the desert with her gigantic glutes facing the traffic?

In case you think me demented for describing this logo as a stealthy and secretive photo technique, I am certainly not the only one. Note the "fine print" on the billboard. "Danger Electric Fence" and a "Reward $25.00" sign. Obviously, it was something to leave your car and peer up at...but for some fellas it got out of hand and they spoiled it for all by climbing up to grab a closer look. That there was electricity leads me to believe our washerwoman was an automotan, but I can't tell for sure. Make that "automowasherwomanotan."

Like when little Theodore Cleaver climbed up to see what was in the giant coffee cup, I don't think there was anything up there...but it would be worth a peek to make sure.


Original snapshot, circa 1945 Collection Jim Linderman

What's in YOUR Yard Folk Art Figures Litter Landscape

Assorted Yard Jigsaw Figure Snapshots circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

At the Circus in Black and White #21 Calcutta Monster 1957

Original Photograph 1957 Collection Jim Linderman

Vampire Vixens of the Victorian Age Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Four original photographs circa 1890 Collection Jim Linderman

Kicksville of Miriam Linna. Good Things come in Chapters

Some good things come in chapters. Maybe not too many folks know Miriam Linna was the original drummer for the Cramps. Maybe not too many folks know who the Cramps were. Both shall be corrected by reading a thrilling, honest, well documented and highly entertaining biography of sorts being digitized by Miriam Linna on her site Kicksville 66. I've known who Miriam is for most of my life! You can know her too, and read a REAL rock and roll tale yourself. Probably one of the last real rock and roll tales unfortunately, but you'll love it. Personally, If I had her stories I'd sign up with amazon's e-book thing and sell it, but she's obviously too generous. Highly recommended high or not. I confess to have been in love with even the POSSIBILITY of a woman as cool as Miriam Linna for as long as I remember and intend to read every word.
KICKSVILLE 66

The Dead Giant

Snapshot, circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Global Hobo Mini Micro Hand-Made Comics Galore

As the post office debates eliminating Saturday delivery (and rumors of a tax on email and texting pops up from time to time) there is still much to be said for a package you can carry up the stairs and slit open. I read a good deal of my trash on a kindle now, but still, the book, even if just a xeroxed and stapled pamphlet, rules.

Some of the most creative and certainly most affordable work being done today is available for three or four dollars a pop at Global Hobo, a well-run but low profit distributor of artist made comics. I've cribbed just a few of the covers of work available. Some of the artists selling their wares on this collective are up to ten issues of their titles, others are doing one-shots for fun. Global Hobo has been distributing hand-made comics for nearly ten years. Many of the artist's catalog entries link to their own full-blown websites thus opening up worlds of fun from this beautiful mail-order hub.

Some of the artists, like Geoff Vasile and Vanessa Davis are clearly going to break through to the "ISBN" world, others will likely stew in lonely apartments becoming increasingly morose and dramatically weirder. Which in the comics world is a good thing.



Global Hobo is HERE

Virginia Roehl Photograph and the Art of Window Display The Display News Service

Do these circus banners look at all odd to you? Could it be that they are painted on a bathroom wall, or at least seem to be? At any rate, the display is a miniature of some kind, look close and you can see a shower head.

Virginia Roehl was a window display news service. Located on West 57th Street in the 1950s, upscale (and I mean way upscale) clients like Tiffany's , Bonwit Teller, Bergman's and such hired them to document their window installations. The photographers who worked at Roehl took photographs of some of the most beautiful (and artistic) retail displays in New York. They could well have included installations by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and James Rosenquist, all of whom worked as window decorators. (Not too shabby, eh?) So did Salvador Dali. Warhol, in the last interview he gave, said "Everybody also was doing window decoration. That led into more galleries. I had some paintings in a window, then in a gallery."

Manhattan is literally full of art...and even the tiny spaces in storefront windows utilize it. When you consider up to a million people may pass your display in a week, a retailer best produce something interesting for display. It is also quite a showcase for an artist. How else might a young struggling visual artist reach an audience as large as a good day at the Met?

I can not find too much information on the Virginia Roehl Display News Service, but It would be a wonderful archive (and exhibit) should anyone find them. Obviously, they were connected. If I were still in NYC, I would be all over them.


As window work is temporal, the Roehl photographs may be the only pictures of some extraordinary work. The print here has their stamp on verso, as does one I locate in the Library of Congress of some work by Covarrubias.


The Ohio State University Exhibit Historic Costume and Textiles collection exhibit in 1999 used some Roel images, the catalog "The Art of Selling: A History of Visual Merchandising" is readily available on the web and is recommended.



Untitled Virginia Roehl Display News Service Photograph, circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

I'm With Dummy (Dull Tool Dim Bulb Ventriloquist Dummies)

Two Original Publicity Stills (unidentified) Circa 1945 Collection Jim Linderman

The Lost Chalk Masterpiece of E. J. Vernacular Photograph

I hate to post a sketch of a sketch, but unfortunately the artist who drew the above masterpiece had horrible handwriting which I can not make out. Not that it would have mattered much...the painting here was done in chalk, and as such probably wouldn't be around to appreciate even if I could make out the artist's name. Certainly his initials were E.J. and his children were Floyd and Nellie. The biblical scene was 30 x 50 on a blackboard, dates to 1923 and "was one of the best I had ever drawn" according to the artist. Feel free to enlarge and help...but I suspect E.J's masterpiece will remain unidentified for now.

A post also on the old time religion blog.

Anonymous Snapshot of Chalk Drawing, 1923 Collection Jim Linderman

The Carter Family Bob Dylan Songwriting Credits and Homemade Pie

All songs come from somewhere. Quite a few of them passed through the Carter Family on the way to others, but even the songs A. P Carter found in the hills came from somewhere before he learned them. This previously unpublished photograph of Mother Maybelle Carter and her sweet angels gives me opportunity to discuss only one notable song and where it came from. I guess credit COULD go to the first family of country music shown here...but who really cares other than the lawyers? Songs float around, get grabbed by some kid's fingers and learned again. We all benefit.

Dylan's "The Times They are a Changin'" (One of his earliest, if not THE earliest version which was finally released on The Witmark Demos 1962-1964) was actually, some say "Paths of Victory" which was based on the Carter Family song "Wayworn Traveler" which sounds more like "One Too Many Mornings" to me, but then "Paths of Victory" actually came from "PALMS of Victory" which was also recorded by (guess who) the Carter Family way back in the 1920s. Except that it may have been first recorded by Uncle Dave Macon...I didn't check the dates. It was also apparently known as "Deliverance Will Come" which was written by a minister in 1836. I'm not sure where he got it from. In a Wiki article, scholars seem to have given up. "It is clear that "Palms of Victory" had to be written by someone in particular..." an anonymous and frustrated scholar writes. I suspect it came from either Clinch Mountain or Africa...and probably the latter.

My point is, I guess...that George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" was NOT based on Phil Spector's "She's So Fine." except that it was.

In January 1949 Victor Records signed the Carter Family, then known as "The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle" actually, to a record deal.1949 was also the year the Carter Family hooked up with Chet Atkins and they all moved to Springfield, Missouri. At the time A.P. Carter was running a general store in Maces Spring, Virginia, having left the group he founded years earlier. (What records he had on his Victrola has not been reported). In June of that year, they found time to dress up and go to a picnic...I'm glad someone was there with a Brownie. (Click to Enlarge...someone was selling Pies) Original Snapshot of the Carter Family June 1949 (Anonymous Photographer) Collection Jim Linderman

At the Circus in Black and White #20 (In Miniature) Vernacular Photograph

Anonymous Snapshot "Bob Bernard's 1/4" Scale Al G. Barnes Circus Monkey Cage-4 Horse Hitch" typed on reverse. No Date Collection Jim Linderman

Mr. Teeter Finds a Drift Card. Giant Fish DNA Asian Carp, Mistakes in the Great Lakes and Exaggeration Postcards

I have nothing against my friends in Chicago except for a huge, disgusting invasive species known as the Asian Carp. Able to jump large boats in a single bound. In fact, during fishing contests, they often do just that, literally giving themselves up by plopping their gross girth right into the hull. That isn't all they do...bigger eaters than Joey Chestnut at Coney Island after a fast (look him up) they deplete any water they occupy of the good fish...leaving you forced to make a decision. Do I stop eating fish? Or do I adapt and start rolling that ugly water dinosaur into corn meal.

Seriously, man...pictures of those giant goldfish look like exaggeration postcards from the 1950s. They'll grow to four feet on our delicious sport fish!

So far, as near as I can tell, an electric barrier (a bug-zapper for fish!) has been installed to keep the river monsters away...but some carp DNA has slipped through...Ewwww! Around here there are signs on lawns reading "NO MISTAKE IN THE LAKE" and though they refer to the fat, scaly Mylopharyngoden, they always make me think of something I did in the lake as a kid.

Michigan is attempting to force some Illinois rivers and canals to zip it up. Some of them appear to be trying to sneak through near Calumet (a city once known for sin, drugs and strippers)

So anyway, speaking of postcards, here is a nice one. A note sent to Mr. Roy Teeter way back in 1958. Mr. Teeter found a message in a bottle! Apparently walking near the shoreline, he found what is known as a "drift card" released by the Great Lakes Fishery Investigations several years earlier. He was rewarded with this note acknowledging his fine fishy find!

President Obama has appointed a "fish czar" to monitor the situation. I hope they keep an eye on things, or the fake fish postcards of the past will have to show BIGGER fake fish.

"Drift card note" to Roy Teeter, 1958 collection Jim Linderman
Salesman Sample "Freak Fish" postcard circa 1950 collection Jim Linderman

Announcing Dull Tool Dim Bulb EDITIONS Fine Art Prints From the Jim Linderman Collection

Designers and Collectors take note! Dull Tool Dim Bulb has teamed up with Artslant to sell affordable, high-quality prints of selected photographs and images from the Jim Linderman collection. At the shop, you will be given the opportunity to select the size of the reproduction, and even have the pieces professionally framed if you so choose! Some images will be available as large as a poster. Above are a few of the images available for purchase, and again, the operative word is AFFORDABLE. You'll see.

CLICK HERE to see ARTSLANT Dull Tool Dim Bulb Print Inventory.