The German American Collection, The Album 7

I think they must be bird watchers. Click on German-American in the labels section at the bottom of the post to bring up the whole collection. Too, click on album to bring up a number of other photo albums.

50,000 + How It All Started

I just took a quick look at the stats page and noticed that, sometime in the past week or so, I went over 50,000 page views. I have no idea whether that's a big number for a blog like this or not, but when I started this I was lucky to get thirty or forty views a month, so it seems big to me. Anyway, to mark the 50,000 milestone, I thought I would do something I've never done before. I'm repeating myself. These seven images, all hand printed, by me, form the original glass negatives, are the very first photographs I posted on The New Found Photography.

I think it must be the dream of every collector of old photographs to walk into some out of the way junk shop and find a box of photos by an unknown photographer of real talent. I sometimes wonder, if circumstances had been a bit different, if this could have been my discovery. It was back in the good old days when I had a full time job, a decent income, and three weeks of paid vacation a year. I had just finished a backpacking trip in Montana, had cleaned up, packed the car, and was headed home to Los Angeles, when I made an impulse stop at an antique store, well more of a junk shop actually, and found these glass negatives. The owner of the place told me that he once had a crate of images, all from the same source. He thought that there must have been 500 or so, but he had broken up the collection. He had given some of them away, thrown some out, (Not because they were damaged or not very good, but because they were taking up too much space.) and had been selling the rest for a couple of bucks a piece. He had about forty or so left, but for reasons I've never understood, thought credit cards were for suckers, and it was a cash only sale. I bought these seven, got his phone number, and after I got home called him up, and offered to send him a check for the rest, but he said, "Nah, it's too much work."

I wonder what those other negatives might have been like. And I also wonder who took them. Perhaps it was a local professional or maybe an amateur who had a primitive darkroom in the fruit cellar. When I look at the farm photograph, I don't see the mother of the family, so I sometimes speculate that the photographer was a woman. We will never know, and any chance of finding out has, I think, been destroyed by a road side vendor, who thought more highly of telephone poll insulators, old barbed wire, and 50 year old beer bottles than he did of a box of glass negatives, and the unknown photographer who recorded a small, intimate piece of Montana history.

The German American Collection, The Album 6

Pictures of middle class comfort? It seems so, but how was that possible. In the last post from this album, there was a beer keg with a 1923 date. 1923 was right in the middle of the German hyperinflation that nearly destroyed the German economy and helped pave the way for the rise of the Nazi party. Take a look on line, and pictures of people pushing wheelbarrows of cash to buy groceries can be found. Yet, this couple look quite comfortable. In the picture of the man, he's looking through an art book, and in the far background there is a very nice house. Two possibilities come to mind. While most German's lost almost everything, German businessmen who did business with other nations, had foreign currency to spend and grew quite wealthy. And the other possibility? With an exchange rate of billions of marks to the dollar, if this family had an American branch, even a small amount of U.S. currency could have kept these people in comfort.

Anderlecht

Not only am I staying in Europe with this one, I'm staying in Belgium. Written on the back, "M. Boucher Impasse de la planete Anderlecht" Impasse of the planet? Sounds rather astronomical, though a local pond looks to be a better explanation. Anyway, Anderlecht is a city in Belgium near Brussels. This kid has very thin legs. I wonder if he was sick when this photo was taken. Perhaps some childhood disease. It's also possible that this photo might have been taken during World War 2, and he could have been malnourished.

Courcelles

Thought I'd take a break for a few days from the German-American photo album, but still stay in Europe. Stamped on the back of this one, "STUDIO R. TASSIN E033 COURCELLES" I went on line and found 32 communities in France either named Courcelles or with Courcelles in the name, one in Quebec, and one in Belgium. Only the one in Belgium is large enough to sustain a trolley system. This photo came from the mystery grab bag of photos that I've already dipped into for several posts. (It looks like there are a number of images from Europe in the lot.) Click on the image to bring it up in a larger window to see the old Volkswagen and trolley car waiting for the parade to pass by.

The German American Collection, The Album 5

It's a wedding. So that's why all these people have gathered together. I do hope people will click on the individual images and bring them up in a bigger window. It will make it easier to see that the man straddling the barrel in the second photo is the accordionist in the first. And since there is a date on the beer keg, August 5, 1923, we can then get a good idea of the wedding's date.

The German American Collection, The Album 4

Trying to duplicate the experience of going through a photo album, on line, really isn't possible, but since this page would have been sideways when opened, that's the way it's posted. This collection is a lot bigger than this album. To see it all, click on German-American in the labels section.