?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(FILM.) Albums of model-maker Barney Korn's 1920s miniature film sets, work for Howard Hughes, and automotive and aviation models. Hundreds of photographs and other ephemera mounted on 11 x 8½-inch looseleaf album leaves. 5 ring binders; some of the larger photos and ephemera with punched binder holes, occasional moderate wear. Various places, 1919-1980
Bernard B. "Barney" Korn (1903-1996) of Los Angeles was a skilled model-maker who launched his career in the 1920s film industry before moving on to making miniature race cars and working in industrial design.
These albums contain extensive documentation of his film work. At least 19 photos show his miniature airplanes and other military gear used in the Howard Hughes epic "Hell's Angels." Also included are 13 photos of a miniature train wreck set he created for the 1926 film "The Limited Mail"; 7 photos of a miniature Chinatown devastated by earthquake for the 1927 film "Old San Francisco"; 10 photos of his miniature whaling ship featured in the 1925 film "The Sea Beast"; 5 of a miniature airship named Los Angeles he made for the 1931 Frank Capra film "Dirigible"; and 51 from the set of the 1926 Gary Cooper western "The Winning of Barbara Worth."
Korn later spoke frequently about his early career to groups of film historians. Included is a 4-page typescript of his 1970 interview on his "Hell's Angels" work, as well as dozens of clippings, programs, and slide lists from his appearances from 1970 to 1980.
Korn did other work for Howard Hughes beyond "Hell's Angels." A 1953 memorandum from the Hughes Aircraft Corporation details Korn's work on a "thrust alignment fixture" at the firm's Culver City plant, accompanied by 3 photographs of the machinery with inked "Hughes Aircraft Photo" stamps on verso. Another run of 14 photographs bears Hughes Aircraft Company stamps from 1956 and 1966 for devices such as "Guided Missile Folding Wing" and a "Mechanical Cam Actuator." Three shots show the interior of the Hughes test laboratory.
The album contains three shots of a "Futuristic jet-propelled airliner with vertical take-off capabilities for Howard Hughes, 1928." 9 undated photographs show a "Boeing Pursuit Monoplane, owner Mr. Howard Hughes," a model 100A with serial number 247K which he used to win the All-American Air Races in Miami in January 1934. 5 more photographs show a "Racing Monoplane for Mr. Howard Hughes," a unique Hughes 1B racer with serial number NR258Y, which Hughes used to set the world speed record on 13 September 1935. Two other shots show a Hughes plane after an emergency crash landing.
The earliest dated items in the albums are two 1919 shots in Los Angeles of pilots and planes of the Syd Chaplin Aircraft Corporation (launched by Charlie Chaplin's half-brother). They also contain several photographs and brochures of "The Indianapolis," a functional miniature racing car produced by the B.B. Korn Mfg. Co. Also from Korn's later career are 8 x 10-inch professional photos of his creations including a "panoramic drawing board for cartoon pictures" and a rotoscope made for Walter Lantz Pictures; a 1936 "lipstick molding die" and "rouge cup filling machine" for Max Factor; portable sound recording gear for Progressive Pictures in 1940; a miniature World War One destroyer he made in 1933; toy circus equipment for the Revel Plastic Toy Company. His 1976-1977 correspondence with automotive historian Griffith Borgeson discusses efforts to build a miniature replica of a 1920s Harry Miller front-drive racer, accompanied by some early Miller ephemera, and photos and correspondence on the model's exhibition tour through 1980. A group of 50 personal photos at the end of the first album is devoted mainly to Korn's personal cars and motorcycles from 1920 to 1930, with several shots of the Old Ascot Speedway in East Los Angeles, 1923.
