Car door magnet for The Comisar Collection
date: label: date made
content: 1990
name: label: maker
content: Comisar, James
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Car door magnet used by James Comisar advertising the entertainment memorabilia company The Comisar Collection, ca. 1990s. The magnet front is painted with an image of a mountainside with search lights illuminating the sky around silver stickers spelling out COMISAR similar in appearance to the Hollywood sign. Contact information for The Comisar Collection, "PURVEYORS & CURATORS OF HOLLYWOOD MEMORIES', is painted below. The magnet is cut to fit the illustration, with an irregular edge.
label: Description (Brief)
content: James Comisar began collecting entertainment memorabilia in the 1980s and represents the second generation of collectors who expanded and broadened the entertainment memorabilia market in the late 20th century. Comisar built a career as a television writer before realizing that the studio lots on which he worked were full of historic production-related costumes and props that were relegated to deep storage or rental stock, and not receiving the elevated care he felt they deserved as cultural objects. He began to work with production companies and individuals to acquire costumes and props and founded his own historic collection of television memorabilia, The Comisar Collection, in 1989. Comisar has acquired and cared for what he bills as "the most comprehensive archive of original television costumes, props, sets, and related ephemera in extant,” and was among the first collectors to specifically search out, curate and conserve “TV treasures” for their cultural significance.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, Los Angeles
topic: label: Subject
content: Collectors
label: Subject
content: Auctions
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
label: See more items in
content: Popular Entertainment
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2022.0006.02
label: catalog number
content: 2022.0006.02
label: accession number
content: 2022.0006
objectType: label: Object Name
content: magnet
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: magnetized rubber (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paint (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (stickers material)
label: Physical Description
content: painted (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 in x 24 in; 30.48 cm x 60.96 cm