Pam’s Pictorama Post: I pulled this photo off of a small pile on my desk this morning. Purchased several months back, it has awaited its turn up at bat. It is neither professional, nor significantly profound, but delightful in its own way.
It is a 2″x 4″ photo with nothing written and no identifying information on the back, although it appears to have been printed by a skilled hand. The Felix is the only thing really to date the image and I would assume that it was during the zenith of his popularity, most likely the 1920’s, but perhaps as late as the early 1930’s is my guess.
Baby is playing with a baby doll which is always a touch of irony for me – and this doll looks remarkably like the kid. The Felix surveying all around him is a very classic chalkware or composition model. Oddly, I don’t actually own this particular very popular item – in part perhaps because they are fragile and I have a general aversion to large, easily broken items. Still, in considering him here and online this morning, I will say I should wait for a nice example and grab it. He would look splendid surveying the living room or bedroom in New Jersey. Let’s see if I achieve that goal in coming months.
These Felix-es are touted as carnival prizes, but I have never really accepted that as their origin. There are slightly cheaper, more slightly off-model versions which I assume fit this bill, but these always seemed a bit nicer than that. Evidently some have mobile arms and this fellow looks like he might be a candidate for being such a high class item.
The kid, as far as the viewer can tell, wears only shoes (nice sheepskin trimmed ones, perhaps all the better to start to walk in?) and we’ll assume a diaper. He or she is sitting in such a very nice sunny spot it gives me a cat-like yen to locate it and curl up in it – and nap. The curtains are helping the composition of this photo considerably, creating a pattern through out and catching the sun up in front. The shadows play nicely across the baby and around him. These are massive windows (I vaguely assume that the child is on the floor so they go all the way up!), and the sun streams in at the front and is in deep shade in the back of the room.
As I write it is in fact a sunny Sunday morning here in Manhattan, a relief after a week of pouring and sometimes teeming rain, so perhaps I am sun sensitive and craving as I write. I doggedly remind myself of April showers bringing May flowers, but we are soggy here and revel in the relief. Next weekend I will go to Jersey and check out the garden there and try to turn my mind to spring and summer. Time to put the lettuces in I think, or soon anyway. Growing things and time out in the yard will be the best harbingers of the season and the remedy for the blues, not to mention a visit with the New Jersey kitties.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This is a tiny post – at least in that it refers to two petit specimens that arrived in the mail recently, about 30% smaller than I had estimated. These boxes are however still so charming that I am taken with them despite not knowing what use I can put them to. They appeared on my Instagram feed (via @marsh.and.meadow) and on a whim I bought them.
Some of you readers already know I can’t resist a box. I have opined on my love of them before in posts here and here. There is something endlessly comforting about containers – those which promise to hold things, give them a place, put them away appropriately. (In all honesty, it isn’t like I actually always employ them for these rarified purposes once I have them, but it is the thought that counts.)
My original inspirations was that the larger of the two could hold the unruly pushpins on my desk in my office. The fact is that my office is such a mess these days I can’t begin to imagine how I could have focused on pushpins.
Due to construction at our main building I work in a mostly residential high rise tower about a block away. There is a hallway which houses a disparate bunch of us – my fellow fundraisers, various administrative staff, a clutch of doctors and a few data scientists who have recently joined the ranks. My office is spacious enough if remarkably blue in color – I am talking walls. (It lends a certain Smurfness to my Zoom encounters.) We only have partial walls so remarks are occasionally tossed over the wall to the pathologist on one side or the educator on the other – while we simultaneously pretend we can’t hear everyone’s conversations. My job requires a lot of talking, on the phone and with staff, so I am sorry for them as I know I have destroyed any peace and quiet.
The undeniably jolly Rescue container. I have less stress just playing with it!
However, the main point about my office is that it leaks terribly. Skylights that are river facing and given rain and wind coming off the river water pours into my office. The landlord does not seem able or inclined to fix it so this week I packed up the whole thing and we rearranged the cabinets and furniture so my desk is no longer under the leak. I lost about a day of work and am still not unpacked, but I have the additional advantage of being in a sunnier spot under said skylights and my weekends and evenings will be calmer not thinking about whether or not I remembered to stick a plastic kitty litter bin under the leak.
However, somehow in all of that I managed to have a moment to be annoyed that the pushpins for the bulletin board were in an ugly plastic container that tends to spill. This was my solution. And, in all fairness, the larger of the two would probably hold sufficient pushpins for daily desktop needs, even if a tad smaller than planned.
The larger of the two is emblazoned with Pastilles Halda and some related prose which roughly translates to being the best for mouth and throat irritations, larynx and bronchial affections (infections?). Pastilles, melt in your mouth sugar pills, were for various maladies having made their first appearance in France in 1825. Those appear to have been for stomach trouble.
Surprise! Found inside the larger container.
Both boxes are of a hard cardboard, but it is still a bit amazing that they reached down decades to us intact. I will try to be good stewards of them. The sides of each is brightly patterned making them attractive and festive which likely contributed to their longevity.
When I opened the blue one, there was this lovely tiny photo below saying hello. Thank you @marsh.and.meadow! That was a wonderful little surprise. I could do a whole post on this amazing little girl in a huge hat. More or less a one inch square she peers out from under the huge brim, a mass of curls falling behind her. Her attention has been caught looking off to the side where someone was clearly trying to induce her to smile – in the end I think they got the best photo anyway.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Meanwhile, pastilles remain with us today – cough drops and the like. They have slid toward gummies more than hard confections. I’m a fan of a good gummie (am devoted to Rescue Remedy ones that have melatonin to help me sleep), but to soothe a sore throat I like a hard, cherry Ludens myself.
This larger of these two sport eucalyptus and menthol as ingredients. It brings childhood to mind and the various types of cough drops I was plied with. There were the honey and menthol ones that were the most serious, the soft Smith Brothers ones that also came in a honey flavor and then the cherry Ludens which, although I liked them best, were probably lowest on the scale for effectiveness but the most like candy.
These days I reach for Riccola when I need a serious cough drop. They appeared late in my childhood, closer to young adulthood. I usually keep a few on hand in case a fit of coughing overcomes me or a guest in my office. I still lean toward cherry, but they are very no nonsense it doesn’t really matter.
The Ludens box of my youth.
My friends over at Bach, who make the Rescue products as mentioned above, serve up their line of stress reducing pastilles in a most charming yellow tin with a very satisfying and clever pop top. It is worth having one around just to play with the tin. Sadly the aforementioned melatonin gummies come in a very average bottle, and are in fact too large for this jolly receptacle.
The smaller box appears to have held saffron from Belgium – not medicinal at all. Saffron, which is a notoriously expensive spice, generally comes in tiny receptacles (glass mostly these days, not much bigger than a pill casing) and is of course bright orange. There is no sign of this on the interior of the box so the saffron must have been further wrapped.
Neither of the companies associated with these boxes appear to exist today, although there is a Valda rather than Halda French pastille company that seems to have a fair amount of market share. I could not find a history for it so I don’t know if these are the roots of same or not.
Perhaps once everything is once again put away at work I will share photos of the new office rearranged. I think it could use a few more photos and maybe another toy or two before it is really home away from home however.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This unusual photo was a birthday gift from a good friend (thank you @eileentravell) which she gave me recently. It a large, half plate, tintype. Aside from a bent corner, some chewed up edges and that odd ding on her dress near the chair, it is in fairly good shape.
As I started spending time with the image it confused me a bit admittedly. She is in what I have to assume is mourning, her all black attire, down to her black fur muff. Her clothing best dates this to my mind is probably the 1890’s. There is some relief in the white lace ruffle and the middle to light gray of her hat, something light colored like a handkerchief peeping out of her pocket.
Hair mourning brooch given to me by a friend. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
She looks grave and pale as she leans on the prop chair, covered in this cloth with a patterned edge. The background prop is a bit sad and cheesy as well, a view out a faux window, hangs a bit askew and folds below it. The carpet defines the space that she is atop, but that too ends at the front edge of the picture.
Detail. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Most interesting to me is that her cheeks have ever so slightly and delicately been pinkened by a gentle hand, which is not at all always the case in the toning of such photos. Yet, looking at her I wonder why they bothered as she is deeply in her own world of grief.
In fact, I find it interesting that such a photo was even made. Why would you want to record this period of grief in this young woman’s life? (If you look closely, she is young despite these trappings which bring a sort of middle age to mind.) I don’t know if that sort of recording of mourning was part of the intricate ways of observing the various rituals or not.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection. This mourning locket tells a whole story in the March of ’22 post highlighted below.
I never realized until recently that beyond black and gray there were lighter shades of mourning and that people would progress to lavender and even light blue. I found this out recently when someone was selling a light blue enamel piece of mourning jewelry online. While it certainly predates her, Queen Victoria really kicked off the dictates of the all black mourning of the time and rigid rules of society bound the clothing jewelry and behavior of the bereaved. At least a year of wearing black and that included jewelry which was largely made of jet or black glass which was less temperamental and therefore less expensive. Much is said about the clothing, jewelry and rituals in the late 19th to early 20th century novels I have been reading.
An example in blue enamel pulled off the internet. Ring dated 1794.
Rings and brooches adorned with bits of hair, images and later even photographs record the attachment to the lost beloved.
After the first year a progression to gray, mauve and purple were acceptable over time and that included jewelry of amethyst and garnet stones. Pearls were allusions to the tears of the wearer which I had never heard before, but many mourning pieces are decorated with them. (I recently heard that some Asian cultures view pearls that way as well.) I have written about some mourning pieces in my own collection, most given to me but others I purchased. These wearable memorials fascinate me. Those posts can be found here, here and here. (Oddly each of these posts have appeared in late March in different years – a spring thing?)
The idea of lavender and even light blue (enamel rings and lockets) in the latter stages of mourning, probably two years or more out, interests me – the point of emerging, yet still recognizing your loss and the process. I have seen lavender clothing as well from that state, but not sure I ever saw blue associated with it. For me the light blue, that final stage perhaps, is a sign of sending you back into the world of spring and blue skies again.
Pams-Pictorama.com Post: Today’s Pictorama oddball exclusive is this April, 1928 Theater Magazine page featuring stage star of the day Louise Groody. Shown here at age 21 by my calculation she grasps a perfectly delightful fluffy white pooch and a mysterious equally fluffy (if unable to achieve the same level of actual cuteness) creature in the other arm. She herself is dressed in fur. A very of-the-moment cloche hat covers her hair and shades her eyes in this carefully composed composition. A well trained smile outlined in carefully colored lips and revealing very even pearly teeth.
The bottom of the page reads, Pets, All of Them, Especially Louise Groody, the Hit in Hit the Deck. Below: After more than a year’s successful run in New York, Miss Groody, with the rest of the company, have folded their tricks at the Belasco and silently stolen away, despite the insistent demand of late-comers. They are now on tour, covering the principal cities. (Confidential: The small animal clinging to Miss Groody’s right arm is a honey bear, sweetness – and quite light.) Felix the cat is left out in the cold.
Hit the Deck was one of Groody’s most popular hits. Here she sings Sometimes I’m Happy from the show.
The little Felix is odd – no idea really why he is there, arms folded, smiling. Below him it says, Posed exclusively for THEATER MAGAZINE, photo by Harold Stein. He is indeed the little bit of Felix in this photo and post. (He does not appear on the back of the page where there is a similar of June Collyer.) Just a small paid advertisement? An inside joke about the show long forgotten? I wondered that about the dog and baby bear too – did they have some bearing on the show? Or does she always travel with a menagerie? A quick look at the storyline of the 1955 film version doesn’t show any reason for a baby bear. And no, Felix does not seem to have appeared in the show!
Unidentified photo of a young Louise with a parrot, continuing the pet theme.
According to Wikipedia, Louise was on the stage and discovered in her teens. Groody was in ten Broadway shows, four were major hits with hundreds of performances. The same article claims that Hit the Deck was a favorite of hers. She was perhaps best known as Nanette in No, No, Nanette and for her rendition of Tea for Two, although I was unconsciously familiar with her singing Sometimes I’m Happy.
Kinda looks like Louise here. LooLoo was evidently one of her favorite roles.
Louise married a few times. Number two was a shyster who chiseled money out of folks, her included – although she was originally named in the indictment. She divorced him while he was in Sing Sing and moved onto husband number three who seems to have stuck. Groody made a pile of dough in her early years on Broadway, subsequently lost most of it in the crash, but continued to work and lived affluently again by the forties. Louise joined the Red Cross during WWII and has a small discography of early recordings. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t appear to have much of a film career, although I can’t imagine she wasn’t in any films before becoming a fixture on early television.
As for Felix I can only say that he was so ubiquitous in 1928 that even a theater publication was sneaking him in, odd considering that in some ways film was slowly eating into and ultimately eclipsing their business. However, in 1928 no one seems to have been able to resist his charms entirely.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Rainy morning here at Deitch Studio in Manhattan. I was warned about the weather, but still managed to be disappointed when I awoke to it this morning. Sometimes rain can make me feel very cosy, but other times it is just a bit discouraging and I’m afraid I am leaning in that direction. It is early March however and here in the Northeast I guess we just have to take what we can get. It is a many cup of coffee morning as I sit here writing you all. As always though, it is a pleasant rabbit hole into the past to spend some time with one of my photos.
I don’t own many, but I do have a real affection for photos that show a store or establishment and its owner/workers and wares, especially magazines, photos (especially photo studios) or in this case postcards. They are little time capsules in a particular way.
This photo came to me via @missmollystlantiques on Instagram. In reality, a while back, she had sold me another photo in front of a photo shop and to my horror somehow sent it to the wrong person – who sadly did not send it back. She refunded me, but I was quite bereft. Then recently she sent me an offer of this photo since it was the same idea and asked if I wanted it, and here we are.
This woman (the proprietress?), stands in the door of a store called Young France. She has a sort of tunic jacket that perhaps is of the kind you might don each day in the store to keep your own dress or blouse clean. I like the bright buckles on her shoes which make me think she was probably a snappy dresser.
A look under a magnifying device reveals some small religious statues (a small Virgin Mary), medals and postcards in the large window. I think many of the postcards are vaguely religious in content too, although the top row are botanical ones. Some also look like the type of photo postcards that leave room for a bit to be written on the front, a small circle of photo at the top. I believe maybe some are photo cards that are fun – I believe I see one of a cat in a hat! There is a display of landscape photos of a souvenir type, on the doorframe next to her, hanging from a string.
My attempt at a detail of the photo.
There is a sort of display drawer under the window. They have locks and I cannot make out what is in them. The bottom of the window display also house some objects and other than a vague outline of a book, I cannot see what those are either however. Perhaps someone else would know immediately from the name and type of items what precisely this store was – souvenir items? In that case the religious items seem odd, but the reverse is also true.
Like many photo postcards, this one was never sent and it has no writing on the back. While the image on this card don’t really quite make the usual Pictorama qualifying parameters, it slips into the collection, filed in my mind under slice of life pictures.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am always very pleased when the gift of a great photo for the Pictorama library falls into my mitts and this year it came via a holiday card from our friend in Texas known here by the moniker of @curiositiesantique, aka Sandi Outland who works there. (This doesn’t happen often, a photo coming to me this way, however I do remember recently posting about a splendid photo postcard I found in my pile which turned out to be sent to Kim by Robert Crumb. Really would have picked that photo myself. That post can be found here.)
Sandi and I had a wonderful, lengthy holiday DM exchange over antique angry snowmen (photos, cards and items) which actually lead to last week’s kid in a snowman costume post which can be found here. She collects deeply in this area and recently sent a photo of her mantle, piled high with grumpy snowman goodness. I may not be able to contain myself and maybe the house in Jersey will be decorated in grumpy snowmen next holiday season. We shall see. Meanwhile, I am trying to tempt her into coming up for a Brimfield fiesta with me. (Talk about larks! More to come on that and future post I hope.)
This was the book we were discussing. Kim bought it for me at a con we were at a few months back and Bob Eckstein was there selling them!
While I have never had the chance to visit Dallas and enjoy an in-person peruse of the physical store I have followed their Instagram account now for many years. The shop is owned by Jason Cohen, and I have chatted with Jason and Sandi on the phone over numerous purchases. In addition to what catches my eye on my the feed, they keep an eagle eye out for my cat related interests, and as a result a jolly box arrives from them periodically. (Some of their goodies can also be found online here. Right now there’s a bronze statue of greyhounds romping and a pirate bank, both which I find very tempting in different ways. See below.)
Sadly the photo did suffer a small bend in transit, but in no way does that diminish its appeal. Someone has applied the tiniest bit of sparkle along the line where the snow meets the building, on the bottom of the one girl’s shoe and coat and also and under the sled. (The one under her foot leaves me wondering if she is wearing skates or does it create that impression? Why would she be sitting there with skates on?)
Postcards from Sandi’s collection.
Of course it has all the elements you want from a snowy scene, they are bundled up in their winter best and they have this great little white dog perched on their wooden sled. They are clad in perky hats, heavy coats and scarves. Behind them is a back stair and a somewhat indistinct house. It is an old fashion typewriter that inscribed it at the bottom. The photo has been mounted on cardboard so I don’t know what the back is like and that cardboard mounted on the card stock. Sandi told me she had been saving it for me and I am most grateful.
My dad couldn’t have resisted this little bronze which makes me tempted to buy it!
If I were in New Jersey I might be able to dig out a photo of me and my sister in the snow with our dog and sled, circa 1968 or so. At the time we were in a house in a town called Englewood in north Jersey. It had a backyard I remember as huge, with a rock garden going up a hill. That incline was probably just enough for us on our version of a wooden sled which was the classic wood and red paint model of the day. We were stuffed into the snow suits of the day – amazing we could stand up and walk in them at all.
I really thought this was a cowboy at first and I would have really had to have it. Still, a pirate bank is very good...
Meanwhile, our German Shepard (Dutchess) shown in that photo loved to play in the snow with us. My father would make little snowballs and pitch them to her and she would leap up to grab them in her mouth – must have been cold! She was very young at the time though and my memory is that she was always up for any play with us kids outside, all seasons.
It’s a snowless, but gray January day here in Manhattan as I write this. However, contemplating all this fun in the snow has me considering braving for a run or at least a stroll later.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: It has been well publicized that New York City has been snowless (some might say snow free) for a 700 day streak which we just broke last week. There is (some) snow on the ground as I write. As a generally glass half full kind of girl I like snow and usually can immerse myself in the romance of it. It’s pretty. It covers the city in a temporary blanket of white, briefly hiding a multitude of sins. Of course on the other side you have to accept drippy messy days as it melts and a reality of black ice underfoot.
My first day of work was the snowy day and I have ended up wearing my snow boots to the job each day. This job and I have an odd track record for extreme weather as I interviewed during a historic rain which triggered mass flooding in the city. I’m not sure of what the broader implications are for the meteorological effects of my working at this animal hospital are going to be under the circumstances! Considering my commute is a walk a little more than a mile each way to and from work, weather is going to matter. (There is a pokey bus, but I am generally too impatient to wait for it.) This week’s snow was a mostly decorative not inhibitive one.
A bigger snow out our window from 2022.
In anticipation and celebration of impending snow I picked up this odd postcard. I have never seen a similar snowman costume and I wonder how long this kid, or any kid, was a willing participant. His hands are entirely covered in the cotton batting that makes his suit. The snowy batting gives him the requisite round head and suggests a rounded body, especially if you add in his arms. Those thorny looking sticks remind me of something Krampus carries. A crushed and not quite jaunty hat with a bird atop finishes the look.
The writing declares, Happy New Year! There is a sort of a full moon behind him with a few more birds atop it. If you look carefully you can see a dark line to define it was added and also that there is a white layer of snow gathered on top. Snowflakes in the form of white paint cover the surface as well, offering some depth to the very artificial scene.
Back of card.
This card was mailed on December 27, but the year is indistinct. It may be 1908. It is addressed in pencil on the back to, Miss Margaret Cosgrove, New Hampton, Orange Co. NY. The sender is harder to read, but is something along the lines of Bob Bruening Batt HH St. TA AEH. It is also marked, Soldiers Mail in the same hand and stamped As Censored and noted in a different hand, in pen, O.K. E.P. Woodard, 1st Lt. 21st F.A.(?) There is no personal note however.
While my first instinct is a childlike enthusiasm for the white stuff, it does impede my running and generally gums things up and slows them down. In New Jersey the driveway and sidewalk have to be cleared. Somehow the world no longer really stops for a snow day the way it did when you were a kid and school was called off. However, I will try to cultivate a cheerful attitude about it since I think we see more snow ahead here in New York City in the coming months.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: First, thank you all for your lovely and thoughtful responses to yesterday’s post! Some came here, others via IG and some to me personally. It is a season for change for me and while hard I think it is a first step in forging the next great thing and will help build how Kim and I will be living in the coming years.
However, today is a real photo postcard that contains a toy and a cat – thereby combining several passions at one. It is a bit dark and I wonder if it has discolored and darkened with age.
It depicts a very good, fluffy kitty perched on the back of this very nice, most probably Steiff teddy bear. His tail seems to have been in motion behind him and is a bit of a blur, but otherwise kitty is is focused intently on something off camera.
Teddy is jointed and really was likely quite splendid if you could see him properly. I fancy I can actually see the Steiff tag hanging in the far ear. It is a dusty and ubiquitous looking flowered tablecloth that we can imagine doing much duty for the photographer.
On the back of the card it says, With fondest love & best wishes for a very happy New Year from Aunt Jessica. Love to Mother & Daddy. It was sent on December 31, 1910 from Liverpool. It is address to, Master W. Ledden, 24 [illegible) Street, London Road, Holyhead. On the half with the message there appears to be a further address which is pretty illegible too, 5-8 Clarence Grove, [Everlou?] The card has no maker’s mark or references.
Many of the postcards in the Pictorama collection are addressed to children and I always think of how much it must have pleased them to receive these cards in the mail, especially something a little jolly like this.
Perhaps my holiday vacation can be spent seeing which of the 7 indoor cats might become a photo model. (We are pretty sure we can just leave Hobo out of that experiment.) I think Beau and Blackie are the only real contenders – no one else seems to have the temperament in the least. Kim has always said he doesn’t think I should dress the cats up (yes, it has come up) so I don’t, but a future in posing with toys? I will let you all know if I have any success – but maybe I should stick to cookie baking!
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This photo has been on my desk for a long time and it drifted to the top of the pile today. As I write on a chilly November morning, summer and swimming is already a distant memory while the long winter days of January, February and March lay, daunting, ahead. It reminds me that it has been many years since I have been swimming in the ocean, or even a smaller natural body of water.
I thought about taking up swimming during the pandemic. I think I would need a few lessons to get to the point where I am swimming laps successfully. I may still do it. Long term the low impact of swimming may make better peace with my arthritic body than the endless pounding of running.
This photograph has a remarkably dreamy quality. The way the definition of the water disappears, yet there are just a few people going way out to the horizon line. The four women are wearing old-fashioned bathing caps, but even the somewhat saggy bathing suits don’t mar the timeless quality of the image. We see their reflections, but not below the surface. It manages to reach across time which is what the best old photos do for me.
Years ago I wrote a post (found here) based on the quote, save something for the swim back, and that quote comes to my mind when I look at this photo. The post was about the struggle I was having in the fall of 2019 where I did feel I was drowning at times. Little did I know how much would change in the next six months when March of 2020 rolled around.
This image feels like the liminal space between things – those times where we are parked in one of the great waiting rooms of our lives. That’s not to say those periods are fallow. I wrote several times about the time I spent caring for my mom during her final illness. (One of those posts can be found here.) While it was a world away from everything else, it was a time I learned a lot. Time seems to slow and morph. It is a period that seems to be outside of the ongoing time-space continuum of my life otherwise.
I have been in a similar space again recently as I began to commit to leaving my current position at Jazz at Lincoln Center and moving to another, very different one. That weird period when you realize that you are probably leaving, but you haven’t committed yet and are not ready to tell anyone. You stop investing in the future of what you are doing beyond a point because you won’t be there to do it so you are mentally treading water. However, after six and a half years I gave notice right before the holiday and more about that adventure in coming weeks for readers who stick around.
Lastly, to note: this is a photo postcard, but it is mounted on another piece of cardstock. I did not purchase it so it has the rare distinction of not being of my choosing as is virtually everything posted about here. Pictorama is pretty much wholly curated by me. However, this card arrived in the mail last December and there is a note from the fellow cartoonist Robert Crumb to Kim on the back. And we decided however, that the photo merited its own place here in Pictorama.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Possibly one of the strangest sub-genres here at Pictorama are a clutch of photos of people posing on Spark Plug who in 1922 made his way into comics fame when he made his entrance into the Barney Google strip. The patched together equine captured the reader’s heart in that initial episode and he joined the ongoing cast of characters. His distinctive appearance made him a picture perfect photo foil and evidently photos posing with him proliferated in addition to sheet music, Halloween costumes, games, candy containers and toys ranging from wind-up’s to more cuddly soft versions.
Not in Pictorama Collection.This sheet music is widely available.
I stumbled on the first photo in a Hake’s catalogue years ago and bid on it. That photo went very high and much to my disappointment I didn’t acquire it. It stayed with me however as these things sometimes do and I started to look for them.
I manage to acquire my first one back in 2018 and it is similar to the one I lost at the Hake’s auction. (That post can be found here.) It is a pro photo, much along the same lines as the concept of people posing with Felix, although the Spark Plug photos are not postcards and are generally regular prints which are 5×7 or larger. If you read that post you will find an interesting exchange with the descendent of the fellow identified in the picture who found the post while doing genealogy research on his family.
Pricey Chien litho toy for sale at the time of writing.
The next photo didn’t show up until ’21 and it is a postcard where Spark Plug is an almost abstract design. Lodged as he was in the public consciousness however you merely had to make a nod to his appearance and label him and you were good to go. (That odd little gem can be found here.) This acquisition marks the third in the series.
Today’s entry into the archive is what appears to be a very competently homemade version of the pasted together pony. Junior, in comic splendor complete with glasses, nose and mustache all of a piece under his topper of a hat, must be concealing his legs under Spark Plug’s body and stubby faux limbs are astride the horse. Spark Plug’s identifying patch is evident on the side and, as is always helpful, he is clearly labeled on one side. His head, while a tad small for his body, is a credible reproduction.
Next to him is another kid, in blackface, with a faux banjo. Something about him reminds the viewer of the jockey statues that used to be in evidence as outdoor decor. Behind them are adults who do not appear to be in costume – the maid notwithstanding but after some consideration I have decided that she is just working in uniform, not in fancy dress. She is pushing a cart of something fluffy and like the other adults she is in somewhat soft focus. They form a distracting blur behind the costumed kids.
Another pricey item for sale as I write – interesting that a somewhat forgotten cartoon character still fetches thousands for toys today!
This photo is approximately 5×7 and printed on a super light paper which is curling with age. The back is entirely blank and there’s no evidence that it was in a photo album at any time, perhaps it was framed. While the pictorial quality is somewhat lacking this photo nevertheless is another interesting entry into the Pictorama archive.
Pam's Pictorama 