Category Archives: Kingsport TN ephemera

Sobel’s

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I thank Carl Swann for this item.  Its age is indeterminate.  The “Sobel’s The Men’s Store” appears to have been hot stamped onto the shoehorn. “Shoehorn” is an old word, dating back to the late Middle Ages, as a “schoying horne” (it’s all in Wikipedia)…a “horn” in the sense of a tool, made of horn – the plastic of its day, to help put on a shoe.  There were various sizes (long ones for boots); this one is 3.5″ long.

Nunn Bush shoes are still distributed by Weyco in Wisconsin…Weyco is essentially a Florsheim operation since 1964.  Weyco claims a founding date of 1892.  Nunn Bush was established by Henry LIghtfoot Nunn in 1912.  I don’t know what happened to Bush.  I can’t find a reference.  Really, his middle name was “Lightfoot”?  Too punny.

When I was in the Air Force, we had the opportunity to purchase Florsheim dress shoes.  For whatever reason, most all of us had gone back to our Government-issue shoes in six months or so.  The Florsheims just didn’t hold up well (this was back in the mid-60s).

Trading Stamps – The Fever

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If you wish to brush up on your history of S&H Green Stamps, head over here,  Otherwise, read on about K-Savers trading stamps.


This is the book you’d stick your K-Savers stamps in, all notated (as far as I know) as worth 25 units of something.  The book is 3-3/4″ by 5-7/8″.  The stamps, shown below, each measure 1/2″ x 1-7/8″.
In the 1950s, Oakwood Markets, dating from the late 40s, was seeing a bubbling up of Green Stamp Fever, fed by market competitor Giant Supermarkets.  Figuring to find a parade and get in front of it (a favorite suggestion of Don Raines, my former boss), Wallace Boyd, one of the founders of Oakwood Markets, started Tennessee Stamp Company and began to spread K-Saver stamps across their multiple locations (11 or so in the 70s).  K-Savers had a catalog and a brick-and-mortar store at 813 Eastman Road – the site, next to Sloopy’s, is now home to a gas station.

   

Inside front cover, showing part of a stamp page, and inside of the back cover.

1157 Eastman Road was the location of the Oakwood Market in Greenacres Shopping Center. And note there are none of the legal conditions (you don’t own the stamps!) that S&H put on the back cover of their redememption booklets.

 

WKPT Studio

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I’m taking a chance here, but I think this was taken before the fire that severely damaged the WKPT studios.  I don’t recognize the studio configuration or that strange wall treatment.

I didn’t have any luck tracking down when Pilgrims Songs sheet music was published, but the microphone is a Western Electric 639 or so, made in the late 1930s (after 1941, it would have been branded as an Altec).  This mike, or one like it, was still around when I was at WKPT.  People had their preferences as to the setting.  I liked cardioid and got fussed at one time for switching it.  Today, these mikes are selling for around $600 to $800 on ebay.

There is nothing of interest on the back of this card…no publisher, no photographer attribution.  Annoying.

WKPT Ad

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This 5-column, 3/4-page ad ran on July 21, 1968, in the Kingsport Times-News.  I found it when I was going through an old scrapbook.  Look!  Not a syndicated show in sight; although, the stations did run some NBC and religious programming on the weekends.

I always liked the NBC logo.  The microphone is a stylized RCA 44-BX (bi-directional).  The WKPT-AM studios used these, since the installation of the equipment after the fire* was supervised by NBC.

*The WKPT studios burned on September 7, 1948, according to the Kingsport Times-News (I misread that date. It was 1946.  When I enlarged the page, I saw that it was a “6”, not an “8”, but it was a kind of skeevy 6, at that).  The new studio, with all new equipment, opened in ’48.

Eastman ISO Plus Nutritional Supplement

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This really has to do with Eastman in Rochester, but the key fob and key ring were found at a flea here, so let’s check it out.

The patent office shows that Eastman was granted a patent for this ISO Plus Nutritional Supplement, apparently for those of the bovine persuasion, in 1983, the first known date for the commercial use of this product.  As of 1992, however, the patent is shown as “Continued use not filed within grace period, un-revivable”.

Perhaps it just didn’t work out.

Another First Baptist Church Postcard

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This is postmarked 1956.  It was published by Blackburn News Agency.  The company was located on Boone Street, started in 1945 by Joseph D. Blackburn and his wife, both former school teachers in Charlotte.  In 1960, they were servicing over 200 newsstands in the area with paperbacks and, obviously, postcards (Kingsport Times-News).  It was printed by Curt Teich in Chicago.

Blackburn had a series of postcards of Kingsport.  This is noted as B-27.

Kingsport Public Library card

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In 1954, the Library was co-located with City Hall in the old YMCA building on the corner of Shelby and Center.  This card (I’ve removed the name and the actual address) was what any thinking person got immediately upon arriving in town.  Whenever we moved, Mom and I located the library and promptly got a card. It was the access to the world and a sanctuary, too.

First Baptist Church

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Glenn Souders was working as a photographer for the Kingsport Times-News in the early 60s.  I suppose the “Souders Photo Service” was a side business for him.

I mention this for two reasons: a) this is the only card I’ve ever seen that lists him as the publisher (it was printed by Dexter Press in New York) and b) I was hired by Glenn at WKPT Radio in 1967.  He, much later, became a priest.  He showed up at the station sometime in the 90s and the boss brought him by my office.  The expression on my face when I saw him in a collar caused them both to laugh.

An Evening with Canon

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This was probably 1982.  Jim wasn’t at the Ft. Henry Drive location all that long and, by 1993, the next time a Thursday fell on September 30, he had moved to the Eastman Road location.

I miss camera shops.  Back then, I couldn’t afford much in the way of cameras and lenses.  I made do, thanks to some horse trading with Jim, but I really yearned after the new cameras and the fast (for then) lenses.

Jim and Janet and Paul and Jeff.  Great people to work with (I did some camera repair) and to talk with.