SOUTH AMERICA - CENTRAL AMERICA - MEXICO PHOTO ALBUM 1938-1940 by EXPLORER
Item #764
11 x 11” black 2-ring binder from around 1938 to 1940, featuring around 85 black-and-white and hand-colored photos from expeditions that Charles D. Coe took to South America, Central America, Mexico, Cuba, and Jamaica. Charles seems to have been an avid explorer and collector; one photo postcard shows the “Tropical Collection” that he and his wife put together at Granby Road in South Hadley Falls Massachusetts. There are photos of the Aztec calendar and Mesoamerican pyramids, but most photos are stunning hand-tinted large photos of men, women, and children. Some of these photos of people are in black-and-white and duplicated in larger hand-colored prints in the album. There is also a hand drawn map, which says at the top “Mt. Cotopaxi, An Active Volcano – Perpetual Snow.” Mt. Cotopaxi is in Ecuador, and another photo is identified as “On the San Blos Coast, which is in Panama. There is also a Christmas card from Bolivia. At the back of the album there is a photo of 2 men with a large fish and actor Andy Rooney waving in a crowd. (What is he doing there???). Throughout the binder there are also colorful postcards from Havana, Cuba and newspaper clippings about Charles and his trips. There is also a brochure from the Bournemouth Club in Kingston, Jamaica, and an invitation for Charles to become a member of the Mexican Chamber of Commerce. Photos measure between 3.5 x 2.5” and 10 x 8”; some are glued to the pages and around 20 are loose. There are no annotations. There are 67 black-and-white photos and 18 hand-colored photos. Many of the pages are detached. The photos in this collection are stunning and the collection is worth further research.
Example newspaper clippings
Collector of Indian Curios Drops In. (Feb. 24, 1938)
Back to U.S. from Dutch Guiana Jungle Trip
THREE-MONTH STAY IN B.G. INTERIOR PLANNED.
An interesting visitor to the colony on Tuesday was Mr. Charles D. Coe of Holyoke Mass. U.S.A. who was a round-tripper on the R.N.M.S. Stuyvesant which sailed the same night for New York. He was accompanied by Mrs. Coe.
Mr. Coe is a much travelled man and has just completed a trip into the jungles of Dutch Guiana collecting samples of handiwork indigenous to the Indians there. He has also visited the jungles of Ecuador, Colombia Peru and Chili collecting various specimens of Indian arts and pottery implements used by the Indians in tribal warfare and Indian curios generally not excepting the Indian canoe and wood-skin.
On Mr. Coe’a return to New York he will exhibit the articles he has collected at various Universities and schools in New York, using the proceeds to finance a fund whereby milk is supplied to the under fed children of the State of Massachusetts.
Moving pictures taken on his tour are also exhibited at auditoriums, and indigent persons who cannot afford to pay to attend the exhibitions are granted an opportunity of seeing them through the courtesy of some of the large commercial houses who place there show-windows at Mr. Coe’s disposal.
TO RE-VISIT COLONY AT END OF YEAR.
Towards the end of the year or early next year Mr. Coe will again visit British Guiana when he hopes to remain in the colony for about three months and visit the interior of the colony with a view to collecting curios. His tours in search of interesting exhibits are annual affairs and this fund for the supply of milk is also financed annually.
Will Take An Exploring Trip To Mexico and Central America (Jan. 21, 1940)
Holyoke, Jan. 20—Accompanying Charles D. Coe of Hillside avenue, this city, on his next exploration will be Robert E. Bourque of Fairfield avenue, local news photographer and son of Mr and Mrs Oliver H. Bourque.
The expedition will start from here on February 3 and will travel by auto to Florida where, after a brief stop, it will proceed to Mexico City, Mex. Here Mrs Coe will leave the expedition and remain until its completion. Mr Coe expects to acquire several thousand feet of motion pictures and many hundreds of photographs of unusual shots.
It is planned to move out of Vera Cruz by burro and afoot after an expedition into Yucatan, the party will go to Guatemala, where there are Indian tribes said to be the least advanced of Indians on this continent.
Among the tribes which the local people intend to visit and study are the Huichols of Nayarit, the Mixtocas of western Oaxaco, the Myas of Yucatan and the Taxco Indians of the Lake Patzeuaro district.
Mr Coe has made many unusual trips and has acquired a valuable collection of curios. He has lectured extensively and his last tour followed an unusual visit which gave him the material for his lecture, “Hobnobbing with headhunters.” It will be Mr Bourque’s first expedition as a photographer.
Price: $1,995.00