Thrift Shop Day

Pictures from the holiday half-price sale, at the Parent-Teacher Organization's shop. While the shop is there to raise funds for student activities, it is itself a highly educational experience.

For instance, before today's visit I would not have known either this object (filter paper for chemical tests), or the 19th century scientist endorsing the brand.

Finding Berzelius' actual endorsement would no doubt take real research, but here are prices from a 1903 lab supply catalog, published in St. Louis.

Program notes from a Philadelphia Orchestra concert.

This was in a locked case, and the place was way too busy to bother having it opened. Going by art style, the program is probably from the 1940s to early '50s.

According to this, the game originated in WWII (but copyright was 1940, per this.)

For this to have caught on, it would seem to have needed public confidence that the Depression was ending. Perhaps a few years of New Deal had inspired enough confidence by then. The early '40s picture does seem complicated by what was on the near horizon: wartime status for the economy, and rationing for the public. Maybe the game's concept was attractive as a matter of aspiration.

Jump to postwar; roughly, early 1960s?

This would work as a soundtrack for the speedway action.

Complete with genuine simulated stereo.

Another country heard from...

Spotted by J, who, a few years ago, found this classic of the genre.

J's other find today—and the pièce de ... something or other—a newspaper-collaged candle holder.

 

At first glance—and in keeping with the motif—this wacked-out face had looked like some medieval equivalent of a hippie. A wild-eyed alchemist? Some ancient Dr. Caligari?

On further consideration... Shylock?

And...

Multi-tasking Lenin, who orates while sheltering a young girl. I assume the cringing figures on the right must be serfs (who haven't yet heard the good news?) Although Marx must be meant to listen thoughtfully, it really has to be said that he looks pained and disbelieving.

Fun with Words

Sophisticated fun, 1968.

Game of Intrigue

A mysterious publication, found on a giveaway shelf at the library.

Challenge Bridge
Reference Manual
Volume 1
Deals 1-100
1972, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company

First mystery (to me) was that this company had ever published stuff.

It turns out there was a "3M Bookshelf Game Series"—made from 1962 to 1975, and meriting its own Wiki page. According to which—

These games were marketed towards adults and were designed to fit onto a standard bookshelf. Each game fit into a slip cover that was made to resemble the spine of a hardcover book. 3M's catalog described them as follows: "bookcase games, packaged in attractive leather-like slipcases, make a handsome set of volumes for any bookshelf."

Sure enough (once I bothered to look beyond the cover and title page), there's a photo of the missing box and its contents.

According to Wiki, freelance designers created 3M's games. That may account for a cover image that seemed to be another mystery. I know pretty much zero about card games, but have long had the impression that bridge players are elderly people, not dashing intriguers.

At least, that was going by players I've known. And remembering the guy on the left, whose columns ran in the newspapers of my youth.

Here's his Wiki page.

Poking around in this stuff, I find there was also a TV show, from 1959 to 1964 (Theme Song: "Music to Play Bridge By").

I like the credits' low-budget stop motion effects, which are very early TV. Here's an entire show: an episode with Chico Marx.

He was known as a compulsive gambler, and the brothers' bad late movies supposedly were made to pay off his debts (unless Groucho told that story to excuse the turkeys).

But enough digression, as tempting as it is to pursue the tangents of odd things people have left around the tubes. (Whatever kind of person puts time and effort into such things ...)

Back to the game booklet: 3M had an expert of its own, who, like Charles Goren, seems less than glamorous—

"After playing each deal," reads the booklet, "your foursome should refer to the corresponding deal in the Reference Manual for scoring and valuable comments on the bidding and play, written by one of the world's foremost bridge authorities, Oswald Jacoby."

Mr. Jacoby does seem a bit of a contrast to the James Bond-ish feel of this group.