Description
18" c1890 Elgin Wind and Power Rainbow Tail Rooster Windmill weight. This is<br>directly from the Estate of Milt Simpson the author of the book shown, I'm<br>including the first edition copy of the Windmill Weights book with dust jacket<br>shown. Also including the custom stand shown. Measures about 18.5" x 17" and<br>weighs about 60 pounds.. I'll be offering one more weight also from his estate.<br><br><br>Milton Simpson (1911-2023)<br>Milton – also known by his friends and acquaintances as Milt - was born and<br>raised in Brooklyn, New York City and raised his family in Millburn, New Jersey.<br>He attended the New York School of Industrial Art (SIA), now the School of Art<br>and Design. He then worked for Incorporated Ideas Advertising Agency in New<br>Jersey before joining the United States Army, serving in Korea.<br>After his discharge from the Army, Milt attended The Workshop School of<br>Advertising & Editorial Art. Upon completion of his studies there, he became the<br>Art Director of The American Baby Magazine in New York, Assistant Art Director<br>at Lewin, Williams & Saylor in New Jersey, and then Art Director of Kenyon-Baker<br>Advertising & Baker Printing Company, (both of which were under one roof) in New<br>Jersey. (He left there because the promised air conditioner was never<br>installed!)<br>He then worked as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator for several<br>years.<br>In 1964, he and business partner Don Johnson founded the firm of Johnson &<br>Simpson Graphic Designers with Milt as president. They were based in a townhouse<br>in beautiful downtown Newark, New Jersey and specialized in corporate<br>communications. The design projects they took in included annual reports,<br>corporate magazines, capability brochures, posters, museum catalogs, trademarks<br>and books. Their clients included Conoco, Johnson & Johnson, New Jersey Bell,<br>Hoffmann-La Roche, The Newark Museum and Singer Corporation.<br>The firm was featured in every major design publication, was recognized by over<br>350 graphic design awards and he and Don were inducted into the New Jersey Ad<br>Club's Advertising Hall of Fame in 1991.<br>Milt also served on the Advisory Board of The Greater Newark Chamber of Commerce<br>and was an Adjunct Professor (Publication Design) at Montclair State College.<br>The New Jersey Art Directors Club voted Milt Art Director of the Year in 1972.<br>Books were his passion. He couldn't seem to get them out of his system and<br>didn't try to. For many years he produced and self-published a series of<br>Artists' Books using several print-on-demand platforms. Milt was always a<br>student and appreciator of quirky, eccentric and irrational human behavior.<br>These Artists' Books were very much influenced by his observations and<br>obsessions.<br>Among many others too numerous to mention, he wrote "Windmill Weights" which was<br>self-published and "Folk a" published by HarperCollins.<br><br>If it weren’t for its folk art appeal, the windmill counterbalance weight<br>probably would not be as highly collectible as it is today. But the windmill<br>weight is more than just a pretty face: It’s a key component of the vaneless<br>windmill produced in the late 1800s.<br><br>Vintage farm-style windmills that pumped water came in two basic varieties.<br>Vaned windmills used a tail, or vane, to guide the wheel into the wind. Vaneless<br>mills depended on a counterbalance weight, perched at the end of a wood beam, to<br>perform that function.<br><br>Counterbalance weights represented a short-lived but stylish variation of tail<br>technology in windmill production. The Halladay Standard windmill, manufactured<br>by the U.S. Wind Engine & Pump Co., (USWE), Batavia, Ill., was the first<br>manufacturer to employ a patented self-regulating wheel that would place itself<br>in or out of sail depending on the strength of the wind. This “folding” mill was<br>first developed with a wooden vane in 1854. Early catalogs from various windmill<br>manufacturers show mills with wood tails.<br><br>In the 1880s, USWE introduced a vaneless version of the Halladay Standard. The<br>Vaneless Standard, as it was called, utilized a star-shaped counterbalance<br>weight instead of a tail. This mill was produced until 1916; other companies<br>produced their own versions with different styles of weights into the 1930s. As<br>a general rule, counterbalance weights were used only on folding wheel<br>windmills, while tails were used on both early folding wheel and later solid, or<br>fixed, wheel windmills. “Once they came up with a light, sturdy metal for the<br>windmill tail,” explains collector Bob Popeck, “it was a whole new ball game.”<br><br>Weights not only served as a counterbalance but also as a marketing device,<br>identifying the mill’s manufacturer in a recognizable manner. “But basically,<br>the windmill weight just kept the wheel directed into the wind and prevented the<br>whole thing from tipping over,” Bob says. Today, these weights are prized by<br>windmill enthusiasts, such as the Popecks, and collectors of folk art.
