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• PhilDavidAlexanderMorris saved to Art Deco Car Hood Ornaments

Old Car Mascots - paperback booklet 48 Pgs. by Mike Kleba

I bought 2 lots and the shipping cost 250 by post. I think I got some good books but I bought it basically for the car mascots booklet which I have never seen before. The book was made by Galaxie Grille Co. Ltd. which I believe from the address in the book, was in Toronto, Ontario. by the president and vice president of the company.
I just heard recently that the author<> Mike Kleba, passed away late last year.

If you ever commissioned a premium restoration of an early car that involved locating a really arcane radiator cap or mascot, there’s a chance that you knew, or dealt with, Mike Kleba of Mallorytown, Ontario. Mike loved to collect strange or seldom-seen mascots, restore them, and then got to be a worldwide source of them for restorers.

Mike passed away at age 76. Born in Poland at Zbigniew Kleba, Mike was orphaned by age nine and was raised in an orphanage. He joined the Polish army and married Fila in 1956. Four years later, they came to the Toronto area. Mike’s special gift was his preternatural talent at working with pot metal, the material of choice in most mascots. Mike built up two major mascot collections, but he was also known to cognoscenti in the world of rods and customs on both sides of the border, both for sourcing mascots and hand-creating some incredible custom trim work.

A 2nd great book in the collection is called:
" Accessory Mascots: The Automatic Accents of Yesteryear [Paperback] "
I am glad this was in the collection because at Amazon a used copy starts at 90 dollars, and a new one for 382.oo. The one I got is pretty much in new condition, and from what I see, its one of the best books out there on mascots. Because it is a hot collectible now, its kind of hard to get paperback books on mascots under 100 dollars !~

I probably will have to put most of the car books on line to make up the huge money I spent on the books. But also some some good catalogs of auctions on gas collectibles and car auctions.

On the online auction most of the books were once owned by a car collector and motorcycle collector. There were a lot of books, one lot was car books, the other Indian motorcyle books, including a binder manual of the early Indians. There are many that were not pictured in the last one photo, or the pictures that I got to see before the auction.