A Random Gallery of Vintage Menus

Warner Bros. Studio Commissary Menu, 1960

Early Chili's menu, 1979

 

Alcatraz Prison Menu, 1946

The Cotton Club, New York City, 1930s

It Seemed Like A Good Idea Part 3

Radioactive Beauty Products

Asbestos

DDT

Live Baby Alligators As Pets

Unicorn Horns for Cats

Parakeet Diapers

Rent-a-Toupee

I mean, if you're going to rent your hair, you may as well buy this.

Lead

1930s Traveling Movie Theater

                                             (Click on photos to enlarge)

"Here Come The Judge" Pigmeat Markham (1968)

Whether or not this is the very first ever true rap song, a jury of hip-hop scholars will probably forever be out. But this is widely considered to be the earliest known prototype of the genre.

Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham (1904-1981) was a vaudeville comedian in the 1920s and '30s, later moving into acting and singing. He got the name "Pigmeat" from an early act of his, where he declared himself as "Sweet Poppa Pigmeat".

For decades, Markham's career was severely limited to only nightclubs and theatres that accepted black entertainers called the "Chitlin' Circuit", as Jim Crow racism and segregation was still dominant in every aspect of American life in those days. He was little known among white audiences until the 1960s when Pigmeat Markham released several comedy albums that crossed over. 

Sammy Davis Jr. performed the "Here Come The Judge" act on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. The success of Sammy Davis Jr.'s rendition of Markham's act later got Markham himself a deal to appear on Laugh-In for one season. The success of which spawned this single, which made it to #19 on the Billboard Top 40 charts in 1968.

The Tefifon

When it came to tape machines, the German made Tefifon  was one odd duck.....

....That's because it was no ordinary tape machine.

The Tefifon (or Tefi) used perhaps the very first example of an endless loop, like an 8-Track. But no magnetic tape. Instead, it used grooves in the tape, like a vinyl record.

Unlike the 8-Track, most Tefifon tapes are still playable after all these years. The Tefi machine was invented in the 1930s and refined before becoming available in Germany (and it's US export brand, Westrex.) from 1952-1964

The thin grooved tape had the same fidelity as an Evatone sound sheet. Each Tefi tape could play for sixty minutes up to four hours.

Each recording began with 40 seconds of fanfare. This was for the listener to adjust their sound equipment for the best fidelity and insure stable tracking of the stylus and groove.

Here's a full Tefi recording. Their repertoire was mostly of unknown German acts.


More on the Tefi machine and tapes.

The Columbia Royal Blue Record

In the early 1930s, in the worst throes of The Great Depression, industry everywhere suffered. But perhaps not nearly as bad as the recording industry. In the previous decade, record sales were at an all time peak. But then came the stock market crash of 1929 and suddenly, people were having to make choices not on what they want, but what they need. For just survival.

And making it worse for the record sales was radio. There was really no point in buying the latest hit songs with what little money you had when you could hear them ad nauseum on the radio. And most people didn't.

However this meant the recording industry had to come up with brand new gimmicks. Daring ones.

The Columbia Royal Blue Record wasn't the first "coloured vinyl" (actually, shellac.) That goes way back to cylinder records.

 

And early Vocalion Records were reddish brown. But shellac colours were extremely rare on disc records. They were virtually all black.

And if you were a Columbia phonograph dealer struggling to stay alive in late 1932 (In those days, your phonograph dealer was usually also your record store.), you had a serious problem. No one is buying the records. And the radio stations were killing you.

So Columbia unveiled their Royal Blue records. With this record, which described the basic terms for the dealer.

They sounded amazingly good for a 78 and if you play them today with a 3.5mil diamond stylus and a magnetic cartridge, there is VERY little surface noise.

The Royal Blue line however only lasted a year. 

Vintage 1930 Pre-Filled Mesh Christmas Stocking