Planner, Perimeter, Predictor, Paul McCobb

The Paul McCobb Collection by Gift Craft Leather - Photo from Paul McCobb's archives I first became aware of the Paul McCobb Group by Gift Craft Leather when I acquired Paul McCobb's papers in 2010. There were three very good black and white photo's of the group but little else in terms of hard information, at this point I did not even know the name of the manufacturer. Shortly after, in August 2010,  I learned that the companies name was Gift Craft Leather from a visit to the Science, Industry and Business Library on Madison Avenue in NYC  where I found the following snippet from Office Management Magazine's October 1959 issue (with help from Google Books and the Hathi Trust Digital Library ) in their Microfiche archive. Office Management October 1959 page 70 It wasn't until January 2011 during a visit to Gerard O'Brien 's absolutely wonderful free design library at Reform Gallery  in Los Angeles that I learned that Pau...

Widdicomb Grand Rapids Collection Desk and Chair designed by Paul McCobb If you've read the timeline on here you'll see mention of Paul McCobb's Grand Rapids Collection, a Widdicomb case piece group to go along with Widdicomb's upholstered Symmetric Group. I first became aware of this group towards the end of my library research into Paul McCobb, around September 2009, it was then I came across a series of advertisements from A. H. Stiehl published in Interior Design magazine between October 1962 and March 1963. I had also found the Widdicomb case pieces mentioned in an article titled "Paul McCobb Opens his First Showroom" in the July 1963 issue of Interiors. "(3) Widdicomb desk with refined architectural detailing in bleached walnut has three drawers. Also from the Widdicomb group are the small side chair and the armless chair with arched caned back." 
"(5) Widdicomb case piece with caned open shelf is in bleach...

Have you ever seen the "Paul McCobb" World Globes? The ones frequently attributed to Directional? The ones with the very nice curved brass frames and a Replogle globe? They really are rather gorgeous, aren't they? There's only one problem, it seems highly unlikely that they were actually designed by Paul McCobb. Over the past year I have scoured books, newspapers, industry periodicals, furniture catalogs, library collections, etc, traveling around the country where necessary, gathering data about Paul McCobb's work. I have 100's of hours invested in this research. I now have a database containing several thousands of articles from 1936 to 1969 weighing in at a little over 3 gigs of data. One thing I have not found over the past year's research is a single mention of Paul McCobb ever having designed a Globe. With this much information you would think that I might have found some reference, somewhere, anywhere, but as best I can determine there is nothing t...