Category Archives: Uncle Bob’s Pix
Owl Wonders
Owl wonders if he should feed the cat
Owl Records Earl Eltanin
My buddy said he was having trouble seeing the caption on this. Here it is:
“Owl records Earl Eltanin, the ‘Lung of Love’, for his new release ‘Lung on Fire’.”
The words on the console are “Izzr Mxr”.
“Lung” is a word in Chinese that has to do with “dragon”, same as the Arabic word “Eltanin”.
Henson Airlines
Henson, the original Piedmont. This livery was used from 1983 to 1987. As far as I can tell, Henson used these Short (Bros. of Belfast) SD3-30s from around 1979 to 1990. This one went to Alleghany then was exported in ’91 to Canada, whence it had come. This is another Mary Jayne’s Railroad Specialties postcards, airline series.
Cinerama!
The Mark Strand Theatre, Broadway and 47th Street in New York, was built in 1914 and tottled along presenting shows and exhibiting moving pictures until 1951. That year, it became the Warner Theatre. In 1952, it became the Warner Cinerama Theatre. This card was issued sometime in 1953 to promote the brand-new Cinerama movie experience.
The building was demolished in 1987 to make room, eventually, for the Morgan Stanley building.
The Proud One
This is a continental-size post card, 4″ by 6″. I think this is the 1968 model. No side mirrors.
707 Prototype
This isn’t a post card, but something extracted from a publication of some sort. I show both sides below. It’s 7.5 x 4.6″ and on a slick stock about the weight of presentation paper.
Incidentally, this is the aircraft that “Tex” Johnson, an experienced test pilot. rolled twice in 1955 in a flyover at the International Air Transport Association at Lake Washington, near Seattle. He was told not to do that again.
Oh, No! That Plane…
Looks like some photo artist at Curt Teich decided to make a rather bland post card more dramatic by drawing in what looks like a 10B in a power dive over the factory. Scary looking, though.
Anyway, the card dates to 1939.
Tobacco Sale
Tobacco sale. 1940. Big whoop, huh?
Well, as I write this in September of 2019, there are four instances of post cards on ebay that feature this exact picture, but for four different sales…and not one of those cards is this one. Curt Teich in Chicago really got a lot of use out of this photo, which was shot in b&W and colored in at the print shop, as usual.
WSM Radio Tower
WSM Radio in Nashville went on the air in 1925, but didn’t construct this tower until 1932. As it states on this post card from 1935, the tower was 878′ tall…until 1939 when, for technical reasons, the height was reduced to 808′. Read all about it here.
Vickers Viscount
The graceful Vickers Viscount as was flown by Capital Airlines, previously Pennsylvania Central Airlines, in the early ’50s.
They flew into Knoxville McGhee-Tyson, too. I still find Pennsylvania Central Airlines stuff here and there (and buy it whenever I can).
A Sentimental Christmas Card
There’s no attribution on the reverse, so I figure this is an example of the ribaldry you’d find back in the back of your favorite newsstand a few decades ago. Just for the gents, heh, heh.
It’s standard post card size and in rough condition, but, hey, Merry Xmas!
And admire that kid’s, er, penmanship.
VA Administration Center
Much old, great tan. This 1950 post card views the VA Center from the south, taken on an extremely tall tripod, or possibly from an airplane, whatever. The Curt Teich date code is just under the words “Place Stamp Here”.
Zimmerman & Torbett News Agency. I don’t find any informational citations on the web about this business. I seem to remember that it was a news stand.
You can get a good view of this area as it is now on Google Earth.
Uncle Bob's Pix 