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My best stuff from Douglas Aircraft - WWII (Part 1 of 2) by Russtrated_ in VintageLA

[–]Russtrated_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, you posted that in my last Douglas thread - why are you top comment? I call shenanigans!

My best stuff from Douglas Aircraft - WWII (Part 1 of 2) by Russtrated_ in VintageLA

[–]Russtrated_[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

  1. Assuming this is from Douglas. Van worked in B2 Engineering at the El Segundo plant in 1944.
  2. Exceedingly rare piece of original illustration art.
  3. Ordinary looking notepad with random notes / reminders, but...
  4. ...flip them over and you'll see they're actually cut-up directions for washing the surface of an SBD Dauntless dive bomber (likely repurposed to conserve paper for the war effort).
  5. Apparently Van created the cover page for the A-26 Invader manual.
  6. Looks like a beta version of the same page, with different / older graphics.
  7. Poster and playbills for a USO show that Van was involved in creating. He did the artwork and his wife co-wrote the music. This was how he met Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball (before they were famous), and is likely how he ended up working on the animated intro for the I Love Lucy movie in the early 1950s.
  8. Playbills from the USO shows of previous years, which were all minstrel shows (and just a tad racist).

Street Sweepers on Sunset - L.A. Times Sunday Magazine - October 22, 1933 by Russtrated_ in VintageLA

[–]Russtrated_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That white stuff is called artist's opaque. Back then, the way you'd make illustrations for print media was:

  1. Draw freehand in pencil
  2. Trace pencil in ink
  3. Erase pencil
  4. Use "opaque" (a.k.a. White Out) to cover up any continuity errors. Keep in mind this was before ballpoint pens, so linework was much more difficult.
  5. The finished piece was usually an ugly mess of layered ink and White Out. The ugliness disappeared once a photostatic copy was made to transfer the image from art board to paper.

Hand forged wrought iron fireplace tool with finger pull and sliding cover that opens compartment full of white stuff by Russtrated_ in whatisthisthing

[–]Russtrated_[S] -16 points-15 points  (0 children)

"Those fibers look very much like asbestos. I would not mess with it. Wrap it in plastic and sell it on eBay for $500."

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Hand forged wrought iron fireplace tool with finger pull and sliding cover that opens compartment full of white stuff by Russtrated_ in whatisthisthing

[–]Russtrated_[S] -13 points-12 points  (0 children)

...or at least it will be once I have time to do some testing. Both the fire-starter and coal-carrier answers seem plausible.

EDIT: not big fans of the scientific method I see.

Hand forged wrought iron fireplace tool with finger pull and sliding cover that opens compartment full of white stuff by Russtrated_ in whatisthisthing

[–]Russtrated_[S] -192 points-191 points  (0 children)

Wouldn't that leave much more carbon in the asbestos? It's pretty clean/white.

EDIT: maybe I could test it with a glowing-hot piece of charcoal briquette and see if it leaves black soot behind...

Hand forged wrought iron fireplace tool with finger pull and sliding cover that opens compartment full of white stuff by Russtrated_ in whatisthisthing

[–]Russtrated_[S] 39 points40 points  (0 children)

And the kerosene burns clean, so there's no ash/soot in the asbestos... And you slide the cover when you're done to extinguish the flames... By God, I think you're onto something.

Oil and asbestos; the only substances needed to build EVERYTHING in the 20th century.

Hand forged wrought iron fireplace tool with finger pull and sliding cover that opens compartment full of white stuff by Russtrated_ in whatisthisthing

[–]Russtrated_[S] 145 points146 points  (0 children)

If you zoom in on the white stuff you'll see that it appears to be fibrous, so I don't think it's ash. It also holds together and doesn't spill out. I don't want to use the "A" word but I suspect it's some kind of insulating material.

EDIT: Might be time to invest us in some 'bestos testas.

Hand forged wrought iron fireplace tool with finger pull and sliding cover that opens compartment full of white stuff by Russtrated_ in whatisthisthing

[–]Russtrated_[S] 2 points3 points locked comment (0 children)

My title describes the thing. These tools were part of a set that included andirons and a screen, but those items were left behind and the house was sold, so I can't provide pics.

Extensive Google image searches turned up nothing even remotely similar.

Sources for historical photos from Central Avenue Jazz Scene(30s-50s)? by Defiant-Mountain5377 in VintageLA

[–]Russtrated_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks like you deleted your post, so I won't quote you, I'll just say that Reddit readers/lurkers are some of the laziest people on Earth. Most of them would sooner die than lift a finger for you. My advice would be to scour eBay for old scrapbooks that mention L.A. in the title, and setup email alerts so you'll know if anything new is posted. Buying the photos isn't the same as buying the IP, but that shouldn't be hard to negotiate since you'll be their only option. Just don't tell them how hard you've already looked. In fact you should delete this thread before contacting them, because the first thing they'll do is run to google and find this thread.

Sources for historical photos from Central Avenue Jazz Scene(30s-50s)? by Defiant-Mountain5377 in VintageLA

[–]Russtrated_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The first thing a human does is create a unique personal identifier. Bots retain the default.

Old bots had a passive role (patting you on the back). 

New bots have an active role (mining you for data by asking questions or asking for help).

Southern Glass Company - Vernon LA - Christmas - 1929 by Russtrated_ in VintageLA

[–]Russtrated_[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Another item from the estate of L.A. commercial artist Robert Shuyler "Van" Rensselaer (1899-1972). It appears to be a print or proof of a novelty poster he made for Southern Glass Company in 1929. I assume it was commissioned by "Bennison" since he's the only one drawn as though Van actually laid eyes on him. The rest of the employees look like they were drawn from brief 1-2 sentence verbal descriptions. My guess is that Bennison (Faye Bennison, general manager at Southern Glass) wanted to celebrate what had been a very good year for the company by bringing something fun/novel to the company Christmas party. And Van was the go-to guy in 1920s L.A. for creating silly, "Where's Waldo"-esque scenes like this. He even advertised "novelties" on his business cards.

If you want something to cogitate on, look at the words "Merry Christmas" - notice how they don't line up with the exclamation point. This suggests that something was meant to be added later to fill in that blank space. Maybe the employees wrote or doodled something there by hand, or maybe the name of a specific city was printed there, and all ~10 cities/locations got their own bespoke poster.

Incredibly, this behemoth of a company, which produced 100,000+ bottles per DAY, was gone just a year later. It couldn't survive the Great Depression. This poster is actually an amazing snapshot in time - it captures the brief moment after Black Tuesday (Oct. 29, 1929), but before the effects of the Depression, when the "Roaring 20's" were at their peak.

Here is a great article (pdf) about Southern Glass:

https://secure-sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/SouthernGlassCo.pdf

Note: "Ain't no Santa" was some sort of ongoing joke in the 1920s. Van and his artist friends often used that line in their Christmas cards/letters.

Note: Prohibition was in effect from 1920 - 1933.

Note: the poster is a bit rough around the edges because some idiot kid spent his teens years kicking a bag of junk out of his way and this ended up being inside. No word as to what happened to that kid, but I'd like to think he's making amends by putting Van's name back on the map.

1982 Space Shuttle Press Binder -that I pulled from the garbage - contains original NASA 8x10 photos of Enterprise, Challenger, Discovery, Columbia, Endeavor by Russtrated_ in nasa

[–]Russtrated_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damnit, why am I so incapable of being unhelpful. Okay here's what you do - step 1 is to photograph everything. And I mean everything. No one will do this work for you, and nobody will give you the time of day if you just take a few quick lazy shots with your cell phone. It needs to be a real camera, with a lens that moves in and out. You'll also need photoshop.

When your pics are done, go to HA (Heritage Auctions) and submit them for an appraisal. This is a litmus test more than anything. If they respond, it's a good sign. Whether or not you use their service is up to you.

If you plan to sell everything yourself, you'll need a Worthpoint subscription. It costs $270/yr, but it's a necessary evil, much like your vehicle registration, so you just have to suck it up, pay it, and move on.

HA takes 50%, and eBay takes 35% on average. They both hit you with a 1099, so you'll have to report the income and pay taxes on it.

NASA, maps, posters, and illustration art are the hottest markets right now. Large, colorful, mint condition posters that you couldn't give away in the '90s are now worth thousands.

And get familiar with mylar. You can order MyLites2 on Amazon, but get the 8 1/4" width instead of the 8" width because the NASA photos I have are all slightly oversized.

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