what a busy day

 I talked to my mom for the first time in a couple years, because I happened to be out for a walk, because I scared my Dr with how high my blood pressure is, because I suddenly came down with a case of old man problems, now that I turned 50. 

Skin cancer, tinnitus, and diabetes - with a torn Achilles tendon a couple years ago. Nothing a modern mid life crisis isn't full of I suppose. 

So I saw my favorite old antique store that I haven't been inside for a couple decades, so I went in for a look around, and 30 dollars and an hour later (so much for a sustained 30 minutes brisk walk for cardio) I was leaving the store with a pair of unusual 6x8 convex glass reverse painted novelty pictures that I got my mom to add to her handful of collected pieces. 

She's had a couple since she was in high school, as wall adornments, simply because they were neat victorian looking framed silhouette art. 

Well, that got me wondering about these because I've never met anyone that knew what company made them, what they are called, etc. 

So, 20 minutes of concentrated effort and research, and bingo bongo bango. There once was a dentist in Benton Harbor Michigan (mom grew up about 40 miles away) who in the early 1940s made this nice novelty art. I was able to learn his 1st, middle and last name, and his wife and her maiden name, even his brothers name and college class year ('26) and when he was in business, and when that ended. 

Darn it, no one has made a nice little blog post about him, described his business, etc. His wife patented several design for picture frames by the way. The company was named Colef Glass Picture Company, and later changed to Benton Glass Picture Company when they incorporated in Cleveland Ohio in 10/03/1947

It's possible, even likely, that the company name had earlier in the 1930s been the Benton Harbor Novelty Manufacturing Co, (began making the Imp slot machine in 1931, and the "Dick" cap pistol, as I piece together these clips from Google Books

Does this stuff have any reason to be on my car blog? No. But, I feel sorry for the descendants of Saul and Sara Colef, (and his brother Irving) who have nothing on the internet to show that they did something pretty cool, only 70 years ago, and now no one even knows what they are looking at when they see these pictures in an antique store. My mom has had a couple pairs of these neat old pictures for 5 decades, wondering what the history of them is. 

http://www.michiganquesters.org/index.php/links-resources/news/13-planks-of-interest-along-road-236/58-painting-the-glass-bubble-reverse-painted-glass-silhouettes.html

https://www.glassencyclopedia.com/picturesonglass.html