Lewis Ginter of Allen & Ginter
 

As some of you may recall, I work at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. There are definitely things at work where I’m reminded of our terrific hobby. With that in mind, I wanted to take a moment to share this photograph. Apologies for the glare. This is a picture of Lewis Ginter at the Allen and Ginter factory here in Richmond, Virginia. I looked on his desk in the photo, hoping to see some tobacco cards, but I don’t see anything.

Maybe no tobacco cards on his desk, but I do find it interesting that it looks like he's an avid collector of all the new-fangled technology of the time.

He would definitely be first in line at the store when the new I-Phone is released.

:D

Neat picture. Is that spittoon on the floor?

Looks like it.

I was able to zoom in and clarify what he had typed...

Attachment 621703

3 telephones? Must be for conference calls!

Neat photo, thanks for sharing.
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Where is the Feng Shui without one?

There’s actually 5!

Edison 1.0
Edison 2.0
Edison 2.1
Edison 3.0
and finally

The Edison Galaxy 6

because.......who needs 5 other Galaxies anyways?

For context, the building where this photo is housed is now called Bloemendaal House, at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Henrico, Va. Ginter first built the building as the Lakeside Wheel Club for his rich, velocipede-loving friends of the 1890’s.

It’s really pretty cool to walk around the building that Lewis Ginter walked through, knowing how instrumental he was to the popularity of the tobacco cards we all love today.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakeside_Wheel_Club

Jim Great photo & info.

Lets see some of Lewis Ginter's pride & joy

https://www.qualitycards.com/pictures/1293193010.jpg

It looks like 5 telephones!!

This is turning into some sort of visual 'count the phones' puzzle. :eek:

There very well could be a total of six, as the (I'm sure at the time) newfangled rotary type phone he seems to be speaking on is in front of yet another candlestick telephone...unless (I doubt it) they're parts of the same piece of equipment? Tough to tell for certain whether or not the round transmitter is behind the rotary set-up (a bit of an optical illusion happening there), but for my money there are a minimum of 6 telephones hidden in plain sight!!

Attachment 621850

Pretty sure the desk itself, doubles as a Time Machine / MP3 Player.

Whoops...missed one.

Attachment 621851

Yeap, missed the Galaxy S23 in his hand (I missed a few others too, obviously)
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