It’s that time of year again – our company’s (My Day Job) advertising calendars have arrived from the printer. I am going from one client to another handing them out to buyers, engineers and technical managers. When a receptionist has been friendly and helpful, I manage to include one for them.
This year’s edition has many themes including Golf, Hot Rods, Cycles, Street Rods, Wildlife, Choppers and Scenic America. Each month has another picture upon the theme and on the last page is our advertising tag exposed below every month.
Calendars have been a form of advertising for over one hundred years. Given at year’s end to customers as a “thank you” for past business, these give-aways were designed to keep the giver’s name, location and product or service within sight in a prominent place in the home or office for the whole year.
While my give-away calendars are a series of pictures on a theme and were a common commodity, there were many other forms of these giveaways from framed single pictures with tiny calendars below, desk calendars, pocket versions, china plates, stamped and printed tin and cloth.
The small calendar on the bottom of pictures was often removed so the piece could continue to hang on a wall. Many had the addition of a small thermometer as added inducement to keep them hanging past the year’s end.
While companies such as Brown & Bigelow produced these advertising items before the turn of the century, many fancy pieces with pressed three dimensional backgrounds came from Germany before WW-I.
The proliferation of calendars and other giveaway items can be tied directly to the attempts to retain customers during the Great Depression.
Calendars are the easiest of all items to date, but reproductions of vintage advertising calendars have been spotted at some “antique malls” where the influx of all types of fakes were not controlled by the mall operators.
The individual reasons for acquiring a calendar or collection are many. Some collect because of the year it portrays, to emphasize the year of your birth, or as is the case of our vintage calendar hanging above our icebox in the back hall, it is from the year our house was built.
The theme of the prints attract many a collector, beautiful scenes, inspirational, religious, sports, pin-ups etc.
Others are attracted by the advertiser, product or service. Is a Cities Service, Winchester, Allis Chalmers, or dental floss collection complete without an advertising calendar depicting these products?
Some collect because of the location of the advertiser. The small town you grew up in, a childhood memory of a favorite vacation spot.
Still others are attracted to the design or form of the object. Calendars on plates, calendars with prints, the little plastic silhouettes with hanging calendars, pictures with thermometers, perpetual desk calendars.
Prices can vary widely, but reasonable examples are plentiful, and are available at most venues where collectors and sellers congregate. As always, my suggestion is to buy what pleases you and shop before you purchase, to insure you receive the best example possible, at a fair price.
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