Looking through a drawer the other day I came upon a coppertype (an old photo printed on copper) that gramdma gave me many years ago. It's a photo of Warren G. Harding our 21st president. That's one part of history I really haven't studied so I thought I look up old Warren. Didn't know if he was a republican or democrat. The more I dug into this history the more I found him to be a typical rethuglican. He lowered taxes on most peoples' income by a whopping 1% while totally eliminating all the taxes on those making 300K or more. Oh but it gets better. Like the typical den of thieves his minions were doing some shady deals out in Wyoming and California. One of his cabnet members gave a no bid contract for oil drilling rights in those states. One hundred thousand dollars changed hands and bribery charges were brought. Sound familiar (Haliburton)? This little episode was called Tea Pot Dome after the area in Wyoming. Ron Blogoevich might have been proud of them but they got caught as well. Hey Ron this was when they didn't have tape recorders too.
But back to my antique photo of Warren G. Once I found out the history I decided to see if I could find out if the photo was worth anything. Don't want to have anything around here that reminds me of what that party has done to this country. It would be like having a portrait of Hoover, Nixon, or worse Bush Jr. The portrait seems to be the official white house issued but unlike any of it's day it's done on copper. I'm wondering if this wasn't some gift to Grandpa for a campaign donation. Grandpa was pretty high up in a corporation so I'm sure he was a Republican. I've looked all over the web for anything like it and find nothing.
Grandma did leave me with a bunch of old tintypes but they are fairly easy to value and I don't think I'll part with them.
5 comments:
I class myself as a liberal, social democrat. Not sure what those words conjure up in the USA but I am glad to have found someone with my view of the Republican Party.
I have an autographed autobiography of Ronald Reagon's "Where's the Rest of Me." I actually read it back in the day. Just because I thought I would be fair. It was his first auotbiography, published in 1965 a few years after he switched from the Democratic party to the GOP. He had not run for Governor of California yet.
I am holding onto it only because my brother wants it. He loves and worships the man. One day I might just send it to him burned and torn. But I will give him the autograph.
People do not realize just how sleazy and underhanded many politicians were back in the day. The Tea Pot Dome scandal was huge. Today, something like it might just bring down the administration.
What I find fascinating about Harding was his rampant womanizing. He had an affair that makes anything Bill Clinton did look like harmless fun. Bribes, extortion, suicides, all the good stuff happened when he was around.
Some things never change.
I class myself as a moderate of no party.
Looking through a drawer the other day I came upon a coppertype (an old photo printed on copper) that gramdma gave me many years ago.
My deceased wife worked for a newspaper, lots of neat old stuff in the basement there.
She would bring home all sorts of interesting old things. It was a weekly, payday was the day after the paper came out because they were all a bunch of fucking drunks, ha ha ha.
All I have here are some more modern sheets of thin aluminum sheets from the 80's that were etched before being put on the rollers for the press to crank out the newspapers.
Damn, been packing them around for 27 years. Only bought them in case I ever needed any thin aluminum for some reason.
Well, they were only ten cents a sheet.
I assume that an old copperplate would be worth more than a tintype. So, of course, the only things in my old photo vault are tintypes.
at least warren harding had the good sense to die two years into office...
as bad as harding was -- he doesnt hold a candle to bush 43 -- harding didnt take us into a useless senselss illegal war
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