Nightmare On Main Street

I know it is a little early to be posting this sort of thing, but I thought it was imperative that I give all you good little girls and boys fair warning: if this is the Santa that is coming to your house, you can stop worrying about your behavior, tear up that wish list and save the postage – you’re wasting your time! If you have been bad it doesn't matter now.

This Santa doesn’t even have reindeer! Nope. His miserable, moth-eaten donkey has been dead for so long the hair is coming off in handfuls, and look at the tail (even the taxidermist responsible for the smirk on its face is probably expired and stuffed)!

Trusting little Evelyn, age four, doesn’t seem to realize she has been had by the department store! Whose idea was the donkey, anyway? Do you think maybe the regular Santa didn’t show up (can you blame him?) so someone dashed frantically into the alley behind the store, found this guy and offered him $15 to don the outfit and stand in for the day. You would have thought someone from the cosmetics counter could have done something! From the look on his face, you might guess this was already child #1426 just since the store opened at 10 and the sort of holiday spirit he has in mind isn’t in his heart!

I’m really sorry about this kiddies, but I thought you would want to know. And Happy Holidays!

I think this is early 1930s (talk about Depression!)

That High Wheel Bike!

I can find no information on W.H. Warne's business or location (there was a W.H. Warne who came from Canada to South Dakota about 1862). The building suggests a successful enterprise, as odd as furniture and undertaking may seem to contemporary minds. The stove pipe hat and high-crowned bowlers may suggest a date of 1880s - 1890s; the long coats of the gentlemen in the doorway may suggest the funeral part of the business. But the prominent feature of this photograph is the young man with the high wheel bicycle.

Which brings me to a question that has always plagued me: how does one get on and off of a high wheel bike? Was a rider viewed as a sportsman or as some sort of amateur circus performer? I have never seen anyone ride one, but – without being unnecessarily graphic – it has always looked to me like a risky and potentially painful undertaking for the male of the species! The advent of the standard two-wheel bike of more down-to-earth proportions must have been greeted with some relief as a truly useful object of transportation and leisure entertainment and less a medieval torture device.

On a related note, I tended to think of photograph collectors as being essentially prosaic until I encountered the prices that are paid for any antique print, in any condition, of a high wheel bike or motorcycle – I might now have reason to wonder if I am at risk of a serious mental deficiency except that I was able to afford this image because it failed to mention the bike in the description, and I didn’t buy it for the bike (at least that is what I keep telling myself).

An Afternoon At The Old Fishing Hole

Fishing attire has undergone some changes in 125 years, as has a young woman's choice of reading material when she is not baiting her hook or dabbling her hands in the cool waters with her gloves on – wouldn't you know it would be the latest issue of Anthony's Photographic Bulletin. What else?

You might think from my occasional commentary regarding Victorian-era studio backdrops that I am scornful of them, but no, I accept them as a cultural norm and I never fail to enjoy the joke as I am sure any intellectually discriminating Victorian also did. What is the draped object on the left? Oh, the picnic basket, of course!

This print by J. D. Cadwallader, of Marietta, Ohio, and Parkersburg, West Virginia, is one of the most elaborate faux scenes I have yet seen, with real water as indicated by the tone change in the woman's glove, though I will suspend belief as to whether anyone went away with fish stories – the woman with the line in the water looks somewhat skeptical as to her chances (and perhaps she is feeling just a bit silly). No photographer would create such a scene for a single use; wouldn't you like to know how many other of these photos are out there somewhere?

On the back is inscribed in lovely Spencerian penmanship: Yours affectionately, Kate & Mrs. Yvette, Dec. 7/84.

Another thing that has changed – not many American women today dress in a manner that only exposes the face and a bit of wrist!

World Famous Skate Quartet

The seller described this image as Four Men With Musical Instruments. 

Of course I was not about to miss having permanent proof that anyone, much less a quartet, could make music with ice skates! Who knew – and these characters don’t even look like your typical musicians. Don’t ask me how they do it or what it sounds like. I am pretty sure none of the major composers wrote for ice skate, but perhaps someone has. 

Anyway, you heard it first here at Timebinder and you will be a hit at the next cocktail or dinner party when you pipe up with, “Did you know that ice skates are musical instruments?”; the silence will be deafening until someone screws up the courage to ask you to elaborate, so be prepared! 

This is a small, poor quality tintype – which is really a shame considering the sensational subject matter. I have never understood why a fair percentage of tintypes are almost completely out of focus, and it is usually not due to motion blur. Maybe the photographer was in a hurry because these guys had to leave for their next concert.

Clown Militant

Not difficult to understand why this photo from a family album survived – for at least as long as anyone remembered who these characters were, it must have caused some laughs as it was clearly meant to do.

The style of most of these helmets was used throughout Europe in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, but a military expert could recognize the crests and say what nationality. I would suggest a pre-WWI date for the photo based on the clothes (yet the one soup bowl helmet looks WWI and the bucket style helmet more reminiscent of WWII). The young boys have bows on their shoes and heavy wool fabrics are being worn even though it is not winter.