Newly arrived is this trio of original art drawings by Caniff circa 1950 to 1952. They appear to be done as a design for neck ties specifically for Air Force Association Squadron #41 as part of their annual convention. The art Caniff created was later copied and hand painted on to ties by Dorothy Hagan and then used at conventions in 1950, 1951 and 1952. In the extra images you can see a display of the 3 ties. As you can see one of the designs was not used and the third tie sports a Miss Lace image that is from a well known print although the colors used are a bit less common but also found on some hand-colored prints. I have found evidence of additional copies of the green tie so these were not one-offs but how many were produced and how they were distributed is still unknown to myself. As far as I know, these images have never been reprinted anywhere else before.

When these pieces first appeared on ebay they were accompanied by rather poor images and at the time I thought they were just prints that someone had cut up and so would be of little interest to anyone but myself as I collect the prints of Milton Caniff. I didn't bid very high and was unable to watch the auction and so I ended up as under-bidder. Fortunately, they ended up in the collection of my friend Aaron. Aaron is a lot smarter than I am and took the time to look at the images more closely. He thought they were originals and it turned out they were. When I heard this and saw better images of this I think I got chest pain:) I have admired these pieces in Aaron's collection for the years that he has owned them and when it came time to part with them, he knew there was only one person to call. It was a happy art day when they arrived. No longer will I have to have recurrent chest pains looking at them in another collector's gallery. They will soon be on my wall.

In the additional images gallery you will see them framed and glued to colored backgrounds. Although I like the way they look, for conservation reasons I have removed them from the almost 70 year old frames and paper. I will likely remount them archivally but have not decided about recreating the color backgrounds or not for future display. There was certainly a charm to the pieces as they were previously displayed that might have been a bit dated but so what:)

These pieces were found in an abandoned storage locker in Chicago and that is how they came to be on ebay the first time. No other information was available from the seller other than that they were on consignment from a person who buys lockers. It is too bad, this would have made for a great episode of Storage Wars.

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