This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/1/2025
Swami Ouija Talking Board. Chicago: Gift Craft, ca. 1940s–1950s. Lithograph on hardboard with hardboard planchette. 13 ½ x 20". Minor wear and fading to the planchette. Very good.
“Although the company designed some of the most recognizable talking boards of WWII's wartime boom, Gift Craft's corporate history goes largely unrecorded, with only brief copyright entries naming Martha Green, Cecille Adel, and Samuel I. Preskel as company directors. Headquartered in the massive American Furniture Mart with the infamous 666 North Lake Shore Drive address, Gift Craft was one of hundreds of companies that inhabited what was at the time the world's third largest commercial building. While talking boards like their Rajah, the Far East Talking Board and Black Magic Talking Board were widely advertised and distributed, it was the Swami talking board that would become the company's most iconic. This rare example shows Gift Craft's use of the byline “Ouija Talking Board" in the crest, manufactured at a time before the company adopted the less trademark-infringing “Mystery Talking Board" byline that would appear on the more commonly-seen variations of this timeless board."
– Brandon Hodge, The Mysterious Planchette