Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Musical Knapp Family of Michigan

Musical Knapp Family of Michigan Real Photo Postcard Collection and Juke Box Hits
More on the family HERE. Collection Jim Linderman

BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY THE AUTHOR AVAILABLE HERE

Where Those Novelty Photographs Come From: GEORGE'S

Did you ever wonder where all those novelty carnival photographs of people looking silly sticking their heads through holes in a photography studio? Here's the answer. Georges!

Novelty Photograph in original sleeve George's "Fat Boy" Photos San Francisco, CA No Date
Collection Jim Linderman

Sleestak Halloween from Dull Tool Dim Bulb Handmade Folk Art Mask

After considerable thought, I've decided to go with Sleestak.

Handmade Sleestak Mask (Epoxy Resin, Corduroy, Paper Mache, Paint) circa 1975
Collection Jim Linderman

Animal Trainers At the Circus in Black and White #34 on Dull Tool Dim Bulb collection Jim Linderman

It has been a while, but here is At the Circus in Black and White number 34, the latest installment of the series here on DTDB. Animal Trainers! Top is Buckles Woodcock, Elephant trainer extreme. Second is an unknown Dog Trainer.

Others in the series are found HERE

Snapshots circa 1959 collection Jim Linderman

Books and Ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE

Radium Real Photo Postcard ! Reading by the Warmth of the Fire in Red

Not to worry, this RED real photo postcard from the early 20th century isn't glowing from radiation despite being produced by the Radium Studio in Muskegon. Some RPPC images were printed on red paper (or on paper tinted red) to indicate warmth. This is a perfect example, as the gent is reading by the warmth of a fire. A discussion figuring out the process is HERE on the Post Card Collector site.

Radium Photography, an unusual name for a company, is still in business! They were founded in 1909 and for over 100 years have been providing service to the Western Michigan area! See their website HERE. Imagine the number of images a century old company has produced.

Undated RPPC in red Collection Jim Linderman

Books and ebooks by Jim Linderman are shown HERE

Corn Corn Corn Natural Corn Colored Grains at the World's Only Corn Palace RPPC Folk Art collection Jim Linderman

Thinking of a few corn cobs hanging on the outside door for Halloween? Beat This.

"Today" panel made of natural colored grains WORLD'S ONLY CORN PALACE - MITCHEL S.DAK D. Grigg Pix Co. No Date (circa 1940?) Real Photo Postcard
Collection Jim Linderman

Dapple Painted Honky Tonk Piano and a few Burleskers photograph collection Jim Linderman

No date, but a nice photograph of the "glory" days of burlesque. Note folk art dapple-painted piano at left and performer slugging hooch.

Original photograph no date Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Folk Art Whirligig Sawing Wood Man

Antique Folk Art Whirligig Sawing Wood Man. A whopper...23 inches tall. This would have been quite the sight on a windy day when intact.

Whirligig Fragment Collection Jim Linderman

Pick a Pair of Folk Art Peckers Antique Handmade Chicken Toy Original Paint collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Homemade Folk Art Toy with Original Paint collection Jim Linderman

A Tintype GHOST collection Jim Linderman

A tintype ghost. "A bad Victorianish" painted backdrop has through wear become a ghastly apparition over this bloke's shoulder!

I spent five years looking "behind the sitter" in every tintype I could find putting together my book titled "The Painted Backdrop" available in easy $5.99 ebook form, ahem, HERE. I still can't break the habit. Which is fine, as the backdrops are often far more interesting than the people. In this case, particularly so.

$5.99 ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE.

This Is Why the Girls Leave Home (?) Heavyweight Mackenroth Brothers and B. E. Howlett

Some serious poundage from the Great Depression! How four brothers managed to put on so much chunk when the rest of the country was struggling is beyond me, but here they are. Look close at the upper right and you'll see they are standing in front of a bakery. That might give us a clue. Fat cats.

GRILS??? That one is easy, our fat-fingered typist meant "Girls" certainly.

Why the Girls Leave Home? Hmm. A song title, at least twice. Once in 1914 and again in the 1940s. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the photo.

Books and ebooks by Jim Linderman are available HERE

Original Snapshot 1933 Anonymous, Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Folk Art Handmade Tiger Mask (Go Tigers) Circa 1950 collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Folk Art Handmade Tiger Mask (Go Tigers) Circa 1950 collection Jim Linderman

The Detroit Tigers are in the playoffs and need my support! The rest of the city? Well...it's a little more complicated.

Vintage Folk Art Handmade Gameboard Parcheesi Original Paint circa 1920 Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Folk Art Handmade Game Board Parcheesi circa 1920 Collection Jim Linderman

Dapple Painted Depression Era Blonde Dame Folk Art Woman Wood Carving Collection Jim Linderman

Dapple Painted Depression Era Blonde Dame Folk Art Woman Wood Carving with Original Paint
Collection Jim Linderman

True Crime Lost in Time ? Siple RELEASED? Hex Ridden Witchcraft Murder

True Crime Lost in Time ? Siple RELEASED? Hex Ridden Witchcraft Murder.

Well, I'm not quite sure how one makes a mistake about a faith healer killing his family, but sure enough, read the small notation scribed by someone down at the paper. "Siple was released"

Released?

"Father seized in "Hex" Death"

"Howard Siple, 33 year old faith healer and head doctor, has been jailed at Clarksburg, W. VA, charged with the "witchcraft murder," of his 12-year old daughter, Helen, and the poisoning of six others of his nine children. Siple migrated to Clarksburg from the Hex-Ridden farmland near York, PA. Siple is shown above left standing beside a state policeman. 7/3/34"

Now here is a real mystery for you. Why is Siple smiling if his family was murdered? I can only think it was a mistake, maybe involving a bad furnace and carbon monoxide? But even so, why is Siple SMILING? What is a "Head" doctor? For that matter, what is a "Hex Ridden Faith Healer?"

I looked around a little and found less. Short of calling the town historian, I'm not quite sure how to figure this one out. As you can see, they cops "collared" him…but the touch up guy at the newspaper actually drew in the collar.

Howard Siple Original Press Photograph 1934 Collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Kicking Man Whirligig Remnant

Folk Art Man Kicks Mule. What is left of a "Man Kicks Mule" Whirligig. Intricate mechanism inside allows the arm to be pulled down producing a firm kick in the rear. Circa 1930?
Collection Jim Linderman

Debt Crisis Averted! Giant Texas Dollars to Pay Off Debt

Now that Junior Senator Crazy Cruz has somehow achieved the impossible: becoming as hated as it took fellow Republican Dick Nixon DECADES to do…the debt looms over us like never before. Cruz is formerly best known as an advisor to George Bush (the little one) also of Texas (purportedly.) He is now widely recognized as the biggest fruity pebble in the box. So it is appropriate Texas has offered to pay off the Chinese with the biggest bucks in history! Five times the size of regular dollars, each "Houston Buck" is worth one million dollars, and fully backed by the bank of the memory of Sam Houston!

With the motto "The Eyes of Texas" (are upon you) the huge currency lauds the city, but omits that the state has 25 million inhabitants without health insurance. Not to matter! With money like this, every one of us can afford the emergency room for even a hangnail!

BIGass Houston Dollar 1952 Premier Printing Houston Collection Jim Linderman

Life Size Folk Art Mannequin Head with Recessed Blue Eyes collection Jim Linderman

Life Size Folk Art Mannequin Head with Recessed Blue Eyes No Date
Collection Jim Linderman

Daguerre's American Legacy on Exhibit

A trip to France may not be in my cards, but then it IS fitting this landmark exhibit is located in the town from which Louis J. M. Daguerre hails. It will also be documented in the new book Daguerre's American Legacy: Photographic Portraits 1840-1900 as well…and it is reviewed in the newest issue of the Photogram, the Michigan Photographic Historical Society Newsletter from where these images come. The Book, the Show and the Newsletter are all wonderful and recommended.

Wm. B. Becker is the founder of the American Museum of Photography, is a multiple Emmy winner and a collector fortunate to have started his collection 40 years ago. Co-Curated by
Professor Francois Brunet of the University of Paris.

Follow the links above for more information!

Subscriptions to the Photogram are available HERE.

Richard and the Hollywood Puppet Show! Vintage Vernacular Photographs

Richard and the Hollywood Puppet Show. Group of three original snapshot photographs, circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

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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