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.
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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 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.
This is the screen-used original Utrillo print “Restaurant au Mont Cenis” we can see on so many episodes of “I love Lucy” It was sold at auction on July 30, 2013 by PROFILES IN HISTORY for $8,000. It is a print from an original painting of a street in Montmartre, Paris, by Maurice Utrillo, a native of Montmartre, who painted it in 1922. It is interesting to compare it to the vintage postcard circa 1908, photographed from an almost identical vantage point
Continue reading I love Lucy Prop: Utrillo Painting Print
In the 4th episode of season 1 “Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her” Lucy (Lucille Ball) sees Ricky (Desi Arnaz) mixing something into her drink and thinks he is trying to do away with her.
Ricky is seen using a cocktail shaker set that would look good in a mid-century style home bar, and was a popular item for 1950’s home entertaining. The picture above came from an ebay auction for a similar cocktail shaker, it is not an original Desilu prop but it is vintage and in fine condition, and exactly like the one on the shelf in the screen capture below from “I love Lucy” Season One, Episode 4.
This is a follow up to my previous post about restoring an old shabby Nesco Bread Box to look like the one seen in the kitchen of “I love Lucy” starring Lucille Ball.
Here is the Nesco Bread Box and a couple of the Nesco canisters after cleaning and repainting. Also in the photo you can see some paper printouts of my version of the original decal as seen on Lucy Ricardo’s breadbox on the tv show. Continue reading RESTORATION PROJECT: LUCY RICARDO’S BREADBOX Part 2
The METLOX POPPYTRAIL BLUE HOMESTEAD PROVINCIAL WATERING CAN is another prop that pops up here and there on the I love Lucy set First it goes from Lucy’s apartment to Ethel’s when Lucy gets her new furniture and gives her old stuff to Ethel, and then back to the Ricardo’s new home when they move to the country. Continue reading Lucy & Ethel’s Metlox Watering Can
The “I Love Lucy” set props included a pair of Royal Copely rooster & hen figurines. We first see them in the living room of the Ricardo’s apartment on top of the bureau. Continue reading Lucy & Ethel’s Royal Copely Rooster & Hen
