What the experts collect: Spotlight on Elyse Luray of PBS History Detectives

Charismatic, inquisitive, intelligent, enthusiastic – did I neglect to say telegenic? – Elyse Luray, like her three fellow investigators on the PBS series “History Detectives”, brings to the field of history all the energy, relevance and wonder that somehow got bled out of too many junior high and high school classrooms.

You can tell I’m big on “History Detectives,” as a history buff and as a collector – although the folks who submit mysteries aren’t necessarily either: Someone in Oregon opens a trunk and finds a Revolutionary War–era poem apparently written by an American prisoner of war in Mother England; a guy in Seattle receives from his father a baseball signed and dated July 12, 1944 by former Major League pitcher Dizzy Dean, along his dad’s account of playing in an uncharacteristically integrated wartime Air Force ball game with Dean and Negro Leagues legend Satchel Paige … These are human-interest stories more than anything, but they demonstrate the kind of investigatory skills – the adventure of real research – that is part and parcel of world-class collecting.

What’s more, I note that “History Detectives” investigations often have a genealogical element. While many people think of genealogists as spidery and schoolmarmish, good ones know their beans about history and are as tenacious about pursuing a lead as Arnold Schwarzenegger was about tracking down Linda Hamilton in “The Terminator.” That’s an inspiration for collectors seeking as much knowledge about their treasures as they possibly can.

But I digress: Back to Elyse …

Originally from Baltimore, Elyse Luray graduated with a degree in art history from Newcomb College Institute at Tulane University in New Orleans. Her creds in the auction and collectibles world – what you won’t know just from seeing her on PBS – is extensive. For example, she was animation art specialist, managed the Popular Culture department and set up the Arms & Armor and American Indian Art departments at Christie’s, where she worked as a licensed auctioneer and appraiser for 11 years (in 2000 she auctioned one of the pairs of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz” for $666,000). She has captained the block for a host of other auction houses (Steiner Sports, Grey Flannel Auctions, Bertoia Auctions, etc.) and charitable causes as well. Elyse has appeared and appraised on the Home & Garden Television show “If Walls Could Talk,” HGTV’s “Endless Yard Sale,” “The Early Show” on CBS and “Antiques Roadshow” on PBS; and she has evaluated the personal collection of cartoonist/animator/producer/all-around creative genius Chuck Jones and the archives and collections of such little-known startups as Warner Bros., DreamWorks, Lucasfilm and Hanna-Barbera Productions. The list goes on …

So imagine MY elation when Elyse agreed to talk about her personal collections with AmeriCollector.com! Here’s our interview from earlier in this month.

AmeriCollector: You must collect a lot of things. What’s your main collecting interest?

Elyse: My main collection is actually Marx Brothers posters: one-sheets and inserts, not reproductions. My children’s last name is Marx and I have two boys, so they’re “the Marx brothers.” (Laughs.) All over my house are Marx Brothers posters. I got my first one maybe 25 years ago, before my children where born; but then I actually had boys, whose last name is Marx, and I started collecting more and more and more. The prices got really high, but then they went down again. So that’s probably my biggest collection.

It’s also hard, because you need to have the space for posters, and I don’t really have that much space anymore, so that limits my buying.

I went through a big stage of collecting bulldogs, since I had one – anything with a bulldog – and I probably ended up with a couple of hundred pieces of bulldog paraphernalia, things with an image of a bulldog and mainly old advertising pieces.

AC: So you don’t necessarily collect antiques.

Elyse: Well, you know, it’s funny you say that. I mean, I don’t consider my bulldog collection or Marx Brothers posters antiques, but nothing is later then 1950; in fact, some pieces are from the turn of the 20th century. Each is one-of-a-kind, and I stay away from limited editions. So I guess they are antiques. I also collect sterling silver serving pieces and trays, both American and European, and I don’t buy anything new. I don’t buy contemporary.

I don’t feel I collect that much because, with my show and with my work, I’m constantly around collections. It’s really weird for me, but when I work on an appraisal or a story, I feel like I’m sharing the collection with the owner for a while. Because of what I do and the nature of my business, I feel like I’m around collections all the time … Actually, I AM around collections all the time! (Laughs.)

AC: I know you were at Christie’s for a long time, and I think you were working in the areas of pop culture and art, so I assumed you collected art.

Elyse: Well, I have a lot of Western art in my house, which came from my parents, and I did help help set up the American Indian Art department at Christie’s. One area of art that I actually bought and collected recently with my mother: the “Les Maîtres de l’Affiche” series; they’re prints and posters from the turn of the century. Lautrec, Mucha and Cheret were some of the more known illustrators. And it’s a series of prints produced in the early 1900s. The whole series is about …I don’t know the exact number off the top of my head: Let’s say 350, 400. My mom has them, each framed on one entire wall in her dining room and I have a couple scattered through out my house. And that’s definitely artwork, but it’s more of what we call a “multiple” market, because prints are multiples, meaning they are produced in a series and there is more then one. Prints, posters, photography – they fall into the multiple category.

AC: How do you build your collections?

Elyse: If you want me to give advice on how to collect, these are my key points:

BUY WHAT YOU LOVE – hands down, buy what you love. If you find a passion, follow it. Anything that you want to collect is OK. If you want to collect Hawaiian shirts, ashtrays, bells – anything that what you find interesting – then that’s what you should collect. There’s nothing you can’t collect, because that’s the beauty of it. Follow your passion, follow your dreams …

When you do find that one thing that gives you some type of emotional satisfaction that you want to start collecting it, my biggest piece of advice, besides buy what you like, is BUY GOOD: Buy things that are in good condition, buy things that are not going to fall apart or have a lot of damage or have a lot of restoration on them, because I find that those are the things that sustain themselves the longest. And I hate to tell to buy things for value, but if you do ever need to sell your collection or want to sell your collection, you want to have things in it that are actually the best of the best. If you can’t afford to do that in the beginning, then “buy up”: Buy what you can afford and then trade it when you can get to the next better piece.

AC: Is there any particular “holy grail” that you’re looking for, in terms of posters or even bulldogs?

Elyse: No, I haven’t really found my “holy grail” yet.

I wish I DID have a “holy grail”: I always want more. I’d like to collect other things, actually, at this point.

I’m not sure that anyone should have a “holy grail,” because after you get it, then you’re kind of, like, what do I do now? You know what I mean? (Laughs.) I would hate for someone to stop collecting.

AC: What would you collect?

Elyse: Too many things to really answer. I love antique advertising. I love old jars: I kind of started to collect them; they’re not expensive, they look really good and they’re very decorative in your house.

I don’t have the room for it, but if I had room, I’d collect a million other things. I’d love to collect old photography – black-and-white – and when I say “old,” I mean early-20th-century photography, not contemporary.

The problem – and you would probably be the same way, because you’re a collector – is that you don’t think of some things, and then you walk into somebody’s house and you see what they collect, and you think: “That’s the greatest idea! That’s brilliant! I love it!”

I was just in Sun Valley, Idaho, on vacation over Christmas, and I walked into somebody’s house, and they collect nutcrackers. They were exceptional cast-iron nutcrackers, and they must have had 200 of them, and you know, the characters that were used and the mechanics of the nutcrackers – it was just a brilliant thing to collect! I would never have thought of that before.

The beauty is that there is always something to collect!

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Images courtesy of Elyse Luray

Visit the History Detectives on PBS online at:  www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives

Visit Elyse’s Web site: www.ElyseLuray.com.

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The Ripper reexamined: Historian Mei Trow reveals a new, viable suspect for London murders

Serial murderers, including serial murderers with sexual motivation, have terrorized humanity since time immemorial; we just don’t know to what extent. The vampire and werewolf legends of lore no doubt account for many of these, and I think it’s interesting that a recent medical theory attributes some historical cases of vampirism to rabies infection: It seems that humans who contract the virus have been known not merely to bite a lot but to have supercharged, insatiable sex drives. Think what you like, it had to have been a lousy way to go, for everyone involved.

But I don’t mean to be flip. In this age of advanced communications, we are used to knowing – or being able to access – the news any time we want it and, with simulcasts, even as it happens. The same goes for crime forensics: Who knew even 25 years ago that DNA analysis would be so widely and routinely used to identify perpetrators and discount innocent suspects? Yet, 1,200 or even 120 years ago, what reasonable explanation or law-enforcement measures could be offered when, one by one, people suddenly went missing or turned up mutilated in a remote area of China or Peru or France or Russia?

Or Victorian England … That’s where the most notorious, the most enduring series of murders (in terms of the public consciousness) took place within a few short months in 1888, in an area of London called Whitechapel, by a butcher who fearful Britons would nickname and the world would come to know as Jack the Ripper. At least, in the teeming capital of the British Empire, news traveled fast, and any supernatural theories – if any were offered – fell before modern psychology. And while I would point out that Bram Stoker knew his audience when he published “Dracula” nine years later (in 1897), in the waning years of the 19th century, modern, enlightened Londoners knew Jack was no vampire but a very human and very dangerous nutcase. The fact that the murderer was never caught or his identity conclusively confirmed ensured that “Ripperology” would be a rich subject for writers and filmmakers to mine for the next century; I’m certain it will remain so for at least one more.

I won’t recount the five horrific murders of prostitutes that have been “canonically” (according to the Wikipedia entry) attributed to this particular deviant: All the gruesome details, including a number of hideous police photos, can readily be found online, along with some theories linking subsequent murders to the Ripper and others, ranging from the cockeyed to the credible, suggesting any number of contemporary and new suspects as the killer. There have also been a couple of pretty fascinating programs about the case on the Discovery Channel, one of which submits that Jack booked passage to the United States and resumed his killing spree in New York City. Another, “Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed,” which I find even more compelling, is based on the book “Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer” (Barnsley, U.K.: Wharncliffe Publishing, Nov. 2009) by British historian and former high school teacher M. J. (“Mei”) Trow, who has written a slew of mystery novels as well as historical studies of Spartacus, the 11th-century Spanish nobleman Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (“El Cid”) and Vlad III (a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler, the 15th-century Wallachian prince on whom the character Dracula was based).

In a nutshell, Trow has gone through the published records of the Ripper murders and identified an overlooked individual, Robert Mann, as a very likely possibility for Jack. A workhouse inmate employed as a mortuary attendant, Mann was called to testify at the first two inquests (in the slayings of Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman) but was disoriented and incoherent – which not discounted him as a credible witness but also failed to raise a red flag, so to speak, that Mann might have had something to do with the crimes. What’s more, using the modern investigative procedure of geographic profiling pioneered by Canadian police investigator Kim Rossmo – whose amazing mathematical system can show on a map where a serial killer likely lives and/or works, based on the locations of the crime scenes, with a success rate as high as 85 percent – Trow demonstrates that (1) both Mann’s living quarters and the mortuary where he worked fell well within the high-probability area for the Ripper’s home turf, and (2) based on where the victims were discovered, Mann would have been well aware that at least two of the bodies would be brought to the very same mortuary where he worked, giving him more opportunity to gloat over his handiwork (in his 1999 book “Geographical Profiling,” Rossmo has written that 22 percent of serial killers return to their victims’ dump sites).

Why do I blog on a Jack the Ripper investigation? Because I believe that collecting – of objects or information – should be an intellectual adventure, a quest to discover something new and interesting or even momentous. We are always hearing of “cold” cases that are not just revisited but solved, and the perpetrators brought to justice decades after committing their crimes; of recent archaeological discoveries that force us to revise conventional views of people and events in the distant past; of newly found books and letters and photographs long buried in library stacks and archives that add something surprising to subjects we thought we knew all about. I think Mei Trow’s research, based as it is on new methodology, can broaden any collector’s or armchair historian’s or even criminal investigator’s vistas.

Here’s my recent interview with the author. If you have any specific questions or original research on Jack the Ripper, you can contact Trow at isjack@live.co.uk.

AmeriCollector: Is there still a lot of interest in Jack the Ripper among Britons and Londoners in particular?

Mei Trow: The Ripper crimes form the basis of an ongoing industry, especially in London itself, where there are nightly tours of the murder sites and other related areas. Although Ripperology now has an international dimension – Jack is famous throughout the world – it is inevitable that the real focus of interest should be in the place where the crimes were carried out. Bookshops throughout Britain that contain true, crime sections invariably have books on Jack, and The Whitechapel Society with its regular periodical sends out to a wide fan base.

AC: Is this still considered an open case by the police? Are there officers assigned to the case to assist researchers, or do some do it purely out of personal interest?

Mei: There is a general belief that no unsolved case is ever closed, but that is simply not true. The Ripper case was officially closed in 1892, although documentation relating to it has survived to the present day. There is therefore no dedicated team of serving police officers working on the case, although several retired policemen have gone into print with various suspects.

AC: The online edition of the Daily Mail (Oct. 2009) indicates you have been actively focusing on Robert Mann as a suspect for the past two years. When and how did you have an “Ah ha!” moment when Mann appeared to you as a viable perpetrator of the crime? Did anyone at all suspect him at the time?

Mei: The “Ah ha!” moment probably came when I realized that Mann had been abandoned in the workhouse as a child by his mother, who would have been in her forties at the time. This corresponds not only to the ages of all his victims (except Mary Kelly) but is also consonant with behavioral psychologists’ ideas of serial killer motive. The fact that Robert Mann was dismissed as being liable to fits and therefore unreliable as a witness at the inquest into Annie Chapman means that he was never seriously considered as a suspect. Four of his seven victims were brought to his mortuary, and the idea of a disturbed mortuary attendant first surfaced in the profiling carried in 1988 by John Douglas of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico.

AC: In “Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed” on the Discovery Channel, it was pointed out that Mann was called to testify in the Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman inquests. Yet, was he not merely a workhouse inmate assisting in a mortuary and, one would assume, assisting a doctor performing autopsies? Why would he have been called as a witness? Would his responsibilities in a mortuary gone beyond moving corpses around and cleaning up? Could he have gotten actual training in opening up bodies?

Mei: I think it unlikely that Mann would have received any formal training but he would have been on hand to observe autopsies at close hand. We know from other sources that he was trusted to go out of the workhouse to collect corpses, so he is not merely “moving bodies around” in the confines of his own mortuary. Anyone connected with the deceased, from relatives and friends to any eyewitnesses, the police and auxiliary staff (e.g., Mann), would be called to an inquest as a matter of routine.

AC: At the time of the murders, Whitechapel was an impoverished area where many immigrants lived, and in fact there were some immigrants on the list of suspects. Mann was supposedly born in Mile End New Town around 1835, yet Mann is a German name, and he was called Mansel in one account. Is it possible that he was in fact an immigrant? Would that be relevant to the investigation?

Mei: I do not believe that Mann was an immigrant but the fact that his father was a weaver may imply that the family were among the religiously persecuted Huguenots who emigrated to England for safety in the 17th century. Although largely French, some of these Huguenots would have lived along the Rhineland border with Germany. The name Mansel and Marne, which is also ascribed to him, are simply careless work by British journalists.

AC: Your belief in the authenticity of the “From Hell” Ripper letter (sent to Scotland Yard with part of a victim’s kidney) was pretty compelling: The handwriting, spelling and other characteristics seemed uncontrived. Are there no confirmed writing samples belonging to Robert Mann that might be compared to the letter to prove Mann had written it? (Mann would have been about 54 at the time of the murders.)

Mei: Nothing has come to light yet. My belief is that he probably received a rudimentary education at what in England were called National Schools (for ages five to 10) and thereafter as a child in the workhouse might have received continuing educational basics after that. It is unlikely he would be required to write anything, even in the context of his job as mortuary attendant. Since he never married, we do not even have a signature on marriage records.

AC: Is there any Ripper material that, in your opinion, has not been adequately examined and that may conceivably yield more leads?

Mei: There has been so much research into this case especially over the last 50 years that I doubt whether anything has yet to surface. Having said that, to give you one example, the autopsy notes on Mary Kelly compiled by Dr. Thomas Bond had gone missing and were posted anonymously to Scotland Yard in 1987. A number of items from the original police investigation have gone missing and have not been returned. It was not the custom of any British police force to keep artifacts from cases after they were closed. The exhibits in Scotland Yard’s Black Museum are there almost by accident.

AC: Are there other avenues that you are pursuing that may help confirm or discount Robert Mann as a suspect?

Mei: It would be great to learn more about Mann’s childhood and how other people (e.g., workhouse inmates) regarded him. Unfortunately, people of this class were usually illiterate and so left nothing in the way of letters, diaries, etc.

AC: You have said that we will probably never know conclusively who Jack the Ripper really was. Have you ever brainstormed with other Ripper investigators, either privately or in a panel discussion, on your respective preferred suspects? Are Ripper investigators very competitive about their findings, or do you ever collaborate?

Mei: I would love to take part in a television debate of this kind. However, I suspect we would all end up shouting at each other and achieving no consensus!

AC: Certainly, modern forensic technology (like plotting on a map the likely area where a killer lives or works, based on the murder locations) has helped your investigation. Are there other aspects of the “Internet Age” that have been of special value to you in your research?

Mei: Many records, such as census information and workhouse details, are now available online. Although all these exist in various libraries and institutions around the country, to be able to work on them at the press of a button is obviously a huge advantage. I must mention the excellent Casebook: Jack the Ripper site (www.Casebook.org), which contains a mass of material collated by Ripperologists and forms a basis for ongoing research.

AC: Do you ever receive viable ideas or leads from amateur investigators? Are there many collectors of Ripper lore, and what do their collections comprise? Have you encountered many people with a strictly sordid fixation on the case?

Mei: There is a body of Ripper-related material – the first full book on the murders was written in 1908 – and there are people who collect anything to do with the case. I myself have 20-plus books written from a number of different angles. Undoubtedly, there are people obsessed with the murders purely because of their grisly nature. The same people probably collect details from the lives of Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, etc.

AC: There have been some very graphic crime photos of Ripper victims in books and even on TV: The Mary Kelly murder scene is a case in point. Yet, “Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed” showed only the faces of some of the dead victims. Was this intended to de-sensationalize the subject and focus more on the investigatory aspects of the story?

Mei: Yes, this decision was taken by the program’s director because we wanted to focus on the new suspect and the mechanics of finding him. Having said that, I think the dramatic reconstructions were very vivid and caught something of the horror of the original.

AC: Many people nowadays – adults as well as younger people – express no interest in history; many have negative memories of history class from their schooldays. Are you still a high school history teacher, and does your writing inspire your students to pursue historical subjects?

Mei: I gave up teaching last year to pursue writing, TV appearances, etc., and I like to think that a lot of students remember my lessons with interest and affection. It is all too common an experience that a fascinating subject is killed stone dead by a boring teacher; I hope I was never one of those. Yesterday, I received a phone call from a student of mine of over 30 years ago asking me to contribute to a forthcoming TV history program. This has nothing to do with Jack, but he told me that the first lesson he had with me, which was an introduction to the problems of historical research, was about the Ripper.

AC: What’s your next project?

Mei: At the moment I am updating my biography of Vlad the Impaler to take into account the new wave of interest in vampires.

_______________________________________

Book by Mei Trow:
JACK THE RIPPER: QUEST FOR A KILLER

Have you read “Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer”? We welcome your impressions of Mei Trow’s book. Please post here or send them, along with a line or two about yourself, to LetsCollect@AmeriCollector.com.

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‘Performance’ artist: Gary Houston’s posters document Northwest music scene

Poster art, like album cover art and T-shirt art, has been part of the iconography of American music since the 1960s – that decade of so many great, misguided and/or lost causes – when music really started to make a statement. You can trace some of the evolutionary branches of rock and roll through its graphics: The “Sergeant Pepper” and “Magical Mystery Tour” covers; the Grateful Dead’s various skeletons; the Ramones’ American eagle; the Boss’ leather-jacketed back on “Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits,” electric guitar rakishly slung upside down – and Weird Al Yankovic’s parody of the same image, with an accordion instead of Telecaster … Whatever the era, whatever the music, the art embodied and immortalized it long after the bands left the stage.

If you love poster art – but art that’s not so mass-produced that it’s as ubiquitous as Mick Jagger’s lips at a Rolling Stones concert – check out Portland, Ore.–based master silkscreen printer Gary Houston at VoodooCatBox.

I first saw a sampling of Gary’s work on a wall of Powell’s Books in Portland four or five years ago. I was and continue to be blown away: Some of Gary’s hand-printed posters for musicians’ tours and performances at local venues are a nod to classic concert posters (think Rick Griffin’s “Flying Eyeball” for Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers or any of the Fillmore East concert posters), but he has his own vision, his own style, and I think you’ll like it as much as I do – not just for the artwork but for his sense of time and place.

You see, Gary is a chronicler of musical events through the prism of the Portland music scene – not everyone who blows through town, of course, but music is a matter of taste. Certainly, he features lots of Northwest groups, like Alice in Chains, Death Cab for Cutie and Foo Fighters, alongside legends like B.B. King, Joan Baez, Jorma Kaukonen, Patti Smith, David Byrne, Steve Miller Band and Elvis Costello. Your biggest dilemma will be which prints to choose. They are really reasonably priced – generally around $30 each – but don’t dawdle: These knockouts are produced in limited runs (in editions of as few as 80 signed, numbered copies), and they SELL OUT!

(I need not point out that they make GREAT gifts … for yourself or the music lovers on your holiday shopping list.)

I recently interviewed Gary about his posters. You can see some of his work – along with that of dozens of other sensational artists – on display in “The Art of Musical Maintenance VI” through Jan. 25, 2010, at The Goodfoot Pub & Lounge (www.thegoodfoot.com), 2845 SE Stark, Portland, OR 97214, (503) 239-9292.

AmeriCollector: What’s your art background?

Gary Houston: I studied art at Wichita State University, Kansas, and Bethany College in Linsborg, Kansas. My formal background is more in drawing, sculpture and art history.

AC: How long have you been doing music posters?

Gary: Since 1994 or ’95. I was going through a divorce, and it was a good way to work out my angst and my frustration: It was a way of being constructive instead of being self-destructive. I also did posters back in high school and college, but not to the degree of the present. I do like the freedom that doing posters affords.

AC: Are you asked to do them by the musician or by the venue?

Gary: A lot of times we do posters for the venues, and sometimes we do touring stuff for the bands. A lot of times I do stuff because I want to: I’m not getting paid for it. I do it because I’m a music junkie: I’m a big fan of people who do really quality work, music-wise. I always think we do the “Americana of music”: I do a lot of blues/R&B/twang, with a little punk stuff. Obviously I do some things that harken back to the psychedelic era.

AC: Do you get to do what you want, or are you pretty much told what to do?

Gary: It depends on the band. For example, Los Lobos lets us do anything we want to do. Some bands micromanage, and that sucks the fun out of it.

AC: What is the printing process?

Gary: They’re silkscreen prints. I screen-print everything, I hand-pull everything. I don’t know how many colors there will be until something’s on the light table. It’s always a surprise, and I enjoy making changes, but it’s kind of addictive: I try not to be obsessive about it.

AC: Do you have help?

Gary: Someone does the computer work for me: the film, the typography and the scanning. Her name is Hailey and she’s very good at the digital stuff, and easy to work with.

AC: How many posters are in each edition?

Gary: Most of my editions are anywhere from 100 to well past 1,000 (for tours).

AC: Do you sign and/or number them?

Gary: I sign and number my stuff. There are times when I do an overrun and they don’t get numbered, but they’re all signed.

AC: Do you ever exhibit your work?

Gary: I’ve exhibited in flatstock shows in Austin, Texas, in Seattle and in Germany, and I’m currently in “The Art of Musical Maintenance VI” at The Goodfoot Pub & Lounge in Portland with around 50 other poster artists. It’s a spectacular show and will be up through Jan. 25. I’ve also had shows here in Portland and in Kentucky and California.

Many thanks to Gary Houston of www.voodoocatbox.com for giving us this great interview.

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Collector spotlight: Bob Rosner!

If you’re not Paris Hilton and actually have to work for a living, then Bob Rosner is required reading.

A New Jersey native now based in Seattle, Bob writes “Workplace911” (formerly “Working Wounded”), the internationally syndicated weekly column about workplace issues. He’s also a best-selling author of “Working Wounded: Advice That Adds Insight to Injury” (Warner Books), coauthor of “Gray Matters: The Workplace Survival Guide” (Wiley) and “The Boss’s Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Through (and Getting the Most Out of) Every Day” (McGraw-Hill), a motivational speaker and employee retention expert, a surveyor of workplace attitudes and experiences, a radio talk show personality and a contributor to CNBC.

How’s THAT for a résumé?

But that’s not all: Bob can add, under “Additional Information”: “Collector of funeral home bowling shirts” – further proof that Bob really does care about the working stiff, so to speak.

How do I know Bob? Because I formatted “Workplace 911” for its weekly space in a certain Tacoma daily newspaper, so I not only got paid to read Bob’s column, I continue to benefit from it as I write these AmeriCollector entries. The fact is, Bob’s down-to-earth writing style – combined with his upbeat, positive approach to dealing with workplace issues and challenges – is a model for any blogger. The same goes for the varied content of each of his columns, which usually consists of a reader’s question, Bob’s advice in the form of four key points, some enlightening, often humorous survey findings and an inspirational or at least fun quote from someone notable who, very often, has been in your shoes.

For these reasons, I consider Bob a mentor.

So imagine our surprise, delight and gratitude when I asked Bob if he collects anything; and, if so, if he’d be amenable to being featured on AmeriCollector.com; and what does he collect, anyway? – and he replied: “Yes”; “Yes”; and “Funeral home bowling shirts”! (Talk about breaking new ground in the collecting field!)

Now, funeraI home bowling shirts may sound bizarre to some and downright macabre to others: Who knew such things even existed? To me, at least, bowling shirts may be as little as 50 percent cotton and 50 percent polyester but they’re 100 percent Americana, and FUNERAL HOME bowling shirts in particular have all the offbeat early-1960s black humor of “The Munsters” and “The Addams Family,” Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s “Rat Fink” and Forrest J. Ackerman’s fanzine Famous Monsters of Filmland – pure boomer nostalgia.

Anyway, here’s my interview with Bob … (And incidentally, if you ARE Paris Hilton, e-mail us quick, we need a sponsor.)

AmeriCollector: Why bowling shirts???

Bob Rosner: Why not?

AC: Do you bowl?

Bob: Rarely. I was the captain of the bowling team in high school: not because I was any good; it just so happened that I had enough spare change to pay for a bunch of people’s shoe rentals. If you ever want to be an officer for a bowling league, I’ve learned, bring change!

AC: How many shirts do you have?

Bob: I have 21 shirts. I’ve been told by the Bowling Hall of Fame that this is the largest collection of its kind anywhere in the world. At least, that’s what they said when they tried to get me to donate it to their museum and called me every few days for two weeks.

AC: When did you get started?

Bob: I was looking through a bin of shirts at a vintage clothing store in Boston. I came across Carlson’s Funeral Home, 1174 Payne Avenue. It made me laugh.

One day I was at a party and a very beautiful woman and I got into a conversation. The chemistry was remarkable. There was actually beautiful music in the background as our eyes connected. It was pure Disney, although I don’t remember any songbirds flying around my head. It was magical and clear to both of us that we were destined to spend the rest of our lives together. Then I asked her if I could get her a drink. She said yes. When I turned she said, “Ugh. Funeral Home. That’s disgusting.” I replied, “How can you say that? I worked at Carlson’s for three years.” (For the record, if you look at the word “replied,” it also contains the word “lied,” which you could consider an apt description of my response to her.) She asked what I did at the funeral home. I told her, “I was activities director.” She didn’t laugh. So I continued, “We had a balcony, we’d hook strings to the bodies and hold dances.” She slapped me across the face, still the only time I’ve ever been slapped by a woman. At that point, I knew I was onto something.

AC: What do you enjoy about collecting the shirts?

Bob: I love having bowling parties, watching people change shirts every few minutes. And, trust me, you haven’t felt love until you’ve gone into a bowling alley wearing a shirt from a funeral home. They automatically treat you like family … well, to be accurate, like a cousin twice removed, but family, nonetheless.

If you ever do get invited to a party, wear a long-sleeve shirt under any shirt from your collection: To preserve their cultural and historical impact and integrity, the shirts should never be washed.

AC: How do you build your collection?

Bob: A friend made me a business card. It was gray and said, “Bob ‘First Strike’ Rosner” on it. It also had “RIP” across the top (which of course stands for “Recreation in Polyester”), I would hand cut each one into the shape of a tombstone. The card became very popular at vintage clothing stores. In fact, the last five shirts were given to me.

AC: What’s the highlight of your collection?

Bob: embroidered version of the famous hand bowling out of a casket shirt (it’s in the middle of the photo). This is the only shirt that consistently frightens people.

AC: What are the characteristics of a great shirt?

Bob: A bowling shirt with the word “Funeral” on it. This is not rocket science.

Many thanks to Bob Rosner. (Visit Bob’s Web site at www.workplace911.com.)

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Old news is good news for collectors

Newspapers are what my one of my favorite history professors termed “primary sources”: Like diaries, photographs, documents and other artifacts, they are original historical material as opposed to a second- or third-hand description of events plus any number of add-ons and asides, which is what most history books are.

A newspaper – taking into account the speed of communication at the time it was published – is about as immediate as you can get.

Add to that the fact that newspapers, like books, can touch on virtually any collecting field, and you can understand why I like to tell fellow collectors about Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers (www.rarenewspapers.com).

Imagine the possibilities …

Let’s say you collect dolls: I searched with the keyword “dolls” and got found a Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper from Jan. 3, 1891, with a full front page titled “Distribution of Dolls to the Children of Hope Chapel, a Branch of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church,” showing young girls receiving their dolls with Santa Claus in the background: spine wear and a few edge tears, priced at $38.

OK, say you collect Santa Claus: Tim has a whole bunch of examples. A rarer one is a Harper’s Weekly from Jan. 3, 1863, with a full front-page Thomas Nast illustration of “Santa Claus in Camp” – Nast’s first Santa to appear in Harper’s. (For you Civil War buffs, inside there are two half-page illustrations on the same page depicting “The Attack on the Rebel Works at Fredericksburg by the Centre Grand Division of the Army of the Potomac, on December 13, 1862.”) Price: $260. (A Harper’s Weekly from Dec. 15, 1888, with a double-page centerfold image of “Santa Claus Captured” – with Saint Nick on a rooftop surrounded by kids – and a “very handsome” full front page image showing people going to church on Christmas Eve is only $38.)

Whether you’re into militaria or maritime memorabilia, famous people or infamous crimes, baseball or boxing, African-American history or Judaica – or just old newspapers from a geographical area – you’re bound to find something that will not only interest you but enhance your collection.

What’s more, I’ve known Tim for several years and purchased from him and his people on a number occasions, and I’ve always been impressed by their goods, their excellent customer service and their great shipping.

Tim’s Web site has lots of information on collecting vintage newspapers, but I asked him some basic questions for AmeriCollector.com readers:

AmeriCollector: What newspapers do you yourself collect: ones from a specific region or era or pertaining to a certain subject? Or are newspapers in general your collecting “area” and you just like the rarest, most historic items?

Tim Hughes: If I had to be pinned down to a specific era of most interest I would have to say the Revolutionary War, as I am fascinated by its events and how it shaped the future of the United States … and the incredible odds against which Washington and others persevered and ultimately defeated the most powerful military in the world at that time.
But one of the great aspects of this hobby as there are so many possibilities of what to collect – I love to hang on to anything I find unusual, incredibly displayable and particularly rare. My private collection includes a wide range of eras, events, sizes, colors, formats and items of historical significance. Virtually every event in world history over the past 350 years can be found in a newspaper. I love the variety this hobby makes available!

AC: What are the collecting areas within the hobby?

Tim: The areas of collecting within the hobby are almost endless. Whatever interest one has in history early newspapers will provide a channel for collecting. Many customers will specialize: British history; American wars; significant political events; gangsters and outlaws; significant documents in history (usually published in period newspapers); great disasters; etc., etc. But one of the great appeals is that collecting rare newspapers is often a complementary or crossover hobby to many others: Those who collect autographs will buy newspapers with significant events about those whose autographs they treasure; Civil War buffs will buy Civil War newspaper; political junkies will buy presidential elections, inaugurations and deaths; antique car collectors will buy newspapers with ads of when their pride and joy was first marketed; coin collectors will buy newspapers of when new coin designs were introduced (usually announced in period newspapers); and on and on. Rare newspapers can complement every hobby known to man.

AC: What are some of the interesting collecting areas of some of your customers?

Tim: See above for some themes of several of our collectors. Others are a bit more focused: only major battles of the Revolutionary War; major battles of the Civil War; any huge, displayable headline; significant events from the city where they happened; one issue for every year from as far back as possible; issues with engravings of eagles in the masthead … One customer only buys newspapers which show “shaking hands” in the masthead: Now, that’s focused!

AC: How extensive is the hobby of collecting rare newspapers? Are there any other dealers at all who specialize in this?

Tim: Collecting early and rare newspapers is a relatively small and somewhat unknown hobby. We’ve been in this business for 32 years and I’d guess there are no more than two or three thousand serious collectors worldwide. People are absolutely intrigued when they discover we exist and discover that newspapers over 300 years old can be had for less than $50, let alone are available at all. There are three or four others who also sell early newspapers on a smaller scale. We have six full-time and several part-time employees, with an inventory exceeding two million newspapers. I am not aware of any full-time dealers in rare newspapers outside of the United States.

AC: Do institutions contact you?

Tim: We do have institutions contact us both in terms of buying and selling. Institutions will be in touch when they decide to de-accession issues once microfilmed or digitized, or perhaps when a particular collection is deemed out of scope for their holdings. We also have institutions as customers buying issues which fit their specialty.

AC: What are the “Holy Grails” of newspaper collecting?

Tim: The “Holy Grails” would be – for most American collectors – period printings of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and ideally in Philadelphia newspapers. They are exceedingly rare and would command six-figure prices should they become available. (A Philadelphia printing of the Declaration of Independence has already brought in excess of $300,000 in a New York auction.)

AC: Are newspapers ever forged? For example, aren’t there a lot of professionally done reprints in England?

Tim: There are a large number of reprint newspapers on the market today, but I truly believe none were created to deceive. Most are volume one, number one issues which were likely reprinted by their publishers on the 50th or 100th anniversaries, and others are of significant historic events reprinted as promotional giveaways, etc. There are also issues of significant 20th-century events with dramatic headlines which have been reproduced for sale in airports, gift shops and the like. The problem with all these issues is, once tucked away in the attic and discovered years later by others, they are presumed to be genuine and are often offered on eBay as such. It’s a problem, but like any collectible one needs to be aware of the field before investing serious money, and should always deal with reputable dealers who guarantee all they sell.

AC: What have newspapers been made of over the years, and how perishable are they? Are the high-acid papers necessarily hard to preserve?

Tim: Almost all newspapers of the pre-1880 era had a high cotton/rag content, so even today they remain in surprisingly pliable, well-preserved condition and need little care. To the delight of collectors, such newspapers can be handled and pages turned without concern for causing damage. Most newspapers of the post-1880 period have a much higher chemical and wood pulp content, which allowed newsprint to be made at dramatically lower costs (giving rise to the newspaper boom of the late 19th century and the abundance of “penny newspapers”) but also resulted in such issues becoming brown and fragile within years. These issues are still very collectible but I recommend keeping them in archival quality protective folders for safekeeping. There is supposedly a product which can be sprayed on such newspapers to neutralize the acid and prevent further deterioration, although I’ve never used it. But nothing can “turn back the clock” and make pulpish newspapers new again.

AC: When was the transition from rag content to high-acid paper in the U.S. and abroad?

Tim: The transition was generally around 1880. Some papers transitioned in the early 1870s, such as the New York Times, and others in the late 1880s, and yet others converted to coated-stock newsprint, which also held photographs and color ink much better than regular newsprint. Harper’s Weekly did the latter.

AC: I’ve tried to get specific papers for years: They’re really difficult to locate. Where do you get the wide array of newspapers that you sell? You can’t be getting your stock from garage sales and flea markets!

Tim: We actually get our inventory from surprisingly diverse sources. Much of what we currently have is inventory purchased over 30 years ago and which we’ll likely never see again. Some comes from institutions, much comes from private estates and others come as referrals through auctions, sales, etc. Given our Web presence, much material comes as a result of inquiries by those who see our Web site.

AC: What’s the best way to store newspapers?

Tim: My private collection has issues in individual protective folders, which we created when such a product was not available on the open market; again, the hobby was not big enough to warrant demand. Our protective folders allow newspapers to be very easily placed in and removed from the folders while allowing maximum protection for long-term storage. Easy removal is important, as collectors need that tactile experience of holding the newspaper so as to better “feel a part of its history.” Because of demand by other collectors, we decided to offer them on our Web site, now offering folders in eight sizes for newspapers. I also put these protected newspapers in the sturdy newspaper storage boxes available from University Products, one box per era, which allows a collection to be inventoried and accessed in an easy fashion.

AC: Now that the Internet is killing printed papers, do you think the latter will become increasingly collectible?

Tim: I believe the long-term demise of hard-copy newspapers will only spur the increased collectibility of early newspapers. This has been the case with almost every collectible on the market: People tend to collect that which no longer exists. I think it is human nature to be intrigued by what is no longer a part of their dally lives, yet which played such an important role in the history of world culture. It’s why we go to museums.

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Images courtesy of Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers (www.rarenewspapers.com).

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More on the Polish poster:
Art meets humor in eastern Europe

(Part two of two)

Back in August, I wrote about an art form that truly excited me: the Polish poster. Why was I – and why do I continue to be – so enthusiastic about this means of expression?

For one thing, it’s great original graphic art, often with a wry political or social twist. For another, it’s an area of collecting that has not yet really been “discovered” by a lot of people – yet.

Therefore, it’s almost an open field for anyone who wants to buy one or many of these really great pieces of art. Some examples are already showing up in art auctions and pulling down pretty fair sums, but most are still very affordable (most are around 40 bucks or less).

The preeminent dealer in Polish poster art is Krzysztof Marcinkiewicz of PolishPoster.com (www.polishposter.com), based in Wroclaw, Poland. An accomplished photographer, Krzysztof is also something of a historian and social critic, which the following interview will show. As I indicated in my earlier story on Polish posters, I purchased two film posters – a beautiful limited edition poster for Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” printed in lush colors on heavy stock, and a moody image for Akira Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai” printed on cheaper stock, as that was how such ephemera was made in cash-strapped post-communist Poland. The posters shipped, well packed, in a tube and arrived swiftly. It was a very pleasant buying experience.

What follows are some questions I asked Krzysztof last year. Note that these are original posters, not reprints, and that he sells to U.S. galleries and dealers. My advice: Get ’em direct from the source while they’re still available.

AmeriCollector: Are you an artist yourself? How did you get interested in poster art?

Krzysztof Marcinkiewicz: Yes and no. I am photographer but not a poster artist. It is not related to posters in any way. You can see some (of my) photographs here: www.aristos.home. I grabbed my first poster from a local theater to hang it on my wall when I was in high school in 1980s and then was getting more and more. During my studies I started really collecting them and it also became my part-time business in early ’90s; I sold Polish posters for a few years in Berlin, then Paris and London.

AC: Do you know the artists personally? Do they do this work as full-time professionals, or are they struggling artists, like so many here in the U.S.? Are any of them famous in Poland?

Krzysztof: Yes, I know many of them, mostly young ones, but a few veterans of Polish posters too. I just talked yesterday with Andrzej Krajewski (www.polishposter.com/html/krajewski.html) about the possibility of making re-editions of some of his posters from the ’60s and ’70s He has lived in the U.S. since middle ’80s. Some of the artists commonly known in Poland are somehow “celebrities” (what an ugly word used to qualify some completely mindless creatures). An artist who is very well known in Poland is Franciszek Starowieyski and another one is Andrzej Pagowski.

AC: Is this kind of artwork popular in Poland? Does it appeal mostly to younger Poles? Is this an “underground” art form in Poland, and was it popular when Poland was still under communism?

Krzysztof: It’s strange: This kind of art, poster art, is not, in general, so much interesting for young people. Strange but true. It’s something that belongs to past times and is not very cool … or it is interesting for SOME people who don’t go with mainstream popular culture. During the communist times it was THE ONLY poster art existing here. “Polish School of Posters” is the name given to this fascinating phenomenon, which (evolved) from propaganda art (important during communist times, before any mass media, like TV, become popular; posters were a medium for information and propaganda) and a spirit of freedom and the Polish feeling of reality (extremely sarcastic sometimes). And it was effect of the work of great designers, teachers who were teaching students at art schools during 1950s.

This kind of art was much more popular during communist times than now. There were “Western-style” posters here during these times (but not) any official film distributors with their own material, so everything was done here. And because money was not a problem – there was no need to make ads for (purposes of) making bigger sales – film posters were more an artistic comment from the poster artist about the other work of art (i.e., the film).

There were also other types of posters, not just movie posters. Posters were designed for any event, like theater, exhibitions or simply anything.

After 1990 this kind of art became very limited. There are only some film posters in the Polish style done after 1990. Some theaters and opera houses still make them but no film distributors, as film producers make their own (ad) campaigns almost the same worldwide. Our dreams are planned and promoted by marketing departments now.

AC: There is a lot of subtle, dark humor in much of this work. Would you say this is part of the Polish spirit?

Krzysztof: Sure, it is. Some people say that this spirit is easy to make: You need to live between Russian and Germans for few hundreds years. You add diluted spirit (I mean a liquid thing) to make it 40-percent voltage. You drink the thing daily for some time and, sure, you can make Polish posters or at least make a humorous comment about it.

AC: Most of your posters are from the 1980s and later, I think. Was there less government control over artists from that time? Were more foreign films being shown in Poland from that time?

Krzysztof: I have posters from ’50s until today. There are more ’80s posters for sale on my site because there are more of them available, as they are newer. It was easier to collect them and get them in quantities. I have about 9,000 different posters in my collection, and you can see more ’80s than any others. The older ones are hard to get, and I usually have one or two copies of a title. They disappear from my site when they are sold.

AC: Which artists and which posters do you think are special?

Krzysztof: It’s too difficult a question, as it is subject of personal taste. The posters I like most are from the 1950s to 1968, and artists I like a lot are Starowieyski, Mlodozeniec, Krayewski and in fact many more.

AC: Where are most of your customers from? Do many Americans know about these posters?

Krzysztof: Still most of my customers are from the U.S. (Strange: I said “still.”) A few years ago about 80 percent of my customers were from America; right now it’s about 55 percent. The reason is that exchange rate changes over the last year forced some of my customers to spend more on gas than on something what they don’t really need. My prices become over 100 percent higher in the last four years for my American customers, only because the value of Polish currency is double its value four years ago, or the dollar value is half of what it was.

Polish posters are known in the States. There are many galleries that sell them, and most of the major poster dealers and auction houses carry them. I sell a lot of posters to dealers and galleries.

AC: Are these all original printings of these posters? How many were usually printed in an edition?

Krzysztof: Yes, these are originals. I always provide the printing date for each poster. If it says the year is 1989, that means it is printed in 1989. I don’t sell current reprints on my site, and in fact not many of these exist. My posters are originals. The film posters were printed for use in the theaters and on walls around the country and they have been printing them in the 4,000- to 10,000-copy range, depending on the title and time. But, assuming that in the middle 1980s there were 1,800 cinemas in Poland, you’re looking at very little material able to survive being mounted on walls, and most of them ended up in “paper heaven”: burned in the (furnaces) that were warming up the cinemas or simply ending up in trashcans.

There are much smaller print runs for theater or event posters: They didn’t need so many copies, as they were usually used in one city for an event. Today, the usual print run is low, up to 400 copies – like, for example, the “A Clockwork Orange” poster you bought: There were only 200 copies of these. The film was never shown in theaters in Poland, and this is the only Polish poster for the title, made as tribute to the film. There are no longer any more official posters like this in Poland, so some people who want the posters to continue to exist in the “Polish style” just make prints like this.

• Polish Art Posters – Part One, August 7, 2009

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All poster images courtesy of www.PolishPoster.com
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Polish posters:
Art meets humor in eastern Europe

(Part one of two) Part Two

You’ve got to wonder: Did dour, humorless Soviet autocrats – or even their lockstep lackeys in Warsaw – really expect Marxism to blossom in captive Poland?

One need only visit PolishPoster.com (www.polishposter.com) for a small but wonderful window into the Polish mind – or at least that of Polish artists – to see that Poles are way too imaginative, sharp-witted, subtle, sarcastic and fun-loving to be the unthinking, uncomplaining communist slaves the Kremlin was hoping for.

I started getting a sense of the art of the Polish poster from the occasional examples that would turn up in Heritage Auctions’ (www.ha.com) weekly and signature movie poster auctions – as well as by searching for the posters of specific Hollywood films, only to find foreign takes on those classic American images. What a surprise! Artistically, these were not cheesy, amateurish knockoffs: Instead, not only was the artwork often superior to what the Hollywood film studios’ lockstep lackeys in L.A. or New York were doing, it was downright “edgy.”

Granted, it’s a lot easier to be witty when you’re satirizing a well-known image than when you’re creating a wholly original one. Turns out, the Poles are damn good at the latter as well.

Check out some of wild work on PolishPoster.com to get a glimmer of what I mean. There are some amazing circus, museum exhibition, opera and other event posters, notably Satyrykon, which started out in 1977 as an annual exhibition by cartoonists in Wrocław, Poland. According to the event Web site, www.satyrykon.pl, it is now a highly regarded international arts competition open to engravers, photographers, sculptors and, yes, poster artists.

Since I am a devotee of film, I gravitate to movie posters, and here’s where I found some eye-openers …

For example, the poster for sequel to Steven Spielberg’s take on “Moby-Dick”: the ever-popular summer beach flick “Jaws.” I never liked the poster of the monster shark torpedoing upward at the tiny, unsuspecting, crawl-stroking female swimmer. Now look at artist Edward Lutczyn’s great 1980 riff on the original “Jaws” poster in his “Jaws 2” promo artwork (priced at $197, and there’s a waiting list for it): a shark with two tooth-studded pairs of choppers – fantastic (in the otherworldly sense), bizarre and a hell of a lot more sinister. Like the shark in the film, come to think of it.

Or check out the 1983 “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” poster by Waldemar Swierzy ($166). Recall that “Butch Cassidy” was one of the great American rebel/buddy/adventure films of the 1960s – the polar opposite of what the Eastern Bloc stood for. Swierzy and other Polish artists do the same take: romanticized, often blood-spattered images of the doomed yet lovable, good-looking, idealized Western outlaws.

And the Communist party apparatchiks didn’t censor that? Were the bureaucrats too dumb to “get” the fact that the “Butch Cassidy” poster – not to mention the film – was all about bucking the system or die trying? Or did they appreciate this but, deep down, were liberal enough not to care?

In the second part to this story, I ask some Krzysztof Marcinkiewicz of PolishPosters.com some questions about the posters, the artists and the Polish artistic temperament. The posters, I note, often fetch pretty high prices on these shores, although Krzysztof’s posters go for under $20 to the hundreds, depending on their rarity, of course. The film posters are for productions both famous and obscure, from a range of countries; many are for revivals of older films, and most seem to run in the $35 to $55 range. (The above-mentioned “Butch Cassidy” posters are about $183 apiece, as they’re older and harder to get.) I have purchased two: a beautiful Picasso-esque limited-edition poster for Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” by Leszek Zebrowski from 2007 (now priced at $31) and a 1987 poster by Andrzej Pagowski for Akira Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai” ($66.) Note that the production quality will vary: The “Clockwork Orange” poster is very finely printed in knockout colors on good paper; by contrast, the “Seven Samurai” poster is more like a photocopy on cheaper paper. As Krzysztof explained, “99.99 percent of Polish movie posters printed before 1990 were on non-glossy paper, usually thin (like ‘The Seven Samurai’) but sometimes also heavier but with noticeable cellulose fibers visible; the surface of this paper was not so smooth like on ‘The Seven Samurai,’ it was different and you can feel the surface under your fingers.

“The funny thing is that this poor-quality paper looks very nice today, as its surface looks like and ‘art’ paper. It is especially nice on old 1950s-to-1970s posters.”

Read my interview with Krzysztof soon on AmeriCollector.com. Collectors, home decorators (always wanted a circus poster for the kids’ playroom or an opera poster for the office?) and holiday gift givers are bound to find really great, affordable stuff on PolishPosters.com. My posters arrived in short order and were meticulously packed in a tube.

• Polish Art Posters – Part Two, November 2, 2009

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More great posters
All poster images courtesy of PolishPoster.com.

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