Pam’s Pictorama Post: Over our vacation this week a visit to the Met revealed something I had never seen before – a collection of early photo ID pins. Reminiscent of mug shots these identification tags seemed largely to have been from the industrial world of the 1930’s and 40’s, maybe into the 50’s. (I learned that earlier there had been just metal pins with numbers.)

From companies we still know today, such as Proctor and Gamble and Frigidare, to the rather snappy but little known Textile Machine Works, each of these is interesting individually, but they create a wonderful overall effect when you see a couple of dozen displayed as the Met has currently put together.

Unlike the rather uninteresting identification folks like me carry daily today, these photos in their tin frames are impressive in their weightiness. Sadly, I am not sure anyone will ever find my Jazz at Lincoln Center identification worth recovering and saving, nor will they have the chance as today’s ID cards are of course chock full of electronic information and are generally required to be returned upon leaving employment.

From the exhibit at the Met, one of many badges in a display case.

Although not especially attractive aesthetically, my Met ID was a wonderful thing which not only open employee passageways and activated elevators, but it also gained me free admission to all of the museums in New York and many elsewhere. The photo was decidedly mug shot-esque, but the person taking the photos was usually kind about it and would take a few and let you pick. Over the 30 years I was there I learned a few things about getting the best photo, but lousy at best really. (They were also nice enough to produce photos needed for passports and travel visas.) I do miss that ID and the empowerment it accorded.

My current ID gains me access to our offices and the bathroom in the hall, as well as opening the doors to our backstage area in the hall. In addition it occasionally gains me access to backstage at other venues when the orchestra is playing. The photo, such as it is, is sort of illegible really.

These tin badges, worthy of any child playing sheriff I would think, have heft. It is easy to see why they all still exist as one can easily imagine people keeping them after years of service to a company. You can just imagine a retirement after many years, the badge put away and then saved again and again by subsequent generations.

After our morning at the Met Kim and I wandered downtown, stopping first at Blick for art supplies, then lunch and my favorite clothing store, DL Cerney – maker of vintage inspired cloths for both men and women utilizing vintage or vintage inspired fabrics, buttons and designs. (Our day was a well worn path known to Pictorama readers!)

DL Cerney on 9th Street in the East Village

Our afternoon ended with a stop in at Obscura Antiques and Oddities in the East Village. which I wrote about before in my birthday post. There we had the surprise please to meet up with Mike Zohn, one of the owners. In all my visits, I do not think I have every been there when Mike was there, although I think it was he I met at an opening of Kim’s a few years back. I believe that was when I first heard about the store which I like to wander into a few times a year. I asked him to keep me in mind when he runs across early Felix items.

Being sold at Oddities and Obscura Antiques, sorry we don’t have room for this somewhat creepy nodder.

Meanwhile, to my amazement he was selling a small clutch of photo identification badges in a cabinet near the front of the store, just like the ones we had seen earlier in the day. I chose the one below as the nicest. I suspect that these may become a sub-genre in my photo collecting over time.

A quick look tells me that the LaPointe factory in Hudson, MA made broaching machines. Now, I have to say, that even as I look at the definition of a broaching machine (Wikipedia’s can be found here in case you are curious) I do not really comprehend what it does. I guess I would say I understand it to be a type of bit that makes grooves and other irregular cuts.

Unlike today’s identifications which, while they have numbers generally require a name as well, this one identifies 092 only that way. Many seem to have had a similar height chart behind the employee as well. I sort of wonder – how useful it was to know that 092 was 5’6″ and a half? While this pin is wonderful in all it’s substantialness, I have to admit my flimsy piece of plastic is easier to hang around my neck daily – and thinking about the holes this must have put in the shirts and jackets of 092. Although perhaps he wore it on a uniform and therefore did not make his wife nuts.

My maternal grandfather worked in a Bendix factory in New Jersey and I am searching for a nice example of what his ID might have looked like. (My grandmother was not a saver of such things.) Hopefully a future post on that.