Original Raynor Drawings - Fox Chapel Golf Club

[gookin]

While cleaning up our maintenance facility, Jason Hurwitz came across an old box.  Buried in the bottom of the box under a bunch of stuff was what appears to be the original Raynor drawing for Fox Chapel Golf Club.  Dated 1922 and drawn to a scale of 1" to 60', the papers are folded up and very fragile.  At this point, we are resisting even opening them up until we find a professional who is knowledgable about handling such a document. Do any of the historians out there have some good advice for us?

[Scott Witter]

David:

This is quite a find indeed    The likely candidates, Mark Fine, Wayne Morrison, Bahto, Disher, Im sure I missed a few, and others will chime in, but you are doing the right thing by not disturbing the drawings.  There will be others from the Raynor society that may also offer advice.  You may want to contact them directly.  Congrats, by the way!

[Mike Nuzzo]

Please call George Bahto.
Send me an im if you need his contact info.
Cheers

[wsmorrison]

David,

There is a center in Philadelphia that would be ideal to restore and preserve the archival material you found.  It is the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts.  They do a lot of work for local and national museums and specialize in paper, textile, fiber and other architectural drawing formats as well as paintings and other historic items.  They aren't cheap but they are the best I've come across.  State of the art.

Here is their website

http://www.ccaha.org/index.php

"Treatment services are available for drawings, prints, maps, posters, historic wallpaper, architectural drawings, musical scores, photographs, rare books, scrapbooks, manuscripts, and related materials such as parchment and papyrus.

CCAHA is equipped to handle treatment problems from the routine to the highly complex. Procedures available range from rehousing to stabilization of fragile material to aesthetic restoration of works of art or unique artifacts."

The other advantage to having the material worked on in Philadelphia is that the nation's largest flatbed scanner is in suburban Drexel Hill.  You can have a high resolution scan of the routing map done without feeding it through rollers.  We've had dozens of maps scanned and the process is completely non-invasive.  If you need more information, please contact me on my cell 610.955.5686.  Bring it out yourself and bring your clubs  

[Ian Andrew]

David,

No offense to Mark, George etc. but these are originals that need to be handled by a professional. David mentioned they are fragile, and there are very few "professionals" capable of doing this if they are breaking down.

Call your local museum, they are likely to have an expert on staff. You need to  get them stabilized before ever looking a copying them - and then sharing them.

Congratulations on the find.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

David,

I would contact the local historical society. If that does not work, I would think one of your local university history departments could be of help.

Good luck and congratulations.

Tony

[BCrosby]

I would contact the USGA museum people at Golf House. Rand Jarris is the man you should talk to. He has had experience with these kinds of large format materials.

Bob

[George Pazin]

I would contact the local historical society. If that does not work, I would think one of your local university history departments could be of help.

I'll second this remark.

Contact info:

http://www.pghhistory.org/

Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center
1212 Smallman Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

(412) 454-6000

I'll provide an unarmed escort if you need one.

 

[Bill_McBride]

Wow, this is really exciting stuff.  One of the most wonderful experiences I've had was holding the original drawing of The Alwoodley Golf Club as drawn by Dr. MacKenzie.  Shivers still run up and down my spine!

[David Stamm]

Congrats David! I love hearing about this type of thing. Since Wayne has a lot of experience in this sort of thing you can't go wrong listening to him. This is really exciting stuff! Please keep us posted.

[BCrosby]

All of this reminds me that one of MacK's original drawings for ANGC is hanging in a conference room in an Atlanta law firm.

Until very recently, nobody thought these sorts of architectural materials had any historical value. Now that many people understand that they do, more and more finds will appear out of the woodwork.

At least I hope so. I don't want to even contemplate all the things that have been tossed into a trash can with yesterday's lunch.  

Bob

[George Pazin]

Museum contact info:

http://www.cmoa.org/

Carnegie Museum of Art
4400 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

(412) 622-3131

[TEPaul]

David:

I'll bet you're excited.

You said you haven't opened it up yet because it may be too fragile but just keep your fingers crossed that the drawing is on a topo---eg it has contour lines on it----and even better that they're the contour lines pre-golf course, as they generally are. You will not believe what-all that can tell you!

Something else sort of like this on another Macdonald/Raynor course came out of the woodwork the other day. But I was told not to mention who it is or I'll be assassinated.

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Tom,

So why'd you bring it up?

Anthony

[TEPaul]

Anthony:

Because it's apropos to this thread and I kinda like the excitement of having to look over my shoulder all the time.

[Bill_McBride]

Anthony:

Because it's apropos to this thread and I kinda like the excitement of having to look over my shoulder all the time.

I could tell you who's coming to asassinate you, but then I'd have to kill you!  

[Mike_Cirba]

Anthony:

Because it's apropos to this thread and I kinda like the excitement of having to look over my shoulder all the time.

(In my best Peter Lorre voice)
Scahhhrrry kids...I can already hear the floorboards creeking.  

[ANTHONYPIOPPI]

Tom,

Yeah, and you also like knowing it's making the rest of us freaking crazy... and scared. I'll definitely be using my Seth Raynor nightline for the next few days.

Anthony

[RJ_Daley]

David, once you get to rummaging around in that box, keep on the look out for any steam ship ticket stubs with the name Wilson on them...  

But seriously, nice find and good luck.

[George_Bahto]

David - congratulations on your find -

2 great finds over the years were the Raynor drawings on LINEN which were the master drawings that were used to make subsequent blueprints -  Lookout Mtn and CC of Fairfield

is yours a "blue" print or on white?

[Mark_Fine]

David,
Congrats!  I'm sure will get good advice from this site and elsewhere to figure out what to do.   As I said in that other thread on drawings/plans, there are still many original plans out there if you are willing to look for them.  We had a similar sitation at a recent club in NJ where the Superintendent and I spent a morning going through old boxes of reports and plans and drawings that had been tucked away for years.  As everyone here has said, you must be very careful in the handling as some of the very old ones are extremely fragile.  

Good luck with them and please tell Don Wolff and David Cecil I said congrats as well.  
Mark

[Patrick_Mucci]

While cleaning up our maintenance facility, Jason Hurwitz came across an old box.  Buried in the bottom of the box under a bunch of stuff was what appears to be the original Raynor drawing for Fox Chapel Golf Club.  Dated 1922 and drawn to a scale of 1" to 60', the papers are folded up and very fragile.  At this point, we are resisting even opening them up until we find a professional who is knowledgable about handling such a document. Do any of the historians out there have some good advice for us?

David,

What a great find.

I'd suggest contacting the Smithsonian and other institutions involved with the preservation of old documents.

Their expertise should be invalueable.

[gookin]

thanks to all for your input and enthusiasm.  Don Wolff will be heading up our effort to get this document properly restored.  Thanks to all of you, we are off to a great start. We will keep you posted as the journey unfolds and we figure out exactly what we have.