Dull Tool Dim Bulb

First Sin ? Raccoon Eyes on Preacher Aldrich and Wife

Someone was given a pen to shut him up in church. Note reverse: The Way to Hell --Simply Do Nothing

Defaced Church Invitation, circa 1900 Collection Jim Linderman
(Also posted on old-time-religion the blog)

Cross Writing Cross Eyed Dull Tool Dim Bulb Greatest Hit

I am working on a big project, so you get a rerun today. Stick Around.

Must click to enlarge

Two 19th Century "cross written" letters. Cross writing was a technique to save paper when paper was scarce. Every scrap mattered at one time (one of these is dated 1823) so the writer, upon reaching the end of the page, would turn the paper 90 degrees and add a second layer of text. Once it becomes familiar, the mind adapts easily and cross written letters are surprisingly legible. Charles Darwin famously used the technique.
Original Post from Dull Tool Dim Bulb the Daily Blog
Two Early 19th Century Cross Writing letters, Collection Jim Linderman

Black Forest Carvings are all BROWN Totem Pole with Jesus and a Cowboy

WHAT the? It looks like Jesus climbed up and took the ladder up after him! Actually, this is an image of, well...a totem pole? A crucifixion? Note horse, rider and weathervane! A serious conglomeration of carver crafts all mounted on one goofy pole! Incongruity defined!

This is a 1914 German postcard from the Black Forest area. Long known for their carvers (of the most bizarre things...bear cubs holding a bench up, pile of pile upon pile of fake wooden deer heads with antlers, crazy cuckoo clocks, various gnomes and yodelers) and every damn one of them BROWN. They HAD paint, as seen here, but for some reason never used it.

The carvings might be German, they might be Swiss, but they are all brown. For those of you interested, the Black Forest belongs completely to the state of Baden-Württemberg and comprises the city of Pforzheim as well as the following districts (Kreise). In the north: Enz, Rastatt and Calw; in the middle: Freudenstadt, Ortenaukreis and Rottweil; in the south: Emmendingen, Schwarzwald-Baar, Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, Lörrach and Waldshut. Does that help? As you can see, Ida visited.

I remember once a dealer had dumped like two hundred Black Forest carvings on tables at the 26th Street Flea Market (R.I.P)...most of them deer heads and most of them busted up. No one showed any interest at all.

German "Postkarte" mailed 1914 Collection Jim Linderman

NOTE: An outstanding and thoughtful interpretation of this piece appears on the beautiful site "THE JESUS QUESTION" HERE. by Victoria Emily Jones. Very much appreciated and recommended...and a great site.

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books

Fotofun ! The OTHER Pre-Photoshop Postcard Game! Laugh your HEADS off!

As promised, the other Fotofun product from the 1930s. See the original post HERE. This booklet was also designed to encourage lopping the heads off your loved one's photographs and pasting them on hilarious templates...70 years before photoshop! (but with a one-cent stamp twist) Send them to friends! How many were actually created and mailed? I have no idea. Any deltiologists out there with one that went through the mail, glued-on noggin intact? Seems like a collection waiting to happen!

Fotofun Post Cards original booklet 1935. "Just cut the heads off photos of the family"
Collection Jim Linderman

Inherited Values (Essential) Deanna Dahlsad contest, collectibles and MORE

The lovely, talented, prolific and brilliant Deanna Dahlsad is having a seasonal Fall contest on her Antiques and Vintage Collectibles site INHERITED VALUES which provides a perfect time for you to explore her site, one of several, and one I recommend. Deanna is a writer and scholar, smart as a whip and with a far better eye than I. Check out Inherited Values. One of the best antique sites on the web and a site to treasure. Inherited Values is also on Facebook.

The Magic of Abbott's Magic What's in YOUR Colon? RPPC collection Jim Linderman

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Michigan has been blessed for the last 80 years with the Abbott Magic and Novelty Company. They have been located in Colon, Michigan since 1933. I am in love with Abbott's even though I'm not a magician...so anything I write would be biased. The firm's WEBSITE is HERE. An AMAZING collection is shown HERE in a 6 minute film.

My copy of the catalog, from which I have cribbed a few astounding images, is the 22nd edition dated 1976. It is, I'm not kidding, 433 pages. That I have never left it behind in all my moves since should tell you something.

Want a taste of the real thing? Check out this astounding and quite beautiful film made around the same time showing Percy Abbott and his business partner Recil Bordner performing in front of the store. Ignore the funky finger plunked bass-line and enjoy the show.

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books HERE

Sexual Equality

PAY ATTENTION

PAY ATTENTION
(SEE ALSO VINTAGE SLEAZE THE DAILY BLOG)

RAG PICTURE How to Make a Rag Picture

The Rag Picture is a forgotten art. The Balda company, located in beautiful Oshkosh Wisconsin, started selling instructions back in 1928 I believe, but the history is incomplete. Balda sold to magicians, preachers,vaudeville performers and anyone who could develop a convincing patter to go along with their show. They not only sold the backing and the easel, they sold the RAGS. Impressive? Just wait! Dim the lights. Balda also sold BLACK LIGHTS so the speaker could finish with a trippy flourish!

Balda is a history aching to be told, but I'm going to take a nap instead.

Balda Advertisement circa 1967 and catalog images circa 1936?

A Delicate Balance Curt carries a Chair RPPC collection Jim Linderman

Curt "No Last Name" and "A Member of Our Group" balances a chair.

Real Photo Postcard circa 1920 Collection Jim Linderman

Slide Guitar Like Daddy Real Photo Postcard circa 1926 Collection Jim Linderman

A beauty. Original Real Photo Postcard circa 1926, Azosquare back produced to the 1930s

Father and Son with Slide Guitars collection Jim Linderman

The Art of Theosophy and Fruity Pebbles Thought Form Paintings of Varley, Prince and Macfarlane

SUDDEN FRIGHT

ANGRY JEALOUSY

ON THE FIRST NIGHT

SUSTAINED ANGER

VAGUE INTELLECTUAL PLEASURE

PEACE AND PROTECTION

I haven't had my coffee yet, so I'm not going to explain Theosophy, a big bag of astral matter and vibrating shenanigans mixed up with strange science and fruity pebbles...but the pictures are wonderful.

Read the foundation (shaky) HERE.

Pictures from THOUGHT FORMS BY ANNIE BESANT AND C.W. LEADBEATER HERE
(Collect them all)

DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS AVAILABLE HERE

Loneliness of the Chain Saw Carver

Lowliest of art forms, the Chain Saw Carver. Craft? Hobby? Tourist art? Folk Art? Akin to Ice Sculptors and Sand Castle Builders. Can a work of fine art be made with a chain saw?
Ask Tobe Hooper.

A Day in the Life of Charlie! Dull Tool Dim Bulb Behind the Scenes

It's a Dull Tool Dim Bulb EXCLUSIVE as we follow Charlie
Behind the Scenes with our unlimited Backstage Access!

Charlie touches up ascot before MTV Dance Routine

Charlie rehearses Lines with Vocal Coach

Charlie meets "the girls" before big number

Charlie instructs go-fer and lawyer

Charlie checks Auto-Tune software

After long day, Charlie get's lucky with starlet

Get your JIVE on DEEP Glad Hand from Dull Tool Dim Bulb

ABC Orchards Invents the Product Label RPPC of early Branded Produce

We routinely peel branding stickers off our fruit before eating it. Even chicken eggs are gently machine-stamped now, and individual products have had trackable chips packed with them for years. I suppose Gillette could now tell you which landfill contains the most cast off packaging from their razors. The QR box, the latest "sign of the beast" is already becoming as familiar as bar codes of the distant past.

There was a day when advertising was done by handwritten signs, and if the producer was feeling especially extravagant, a real photo post card. ABC should have put a patent on this idea instead of just a label on their apples.

ABC Orchards "The Home of the Lettered Apple" Advertising Real Photo Postcard circa 1925 Collection Jim Linderman

DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS AVAILABLE HERE

A Devil of Questionable Gender RPPC

I'm not quite sure if this is a devil girl or a devil boy.

Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman

World's Largest Slot Machine on Dull Tool Dim Bulb

So big they had to hire several models just to pull Barney's giant knob!

Unfortunately, I am going to guess it pays exactly the same odds as the little guys, which is regulated by law, which means over time you will leave with about 8.5 cents in your jeans for every dime you play. Or these days, with your plastic "magic bonus super-winner jackpot" card purchased at the door.

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

Fair Use

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:
1. The image illustrates an educational article; its inclusion in the article adds significantly to understanding the text because it is a historical sample of the art covered in the critical commentary, and shows use of an innovative style. Therefore the image substantially improves the educational value of the article.
2. The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of the article topic, which directly concerns a visual artist, and is indicative of the style for which hethe artists are renowned.
3. Images are of lower resolution than the original. The image is not used here for profit.

4. It is not in any way replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image pertinent to the work referenced in the article

The copyright for some images are most likely owned by either the publisher, the writer(s) and/or artist(s) which produced them originally.

Any other uses of this image may be copyright infringement.

Although most of the images here are original photography and objects owned by the author and in the author's personal collection, we cannot absolutely guarantee the exact copyright status of the items or offer written assurance that every or any aspect of this work is completely cleared for all usages. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

Any Trademarks used in this item listing are used for strictly descriptive purposes only. No association or endorsement is implied or inferred. No character or trademark ownership is given or implied.

If you are the owner of any aspect of an item which you believe to be copyrighted, please contact us immediately at j.winkel4@gmail.com