Sample Archive (4 results)

4to. 72 letters, some, mimeographed, others typed carbon copies, and a few ALS, sized 5.75 x 9.25 in. up to 8.5 x 11 in., many on steel-engraved letterhead, a couple on ruled paper, and many featuring the offsetting from the leather dyes, with over 40 attached samples of papers, White coated sign muslin, foundry sand, and assorted leathers. All preserved in archival mylar sleeves in recent full calf 3-ring binder, w/ stamping. An exceptional archive of original TLS many with original samples of paper, leather, and even sand which were used in ever increasing quantities by the noted manufacturer of sleigh bells, bells, pull toys, and many other toys for children from the Gilded Age through World War I. The earliest letter dated Feb. 10, 1899, includes two paper samples from the Henry Lindenmeyr & Sons Paper Warehouse in New York on Bleeker Street noting that "we can furnish in the shade of your sample at $ 8.00 per hundred sheets basis 25 x 36. We could not make less than a thousand yards." Sixty, or the majority, of the letters and samples were sent by the Barber Co. beginning in 1902, and continuing into World War I. Their letters and samples describe the colour, grain, and general finish of the included samples as well as their perfect applications in "baby carriage straps, shawl straps, small cases [i.e. for toys], small tool boxes," and of course sleigh bells, and bell hangers, and bell flappers, as well as handle grips. Leathers encompass Red Straight Grain Cowhide, Pigskin straps, Black Bell Leather, Walnut Strap Leather, and specialized leathers for tumbling purposes for brasswork. Barber (1836-1909) was the longtime owner and operator of the Barber Leather Co. in North Adams until his death when his son Archer Barber took over the business. Many of the samples offered to the Hill Brass Co. are mounted on TLS and TLS copy letters from Harry S. Millard, who later was brought into the Barber Co. in 1914 as Treasurer of the Company. The samples here include splits, black pig leather, as well as embossed strips in assorted coloured leather, Caulkins & Post whose building at 484-494 Main Street in Middletown was considered one of the first "modern" stores, and specialized in drapes, window shades, furniture and bicycles before opening up their successful card dealership in 1903. The Hill Brass Co. required products beyond leathers & papers as shown by the reply to their request for a quote for White Sign Muslin (waterproof textile), intended for use on children's carriages and go-carts. For their manufacturing processes they required foundry sands, and the Pettinos Brothers based in Columbia, Ceylon, Bethlehem, PA, and Mexico sent them a sample of their plumbago "high grade Ceylon stock." There is even a May 29, 1905 solicitation letter from F. von Bardeleben after seeing the Hill Brass Co. exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair mentioning that his company can supply a "very fine grade of non-poisonous unchangeable paints to be used for painting toys." The N.N. Hill Brass Co. founded by Norman Newton Hill (1863-1950) in 1889 operated until the early 1960's, was one of the largest factory's in the World producing bells & toys, and by the 1930's produced Walt Disney merchandise. Along with the Bevin Brothers, and other local Massachusetts foundries, they manufactured Salvation Army bells, sleight bells, bicycle bells, alarm bells and more. See: N.N. Hill Brass Company Business Correspondence, Jay T. Last Collection of Transportation, Huntington Library; Edward T. Howe, Small Bells of Connecticut: One Town Made Sounds that Rang in Millions of Ears, New England Historical Society (2019); Norman N. Hill Brass Company, Connecticut Historical Society (2020).

Three vols. 4to. [39; 76; 55 leaves (unnumbered).], all typescript on varying paper stock, w/ most leaves preserved in mylar Bainbridge Sheet Protectors, with 549 silver gelatin black & white photographs tipped-in, sized from 2.5 x 2.5 in. up to 2.5 x 2.75 in., all identified in surrounding text, all film sections separated by leaves w/ typed thumb tabs (a couple leaves w/ glue residue indicating a few photos have been removed). Vinyl, cloth, & buckram 3-ring binders, rounded corners (edgewear, some rubbing, occasional splitting to the fore-edges of the mylar sheet protectors), still a VG set, with nearly all the images with strong contrast. This unique second run film distributor's sample archive provides a crucial artifact of cinema viewing habits and interests for discount movie houses, and private venues on the eve of the home video tape era. Far removed from their initial first-run release, the plethora of films represented here continued to generate income, and popularity. In addition, this distributor chose to have each of their films documented with actual screen shot photographs showing the opening credits, the famous stars, and prominent scenes, all carefully typed and formatted on each leaf, with a great attention to detail. The Adventure Drama section includes the classic 1933 Edward G. Robinson 8 reel film which also starred Douglas Fairbanks, Glenda Farrell, and others, with a running time of 77 minutes; the 1939 RKO Gunga Din 12 reel film, starring Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks, and Joan Fontain; Warner Bros.' classic 1939 gangster 10 reel film The Roaring Twenties which starred James Cagney & Humphrey Bogart with running time of 104 minutes; and a relatively un-edited version of the 12 reel 1940 Errol Flynn swashbuckler, The Sea Hawk which was largely a deliberately pro-British propaganda film intended to build morale during World War II. The mystery section features the 10 reel Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet, with running time of 101 minutes, and as evidenced by the screen shot photos had proven very popular, as the film quality in these images do not represent a crisp first-run print. The Horror Film section is actually quite strong featuring Boris Karloff's 1932 Frankenstein, 1935 Bride of Frankenstein, and the 1932 The Mummy produced by Carl Laemmle, along with the full un-edited 1933 10 reel King Kong with 100 minute running time. Westerns were tremendously popular, as shown by the extensive section including the 1939 Stagecoach, 1940 Virginia City, 1950 Iroquois Trail, 1955 Last Wagon starring Richard Widmark, as well as the very popular 1957 Technicolor hit movie, Gun Fight at the O.K. Corral starring Bur Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, and Dennis Hopper. Also featured with their own film sections were B movie Western stars, Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, Ken Maynard (starring in Ken Maynard & Tarzan "The Wonder Horse"), Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, and others. The second volume of the film catalogues are devoted to musicals, musical comedies, biographies, and romances. These include the 1936 MGM 12 Reel San Francisco starring Clark Gable, and Jeanette MacDonald, whose singing made the movie a hit; Doris Day's 1951 9 reel hit musical Lullaby of Broadway starring Gene Nelson as well, and listing all the popular songs; Warner Bros. Footlight Parade starring James Cagney Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell; together with the 1939 MGM spectacular Wizard of Oz which actually lost $ 1.14 million in its initial release and did not start turning a profit for the studio until re-releases and second run screenings after World War II, with screen shot photos in the catalogue showing Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man & The Lion, the opening screen title, as well as Dorothy, Glinda, and the Wicked Witch of the West. Also featured in the catalogue are the "Road" movies by Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour; Abbott and Costello films such as the 1941 Buck Privates; Gene Kelly & Debbie Reynolds in Singin' in the Rain with screen shot photo of Gene and the umbrella; as well as the often forgotten Les Girls with starring Gene Kelly, Kay Kendall and Taina Elg, featuring the last film score by Cole Porter, and lost over $ 1.6 million due to high production costs. The Musical Biographies encompass such films as Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney as the intrepid vaudeville man James M. Cohan; the fictionalized biopic of Jerome Kern, Till the Clouds Roll By; and even The Jolson Story with screen shot of Larry Parks in minstrel black face. Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, Our Gang, Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, and Robert Benchley are all represented by their own sections with a number of popular films from the 1920s through 1940s. The War Drama segment of this sample archive in Vol. III is the largest featuring 23 films, opening with the 1942 10 reel classic, Casablanca starring Bogart, Bergman, Henreid, and Claude Raine; followed by Randolph Scott in Gung Ho, Dana Andrews & Lloyd Bridges in the 1945 A Walk in the Sun; the 12 reel 1944 Warner Bros. Destination Tokyo starring Cary Grant & John Garfield against the backdrop of the raid on Tokyo by Doolittle's bombers; John Wayne's Back to Bataan; Audie Murphy's 1955 To Hell and Back filmed at Fort Lewis and Yakima Training Center; Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in the 1958 Run Silent, Run Deep; as well as the 1963 biopic PT 109 based on the book chronicling President Kennedy's experiences during World War II and released five months before he was assassinated in Dallas, TX. The latest second-run films represented in the sample catalogue volumes are the 1970 17 reel Patton starring George C. Scott and Karl Malden, won seven Academy Awards in 1971, and the Best Actor Award was refused by Scott; followed by the much-maligned 14 reel 1970 Tora! Tora! Tora!, the Japanese-American war drama dramatizing the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, praised by aviation and military history experts, bu.

Five vols. Thick Royal Folios, each of them 13 x 18 x 3.5 in. [28], 148; 220; 202; [28], 202; 202 pp.With over 2300 original cloth samples mounted by the company on stiff folio leaves, including every type of fabrics the company bought and sold over nearly 15 years, including satins, laces, irridescent fabrics, rayon, rayon blends, nylons, percale, wool blends, Velveray, Hollywood Chintz, ruff-lin cotton, Organdys, nylon viscose, novelty pictorials, and many others. The samples which range in size from 2.75 x 2 in. to 10 x 17 in. express the whole spectrum of colours, most of them annotated in pencil or pen in the margins. Some leaves have evidence of removed samples as the company had either discontinued that fabric, or it was no longer available. The five volumes are uniformly bound in gray, and gray-green coloured buckram, with dates in black in ink on spines, 2 of the volumes with "Experimental" annotation in ink on covers, section at front of each volume w/ thumb tabs, many with samples laid-in (some wear & rubbing, toning to the leaves, occasional fraying, and creasing to samples), still an incredible archive, w/ former ownership markings on endpapers. An outstanding and historically important archive of manuscript fabric sample catalogues recording the explosion of mid-century modern fabrics and other popular patterns through World War II up until the late 1950s, bought and sold by Alfred Grant, Inc. This dress goods firm founded in the 1930s was one of the largest New York textiles wholesalers in New York until the 1960s, drawing from the burgeoning American textile mills, as well as Italy, and other European suppliers. This marvelous collection offers an especially crucial range of pictorial, printed, and metallic textiles from the period. The patterns range from Alice in Wonderland prints produced by Wilshire Print Designers in 1943; Dancing Cactus patterns by Jeri Prints in 1946 offering a wonderful look at 1940s western kitsch; assorted Churchill Downs Prints; ruff-lin fabrics from numerous American mills; Hollywood Chintz patterns from 1946 (first made popular in the 1930s); rayon blends in Amazon iridescent dyes; Western Saddle checks and Saddle stripes; Her Ladyship telesheen colours; a wonderful range of Gibson Girl stripes popular in the 1950s and evoking the famed illustrator, and many others. In addition, there 100s of samples with geometric and abstract patterns evoking the mid-century feel, complete with a dynamic-hued palette, emphasizing space-age colours of bright red and gold, blue and green, Scandinavian-inspired harvest gold, avocado green, soft pastels of pink, light yellow, blue & turquoise. Of particular interest are the incredible range of fabric samples showing the growth of nylon, rayon, Velveray sheer cottons, Velveray sheer metallics, Cotton acetate blends, novelty fabrics by Bamberg Nylon Viscosse, P. Krause & Son embossed nylons, and so much more. The Korean War, and domestic post-World War II demand sent American cloth production to booming levels in the early 1950s, and out of this textile revolution, came new colourful organic textile designs in bold barkcloth patterns, simple gingham prints, popular nostalgic kitchen prints with mid-century colours, and more. These samples include textiles used in women's sun dresses, children's clothes, men's suits, fashions, as well as draperies, upholstery, table linens, and almost every other application for textiles in mid-century America. These sample catalogues also offer a number of European designer fabrics produced during the same period, and then emulated by American Mills such as Brighton Mills, Passaic, NJ, J.B. Sterns Mills; Iselin-Jefferson Co., Borden Mills, Inc. (later became Dan River), Howard Arthur Mills, Millville, William Whitman Co., Nashawena Mills, Greenwood Mills at the Harris Plant, Aragon Baldwin Mills, Whitmire Plant in South Carolina, and many more. These catalogues spanning nearly two decades offer important artifacts recording the strong colours, striking patterns, and cultural tastes of the mid-century modern era, including experimental fabrics which were never placed into the market.

Nine sample cards, sized 9 x 12 in., thick green-coloured card stock, with 127 metalwork pieces of cut-steel, brass, steel, and pot metal fittings, carefully affixed w/ twine to the sample cards, all pieces are numbered crisp manuscript continental hand, 1 card w/ 9 narrow albumen photos in the pattern of the ornamental brass strip, w/ 1 sample provided and mounted offering concrete example (some of the pieces w/ minor damage, a couple have been removed leaving ghost offsetting, 1 w/ minor verdigris, dustsoiling & wear to the sample cards), still a remarkable set of sample cards, all w/ brass rivets for loose binding of metal rings or cords at gutter margins, several stamped in French. An outstanding salesman sample archive of Victorian metalwork fittings for clothing, binding ornament, and other applications in the French market during the Belle Epoque. The first two sample cards offer an extraordinary group of cut-steel jewelry and fittings, including buckles for women's cloaks, sashes, shoes, and belts, as well as square buttons, and metal cut steel sheet ornaments for uses as book corners, or applied to luxury goods. Although cut-steel pieces declined in popularity through the 19th Century, there was still a strong market following the Franco-Prussian War, and the cost savings cut-steel offered as opposed to using gemstones. The remaining cards include elaborate bosses for use on Victorian padded velvet photo albums, dressing table boxes, or other personal goods; elaborate shell pattern steel pieces; ribbing with overlapping layers akin to fish scales; brass ornaments in the shapes of butterfly wings; teardrop pendant styles, and textured brass cabochon bosses. Ornamental metalwork as decorative pieces on women's clothing, and jewelry, surged during the 19th Century as restrictive Sumptuary Laws had significantly declined, and as women began employing these items to increase their attractiveness. In addition, an interest in bolder and more substantial pieces in the late 19th Century as opposed to the delicate and unassuming filigree in the Georgian and Regency periods identified the growing confidence of women, and their spending power. See; Untracht, Jewelry, Concepts & Technology (1982); Atkinson, Trinkets and Transformations: Consolidation in Late-Ninteenth-Century Britain, In: Rose, Gender and Victorian Reform (2008), pp. 189-202.