Who was Tim Callahan

[CarltonHendricks]

I picked up this Lucky Strike trolley car sign this last November from fellow board member WillowGrove, thank you Peter!....I actually had seen it about 6 months prior on eBay and when it got past $100.00 or so I bailed because of the condition...mostly forgot about it until one day I saw it in the Net54 BST section...Peter and I arm wrestled over a month I think it was...and we finally made the deal...It was a partial trade and cash deal but the total dollar amount was quite a bit more than the $100 I bowed out at on eBay...but it just kept speaking to me...Regardless of the condition where would I ever find another Lucky Strike trolley with an Ivy League football player from 1919...it really was my kind of piece...So what the hay I finally bit the bullet...

It wasn't like there was a lot of background on Callahan...I had to do some digging...Once I found the Times Square photo below I started thinking...who is this guy...20 years old...has his mug plastered on Times Square!...Employed as a national advertising vehicle...Yes he was the Yale football Captain but I couldn't find anything really extraordinary...then when I read about his blue blood Boston heritage and all...dating Rose Fitzgerald (later Rose Kennedy)...I think maybe he was just hooked up with the right crowd...Then I was curious what ever happened to him...Went on to a career lawyering first for the Justice Department fighting for prohibition...then later with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a prosecutor...So now I just have to get it restored!...

[Vintage Yankee]

Great stuff as always, Carlton! I especially like the Times Square photo tie-in.

[thecatspajamas]

Carlton, the research and care you put into pieces that you post here both astounds me and invigorates my own modest research efforts. If I had less restraint and a bigger budget, there's no telling what esoteric corners of collecting I would be venturing into after reading your posts! Thank you for bringing life to so many items such as I have probably overlooked as I scan for images of guys holding gloves and bats.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Carlton, this is first class in every respect. I have been a member of the PFRA for years as well as the College Football Historical Society and this was as much fun as anything I have seen in print for quite some time!

[DaClyde]

Collecting is so much more fun when the people and items can be placed in context!

[CarltonHendricks]

Thanks for the kind words all, glad you enjoy…What a find that Times Square photo was…the span, depth, and clarity doesn’t get much better…



For baby boomers and older this isn't necessary...but for the younger uninitiated I’ll explain, these types of signs are referred to as trolley car signs by collectors today, because they were displayed overhead around the interior of trolley cars. Every kind of product from soap to cigarettes advertised on them…And there were a few sports one…







Lucky Strike Cigarettes issued a series of sports ones mostly big name baseball players…plus some other sports…I think I recall a yellow one with golfer Gene Sarazen…and I may have seen a tennis one. I also found the original art work for another Lucky Strike football one featuring Erwin Gehreke, another All American at Harvard in 1924…So Lucky Strike probably made signs of it…I found it in a previous Huggins and Scott auction....







And just in case some of the younger generation may not know what a trolley car is...see below..they ran on electricity...