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Driving with Teddy

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Riding Bear

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: How amazing! These people are out for a drive on a lovely day with their small bear tucked into the car with them. Why not? It is a gorgeous day and the sun is just streaming down on them. Everyone wearing hats – except of course of for our friend the bear.

If you look very carefully, you can see another woman, wearing a hat, just behind the bear. The bear also has a leash of some sort hanging from his neck. Notably, he is not wearing a muzzle – as trained bears frequently do – and he looks as placid as you could possibly want, one ear back in vague inquiry, “Can we get moving?” The man next to him has his hand on the bear’s near arm – or is it considered a leg? It took me a while to spot the large crowd of people in the background, visible in the lower right corner. Some sort of fair? Perhaps these folks were itinerant performers, arriving or leaving. Regardless, the bear seems utterly amiable and content in his seat in the car and it is nice to think of them as a family out for a ride on a sunny afternoon.

Wish I could have been there too, but owning this photo is a bit like having a little piece of that long ago day.

Felix, the Sporting Life

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  At first glance I thought these were sisters gathering around their Felix toy, but closer examination shows some strange items at the bottom of the photo – anyone know what the heck those are? Looks like a giant spatula and pail. In a way, another Mysteries of Felix post.

On further consideration, there is also something loosely of a uniform among these, mostly, striped dresses, belted the same. What is that cheeky little armband the woman in the lower left is wearing? She and the other one seated on the floor, both with their bobbed hair, look like they know how to have a good time! This is a smaller, home version of Felix however. Perhaps the mascot of their ‘team’? Like most of these postcards, this one not written on, nor was it sent. However, I do think it looks like a team that might be worth joining.

Operculum

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operculum on platter    Operculum

Pam’s Pictorama: This post is a bit of a summer vacation break in my usual topics. Last weekend I was fortunate to be the guest at a lovely home in East Hampton which, thanks to the glorious weather, included a magnificent walk on the beach. A Jersey girl myself, I grew up on the shore within walking distance of the beach, near the Sandy Hook Bay peninsula. Some of my earliest memories are of playing on the beach and collecting shells, driftwood and sea glass. I do not get to the beach often these days, but on the rare occasion that I do I have noticed our beaches somewhat wiped clean – very few shells or driftwood, and you almost never see sea glass. (I assume this has something to do with recycling.) It happens that my trip to the beach coincided with a a big storm the night before. Our reward was a beach where the rough tides had churned up a vast amount of shellfish and sea flotsam and jet sum. A large flock of sea gulls had stuffed themselves silly and there was shellfish carnage all around

One of the other house guests, Jeff Rosenheim (a colleague and head of the Department of Photographs at the Met), impressed us greatly with his knowledge of sea life zoology. He pointed to a small amber object on the sand and said it was an operculum, or gill cover, in this case for a sea snail. In all my years of beach combing I never remember seeing these and he said they are unusual to find. That day, as you can see above, we collected a few dozen. (The other photo shows some with the sort of sea snail they seem to have come from.) We even found a living little fellow who opened and closed his for us when tickled. We returned the favor by getting him back in the water and away from the gulls – who were quite miffed. As you can see from the one I am holding up to the light, it has the same pattern and texture as the sea shell, but transparent. Strange and beautiful.

Our hostess, Joyce, picked up this handsome crab who also wasn’t familiar to any of us. His meaty claws were snatched away by a hungry bird and he is shown clawless here. This was a very stinky bucket of bits – Wowza! The crab turns out to be a blue spiny spider crab. The other shells, oyster and clam respectively, were just pretty.

blue spiny spider crab   Shells

Lining up for Felix

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I guess this camera man gets slapped on the wrist for cutting the top of the one kid’s head off, but everyone having such a good time, why quibble? Felix looks like he just stopped by the house and had his photo with the family out front, in fact that is what seems to have happened. The number down by his foot makes me think this was an itinerant photographer traveling about with Felix in toe, drumming up business in a wealthy neighborhood. It is undeniably British and everyone is nicely dressed without feeling like they have dressed up for it. I love the way the photographer lined them up, ending with jaunty Felix, a smile on his face. He’s a good size – almost as tall as the little girl.

Perhaps this was one of my past lives – wandering the streets and seaside resorts of Britain, Felix and photo postcard camera in tow!

Pretty as a Picture

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Pam’s Pictorama Post Post: The sheer gorgeousness of this image just appealed to me, cat-less though it is. I believe that eBay suggested that I might like it and I do. The whiteness of the clothes in that halo of sun – an idealized afternoon in the country, an attractive group of people posed complete with the handsome and faithful looking family dog. The card originated in a place called Hamilton, Canada (which appears to be in Ontario) and was mailed in 1907. It is postmarked from the place of origin and the destination, but neither postmark has a legible full date.

The back includes a note in a beautiful, neat, female hand which is as follows, Dear Cousin, Rec. your letter O.K. & was glad to hear from you. Am sorry I could not write before but will write in a day or so & explain. I am sending that piece of music by same mail. Bertha It is addressed to: Miss Jessie Brazell, 132 Lake Avenue, Medina, NY. Medina appears to be a small town in the same northern most part of New York State as Niagara and the Canadian border.

It is this kind of slice of life photo from the distant past that first interested me in old photographs. Just a window into a forgotten moment in long past time. Perfect to enjoy on a new summer day, so many years later.

The Boardwalk Smile

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This card has a 1906 copyright credited to W.G. Russell, Atlantic City, NJ. The Boardwalk Smile is written on the left and Take a Smile with Me on the right. Someone has written HERB AT AVALON, in faded pencil at the top. The card is addressed to Mrs. Martha Emorg (?) Devon Rt. Mt. Airy, Philadelphia – at least that is the best I can make out. It was sent on August 31, 1906 from Philadelphia. It is also stamped as received by Mt. Airy, but without a date or time stamp.

According to Kim (a reliable source) take a smile with me means have a drink with me and clearly Atlantic City was already in the prime of its rollicking good times and New Jersey embracing what would become a reputation for notable corruption. Franklin Pierce Stoy was in his second term as Mayor, the first term was 1894-1897. It appears he was re-elected in 1900 and died in office in 1911 during his second term.  He died of neuritis (which sounds truly dreadful and horribly painful) at a sanitarium, Clear View, in nearby Pennsylvania. His political followers, who were being investigated by a Grand Jury at the time, were “stunned by this latest and entirely unexpected development” according to the New York Times, July 23, 1906. The article goes on to say, “the Mayor left the city three weeks ago on the eve of the Elks convention and it was not generally known until a few days later that he was ill.”  It also notes that Stoy was known as the Dandy Mayor. The other notable event in Atlantic City of that year was a great train wreck in October, a train derailed on a bridge over what is described as a creek on Wikipedia and the train fell into the water. While 14 passengers were saved, another 53 lost their lives in the tragedy. It seems to have always been a city of high highs and low lows.

On an entirely different note, the artist of the card, W. G. Russell, seems to have been better known for seascapes much as the one shown here.

Schooner Alberta Atlantic City, NJ

Schooner Alberta Atlantic City, NJ

I am left wondering if it was he who also painted this strange smiling puss or was that addition by someone else? The kitty is a somewhat menacing fellow with his fur up and his toothy and yet toothless grin! The beard and semi-wink of one eye – this fellow sure did know where to go and what to do in order to have fun in AC tonight!

For the Birds

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: First a disclaimer of sorts, not quite in keeping with my usual standards, this photo postcard turned out to be a reproduction – an old one, but a reproduction nonetheless. I remain a bit miffed at the eBay seller because it wasn’t made clear and showing the back of the card would have easily told the tale. Nonetheless, I do love the image because the truth is, I’m very fond of pigeons. Yep, the bird all the world seems to hate – rats with wings you hear New Yorkers say. I don’t go all the way to feeding them – they seem more than capable of finding food on their own – but I do like and even admire them.

I always think of my mom saying, “Pigeons don’t know that people think they are awful. As far as they are concerned, they are glorious flying creatures.” It’s true – from their perspective they are every bit as good as a sparrow or robin, if not a proud hawk or eagle! After all, why shouldn’t pigeons think big?

In my opinion there is a lot to be said about pigeons. Monogamous for life, successful urban denizens – they live cheerfully among us and for centuries have aided and interacted with humans. Kim told me a great story about how when as a small child his family first came to Manhattan and his parents pointed out that it was a wonderful place where birds walked among the people on the sidewalks! Glorious!

I like to watch pigeon couples in the city and am inclined to point out birds I think are especially attractive – there’s a wide range of pigeon design. I tend to be very fond of the ones with a lot of white and some black markings, but sometimes the mostly white ones with brown or gray markings are remarkable. Sometimes you see ones that are clearly very elderly too. There is a lovely couple who have nested outside my office at the Met. I can’t see the nest, but they frequently sit where I see them, together on a railing, in the early afternoon this time of the year.

As we all know, pigeons have a brilliant internal mapping system and of course pigeons like the one shown here have been used to carry messages during wars. As far as I can tell in translation, this refers to a message sent by pigeon (June 4, 1916) in France as Raynol made his last stand in battle. Saying that they are trapped and under chemical attack and that this is his last pigeon. The fastest pigeon flying speed was recorded at 92.5 mph! Go baby, go!

While I do not expect to win pigeon haters over with these brief thoughts, for those of you on the fence, you might take a moment and consider giving them a second look the next time you see a gathering of them.

For the French reading among us, I offer the back of the card:

pigeon back of card

Nippes Novelty

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I sometimes feel that, while glorious in many ways, the advent of online auctions has sadly really devastated flea markets. As a result, the ability to wander through acres of other people’s stuff, milling happily through it for hours on end, is not available as it once was – and this means the happy coincidence of finding something you never knew you needed is less likely to occur. I try to have open ended searches that will be inclusive of all items I might be interested in, but it is always a challenge to look for what you don’t know might exist. However, recently I was searching an online auction that seemed to have extremely varied items and somehow I stumbled happily on these. After some fun with the technicalities of signing up for the auction site, I more or less forgot about it for a month until I was notified, much to my extreme pleasure, that I had won them! They came from an auction house devoted to toy soldiers, Old Toy Soldier Auctions of Pittsburgh – once again proving that although we may not be coming across unexpected bits at flea markets any longer, we certainly have access to venues we would not otherwise. I guess it evens out in the end!

These extremely interesting pieces were listed as Souvenirs made by Heyde. While tons of images of toy soldiers and toy soldier sales come up if you google Heyde – it takes a while to find out about them and the non-soldier toys made by them. I owe the description of the company I do have to an eBay seller named Ascot who is auctioning some of the other novelty items (including an alligator who stands on hind legs bearing an umbrella) as I write this. According to Ascot the novelties sold by the company were called Nippes and included a number of variations on this umbrella-animal theme all of them made of a pot metal similar to these. There are no company markings – some of his are marked German, but I don’t see that on these either. Heyde was, as you may have guessed, a German company. It was founded in 1872 by George Carl Adolf Heyde and was completely destroyed in 1945 during the bombing of Dresden. A brief history of toy soldiers offers that the small lead ones were too expensive to be popular at first, but eventually caught on with the wealthy and became a status toy of choice at the turn of the century.

From what I can see looking at Heyde non-soldier Nippes – the quality is a bit all over the place. Some of the execution is much more slapdash and others, like these, finely executed. They had a line of instrument playing cat band nodders which I would be mad for if a bit more care had been taken in their making.

I have no way of knowing if these figures were sold together and meant as a set or if they just ended up that way. They have a nice heft to them which is one of the things I miss in similar objects made later. These were novelties made to withstand time – and they have.

Eva-Marie and Mickey

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Taking a break from my beloved Felix-es and other kitties, we choose today to embrace mice – or at least a mouse. Eva-Marie had this charming photo taken in Berlin with this splendid Mickey. Nothing but her name on the back, no date. The back of the card has a studio mark that says only A. Wertheim Berlin Leipzger Strasser, which appears to have been an early mall/department store. I like the jaunty bows in her hair and the way she’s holding Mickey’s hands – he reaches almost up to her waist!  Eva-Marie is clearly enjoying herself. Who wouldn’t?

I believe the wonderful outsized Mickey to be made by Britain’s Dean’s Rag Book Company – a toy company I have written about several times in the past. (Among those posts you can check out Pluto and Flip and Froggy.) I shared some of my small scale “Mickey Jazzers” below. These were featured in Starting Small With Mice, an early post and are tiny kissin’ cousins of the big fella here.

dean's mice

I am the proud owner of a store display Dean’s Mickey, which is about as tall as Eva-Marie here, but more about that in a future post. One great Mickey at a time!

A special shout out to my friend Zach Sigall who was the one who found this photo and gave me the nod on it. Thanks Zach!

A Man and His Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A jaunty photo of a workman and his tuxedo cat here. I have a particular soft spot for photos of men with cats – they are, in my mind, a sort of genre of their own. (Previous posts include Men and Cats and Men in Hats with Cats.) Women and children often grab cats up and hold them up next their face – look how cute our kitty is! My cats hate it when I pick them up and kiss their faces – like small kids they wriggle and wrinkle their faces in disdain and embarrassment. Oh the damaged dignity! Meanwhile, men tend to give them some space. The cat is held respectfully, stands with them or in front of them – or as in this case, on his shoulder. Very nice!

Several cats ago, my cat Otto used to stand on my shoulder. She (yep, Otto was a girl) liked to use her shoulder perch as a launching pad to get some place way high up – like the top shelf at the vet’s office. When Kim arrived on the scene she (who adored him) coerced him into a routine where she would jump from his shoulder to a high shelf in the bedroom closet. She would meow with triumph and pleasure!

In a previous apartment Otto occasionally sat on a bookcase shelf near the front door and leaped onto the shoulder of unsuspecting incoming guests. I remember one occasion when she did this to my friend Francis and scared the wits out of him. He was wearing a cashmere overcoat I feared for – there was another memorable incident with an elderly friend and a fur coat. (Clearly Otto figured she had bagged big game.) She was a great little tuxedo, not unlike this good looking specimen here.  Otto was the first cat of my adult life; smart and full of adventure, a superb little cat friend.