Dick Tracy as Legal Tender...

Since my camera is now almost officially Ka-put, I have something to show you that is not in my possession: 

a coin.   

It was a bit out of my price range but is very cool and unusual, nonetheless.

These are called hobo nickels.  It seems during the depression, many artists found themselves without a canvas on which to express themselves so they took to carving on what little money they had to create (sometimes) intricate masterpieces.  This is not one of the elaborate ones by any means.  It recently sold on ebay and has shown up here for the express reason that the artist behind this was obviously influenced by Chester Gould's then-young Dick Tracy strip.

Just look at that nose!

I realize this is dated 1930 and Tracy wasn't out yet.  The coin was just 'Tracy-ized" sometime in the 30's after Tracy had appeared.

This is a one-of-a-kind piece of art and I wish I'd have had enough coin to purchase it myself.

Win some, lose some...

Ebay.

I won this.

Looked pretty good in the pic.

Quality?

Meh.

One foot is detached and will have to be glued.

Materials?

Meh.

Reminds me of the Dollar Store figures.

Movie item?

Yep.  I try to stay away from those y'know.

Cool?

Hell, YEAH!

Love it!

Paperfect...

This is a paper record.  Before mp3's and pretty much anything consumer oriented and digitally cool manufacturers had the option to send you sound bytes on paper.  Worked just like a record.  Played on the record player and skipped when scratched.   No backup copies tho'.  You break it you lost it.

This one in particular has a bit of Tracy's voice from the T.V. show and some sound effects.  Just gravy really as the main attraction was the Dick Tracy puppet that accompanied it.  I do not own the puppet but if you have one and you take pity on me and my simple meanderings then by all means send it to me.

The Story of a Visit Gone Horribly Wrong...

It started so nicely.  Tracy and Junior on their way to a local Army base, discussing the smoking habits and other fill-in-the-blanks of some soldier that Tracy knew of.  Vaguely.

Then when Tracy was out of sight,  

BAM!!!!!!

There goes Junior getting his butt handed to him by a soldier's son or a local yokel who didn't like that damn tie he had on.  (Who could blame him?)

Luckily, Tracy was there to give Junior a good fill-in-the-blanking for being such a disgrace. 

Heh.

I love these.  These were made in 1942 and and are postcards that deal with the enlisted men of World War II.  There are more but these are all I have.

They remind me of the ad-lib books I had as a child but these were used to relay information about the soldier.  

It was a good idea, though.  I kid but the war was fresh and there were a lot of young men going off to fight the good fight without the internet or cell phones or much of anything.  Letters from and to home got lost.  They were basically isolated. It must have been very scary to be so alone so quickly.

Rest in Peace gentlemen.

Mini-grail...

I really like this piece.  I have wanted the Tracy and Captain Marvel iron-ons for some time but never found a good enough buy.  

This quilted, stitched together piece has both of them plus a few others you may recognize.   They have been put on cloth and are not in their original unused format any longer but that's okay because I've never seen them all together like this.  Probably was going to be part of a quilt that never got finished but I am a happy camper no matter what.

You like?

Thinking outside the box...

Okay, this is not the Aurora model of the world famous scene of Tracy awkwardly jumping off the bottom rung of a fire escape, but rather the Polar Lights re-issue.  It's actually more fun than an original 'cuz I can actually put it together and not feel like I'm destroying something valuable.  

I've had this for years but never really had the urge to put it together until my son found it and got curious.

We are now putting it together slowly with a snap-together dry run and a later painting.  

I'm glad I waited because Christian (my son) is making this a lot more fun than it would have been otherwise.

Oh, and by the way:  this scene is not world famous.  It was a joke.  Stop googling it.  Really.

You should be in bed anyway.  Time for all Junior Detectives to be fast asleep.