HAPPY NEW YEAR: START on the count of three

Go ahead, blow your own horn. Then keep it down. I've got a headache.

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Another card illustrated by Bernhardt Wall. A copy is available here at Card Cow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR as the last hours tick away

By this time tomorrow...

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A card similar to this is available on Card Cow.

Happy New Year with BERNHARDT WALL

A card created by Bernhardt Wall. I'll be featuring another of his cards this weekend.

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Bernhardt Wall was born in Buffalo, New York on Dec. 30, 1872. He died in 1956 in Sawtelle, California.

After studying at the Buffalo Art League, Bernhardt Wall began a career in lithography in 1889. He soon became known as the "Postcard King" and designed over 5,000 comic cards. He served in the Spanish American War in Cuba.

About 1915, he decided to make etching his vocation. He then had studios in NYC, Houston (TX), Lime Rock (CT), and Sierra Madre (CA). He died in Sawtelle, CA on Feb. 9, 1956.

As an historian, he specialized in famous people and historical events. He was the illustrator and author of Odyssey of the Etcher of Books, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson. Member: Sierra Madre Art Guild; Chicago Society of Etchers.

Exh: San Antonio AA, 1894 (medal); Fort Worth Museum, 1929, 1935 (solos); Witte Museum (San Antonio), 1936, 1955 (solos); Laguna Beach AA, 1945-46. In: Huntington Art Gallery; Grosvenor Library (Buffalo); British Museum; Lincoln Library (Shippensburg, PA); Library of Congress; New York Historical Society; Southwest Museum (LA); Newark (NJ) Public Library; Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Iowa State Universities. WWAA 1936-53; Pasadena Star-News, 2-14-1956 (obit). (SOURCE: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940")

To see other cards by Bernhardt Wall click here, here, and here at Card Cow where you can actually buy a card like this. Click here to read about his archive at the library at Texas A & M. Click here to go to Google Images.

Over at Tattered and Lost Photographs I'll be featuring some photos the next few days to get you in the mood for the New Year.

CHRISTMAS: And...ANOTHER WHITNEY CARD

Like I said the other day, I had no idea I had so many Christmas themed cards by the Whitney company. If you need to see what the back of this card looks like just go back a couple days and look at another post. I'm just getting lazy now.

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CHRISTMAS: Official CADET BICYCLE SPEEDOMETER!

It's not too late to get your order in to Santa. I know you all want a Cadet bicycle speedometer. It's probably the most eye-popping mind-blowing item that could be under your tree!!!

Be maniacal about your obsession! Tell everyone over and over again until they start to sneer when you walk into a room. Drive them nuts! NUTS I TELL YOU! NUTS!!!

Put it next to dad's place at the dinner table. Remember, subtlety makes you weak. We don't want to appear weak around Christmas. You'll be the talk of your block as they cart you away!

Just imagine making your folks turn gray before their time!

And oh yeah, getting a bike under the tree is nice, but a speedometer is OUT OF THIS WORLD! And a magical tissue floating in front of your sister is just the best!

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SOURCE: February 1964 She's Josie.

Manufactured by the Stewart-Warner Corporation:

Stewart-Warner is a US manufacturer of vehicle instruments, a.k.a. gauges. The company was founded as Stewart & Clark Company in 1905 by John K. Stewart. Their speedometers were used in the Ford Model T. In 1912 John Stewart joined with Edgar Bassick to make vehicle instruments and horns. Bassick owned Alemite Co and Stewart had bought the Warner Instrument Company, thus the name was changed to Stewart-Warner Corporation. The company started in Chicago and built a manufacturing plant on Diversey Parkway. The building kept expanding and finally covered one-million square feet (93,000 m²) and six floors. They also made radios and refrigerators, and produced the ubiquitous "zerk" grease fitting, named after its inventor, associated with the company. In the last years of the company's Chicago factory, it owned a number of aging six-spindle Brown & Sharpe and New Britain screw machines.

They also made heat exchangers starting in the 1940s under the "South Wind Division", but since then it became independent of its parent. They still use the Stewart-Warner name, and the web site is hyphenated: http://www.stewart-warner.com/

In the 1980s the company was bought by BTR plc who in the early 1990s decided to relocate to Juarez, Mexico and Stewart-Warner was taken over by another management team. In early 1998 Stewart-Warner was bought by Datcon Instrument Company (later renamed to Maxima Technologies), but kept the Stewart-Warner brand. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

Now that I've got the speedometer I want those tassle thingies that went on the handle bars. I want my Huffy decked out.