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Fisher Motor Co. postcard vendor

Fisher Motor Co. Ltd, Orillia, Ontario, Canada, c. around 1926 to 1928, 12 ¹/₂". I'd never seen one of these before I saw this one in the Morphy Auction catalog in the fall of 2021. I liked it and was considering bidding on it, but without the chance to preview it, and with the fees and shipping....I let it pass and concentrated on other things, none of which ended up coming my way (in case you care). About five months later it showed up on a seller's table at the April 2022 Chicagoland show where I did have a chance to look it over in person and didn't have to consider fees and shipping, although of course those were baked into the price. That price was about what I'd have paid at my bid plus the buyer's fee plus shipping, but after seeing it live I was okay with that....otherwise you wouldn't be looking at it on this site.

I dated this model based on two things: 1) The 1926 patent date shown on the front of the machine here, with "other patents pending;" and 2) Online research revealed that Fisher Motor Co. of Orillia was in business from 1913 to 1928. It made cars from 1913 until the start of the War to End All Wars, then was converted to wartime production. After the war it made automobile accessories until it closed in 1928. That puts this machine's birthdate around 1926 to 1928. Until I read that I thought the machine's era was a little later than the 1920s---thinking specifically that it was a 1930s model---an opinion based on the machine's design and heavy steel construction. But nope, it's from the flapper era.

That history begs the question of why a car company made a postcard vendor, and my answer to that question is: I have no friggin' idea. It's a really strange combination.

This machine is 100% original. It went to Morphy as part of Mel Getlin's estate after he died. Morphy sold it the way they got it, which as you can see here and here is a bit different from what's pictured above. When I bought it the machine displayed Valentine postcards that were from the 1910s, which were quite cool to read having been sent more than 100 years ago before this machine was produced. The cards didn't completely fill the display from side to side, and in the "before" pictures you can see patches of paint missing from beneath the glass in the frames. That strikes me as strange because the paint is protected by glass, but there's no doubt the paint wasn't all there. The person I bought this from at the show said he'd planned to replace the Valentine postcards with better ones but never got around to it, and I thought that was a good idea so I did exactly that. I bought the 1930s/1940s postcards on Etsy (thanks to Cheryl at TheWonderings) because I liked the cartoon motif and the lame dated humor and they fit the machine's usage period, and replaced the Valentine cards with them. The one thing not correct date-wise is the green backing in the displays, which is Crayola construction paper circa 2022 (thanks to Target !) which I put in to cover the paint loss inside the displays and spiff up the look. A wipe-down with Antique Improver as a last step cleaned the surfaces up a bit and gave a little gloss to the painted surfaces and decals. A friend of mine promotes Antique Improver big-time and this is the third time I've used it. The first time did nothing to improve the look, the second time it actually worsened the look---he says any change caused by the product goes away after a few years, and I hope he's right---but this time it actually did subtly improve the overall look.