The above lot of artifacts were recently sent to me by a lady who had found them while doing some cleaning. They belonged to her father, Caryl Johnson, who had briefly been a neon tubebender prior to WWII. These items had been stored away in an old cigar box and long forgotten.
To many, such items would have likely seemed like rubbish and been discarded. Luckily for me, Mr Johnson’s daughter, did a little online searching and discovered that I collect this sort of thing. I doubt I am way up there in readership numbers or in Google hits…..but if you are one of the only few out there who collect vintage neon shop tools and equipment, then I guess it is possible to be found. This result has been more pleasing to me than any online counters or website traffic measuring widget that is available.
These artifacts included a photo of Mr Johnson and was marked on the reverse with a 1937 date and that he was 25 years old at the time. I am struck both by how young he looks, and by how well dressed he is…almost formal. By comparison I must look like an old bum when working in my shop. Hahaha. I obviously did not know him, separated by a continent and decades, but this is a special photo and I really like it. In addition, there are some copies of correspondence he had sent during the summer of 1937. A blowhose, swivel, glass mouthpieces, etc. A few mica sheets from the bombarding table. A nearly empty mercury bottle that was specifically marketed by its maker as being for luminous tube work.
Also present, and related to the mercury bottle, is what appears to be a homemade syringe-like mercury injection tool consisting of a barrel and tightly fitted pushrod, with a looped handle and wingnut soldered to the body. At least this is what I think it is. Its about the right size and seems like it would perform that function. It is, however, crusty with some corrosion and some questionable looking deposits on it that may have been a reaction from contact with Hg. So I carefully put it away in a sealed bag, just in case. Nonetheless it is an interesting piece. Homebuilt tools were fairly common in this business, especially during that era. If anyone else has seen one of these and can confirm the purpose, I’d like to hear from you.
There were also some items that I may put to use…
A pouncing wheel, useful for transferring patterns….and this nice old wood handled one certainly outclasses my newer one.
A set of etched glass scales from a U-gauge on the pump manifold. If I were to clean them and restore the paintwork, I could fit them to my system.
And these electrodes. Of value to me as collectibles, but there are enough of them that I could try out a couple and see how they perform.
They appear to be the fabled “gold band” style of electrodes that were intended for use with Helium. The reason they are all tipped off is that they had a special coating that would degrade in air so they were packed under a slight vacuum and sealed off. To use them, one simply cuts off the tip and attaches them and processes them in the usual manner. I hit one with a spark coil, and it appears to still retain some vacuum…so it is possible that the coating is still serviceable. I have seen a few others that were similar in design but not exactly like these. While I do not have an exact date of manufacture for them, I do know they are from the late 1930’s.
Mrs Johnson was able to tell me that her father did this work shortly after recovering from some severe medical issues that had him wheelchair bound and prior to getting married and starting a family. Basically covering the 1936/37 to 1939/40-41 period. By then, the war had started, and during the war he did some work for the newspaper in Tampa, and some time afterward ended up opening a health food store. She said he did not tell her much about his years before the war. This was not entirely uncommon. The war was a defining period for most–so much so that even today, “prewar” and “postwar” are common terms that refer to before 1939(or 1941) and after 1945. It was also not that unusual for many to have gotten into other lines of work after the war was over or to view the prior period as having been an entire lifetime ago to be tucked away and not discussed very often.
A look at the letters he sent to various firms during the summer of 1937 gives a small but interesting glimpse into the business at the time. Of the four letters, one is seeking advice on laying out the design floorplan for a new shop. The others are pursuing pattern design ideas for signs and lettering styles that would be desirable to the public, including some with a drop shadow type of effect. Almost like seeking out clip-art and fonts before such things existed. One letter also indicates that the firm he was with had been sold but he was staying on in the capacity of doing their neon work and hoped that the supplier would continue the business relationship and pricing they had previously. Since he was drafting such letters to suppliers it can be assumed that HE was “the neon department!”
A brief search of the business names he was corresponding with turned up no direct hits but a few interesting clues that may be worthy of following the rabbit hole of web searches just to see if they end up anyplace after 80-odd years.
All in all, an interesting little group of objects…none terribly unusual–similar items could be found in any neon person’s toolbox. Yet they encompass a small microcosm of how things were done at that moment in time when the neon business had pulled out from the depression (partly due to the repeal of prohibition and the natural fit with “streamline moderne” art-deco styling in favor at the time) and just prior to its temporary interruption by the US entry into the second world war. A wonderful addition to the collection! One must usually seek out these sorts of things, but sometimes the cigar boxes of neon archaeology find you! Thank you, Mrs Johnson, for seeking me out for this!
