Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Real Cowgirls original snapshot photograph circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman

Cowgirls snapshot circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman
You may also enjoy the following photography book by the author. Cyber Shopping!

THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL from DUST TO DIGITAL Available NOW.

Old Antique Folk Art Whirligig Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Folk Art Whirligig ex- Barenholtz Original Paint. Collection Jim Linderman

CLOCKED! Real Men Don't Need Guns RPPC

CLOCKED! Real Men Don't Need Guns RPPC circa 1920 Collection Jim Linderman

Sounds from the Air number two Handmade crystal radio antenna

Handmade radio antenna circa 1930? Collection Jim Linderman See also Sounds from the Air number ONE.

Wooden Antique Folk Art Score Keeper

Wooden Antique Folk Art Score Keeper with Hand Painted sliding numbers. Billiards? Antique Collection Jim Linderman

Painted by Hand Funeral Home Sign

Painted by Hand Funeral Home Sign circa 1950? Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Folk Art Sculpture Birds

Vintage Folk Art Sculpture Birds. Life size paper mache flock circa 1950.
Collection Jim Linderman

Shavings Shop Whirligig Maker and what it Inspired

From a listing on ebay, I found some new information on the whirligig shop shown in this RPPC and which I previously discussed extensively HERE

Turns out it was used as inspiration for a Joseph Lincoln Novel titled SHAVINGS in 1920.

Antique Folk Art Sculpture Carving Articulated Dancing Man

Antique Folk Art Sculpture Carving Articulated Dancing Man with worn out ankles! Circa 1940. Collection Jim Linderman

Man with Camera and Man with Telephone

Man with Camera and Man with Telephone circa 1920. From the BOOK Eccentric Folk Art Drawings : Obscure Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Linderman Collection. "When does an artist become an artist...?"
Available in paperback or PDF Download HERE

Bettie Page Nude Camera Club Study by Rudolph Rossi 1952

Bettie Page Nude Camera Club Study by Rudolph Rossi 1952 Original 8 x 10 Hand-tinted by the artist. Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Primitive Odd Fellows Horned Goat on a Stick Folk Art Sculpture

Antique Primitive Fraternal Horned Goat on a Stick Folk Art Sculpture circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

You might also be interested in the new book ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS : Obscure Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries available in paperback OR affordable instant PDF Download

Delicious Hamburgers and Cheeseburgs Original Paint Folk Art Sign

Painted by Hand Folk Art Sign Circa 1950 Delicious Hamburgers 25 cents and Cheeseburgs 30 cents. Collection Jim Linderman

You might also be interested in the new book ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS : Obscure Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries available in paperback OR affordable instant PDF Download

IOOF Folk Art Sculpture Symbol Odd Fellows Sign

IOOF Folk Art Sculpture Symbol Odd Fellows Sign
Collection Jim Linderman

You might also be interested in the new book ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS : Obscure Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries available in paperback OR affordable instant PDF Download

Dutch Twins at the Tulip Festival Wooden Shoes in Michigan 1943

Two crisp 8 x 10 original photographs from the Holland, Michigan Tulip Festival, a show which persists to this day. They both show the Baker Twins. They are joined by friends for the second. The Tulip Time Festival has been going on since 1929, and as these photos are from 1943, they weren't going to let Hitler's occupation of the real Holland stop the show.

In 1928, The Holland city council bought 100,000 tulip bulbs from Holland and stuck them in the ground. They come up every year, and so do buses of tulip fans.

Holland, MI is super-conservative and super-religious. The "What would Jesus Do" wristbands originated there. The city recently adopted a backwards anti-discrimination policy which specifically omitted the rights of LGBT citizens as well, but that will go away when they finally learn it's bad for business. There are some level-headed progressives working to correct the situation, and 25 years from now I suspect the Tulip Festival will be more crowded then ever. I mean please.

"The Baker Twins" photographs, 1943 by anonymous. Collection Jim Linderman

You might also be interested in the coffee table book THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL

Antique Folk Art Sculpture Tin Weathervane Whirligig of an Airplane

Tin Weathervane Whirligig circa 1935? Original Barn Red, secondary coat radiator silver. Collection Jim Linderman

We are already getting Christmas Catalogs...Frederick's of Hollywood

Frederick's of Hollywood closed all their retail outlets this year. A shame. Somewhere between on-line sales and the power of Victoria's secret lies the reason. Soon, all retail will be gone and shopping neighborhoods will only be good for an ice cream cone or one of those dough pretzels. There is just no way to compete with online sales, at least in America. If what remains of the middle class had any disposable income anymore, they might walk into a mall once in a while...but it won't last much longer. Soon even the minimum wage retail jobs will be gone. Stores will hire extra help for Black Friday and lay them off the day after.

Still, Frederick's lasted quite a little while. The company was started in 1947, but it was taken private by a conglomerate after bankruptcy in 2014. It is now owned by "Authentic Brands Group" who buys brands to license them for tacky products. They own Elvis, Muhammad Ali and Marilyn Monroe too. Authentic!

Vintage Frederick's of Hollywood cribbed from ebay.

Giant Refrigerator Giant. World's Largest Salesman! RPPC 1951

It's bad enough to move a refrigerator, but when the International Harvester company went into the fridge business, they had to move their humongous fabricated salesman too! Many of the ill-fated giant boxes survive, but I am not sure where the dummy ended up. I also do not find anything which indicates the box "ran silent" which is no surprise.

The web is full of folks asking if the International Harvester refrigerator they found in the barn has any value. One helpful suggestion says "they make great smokehouses" and another drilled a hole in his for a spigot and keeps a keg of beer inside!

Apparently the machine talked too...I don't know if the dummy did. There is another postcard with a woman trying to open the giant door, and it says the box talked to her on the reverse.

Real Photo Postcard 1951 "Have just seen this 13 ft. giant at the 1951 Ohio State Fair. He was telling every one about the many exclusive feathers of the International Harvester Refrigerators and Freezers" caption on reverse. Collection Jim Linderman
From CURLEY'S ANTIQUES.

Old Light Bulb Trade Signs from Canada

Old Light Bulb Trade Signs from Canada Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Folk Art Turnwheel Crank Whirligig Sculpture

Antique Folk Art Turnwheel Crank Whirligig Sculpture made from Cigar Boxes, circa 1940 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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