Category Archives: Collection

A couple of months ago, the crew from the Collector’s Quest website became the first people to actually visit the offices of The Museum Of UnCut Funk, interview me and see our collection.

The Barack Obama Comic Book Collection is the newest addition to The Museum of UnCut Funk’s archives. As comic books fans and avid collectors, we are dedicated to the preservation of funky comics that reflect Black contributions to contemporary culture.

The Museum of UnCut Funk’s Black Movie Art and Black Animation Collections are also growing. We have acquired art from some of the coolest and most obscure movie posters and Saturday morning cartoon art on the planet.

The Museum of UnCut Funk has taken a very different approach to collecting items that are relevant to our cultural experience. As children of the 1970′s, we are dedicated to collecting artifacts from what we believe is one of the greatest decades ever. We have also been blessed to bear witness to the election of the first Black President in American history, Barack Obama, one of the greatest events in our lifetime. As President Obama is also a child of the 1970′s, it makes sense for The Museum of UnCut Funk to collect artifacts that highlight all aspects of his presidential achievement. Thus we have added The Barack Obama Comic Book Collection to our archive.

Millions of anti-Black items were produced during the Jim Crow period, and these items served to justify prejudice and discrimination against Black Americans. If Black adults were childlike, for example, then they should not be allowed to vote, serve on juries, or become police officers or teachers therefore these anti-Black items both shaped and reflected attitudes toward Blacks.
Source: Ferris Sate University

Picking up where comic strips left off in the early 20^th century, theatrical cartoon film shorts portrayed Blacks in a racially derogatory and stereotypical manner as cannibals, coons, mammies and Stepin Fetchit characters with exaggerated features and ignorant dialect. From 1900 to 1960, over 600 cartoon shorts featuring Black characters were produced by some of Hollywood’s greatest White animators and biggest film studios. Several famous Black jazz musicians such as Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong were also portrayed as stereotypical caricatures.

As a fan of the theater, I began collecting window cards from the broadway shows that I was fortunate enough to see. My love for the art on them grew from there and I started collecting all of the window cards from Black plays and musicals and plays the featured Black actors that I could find.

Money money money money, money
Some people got to have it
Some people really need it
Listen to me y’all, do things, do things, do bad things with it
You wanna do things, do things, do things, good things with it
Talk about cash money, money
Talk about cash money – dollar bills, yall
The O’Jays “For The Love of Money”

The hip talk, cool threads and big afros of the Blaxploitation movie craze crossed over into 1970’s comics books, resulting in the creation of a number of new characters like Luke Cage. Cage, the most recognizable character from this period, was a cool, fly, down to earth brother from the hood who always tried to do the right thing. Swagger, style, a way with the ladies and an ass kickin’ for the man. He was the complete badass package.

Growers first started using fruit and vegetable crate labels in the late 19th century. Labels were glued on the ends of wooden crates to identify the contents, place or origin and the packer’s name. These labels were shipped all over the nation for nearly 70 years.

Packers sold their produce with colorful, attractive and racially offensive labels in order to generate more business at the local market. In the late 1950′s, crates were replaced by pre-printed boxes so crate labels were no longer used. The leftover labels were gathered up by collectors, dealers and old orchard owners.

Our sports collection is definitely different than what most people would expect and unique compared to the rest of our museum collection categories in that it encompasses a broad range of items, including: animation, board games, lunch boxes, posters, art, coins, stamps and comic books, as well as a few traditional pieces of autographed sports memorabilia. But we like it because different is what we do…

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother fuck him and John Wayne
Cause I’m Black and I’m proud
I’m ready and hyped plus I’m amped
Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps

Public Enemy – Fight the Power

I started collecting movie posters from Blaxploitation and all Black films from the 1970‘s because I love these films. I also love the illustrated artwork that was used to create these posters. Poster illustration has become a lost art form, as today’s posters utilize photography. The uniqueness of the illustrations is what makes these posters highly collectible and increasingly more valuable. The poster images, similar to the story lines of the films themselves, reflect what was happening in the Black community at the time. So they are as historically important as they are beautiful.

Pressbooks were created to provide theater owners with the information and materials needed to promote a given film. Pressbooks contained information on the actors, illustrations of film posters, newspaper ad slicks, movie notes, tie-in ideas and other promotional materials including ready-made film reviews.

Charles Morgan contacted the Museum of UnCut Funk back in July of this year. He informed us of articles that he and Hubert Walker had written for Coin Week on Blacks on coins. Coin Week is an on-line media source for print and video news about rare coins and currency. We are thrilled to have experts like Mr. Morgan and Mr. Walker recognize the Museum of UnCut Funk and our Black coin and medals collection.

Thank you Mr. Morgan and Mr. Walker for giving the Museum of UnCut Funk this great opportunity to reprint your work.

This is Part 2 of a 3 part series of articles written by Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for Coin Week, an on-line media source for print and video rare coin and currency news, reprinted at the Museum Of UnCut Funk with the permission of Mr. Morgan and Mr. Walker.

The final article of a 3 part series written by Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for Coin Week, an on-line media source for print and video rare coin and currency news, reprinted at the Museum Of UnCut Funk with the permission of Mr. Morgan and Mr. Walker.

The Museum Of UnCut Funk has an impressive collection of oxymoronic art. Why oxymoronic? Animation is an art form with caricature as its foundation. However, nearly all of the cartoons represented in this collection, which feature African American and African caricatures, attempt to negotiate the entertainment value of the characters’ designs with accuracy in depicting African American performance.