Seen above is a vintage 1955 Pontiac Star Chief Convertible listed on eBay by the St Louis Car Museum. Below you can see the Pontiac Star Chief that appeared on “I Love Lucy” for the episodes when the Ricardo’s and the Mertzes travel to California
The Pontiac Star Chief is a great collector car for some lucky vintage enthusiast. Unfortunately I only have room for the scale model version.
Continue reading Desi & Lucy’s Pontiac Star Chief “I love Lucy”
In the Season three episode “Ricky Loses His Temper” Lucy tries to provoke Ricky by turning on the radio at 4:00 am when he is trying to sleep and follows up by cracking nuts with a mallet in a wooden bowl to make even more noise.
The wooden bowl pictured below looks just like the one Lucy has and is vintage from the same era. The bowl came with the matching mallet and has a label underneath marked Standard Specialty Company, San Francisco, Products of The California Redwood Forests
The Wall Clock frequently seen on set next to the kitchen door on “I Love Lucy” is an electric banjo clock made by the Trend Clock Company in Zeeland, Michigan, Model 606.
The Trend Clock Company founded in 1937 was in business until it was sold in 1968 and afterwards renamed the Sligh Clock Company.
The founders of Trend Clock Company were Garrett Van Temelen and his son Gordon who began making mantel and desk clocks part time, in the basement of their home in Zeeland, MI. and sold their products locally. During the war years when clock parts were scarce they switched to making wood novelties, and eventually bought a factory building and picked up the clock business again successfully in the post war years. They produced a popular line of planter clocks and early American styles, and by the 60s were making grandfather clocks until they were bought out by the Sligh Company.
Reference:
Hemingway’s 4th wife Mary wrote that they ate the hamburgers to fortify them for “tramping through the sagebrush after pheasant, partridge or ducks” in Idaho or Wyoming, which they visited every autumn. She typed the recipe out for the Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery while Hemingway was still alive.The version above, with the “Wild West” annotation, was for a later edition.
Ingredients included: Continue reading Hemingway’s Hamburger Recipe
In the Season three episode “Ricky Loses His Temper” Lucy tries to provoke Ricky by turning on the radio at 4:00 am when he is trying to sleep.
Her bedside clock-radio is a WESTINGHOUSE Model H-420T5 which cost around $30 US in the early 1950’s. If you can find a vintage one for sale in good working condition you can expect to pay more than that now. Occasionally they turn up on eBay and Etsy and other online sites.
There is one just like it on Etsy but not reported to be in working condition Click HERE to view
There is also a green one on ebay for parts or repair Click Here for details
Specs:
Country: United States of America (USA)
Manufacturer / Brand: Westinghouse El. & Mfg. Co. – see also Canadian W.
Alternative name: Westinghouse El. Int.
Year: 1954 ?
Type: Broadcast Receiver – or past WW2 Tuner
Valves / Tubes 5: 12BE6 12BA6 12AV6 50C5 35W4
Principle: Super-Heterodyne (Super in general); ZF/IF 455 kHz; 2 AF stage(s)
Tuned circuits: 6 AM circuit(s)
Wave bands: Broadcast only (MW).
Power type and voltage: Alternating Current supply (AC) / 117 Volt
Loudspeaker: Permanent Magnet Dynamic (PDyn) Loudspeaker (moving coil)
Model: H-420T5 Ch= V-2157-13 – Westinghouse El. & Mfg. Co. –
Material: Modern plastics (no Bakelite or Catalin)
Shape: Tablemodel with Clock ((Alarm-) Clock Radio).
Price in first year of sale: 30.00 $
For More Specs: www.radiomuseum.org/r/westinghou_h_420t5h420t_ch_v_2157_13.html
Caution:If you have or buy a working old vacuum tube radio such as this one never put your hands inside one of these old radios when it’s turned on or plugged in. Never leave these radios turned on for an extended period of time unattended. Do not operate these devices on a metal table. Do not operate these radios on a wet surface.
Source:http://www.retroradiofarm.com/collections/frontpage/products/beautiful-gumby-green-retro-jetsons-1955-westinghouse-h-385t5-tube-am-clock-radio-works
Recently on eBay I came across the same model piano as the upright piano on the set of the Ricardo’s apartment on the “I LOVE LUCY” TV show, for sale by eBay seller “909jordan“. It is a Story & Clark Spinet piano serial # 207633 circa 1950 pictured below.
The spinet piano was made smaller than the traditional upright piano using a different mechanism to produce the sound due to the smaller size, resulting in some loss of sound quality and dynamics. Continue reading Lucy & Ricky’s Upright Piano
After the Ricardo’s moved to the bigger apartment we see a pair of primitive folk art prints over the fireplace by the American artist E Melvin Bolstad. In the early 50’s sets of similar prints were cheap and readily available and could be found in many homes. “The Three Alarmer ” is the title of one of the prints depicting a scene in a town when a fire breaks out. Continue reading I love Lucy’s Folk Art prints
The Hull Apple Cookie Jar can often be seen in the kitchen set of I love Lucy, Hull pottery Cookie Jars were popular in the 1950’s. The cookie jars in the shape of an apple had a companion grease jar in a smaller size, they were airbrushed after they were made with the unfortunate result that the paint could be removed easily by surface cleaning so you will see vintage examples on ebay where much of the paint has worn away
It took me a while to get a clear screenshot of the book ends seen on the set of I love Lucy, it was difficult to make out what the shapes represented, but when I eventually discovered that they were owl figures the mystery deepened. Continue reading Ricardo’s Owl Bookends Mystery
The Toleware Wall Clock is hard to miss on the I Love Lucy show. It can be seen over the mantel in the Ricardo’s living room for most of the early episodes. In a rare color set photo ( detail above) we see that the octagonal tole clock was a deep red color. I have seen this model on ebay from time to time in other colors too.Tole clocks are usually made of painted tin. This one has hand painted floral decorations and was a wind up model. The clock we see above was actually the second tole clock to be used, in the first few episodes of I love Lucy there was a round one with leaf decorations in its place on the same spot.
Collectors looking for one should search ebay for “tole wall clock” or “toleware wall clock”. There is actually one just like it on ebay as I write this click here for details or on the picture above.
