Selling Snake Oil in a T

[Mark Osterman]

Came upon this print in a file today.

[Tim Rogers]

He must have done a good job because people are still buying things like Marvel No-Mystery Oil...

SNAKE-Oil-Cures-All-returntothemystic.org_.jpeg.jpg (36.15 KiB) Viewed 6103 times

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[Mark Osterman]

The contents of that bottle was actually added to the radiator shortly after the picture was taken.

[Ruxstel24]

The contents of that bottle was actually added to the radiator shortly after the picture was taken.

That radiator has about 75% of it's fins MIA....
Doubtful the "snake oil" did the trick.

[Adam]

The photo itself is “snake oil”!

Not very old!

50 star flags on the radiator...

What body style???

[Adam]

1919 plate

Hayes demountable rims...

[Mark Osterman]

LOL ... well, that old radiator worked fine. Drove the car for thirty years with it. That’s me in the picture taken in 1983 at the Kutztown Folk Festival. I built the commercial body that featured a folding stage for our traveling medicine show. For more pictures of the car and performances Google Dr. Bumstead’s Celebrated Lenape Liquid Show.

This is what the car looked like when I first built it up from parts in 1979. I added a vintage (non Ford) windshield a little later. I preferred the later running board brackets and demountable wheels but the rest was 1919 vintage. The stage bolted onto the back deck in place of the insert with the tool box shown here.

[Mark Osterman]

Here is the same car with the windshield and the add on stage assembly folded up for traveling. And opened up for a performance.

[Rich Eagle]

The photo is well staged. I concluded that it might be later photography before I read further but had to look close.
Thanks for showing us.
Rich

[Charlie B in N.J.]

It's funny with these things but somehow right off the pic didn't look old to me. Can't explain why though.

[Adam]

You did do a great job with the photo.

The only things I could pick out was “after 1948” and “home made body on the T”.

Like Charlie says, there is “something” about the photo itself that jumps out as being recent. Is it originally a color photo that was digitally converted to black & white?

[Steve Jelf]

I suspect Adam is on the right track with his question. But rather than color film, I suspect panchromatic black & white. Films of the Model T era were orthochromatic (blind to red), which gives a different look. Another modernizing factor would be the overall fuzzy resolution (can you count the stars on the flags or read the printing on the drum?) and the extreme depth of field indicating a small camera. I suspect 35 mm, or maybe even instamatic.

Now Mark can tell how I'm guessing wrong on everything.

[Mark Osterman]

All of those were shot with black and white panchromatic sheet film. That was actually available in 1919 but Steve is right that much of the film in that era was ortho chromatic or not sensitive to red. But actually most people wouldn’t know the difference. The thing about the first image I posted is that is has a very good range of tones and very good focus, not common with the snap shot photography usually seen of model Ts but really common with professional shots made back then.

[Mark Osterman]

This image of me in my runabout was taken last year on a 4x5” gelatin dry plate glass negative like the type popular in the model T era.

[Steve Jelf]

I love large format photography with a good lens. When you look at that picture full size notice how the subject is in sharp focus and the background is soft. Lovely.