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Interesting Ebay Items

Hand Lettering topics: Sign Making, Design, Fabrication, Letterheads, Sign Books.

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Robare M. Novou
Posts: 424
Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 11:18 am
Location: Milwaukee
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Interesting Ebay Items

Post by Robare M. Novou »

Image
Photo link added by administrator: MJ

Here is an item you dont see that often on Ebay. I was wondering if there had been any other listings for this item in the past. As this is the first time I have seen this item on Ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... ih=005[url]

Also on ebay is this item:

[/url]http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... mot_widget
Jeff Lang
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 10:31 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Lucky, I guess!

Post by Jeff Lang »

Hey Rob,
I was the lucky winner of that item & it arrived in good shape over the weekend. I had not ever noticed one offered on eBay before, but was glad to be in the right place at the right time.
Jeff

p.s. if the link is dead, the item referred to is an original Rawson & Evans catalog, identical to the one Rick Glawson used to sell, with the only difference being on the cover, the address of Chicago is in bold instead of the New York address.
Jeff Lang
Olde Lang Signs
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
412-732-9999
Robare M. Novou
Posts: 424
Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 11:18 am
Location: Milwaukee
Contact:

Post by Robare M. Novou »

Lucky You Indeed!, and Congrats on getting the Rawson and Evans "Oberst" Sign. Who knew that there was another one of these just like mine. Twins! And its in a storgage locker just a few miles away from me. Cant wait for the reunion. I will have to place them both outside my shop, one on each side of the door just beneath the windows and take a picture. Here is the link to that sign for those of you wanting to know what we be talking about. And yes, mine is busted up also, but thanks to the wire glass, its still together.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 1&rd=1[url]


Back to that R & E catalog, how does the quality of my reprinted version look when compared to the original, is there a loss of detail, or are the scans fairly accurate?


RMN[/url]
Mike Jackson
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Post by Mike Jackson »

I wonder what percentage of the large glass pieces we see in the R&E photos had the wire mesh? Obviously, quite a few of them didn't have it.


Image
Just for the record, I purchased Rick's New York R&E catalog from the family estate and have it here on the shelves.

Jeff, congratulations on the purchases. I check eBay for Rawson and Evans off and on, but after a few thousand tries, I more or less gave up on finding gems like that.

Robare, it is nice to see you back on line posting again.

Mike Jackson
Mike Jackson / co-administrator
Golden Era Studios
Vintage Ornamental Clip art
Jackson Hole, WY

Photography site:
Teton Images
Jackson Hole photography blog:
Best of the Tetons
Robare M. Novou
Posts: 424
Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 11:18 am
Location: Milwaukee
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Post by Robare M. Novou »

Yes, its nice to be able to make a post once in a while. Now that things have slowed down a bit here at work. Thanks for posting those R&E cover shots.

The R&E catalog does mention Wire Glass for signs. But I don't remember seeing any examples in the catalog, I will have to look again.

From what Jeff tells me, his catalog cover is perfect, but some of the pages are missing.

My cover is missing a chunk out of the corner, but the pages are all intact.

So the total for known R&E catalogs is now at 5.

Me, Mike, Jeff, Sign Museum, and a Person in California.

If anyone knows of others in exsistance, please post it here. As I'm curious as to how many are still around.

RMN
Mike Jackson
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Post by Mike Jackson »

Robare,
I am pretty sure I remember Rick telling me that Mike Butler had one of the catalogs. Butler was one of Rick's biggest restoration clients. Lola might know more about other books, too. But then, this is only a vague memory recall and not something I wrote down. He's probably the other person in California you mentioned.

Also, the Sign Museum copy is torn and tattered, if barely still assembled. Todd could confirm that if needed.

Mike Jackson
Mike Jackson / co-administrator
Golden Era Studios
Vintage Ornamental Clip art
Jackson Hole, WY

Photography site:
Teton Images
Jackson Hole photography blog:
Best of the Tetons
Danny Baronian
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Post by Danny Baronian »

Good going Jeff, good find, great price.

You ever plan on getting rid of it or need cash quick, you've got my number :-); right.

Enjoy the book.

Danny
Danny Baronian
Baronian Mfg.
CNC Routing & Fabrication
http://www.baronian.com
Kent Smith
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Joined: Fri Dec 31, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Estes Park, CO
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catalogue

Post by Kent Smith »

Congrats Jeff.

I can confirm that Mike Butler has one in excellent condition as I have seen it.

A special thanks to Robare for sharing with me at the Zoo.
Sarah King
Posts: 167
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 8:43 pm
Location: Oak Park IL
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Post by Sarah King »

I don't suppose that any of you lucky owners would like to share your good fortune and make a little easy cash by scanning and reproducing the originals of these catalogs? As you may know, the wonderful Danny sold me an original of a stained glass catalog from 1909 that he bought from the Glawson estate and I have republished it. The up front cost of getting it professionally reproduced was a bit steep but I've now recovered the entire amount and I have about half my stock left. It's very nice to be able to send them out and get the cash knowing that it all paid off. I don't have a high quality scanner so that was the bulk of my expense. If you scanned it to a CD, you can easily find someone to do a polished job printing it - and you have the wonderful feeling of knowing that you are sharing the wealth with other devotees. I could never have done it without Danny's willingness to share with me - thanks.

In case you're interested in stained glass, you can see the book "Art Glass in 1909" on my other website http://www.stainedglassltd.com
Sarah King
AngelGilding.com
Robare M. Novou
Posts: 424
Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 11:18 am
Location: Milwaukee
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Post by Robare M. Novou »

Rick Glawson sold reprints of his R&E catalog. They were done on a black and white copy machine, so the quality of the copies were not the greatest, still it was better than nothing.

I promised myself that if I ever came across an Original R&E Catalog that I would make
some quality reprints. Well that time has come. After acquiring an original R&E catalog, I disassembled it so that I could lay the pages flat on a scanner one at a time.
The Photograph pages were scanned in grayscale at 600dpi. While the graphics were scanned in Black and White at 300dpi.

After a week of scanning, straightening, and cleaning up, 160 pages plus the cover, were now ready for printing.

I chose to print them on a Xerox Phaser 8200 laser printer. This type of printer uses solid ink, they look like Ice Cubes of Color. This type of printer is fast and economical, when compared to an inkjet printer. And the Quality of the gloss printing combined with the glossy paper stock makes for a very nice look and feel.

The pages were printed on 32lbs. Color Copy Gloss, to best simulate the feel of the catalog.

The cover (missing a corner) was scanned in color mode, and thanks to corel photo paint, the corner was restored. The covers were lamintated, and 10 copies were printed and comb bound.

At the Letterhead Zoo Meet this past summer, I handed out all of the copies. They were recieved with big smiles, (you're quite welcome kent!)

That's the good news...now for the bad.

Seems that I used cheap off brand ink cubes, and not the more expensive xerox ink. And because of that, all the pages bled from one side to the other. Its as if someone had taken mineral spirits and rubbed down each page.

I contacted the ink company and sent them some samples of the printouts, their response was, "Not our Ink". I dont know how its not there ink, when I pulled their ink cubes from the printer.

I have since stocked the printer with genuine xerox ink, and am ready for another round of R&E Catalog printing.

Rick Sold his copies for $25. I will be selling my copies for $50 per catalog.

The original R&E catalog had an embossed cover, and after doing some checking around, I was given a price of $600 for producing the plates to restamp some more covers. I will have to look into that sometime in the future. For now it will just be the laminated color copy.

If anyone is interested in having me print you a copy, email me at zignmahn@yahoo.com.

Im also open to trading if you've got something I would be interested in.

RMN
Mike Jackson
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Post by Mike Jackson »

Robare,
I am happy to hear "someone" is doing this. I didn't even consider opening my book enough to scan it for myself, much less think about making a reprint. That old catalog is a really nice resource.

For anyone interested, I hand digitized many of the best images, corners, crests and so forth for the Main Street Collection of Panels and Ornaments and are available in clean, vector images. Seems like an appropriate time for a free plug. click the link below to view them.

Golden Era Studios

Sarah, I saw some scans Danny did of his book before he sold it to you. It would also be a nice resource for anyone doing period work.

Mike Jackson
Mike Jackson / co-administrator
Golden Era Studios
Vintage Ornamental Clip art
Jackson Hole, WY

Photography site:
Teton Images
Jackson Hole photography blog:
Best of the Tetons
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