Archive of advertising and photographs for a custom mechanical scoreboard firm in Miami, Florida, circa 1940s

Miami, FL: N.p., Circa 1940s. Archive of sales material and design documents for the James O. Tice Company, a custom mechanical scoreboard firm active in the 1940s in Florida. Included in the archive are 19 vintage black and white photographs (including 14 original photographs and 5 xerographically duplicated photographs), 2 manuscript design documents, 1 original blueprint and 1 xerographically duplicated blueprint for scoreboard designs, a sales brochure, and a newspaper page featuring a profile of a goose-themed specialty board designed by Tice for Miami Field.

Five photographs show the boards in use throughout the US, in sports fields at the University of Alabama, Duke University, University of California, Loyola College, and in Tampa, Florida, accompanied by a small typescript cover letter on company letterhead introducing the set.

In addition to photographs of the boards in use, the archive includes several manuscript design documents laying out the mechanics of the goose-themed scoreboard in Miami Field, and 14 photographs of the board in varying states of construction, as well as a few photographs of men posing in front of the completed board. In 1941 the firm appears to have applied for, and been granted, a patent for the unique design used in Miami, which featured two moving, mechanized geese which would "lay" the "goose eggs," or zeroes, on the board. The archive also includes Tice's design for an even larger goose-themed baseball scoreboard incorporating war bonds advertising and an American flag motif, which to our knowledge was never created or installed.

A fascinating and thorough look into the scoreboard business before the 1980s, when most electro-mechanical boards were replaced by cost-effective, high-powered semiconductors and the advent of computer technology.

Photographs range from 2.5 x 4.5 inches to 8 x 10 inches. Photographs, advertising, and blueprints Near Fine overall.

[Book #151362]