vintage advertising

When people hear that I collect and am fascinated by old fragile bits of paper (officially called ‘ephemera,’ but most people don’t know it by that name), they invariably wonder why…

I’ll admit, ‘old paper’ may not be as stunning to display — at least in terms of traditional home decorating possibilities — as other collectibles, but for me, each and every piece (and if it’s a magazine or other publication, each and every article) is full of opportunities.

Vintage See 'em walk Dog Ad

There’s the opportunity to discover something, someone, some company, etc., that I’ve never heard of before. Like this little brochure or promotional insert for the See ‘em walk Dog.

At first glance, this vintage pull-toy dog is not recognizable by name, nor is he known by sight. But he does bring to mind the Fisher Price classic, Little Snoopy, and so is somehow familiar and nostalgic anyway. (You don’t have to be silly with sentimentality to not feel a pull at your heart thinking of the children who had once played with — and likely better named — this vintage  toy dog.)

Holding this piece of paper in my hands is like an invitation to explore; to research and learn more. So I do.

In this case, the invitation is clear; I have all the information I need to attend this research party:

• The Who: in this case, the maker, Noma Electric Corporation
• The Where: New York City
• The What: See ‘em Walk Dog, aka product number 756 (seriously, this company goes through the trouble of making this pull-toy dog far more adorable with walking dog legs instead of wheels etc., but they never name him?)
• The When: based on graphics, I’d say 1940’s, maybe 1950’s

Now I bet you’re asking, again, about the ‘why?’

But, like any explorer, I ask, “Why not?”

What can I learn from this toy?

Actually, quite a lot; here’s what Antique Toy Collectors has to say:

Noma is best know for their Christmas lights, receiving the patent in the1930’s. Due to material restrictions and utilizing their plant to produce war products, they were unable to make lights for a period of time during and immediately following WWII. Because of this and the need to keep their name in the public, Noma Electric manufactured a line of wood toys, including pull toys. Because of their wood construction, they were able to keep their name in the market and their toys became very popular.

After the war, NOMA returned to Christmas lights, but also continued to make wooden, plastic and metal toys. Some of their later toys were made with a wood composition material.

1940s Noma Christmas Lights Ad On Back Of Toy Brochure

So, not only do I now know why I didn’t recognize the Noma name (the company dates are listed as 1927-1971), but I can guess as to why the adorable pup was lacking an affectionate name; strings of lights and their bulbs are probably best identified by their model numbers, and the company probably figured if ambient lighting can sell that way, why not toys?

In any case, it is an interesting bit of information to add to the wartime homefront stories. Plus it is much more fun to have a more realistic image of the life of this toy and the boys and girls who played with him. And this is why I love ephemera, compulsively collect it; for the opportunities to learn.

Even ephemera regarding known and recognized companies, products, persons, etc., offers the opportunity to learn something new, to better see and feel the past.

And, in the very best scenario, by sharing what I’ve learned I might just delight someone by reminding them of their childhood pal. Based on the little-to-no appearances on eBay and other online sales outlets, it may not only have been a long time since they’ve seen their old pal (or his commercially produced litter-mate), but it may be quite a long time before they can find one to purchase. Or afford; Bargain John’s has one listed, with the box, for sale at $375. (While that’s nearly four times the value listed at Antique Toy Collectors, it is the only Noma walking dog I found for sale.)

…Maybe this sold slip of paper is all they could afford to get their hands on.  Though, as I found no other examples of ads for this toy, if I sold it, it wouldn’t be cheap.  (Sometimes these old ads sell for more than the toys.) In any case, I sure do hope someone is thrilled to see their old puppy pal again — or that folks enjoy meeting him.

And that’s why I love ephemera.

Vintage Noma Electric Co. Toy Advertisement

OK, so maybe the Oscars are over, but who doesn’t use that Sally Field quote — or at least want to use it? I think we all want to feel that way (even if our quote is a bit inaccurate; her actual gushing statement was, “…you like me, right now, you like me!”) and thanks to this Collectors’ Quest blog, I’m definitely feelin’ it.

Awhile ago, a reader named Donna contacted me — I’m assuming it had something to do with this post (or one like it) because this is what she wrote:

I have a 2 scrap books of cards my grandmother kept, one made up entirely of cards received on their 50th Wedding Anniversary and her 70th birthday, both in 1948; the other is get-well cards she rcvd in 1955 (I’m amazed she knew that many people — although families were larger then…). There is also an interesting brochure for a National Parks Smoky Mountains Motor Tour: 8 days, all inclusive (train to/from Chicago, luxury hotels, guided sightseeing) for $148.56 plus tax. I think meals were included, too, but there is a menu from one of the hotels — 5-course dinners were $2.25!

Was I interested in adopting this ephemera? Was I interested?! Well yeah!

(Part of me thinks I’m just too-cool to get such a perk from blogging; another part just believes in “what comes around, goes around” — and since I sent that coffee can of toys & toy parts off to Mark Frauenfelder to become a permanent part of the Dinosaurs and Robots “museum collection”, I’m just getting what I deserve.)

Yesterday, the box arrived — and you know I must have been so excited to dash off a blog right away.

Hubby and I sat on the sofa and, like grade school children at story time, poured over each scrapbook, one at a time.

The first one we looked at was the green one; upon opening it, we discovered this charming vintage altered art page of crayon and glue images.

Vintage Scrapbook Altered Art

How cool is that?

Turning the page, the back reads: Cheerful Remembrances along the Road to Recovery after Hand Injury July 6, 1955.

How much more cool is that?!

Then there are pages of vintage get well cards from family & friends. Most are taped in, but some, especially those with pop-ups etc., are secured with those photograph corners. But turning each brittle tanned page, with the yellowed cellophane tape clinging to (if not actually holding) the old cards, I couldn’t help but wonder just how I’m going to best preserve all of this…

Vintage Get Well Greeting Cards and Ephemera

But I just couldn’t concentrate on that; there were pages to turn — very carefully.

About 4 or 5 pages in, another crayon illustration. It’s not quite the full page; on the margin the book’s creator wrote, “Stepping Stones Leading to Recovery after Hip Injury Oct. 12, 1955.”

Vintage Accident Art Therapy

Now, I don’t want to mock anyone… but another injury? Really? So soon? Apparently we weren’t the only ones to think this. Even family noted the frequent accident miles the elderly Mrs. K was putting on.

Letter Regarding Another Mishap

Vintage Letter To Grandma

Another illustration, “Wishing Well,” by Mrs. K, followed by more old greeting cards.

Vintage Get Well Scrapbook

I love this silly greeting card:

Because you’re ill!

I went and had by picture took…

Vintage Get Well Greeting Card

…And THIS is just the way I look!

So won’tcha please get well?

Inside Vintage Greeting Card

There are lot of cards, some more memorable than others. I’ll share some at another time, I promise; but there’s so much more to see/note. There’s a whole other book yet!

The second book is actually the first book; the items in it (related to their 50th wedding anniversary, a trip to the Smokey Mountains and her 70th birthday) are dated 1948 as Donna said. (That means that Mrs. K was then 77 in 1955 when she repeatedly injured herself and used the green scrapbook to document her recoveries.)

Along with many vintage golden anniversary cards (including a substantial number of duplicates) and vintage birthday cards, there are two old blotters from Lau Shoe House. These blotters exclaim, “Congratulations …We’ve read about you …And now won’t you please read a little about us…” There’s one for Mrs. K and one for Mr. K. You can tell it’s so from the photos — photos taken right from the newspaper article about their golden wedding anniversary (and her 70th birthday). The proof is the clipped articles preserved on the first page of the scrapbook. (Now the “we’ve read about you” part makes more sense!)

Vintage Blotters and Newspaper Clippings

Near the end is the ephemera from the trip to the Smoky Mountains that Donna mentioned. A few pages later (just shoved inside, not taped or secured), some booklets from the Biltmore Estate and some snapshots.

1948 Smoky Mountain Travel Ephemera

I must admit, I’ve not read every single pit of old paper in these two vintage scrapbooks, but I think I have a favorite piece… It’s a note from Cousin Henrietta:

Dear Cousins,

Well the time is drawing near, and if our plans work out O.K. we hope to see you soon I am keeping my fingers crossed for I pulled a piece of my toe nail off and I sure have a sore toe, think there is a little infection there but am doctoring it and hoping it will be O.K.

It rained all day Monday so to-day I have to make up for lost time, wash & iron.

Will close with love,

Henrietta

Henry & Marguerite won’t be able to come.

Thankfully, it was only taped on the upper left-hand corner (and a bit crooked too), so I could flip it gently to read the back. But you can click and read the toenail part off the scan, if you don’t believe me. (Like I’d make that up!)

Letter From 1948

Like I said, I haven’t read everything in these two old books; but it’s going to take something pretty spectacular to beat-out a pulled-off piece of toe nail story.

Thanks, Donna, for making my weekend! In fact, this was probably the coolest thing I got all February. Just awesome.

A few weeks back Mars, Venus and the Moon lined up and what a weekend we had, two antique shows in our area, and I suspect from reading the trade papers, this is the season for shows all across the country. On Friday we stopped at the Wisconsin Antique Dealers Association show (WADA), which I had visited many times (and wrote about) before. As usual Wifey was able to find an arm load of antiques that fit into one of her many collections. It’s good to have lots of collections, something always fits in somewhere.

On Sunday it was the Milwaukee Antique Bottle and Advertising Show. Somehow we had been on their mailing list for a number of years, without having had the time to visit. The show was held in two large banquet room in the Country Springs Hotel in Waukesha, Wisconsin. It featured 150 table top booths occupied with eager dealers coming in from several states, ready to discuss their particular specialty and offer tantalizing examples of beer, soda, milk and medicine bottles plus advertising and related items. Since Wisconsin is proclaimed the dairy state and was once home to hundreds of German beer barons and soda pop producers, the show is a natural for the area. Many of the booths featured bottles and advertising signs from the obscure to the household names in the brewing industry.

While the economy may be down, I did not see any hand wringing at either show, both were very well attended and wallets were out. Wifey put together several stimulus packages for dealers all by herself.

We introduced ourselves to David Kapsos, the show’s impresario and asked permission to take some photos of the show. He explained this was the thirty-seventh annual show, and the largest event in the state of its kind. Its present location in the hotel banquet rooms was a good indication of the growth in this area of collecting.

As we walked the show looking over the vast array of fascinating advertising and incredible bottles, I stopped to chat with several dealers, often waiting till customers completed sales, before we could chat. Here I chatted with Debbie, while inspecting milk bottles. Personally, I have never collected milk bottles and wondered what the interest in them might be. Debbie pointed out the numerous graphics on bottles that attract a collector and then showed me the cop and baby top bottles. These are “cream top” bottles with figural bulges, one representing a policeman another a baby. Selling in the two hundred dollar price range, I quickly understood the need to learn more about bottles.

Roger, a collector of Wisconsin soda bottles for over forty years, proved to be one of the better sources on that subject. He’s the author of a wonderful book titled “Wisconsin Soda Water Bottles – 1845-1910” and available from the author. (wisodas@gmail.com) I asked Roger what his most expensive bottle on the table was selling for and he pointed to a Cashton Wisconsin bottle for $75.00, and proudly proclaimed his best sale ever was a New York City soda bottle that went for $1000. ( I’m ready to rent scuba gear and dive in the Hudson.)

Next stop, and how can anyone pass up a booth with this much neon? Mike’s booth featured Brewery and Soda advertising including signs, clocks, tins, and thermometers. But it’s the neon that drew all my attention, and made me wish I was going to college in fall. Neon looks great in a dorm room window.

Last was a stop at the booth of Scott & Christy, whose specialty was advertising, showing lots of brewery trays, many selling in the two hundred dollar range. The bright colors and interesting designs create an object that displays well in many a setting around the home or office. As with all objects in collecting, rarity and condition play the leading role in the price, but when attending these shows and working with the dealers, final price is often dependent on the seller and buyer’s desires, especially if more than one item is part of the deal.

Bottle and advertising collectibles are easy to get into, with generous quantities available at all venues from yard sales, estate sales, flea markets and auctions in all price ranges. Our price guide on general bottle collecting is from Michael Polak and published by Krause Publishing. I’m sure many other guides are available for general and specialty collectors.

Now, I don’t collect bottles. BUT!! I do have a few, just sort of hanging around the house, a series of ten ounce Coke bottles from North African countries that I collected in the 1960s while stationed in Morocco and milk bottles from the old Gridley Dairy in Milwaukee where my Grandfather worked his whole career, including through the last Great Depression.

Among all the interesting conversations I had with the sellers, I enjoyed their enthusiasm, the knowledge for their specialties and the willingness to share with a novice.

Heaven only knows when & where I got these old cards (which makes me think it was at Georgine’s, where we toss things into boxes quickly), but I do know why I bought them.

First, it was the graphics which grabbed me — vintage graphics usually do. Second was the tiny product advertising for Kitchen Klenzer & Automatic Soap Flakes on four of the cards — cards which had “Meet The Missus” on them (also very intriguing, so let’s call that the third reason).

But reason number four was the real kicker — the corny jokes on them.

1Q: What part of a baseball park should be reserved for platinum blondes?
1A: The Bleachers. Ba Dum Bum!

14Q: What is meant by a joint bank account?
14A: The husband puts in the money — the wife draws it out. Har Har Har

I just knew these cards would be a journey of discovery. Or a silly night at home playing the game — if they all were there, something you usually don’t have a clue about at any sale. So home they came.

In order to know if I had all the cards — or indeed all the parts of the game — I needed to look at the cards. I have 48 of them. If there were only 22 pairs of question & answer cards, and only four of the “Meet The Missus” cards, then all I need is question card #4, and answer card #15. Am I only missing two cards from the deck? (Hey, no jokes about me not playing with a full deck!) Or is there more to this game?

Time to turn to the Internet.

Quickly I discover this is a rather rare set of cards. It belongs to a 1937 game, of which there were at least four versions, according to Kovels. As Kovels doesn’t offer much in terms of description, and has no photos, I can’t even begin to guess which — if any — my cards belong to.

My search continues…

I discover that the Meet The Missus game was in fact an advertising premium for The Fitzpatrick Brothers (of Chicago, Illinois) who sponsored a radio show of the same name. The show was the 1934 brain-child of Thomas Kivlan, a salesman for Chicago’s WBBM. A young Tommy Bartlett was the show’s host — yes, that Tommy Bartlett, of the famous water-skiing show & other attractions in the Wisconsin Dells. This is exciting to me because I’m originally from Wisconsin, and I’ve been to The Dells & Tommy’s attractions many times. I love discovering hidden connections in things!

While many may remember Bartlett for his radio days at WBBM hosting Welcome Travelers with Bob Cunningham, Jim Ameche, and Les Lear, Bartlett’s early radio fame had much to do with Meet The Missus.

Meet The Missus was a daily radio show, on at 3:00 in the afternoon in 1937, which catered to housewives. It quickly became so popular that spin-off shows, such as The Missus Goes to Market, were created. By 1940 Kivlan had gone from salesman to advertising executive — and Tommy Bartlett had become “the housewife’s pinup boy”.

The Missus radio shows were, as my cards indicate, corny. It’s not just my hip 2008 mentality being cruel to some old time radio shows — even Time in 1940 called them “the cutest, corniest radio programs in the U. S.” But the shows were wildly popular. The Time article says:

In its early career on the air, The Missus Goes to Market opened 10,000 new outlets for Automatic Soap Flakes. Similarly successful, Meet the Missus has attracted a million requests for a card game advertised on the program, and pulls 3,000 letters a week. Reveling in his success with the matrons, young Tommie Bartlett earns $22,000 a year, lives handsomely in a duplex apartment on Lake Shore Drive. A feature of almost every berry, corn and apple festival around Chicago, Bachelor Tommie has so far received 20 proposals of marriage, inherited $5,000 from one mike-struck listener.

Did you catch that part about the million requests for a Meet The Missus card game advertised on the program? Me too. But what was this game exactly? Do I have a complete one? And, if so, which one?

I continued to search. And then I found it — at least the cards look identical to mine.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m missing (at least) the game board (which is supposed to be made of heavy paper, measuring 18 inches square when unfolded), and the instructions (which were printed on the back of the mailing envelope). But that’s still not the worst of it.

It’s not just that I’m currently unable to play Meet The Missus, even if I’ve grown to adore it more minute by minute as I discover more about the game, but seeing those nifty gameboard graphics just makes me itch all the more… I need it, you see. The $150 may be entirely reasonable given its scarcity; but I don’t have it. And so that means I am unable to really meet this Missus.

Pooh.

But, if the Tommy Bartlett Show could continue this year, it’s 55th year, despite there being no more lake for a water show (Lake Delton literally vanished in 15 minutes this past June), then this collector can keep her spirits up and her eyes down, looking for more pieces of this old vintage game.

You can learn a lot from Tommy Bartlett, a man who never water skied yet started a water skiing show — and ended up in the Water Ski Hall of Fame. OK, so the guy slipped on a pair of water skies at his 70th birthday party, but still…

Bartlett himself was said to be a collector. Not just of tourist attractions and things to put in them (like one of Russia’s three spare core modules for the space station Mir, which is a main attraction at the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory), but of paperweights. In that old Time article, it was said that Bartlett listed lawyers’ offices, barbershops, & funeral parlors as the places he haunted, considering them to be the “best bets” for adding to his collection of (at that time) 150.

Maybe that’s where I’ll start my searches for the missing parts of my Meet The Missus game.

*****

Side Note: Tommy Bartlett died September 6, 1998 at the age of 84. It’s rather fitting as that was a Labor Day weekend, which is the end of the show season in the Wisconsin Dells. It is purely coincidental that this, another Labor Day weekend, is when I decided to dig through the box that had these cards in them & do my research. However, the serendipity, as it usually is in collecting, is delightful.

Among my favorite vintage magazines to collect are the gossip rags. While I don’t buy today’s celebrity gossip mags, I find these vintage issues to be very interesting. For one thing, I tend to at least have heard of, or recognize, the celebrities on the covers and headlines — the faces & names on those in the supermarket check-out lanes are virtually meaningless & unrecognizable to me.

But the old magazines, they are familiar…

While I’m not, as mentioned, a big fan or today’s celebrities, I do have a thing for the icons of yesterday. And these publications are full of them. While you can’t trust these old publications to have published the truth any more than you can the mags of today, you can find some photos you’ve never seen before, and read dramas that never were mentioned in celebrity biographies and autobiographies.

For me, it’s much more fun to live vicariously through those icons from the past.

But these old magazines aren’t only about the past.

Just look at the headlines on this October, 1959 issue of Top Secret:

Hypnosis — Secret Weapon Against Overweight

Why Brigitte Bardot Will Never Again Drop That Towel

Does Harry Belafonte Really Want To Be White?

For Sale: 20,000 Babies. Price: $35,000,000.

Now It Can Be Told: How Ike Saved The Life Of Maurice Chevalier!

The Real Inside Story: How Ava Gardner Sneaked 400 Gs Out Of The U.S.A…

The names may have changed over the years but some things never change… Sex, medical claims, race issues, celebrity & government scandals, fear-based “news”, legal issues… Gossip, gossip, gossip.

People haven’t changed much in nearly half a century, so the same issues and inflammatory headlines still work; just change a name or two, maybe update the street price of babies ($35,000,000? That’s a lot of money back now!), change who is suing who, and what’s really changed?

What has changed is the advertising.

With a cover price of just 25 cents, Top Secret and it’s ilk made money in volume — cranking out weekly or bi-monthly issues. Sure, the paper was cheap, more like newsprint than the slick pages of People or even Star, but then they were trying to quickly grind out more gossip for the mongers and rumor for the mills. Cheaper, both in terms of quality and cover price, than issues of Life, Good Housekeeping, Post, Ken, etc. the old gossip rags apparently didn’t need as much advertising to produce the magazines because they had far less of it.

Flipping through today’s celebrity publications, you find many ads; so many, they rival more “traditional” or “respectable” magazines. You might think that this is because the gossip business has grown over the years, become much more expensive with the slick paper etc. It could be those things.

It could also be that gossip magazines have grown to become more respectable than they once were. In vintage celebrity gossip magazines, you certainly do find much more risque advertising, sex fulfillment in marriage & Frederick’s ads, mixed in with the business opportunities, Bible fellowship out-reach, weight loss, body building, secrets to winning poker, and other ads for the easily susceptible.

There are a few other ads, toys for example; but they are not filled with the usual ads for food, cars, etc. Mainly these old gossip magazines are filled with the ads & offers reserved for the the back pages of other publications.

I’m not in any position to know the complete answer to the differences in advertising. But flipping through, it’s near impossible not to notice how different these magazines are from the more typical magazines.

Vintage gossip magazines are more difficult to find than other magazines. Their rarity is due in part to the cheaper paper, but other things shorten their lifespan.

Certainly then, as now, people quickly devoured their issues, passing them along to friends &/or cutting out photos of their favorite stars, then discarded them for the next issue with the latest celebrity news and gossip.

And I bet more than a few buyers & subscribers threw their issues away due to embarrassment; just like today, few want to keep their guilty pleasures laying around for others to see.

What issues do survive are fun to explore.

It’s fun to look at the past. Not just the celebrities, but to look at “the other side” of life from decades gone by. And to see how our culture still — perhaps even more so — idolizes celebrities.