By Ben Marks — Bob Seidemann leans on his cane and squints at one of his black-and-white photographs. His white hair, beard, and matching eyeglass frames give him the appearance of an aging hippie saint, or perhaps its friendly ghost. The print he's scrutinizing lies on a table with dozens of others from a portfolio called “The Airplane as Art,” which, in recent years, has brought high-altitude prices at auction—all but one of the images in this article are from that portfolio, and most are being...

Laika and Her Comrades: The Soviet Space Dogs Who Took Giant Leaps for Mankind

By Lisa Hix — The dog Laika, the first living being to orbit the Earth, lives on in our memories. Her lethal Sputnik 2 mission, when she was an unwitting pioneer in the USSR’s space program more than 57 years ago, has stuck in our collective consciousness. Her story is central to Lasse Hallström’s 1985 movie, “My Life as a Dog,” and the 2005 Arcade Fire song, “Neighborhood #2 (Laika).” She’s had bands named after her, monuments erected to her, and countless mementos made with her image. "Working with...

Paper Dresses and Psychedelic Catsuits: When Airline Fashion Was Flying High

By Lisa Hix — Today, travel by airplane can feel like a dreary slog. You have to get up too early and stand in long lines, subjected to other people’s screaming babies and rowdy children. The security line requires an awkward juggling act of bags, coats, laptops, and shoes. Then, you get squeezed into a cramped plane cabin, where you must breathe recycled air for hours on end, subsist on soda and pretzels for dinner, and have limited access to a bathroom for half the flight as the plane bumps through...

If 'Pan Am' Takes a Nosedive, It Won't Be For a Lack of Authentic, Vintage Props

By Ben Marks — When the 2011 fall television season made its noisy debut in September, two shows stood out for their potential to generate the same level of retro-cool buzz as "Mad Men." One was NBC's "The Playboy Club," which explored the lives of Playboy bunnies in 1960s Chicago—it was quickly cancelled. The other was ABC's "Pan Am," which followed four stewardesses based in New York City in 1963. After posting impressive numbers for its pilot episode and despite receiving generally good reviews, the...

Collecting Aviation and Airline Memorabilia

By Maribeth Keane — I’ve got one of the largest private collections of airline memorabilia in the world. Many people who’ve seen it say that there’s enough to create a museum. I have everything – silverware, models, thousands of maps, timetables, and brochures. Some of the stuff is really rare and exotic and you can’t find it on eBay. I built my website about five or six years ago. I had seen all those great collector websites and the effort people put in to share what they had and I just wanted to make a...

The Disappearing Art of Porcelain Signs

By Dave Margulius — I liked to collect things even as a child. Things that didn’t cost anything, like different colors of stones. There was something about the advertising that I liked, so in the mid-1970s, I started to pick up porcelain signs. I got heavier and heavier into that, and by the 1980s, I had a fairly substantial collection. As a result of collecting telephone signs, I would run into other advertising specialists, and I started seeing the kind of stuff that other people were buying and looking...

Signs, Tins, and Other Advertising Antiques

By Maribeth Keane — How did I get started collecting advertising antiques? My dad was a lecturer and tutor in graphics and art from the 1960s onwards, and was into vintage automobiles and advertising, like vintage signs, pumps, and globes. So I spent the large portion of my childhood going to auto swap meets and antiques fairs, I think it all started from there. The first thing I collected was old bottles. In one of the books I read as a child, there was an aqua green bottle and I thought it was great and I...

The Art of Airline Ephemera

By Marty Weil — Daniel Kusrow was born in Bangkok, Thailand, but now resides and works in New York City. Daniel collects airline baggage labels, particularly those issued by airlines during the inter-War period, 1919-1939. We spoke recently about his remarkable collection, how he got started, his favorites, and what it takes to find good labels these days. : When did you become interested in airline baggage labels? : I have always been interested in airlines and their history since I was a little boy....