COLLECTION #168: Vintage US Presidents Book

It's so fun to have a collector blog! It's great to choose which collections to feature, how to present them, how to photograph them, and what to say about each item or collection. It's also fun to do whatever I want to do, which means occasionally breaking my own rules. I mean, who really cares? I do enjoy following my rules most of the time. It gives order and cohesion to the blog so people can find things, enjoy groupings of items, and keep my stuff organized. But once in awhile, I think it's fun to shake things up a bit. I don't ever want my blog to be boring!

Since today is President's Day in the US, I thought you might enjoy my fun book called Our Presidents at a Glance, by Rolf Benjamin Vinmont, published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1933 (revised with an update about Franklin Roosevelt in 1941). This book has a double page spread on each president, from George Washington to Franklin D. Roosevelt. A nice portrait is on the left, and a series of small line drawing illustrations and anecdotes about the President is on the left. (Speaking of left, did you know James Garfield was the first left-handed US President?)

Back when I was a kid, we celebrated two Presidents with holidays: Abraham Lincoln on February 12, and George Washington on February 22. That made February lots of fun, with two days off school, and Valentine's Day in between! We spent a lot of time studying both of these great men, learning what made them great. But somewhere along the line, the powers that be decided that one holiday was better than two (BAH! I say!), and it was much cooler to celebrate ALL the presidents, instead of arguably the two greatest Presidents of all.  But what ended up happening, was that instead of celebrating all the presidents, the day only watered things down to the point that it became merely a day off from school, and a day the banks & post offices were closed. AND, a special day to participate in fabulous sales at car dealerships and electronics stores. If those of you in the education field spend a lot of time in February teaching your students about all the Presidents, let me know and I'll alter my poor opinion of this holiday change.

Regardless of how I feel about President's Day, I think it's fun to read about our presidents, and learn a few factoids about their lives. I hope you enjoy these pictures of my book!

THE WEEKEND COLLECTOR: Baseball Card Blog

I had two collections as a young person, that if I had today, would be worth a gazillion bucks. The first one was my Beatles collection. As a young teen in the '60s, I was nuts for the Beatles. I collected records (many of which I still do have), magazines, buttons, cards, dolls, and other miscellaneous treasures. What took my collection from ordinary to extraordinary (in my eyes), was that I had a pen pal from Scotland in those days, and she occasionally sent me Beatles stuff from the UK that were not available in the US. I put all of my treasures into an old suitcase. It was a cool 40s suitcase with a handle that looked like plastic amber. Awesome! I stashed the suitcase in the storage room in my garage, and wouldn't you know it, sometime when I was away at college, my Dad saw fit to pitch my future wealth in the trash. He never liked the Beatles, anyway. If the collection had been Tommy Dorsey or Benny Goodman, I'd still have that awesome suitcase today.

My other collection was baseball cards. I was the only girl I knew who collected baseball cards back in the early '60s.  I loved baseball. Especially the Dodgers. I bought bubblegum by the boxful to get those cards. I kept them in a shoebox in my closet, just like every other would-be baseball card collector, and like most of them, my Mom pitched them when I wasn't looking. I can still see those cards in my mind: Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Ted Kluzewski, Ron Perranoski, Ernie Banks....

My Sandy Koufax autographed card, just to show what a great Dodger fan I was!

I know almost every kid who collected baseball cards, lost those cards. If we all had our cards, then those who collect valuable and rare cards today wouldn't have anything valuable or rare. That's just how it is!

I found a fun blog today about baseball cards. It's actually written by three guys: Ben Henry, Mike Kenny, and Travis Peterson. They share their various baseball cards. Ho hum. But what makes their blog awesome is not the various photos of cards (which are after my time,  and during that 30 year period when I didn't pay a bit of attention to baseball). What makes it awesome is their hilarious writing. It's not even worth my time to pick lots of interesting card images to post here. You just have to read the blog to catch the flavor of their wit.

So, please visit the Baseball Card blog, and see what I mean!

Please read the blog entry about this card...then you'll see why I put my Sandy Koufax photo in.

Why is there a Jim Henson card? You can find out here.

COLLECTION #167: Vintage School US History Books

When I was growing up in the 1960s, we studied California history in the 4th grade, and US history in the 5th grade. I don't know if that's still how it's done, but most of my small cache of school US history books, look to be about the 5th grade level. Several might be middle school, and one might be high school. I don't really collect high school books, but occasionally pick one up if the photos and/ or content are interesting to me! These books are all from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.

Without further editorializing, I'll just present my books, with a few selected pages of interesting illustrations & stories shown.

Story about Gilbert Stuart, American artist

Story of Andrew Jackson

Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross

Famed naturalist George Washington Carver

A section about slavery prior to the Civil War

COLLECTION #166: Vintage Road Maps

I love old maps of every type: globes, atlases, and of course, road maps! There's just something so fun about looking at old maps to see the highways, cities, streets, and points of interest of long ago- and not-so-long-ago. 

I've discovered young people today barely know how to read maps. Perhaps I'm an old fuddy-duddy, but I don't think a GPS has quite the charm of a road map or atlas. In my humble opinion, learning how to read maps helps develop spatial relationships, logic, and a sense of direction. Although I do love my iPhone GPS, and rely on it often, I just have to 'see the whole picture' when I visit a new area, or travel out of my local comfort zone.

I love the graphics and info on this map... look at the architecture & cars! And a radio log too!

This map of Los Angeles, shows an area that's completely changed today. (North of LAX) The big blank area on the left side is now Marina Del Rey, and there is no such place as Barnes City District. Today it's parts of Marina Del Rey, Playa Vista and Westchester.

These road maps are from the Western US (since that's my home turf, I tend to collect things that I'm familiar with), and date from the late '30s, to the early 80s. I love the maps of Los Angeles, and California. The California one was published in 1939, and the LA map is from the early '40s, although it has no copyright date. It's fun to see that there are no freeways at all on the California map, and the LA one only has the 'Arroyo Seco Parkway' (Pasadena Freeway), and a small section of the Hollywood Freeway.  All of the other highways were regular streets and boulevards.  These maps were all given away by gas stations. That was how we got our maps back in the day. (Back when gas stations were called 'service stations', because you actually got service!)

The Colorado map was published in 1952, and is almost like a book... full of fun, stylized illustrations, and information about points of interest, in addition to the maps.

COLLECTION #165: Vintage Doll Dresser

It's Orphan Wednesday! Since my usual toy post (Toy Tuesday!) was hijacked by Valentine's Day yesterday, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to feature an orphan toy.  [For those who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, generally, I feature a collection of three or more items each day. However, a few weeks ago, I decided to do a weekly feature of an 'orphan' item- something that I only have one of, rather than entire collection. These 'orphans' are worthy of a blog post, because generally they are very special to me, or are particularly unique or interesting.]

This is one of the oldest things I own. Close in age to my antique steam valve prototype, this is a child's doll dresser, 10" tall, from the late 1860s.  It came into my hands in the early 1980s, when our little family was living in Hollywood. We were friends with an elderly neighbor, who had also been close to my Grandparents. (We bought Grandma & Grandpa Clark's house when Grandpa died shortly before our marriage). Her name was Florence Allen, and she had never married or had children.  Miss Allen was 98 when she passed away in 1983, having given me a number of small and sweet treasures through the years.  This little doll dresser had belonged to her own mother, and since Florence had never had children, she wanted me to have it. Of course, I never allowed my daughters to play with it, but it has always had a place of honor in our homes.

I still have the little 'provenance' card Florence wrote for me.  On the other side was a return address sticker with her name and address on it. She said her mother received it in 1873. (How I wish I had some details about her mother!) If you look carefully, on the back of the dresser is the stamped information: PATD [patented] FEB 5 1867.

COLLECTION #164: Happy Valentine's Day from the Copycat Collector!

As you might have noticed in the past couple of weeks, I'm a big fan of Valentine's Day. In honor of the day, I thought you might enjoy seeing the totality of my Valentines collection.

Mostly vintage, but a few reproductions, and some fun newer stuff sprinkled in. Just lots of hearts, lace, sweetness and light. I hope you have a great Valentine's Day!

COLLECTION #163: Vintage Western-themed Valentines

I love western themes: Cowboys and Indians,  wide-open spaces, horses, cattle, cactus, Mexican Senors and Senoritas. Western themes were really popular from the 1920s through the 1950s... from silent movies to Roy Rogers, Stage Coach to Gunsmoke. I have lots of Western themed collectibles, and these cute li'l Valentines are right up there with my other faves.

I love my giant sized Mexican boy & girl on a burro. The sombrero folds over to what used to be a 'tissue ball' hat. (it's now pretty mushed and torn).  My guess is this one is from the late 30s or 1940s.

The others are probably from the 1940s or '50s, but the cute li'l roping cowgirl and cowboy is definitely 1930s vintage.

I hope you enjoy my western Valentines, and don't mind that I've roped you into another one of my Valentine collections. I'm not horsing around, and I won't steer you wrong, (I think it's time I ride into the sunset before you brand me 'loco'!) Yippeee yi ki-yay!