I'm looking to put together a post sometime in the near future about how collectors are storing and/or displaying their collections. If you'd care to share, please feel free to reply with any info.
Circa 1936-37 Large 4.5 X 6.25 Nestle's Card featuring Laurel and Hardy
Bob Duncan is a Laurel & Hardy collector who was recently interviewed and featured in Antique Trader Magazine as part of Alan M. Petrillo's article Stan and Ollie: Laurel and Hardy make popular collectibles. Bob is an active member of two local chapters of the International Laurel & Hardy Society, more commonly called Sons of the Desert. He uses parts of his collection to illustrate talks he gives at the local meet-ups.
As to what type of Laurel & Hardy items Bob collects, well, it runs the gamut from trading cards, figurines which range in size from a few inches to four feet tall, publicity stills, scripts, postcards, posters, decorative plates, to letters handwritten by Stan Laurel. Of these letters Bob told Petrillo and Antique Trader "“Stan Laurel was a very prolific letter writer in his later years and these letters continue to be highly collectible."
So when I asked Bob the question at the top of this post, I was really curious. Just how would one display such a wide variety of items?
The item are "on display throughout my condo. The walls of the condo are literally full of framed stills, posters, lithographs, etc." Bob said he kept smaller collectibles such as old cigarette cards and postcards inside 3 ring binders.
But Bob did us one better--he supplied some fantastic photos of those jam-packed walls and was kind enough to allow me to share them with you. Note the captions, written by Bob, for details. Enjoy the tour:
This first photo shows various framed publicity stills with signatures – the lady on the left is Mabel Normand, in the middle is Billy Gilbert, on the right (and almost out of the picture) is Marguerite Roach – Hal Roach’s 1st wife – partially obscured in the lower left is Martha Sleeper.
This next one shows framed publicity stills and signatures of Claudette Colbert (left) and Darla Hood (right). Darla’s still is framed with a 45 from her recording career in the early 60s.
Here are some various Laurel & Hardy figurines – the large pair in the back next to the phony tree originally belonged to Jan Berry – he was the “Jan” of the “Jan & Dean” pop signing group of the early 60s and was quite the Laurel & Hardy fan.
Various smaller figurines in the living room.
Various items on a living room wall – the bottom row includes framed photos, with signatures, of Laurel & Hardy, Thelma Todd, Buster Keaton, Charley Chase and, finally, a Stan Laurel check.
Thanks so much to Bob Duncan for sharing his Laurel & Hardy collection with us.
If you're interested in more Laurel & Hardy by all means check out Sons of the Desert to see if there's a chapter near you.
Also, I've had a Laurel & Hardy page written by one of our freelancers up on things-and-other-stuff.com up for some time now if you're looking for a basic biography.
