cat

Lucky Black Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  British swimmer, Ruthley Moris-Hancock, ’36 Olympics, holding her good luck stuffed kitty. This photo from the Olympia 1936 German, Cigaretten-Bilderdienst Altona-Bahrenfeld photo album. A quick google search reveals that this is an often reproduced image on posters and things. Who knew? However, reminded me very much of my post of a week or so ago – Cat Hat, see August 9. Dolly and Ruthley share a fashion and good luck talisman statement, although Ruthley’s came more than a decade later – showing the durability of the black cat. Frankly, couldn’t find out much about Ruthley online – this may be her most distinguished moment. Below I have included the back of the card, for the German readers in the group.

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Corbin Canadian Cats

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back of cat tray

Pam’s Pictorama Advertising Post: A giveaway from the Corbin Lock Company of Canada. Needless to say that if I lived in Canada and needed locks these folks would have been my square one – in fact, I’m sure I would have bought a lock just to get one of these!  Purchased as a pair on eBay recently, these were advertised as pin dishes, but as someone who has very few pins these days, these will probably hold paperclips on my desk in the office and rings on my dresser – although I don’t know if I can bear to hide those cat faces, maybe I should just put them up somewhere.  I would buy things like this all the time if I ran across them more often, but I can’t say that I do. I feel very fortunate to have found and purchased these!

Felix on Parade

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felix parade

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  As you can see it isn’t like the Brits and the Aussie’s had this Felix thing all sewn up! Here are two photos of Felix parade floats in the US.  One is a photo postcard (Oregon Laundry) and the other is a tiny snapshot. On top, the Rose Festival in Portland, OR,’29 – man, they could do my laundry any day! My hat’s off to the fine people of Portland, OR which seems, oddly, to be a hotbed of Felix photo activity. Go Portland!

The snapshot, identified as the Bamberger’s Parade, Thanksgiving, ’31. Presumably this is Newark, NJ – a fine little home movie color film snippet, Bamberger’s Thanksgiving Parade circa 1933,  is absolutely worth the four and a half minutes on NJ.com and suffering through the commercial at the beginning.  Felix doesn’t show up, but Mickey puts in a very brief appearance. An indication that perhaps by ’33 or so Felix’s star was starting to fade a bit in the USA, and Mickey was the big kid on the block now. Mickey parade photos to follow in the future!

Mickey and Felix Costumes, Part 1

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Mysterious applications of Mickey and Felix as costumes really could be their own category! Starting with this is a tiny photo which really defies easy explanation – someone dressed as a long-nosed, slightly off-model (paunchy) Mickey on skies or snow shoes.  Hard to imagine what was going on here, or that he remained standing long.

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Back of card reads (complete with lack of punctuation):

Mrs. W Stoodley
Folly Farms
Lovewkerne (?) Som

mother
am glad it is much cooler now but our place is cooler inside than out.  The children had their carnival yesterday but this is the one.  Will

This Felix costume is much jollier and a lot more sensible – as such.  I’m sure he raised a lot of money for them. In fact, so much, that they did it more than once!

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This card features stuffed Felix dolls for the action – mine of this type is posted too so you can get a better look – irresistible to put these together – another example of rather brilliant photo collage work.  Nothing on the back of this card so we don’t know which came first.  They were purchased separately over the course of several years and the seller of this card said he had never seen anything like it.  I sent him a scan of the other – both of these came from British sellers.  I say Hooray for Felix!

Felix Tintype – Little Gem

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Came across this while I was doing my post earlier today and thought I would add it. While at some point I want to do something comprehensive on the Felix tintype, they are fun one at a time too.  While the quality on these is generally pretty hideous – they hang on a dark, interior wall in the apartment where they get a minimum of light so they don’t darken further – I find them utterly irresistible, and have paid dearly for most of the ones I have – about a half-dozen.  This is among the least faded images.

Among those that got away was one with a stuffed Mickey Mouse – Australian I think.  Can’t win ’em all – but always surprised I haven’t seen others of Mickey.  (I also lost out on a photo of people posing with Spark Plug the horse – Hake’s auction I think – which went for a fortune.  Again, the only one I’ve ever seen.  Where do these things go?  Were there that many more taken with Felix?)

Anyway, here we have everyone in 1925 all tricked out for their day at the British Empire Exhibition with Felix – the parasol is a nice touch!

Aesop Fable Photo and Art Post

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Pam Pictorama Post: Featured at the top, a splendid press photo The Making of an Aesop’s Sound Fables.  It says, “A close-up of the cameraman at work.  The ‘Frame’ is now down in position over the background and ‘cells.’ This shows a complete single picture about to be taken.” It is dated ’32.

Below are three drawings, original art (I couldn’t be certain until I had them in hand, but there are traces of pencil and the ink is clearly original) on penny postcards. I purchased first two and then a subsequent one months later, on eBay. The first two were acquired from a seller in Great Britain (although these are clearly American and one wonders how they got there) and I can’t remember where or who the third, the one with color, was purchased from, but it was a different seller.

When I originally posted these on Facebook a FB friend (Stephen Worth) told me that he had a similar piece by Mannie Davis – the farmer and several animals, and he posted it for me to see.  They certainly seem to be of the same hand.

No idea what the purpose of these was – there is no writing on them and mine are not signed. Perfectly wonderful though and clearly drawn and inked by a practiced hand that had drawn thousands before.  As a huge fan of the cartoons I find all of it pretty fascinating.

Match safe – Ya Gotta Make Calls

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Pam Pictorama Post:  This match safe is a favorite and I have a postcard from the same era (side two drawing or at least a similar one) pinned above my desk at the office. Everything else aside, I believe it is true, Ya Gotta Make Calls if You Want Results!  I like to be reminded.

I missed the match safe era by several decades.  I gather the small box of wooden matches slipped in the middle – keeping them, well, safe I guess.  I have seen photos of match safes that held loose matches – some cat ones too although I don’t own any and the general theme seems to run more to dogs for some reason.  These are standing affairs of heavy metal which I imagine lived next to the stove. Many of the ones meant to be carried around are of silver and sometimes parts of sets.  Cigarette or cigar case and tools, and match safe.  The occasional cat there.

This match safe, the only celluloid cat one I have seen of this type – I’d have a whole collection if I could find them – was purchased on eBay a number of years ago. (Although this blog is having the effect of reminding me that I should go back to ferreting out this and that I haven’t looked for lately.  Just what I need – more stuff!)  Much to my surprise, it came from the collection of and was sold to me by Sally Cruickshank. She did not, ummm, acknowledge the Kim Deitch connection when the purchase was made, despite his name on the email.  Probably for the best. I guess it is a small world of cat collectibles. Anyway, this is on a shelf at the foot of our bed and I am very fond of it indeed. Now get out there and make some calls!

Cat Photo Collage

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Pam Photo Post:  Early cat comics?

I have long been interested in the period where the carefully arranged photo album page morphs into these photo collages done with negatives and artful printing.  I was very excited about an exhibit a few years ago, Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage, which originated at the Chicago Art Institute (’09) and made a stop here in New York at the Met.  (The catalogue is still available, for a price, on Amazon.)  It was an amazing opportunity to see the best of these, many featuring skilled watercolor and ink drawings, most often executed by woman. However, there is a lot to be said for the less spectacular examples too. Just look at these hard-working kitties on the USS Mississippi!

To date this is the only one in my collection and the only cat one of this kind I have ever seen, despite some pretty thorough ongoing scouring. You do find the whole, elaborate collages reproduced on Victorian or later period cards, and I have seen a number of cat themed ones that way. While I have been tempted by early albums and whole pages from albums, I tend to think my limited storage is not the best home for these fragile artifacts, but I do find them fascinating – windows into whole lost worlds.  Of course, if one devoted to cats came along I assume I would change my mind!

The Giant Cat Chair

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post – Having had a quick look at the Felix-y postcards yesterday and continuing on something of a summer holiday theme, I offer an equally (if more scarce) alternative – the giant cat chair.  I only learned of the existence of these a couple of years ago and it was thanks to a FB post of a google image.  As chance would have it, I did a search on ebay shortly after and turned up this fellow! As far as I can tell, these only existed in England – although frankly I could be wrong as I have only seen about four or five – I own three of them – the most recently acquired I used to kick off this blog.  (In my mind I have this really great image of Great Britain in the ’20’s and ’30’s as this very jolly place where folks were having their photos taking with giant cat dolls every day of the week – what was wrong with the US?)  These were some lucky children!

If you are feeling overwhelmed with posts to this new blog – I am on vacation and enjoying the opportunity to get things rolling, as well as finding my way technically.  Once I am back at work I am sure things will slow considerably.