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ICAS Exhibit cards shot by R.F. Bissell

QUESTION: At a local postcard show I came across some items photographed by an R.F. Bissell. They appear to be a photo set put out for International Championship Auto Shows. All the shots are from Virginia and nearby areas in what looks like the middle 60’s. I then purchased some old hot rod magazines from the middle 60’s at a flea market and there was race coverage from out east with photos by R.F. Bissell. I was wondering about the history of R.F Bissell as a drag racing photographer. I like to collect old photos and print items on drag racing and found this very interesting. If you have any info I would like to hear it.

Thank you,
Tom Derry,
Swansea, IL

In the field of collecting in general, it has only been recently that photographs have come into their own as true works of art. While drag racing’s greatest images are nowhere near Ansel Adams originals in terms of market value, they too are showing signs of activity. I’ll address Tom’s letter from a couple of angles.

An unpublished photo by R.F. Bissell of Fred Goeske’s Coca Cola Duster
burning to the ground in 1970 (author’s collection).

Robert Bissell was a very talented and prolific photographer throughout the Northeast during the 1960-1975 era. His photos were primarily found in weekly publications like Drag News and Drag Times, but he also did some magazine work, and much of what he took was on black and white film. Dick Towers, who promotes the Indy memorabilia show and is a collector of drag racing negatives, spent years searching for Bissell; when he was finally located, Bissell admitted that he had THROWN AWAY all of his negatives, thinking that nobody cared about them! The last person to see what remained before they were tossed out was Lew Arrington III, a former photographer now on John Force’s crew and son of funny car pioneer Lew Arrington.

The cards you bought are exhibit cards, done for nickelodeon-type vending machines in the 1964-1965 era. Of the 32 cards in the set, 8 or 9 feature action shots, all done by R.F. Bissell at tracks in the Maryland / Pennsylvania / Virginia area. They are still fairly common, and searching will yield examples in the $4.00-$8.00 range. On the other hand, photos printed and processed by Bissell himself may be more difficult, which leads to an interesting question. If you have a photograph, and know that the negative is non-existent, then what is its value? It may now be the only copy in existence! Although we know for certain Bissell’s negatives are gone, there are other well-known photographers in drag racing whose images have been lost through neglect or misfortune. Some collections have ended up in NHRA’s archives, Towers has managed to preserve some very significant accumulations, and a few photographers (not many) have indexed and cataloged their holdings. Most (and I’m guilty as charged) have boxes of slides, negatives and prints just “around,” the only major sorting is done by year. In other words, it is not easy to get hold of.

Four of the late greats by L&M Photo Cards: Don Carlton, John Mulligan, Jungle Jim Liberman and Dickie Harrell.

A lot of that value, of course, would have to do with the subject matter. Like all art, high quality photography will stand on its own merits regardless of the negative; the nature of that value, however, will be greater if there is no chance of subsequent reprints showing up. In my own collection, I have tried to amass (in small quantity) examples of photography from the best guys in the business, e.g. Steve Reyes, Don Gillespie, Jere Alhadeff, Bissell, etc; but that is my own interest. It is pretty much up to the buyer to determine what each individual photograph is worth to them.

In the last installment of this column was a sheet of baseball card-sized L&M Photo Cards. These are truly collectibles in that they are numbered; a catalog was even produced by the proprietor of this business. However, they are also very rare and are very unique in that each card is a true color photograph printed from the original negative; they are not done by offset printing or some other commercial means. It is only with luck that any collector gets a large quantity of these; they rarely show up for sale, period. What’s more is that the images are of a superior quality and can hold their own against anything published. Drag racing is unique in that its entire history has been photographed; very little has occurred in drag racing that somebody did not get on film. Or, perhaps better stated, most of the best-known moments in the sport are remembered because of it. I took a photo of Blaine Johnson on his final launch at Indy that has consistently brought in $100-plus bids on eBay in 8x10 format; I try to maintain its collectability by releasing only three or four examples a year. Publisher Jeff Burk and other contributors to this e-magazine have also recorded moments like this on film, but none of us mass-produce copies of these images to resell. And even if we did a hundred, if the image is worthwhile, I believe they would still be sold quickly. How much more, then, is a vintage photo to be valued? Jere Alhadeff actually markets his older shots with success today; these are true art forms, as Alhadeff spends the darkroom time to hand print each one to perfection. DRO contributor Dave Wallace’s “Hot Rod Nostalgia” catalog lists dozens and dozens of original photographs like Jere’s for sale.

#107. Billy Scott at Lions. A Jere Alhadeff original photograph available through Hot Rod Nostalgia.

A final note on the subject would be that the famous full-color Petersen Drag Racing, Funny Car and, to a lesser extent, Hot Rod Pictorials of the 1967-1971 time period are among the most consistently in demand items in drag racing memorabilia. Street values above $50 on the best examples are common; auction prices are higher. In fact, any drag racing publication from the 1963-1975 era featuring good color coverage is in demand. I guess most of us are collectors of photography whether we admit it or not!