You can't beat the Axis if you get VD.
July 12, 2008 11:36 AM Subscribe
I didn't realize it at the time, but the cornucopia of ads in the several decades of the National Geographics (~1930 through ~1970) she gave us when I was a kid was something of an education, too.
posted by yort at 11:46 AM on July 12, 2008
posted by yort at 11:46 AM on July 12, 2008
I always cringe when I see someone selling individual ads that they have dissected from an old magazine... trust me, it's much more fun to flip through a complete vintage magazine and see hundreds of period ads all at once, a window into a certain place time and readership.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 12:02 PM on July 12, 2008
posted by Ron Thanagar at 12:02 PM on July 12, 2008
Women of the Future: Making the moon a cleaner place to live.
Since 1968.
posted by delmoi at 12:19 PM on July 12, 2008
Since 1968.
posted by delmoi at 12:19 PM on July 12, 2008
Ron Thanagar, yeah, I had some old Look magazines with the old car ads, etc., that I gave to my Mom a while back and they were awesome. But I recently needed an old-time graphic for a website that I was making, and I paid $5 for it because hunting for them on Google images, for free, in good quality, was driving me buggy. I'm willing to pay for someone's time investment in putting these online in an easy-to-grab format, as I don't have time to go to garage sales and flea markets, pay $20 for the magazine, scan it, and hope the quality is printable. Just from a graphic design standpoint: I really do love the old magazines themselves and snap them up whenever I can.
Great post, I love the first link especially.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 12:20 PM on July 12, 2008
Great post, I love the first link especially.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 12:20 PM on July 12, 2008
I always cringe when I see someone selling individual ads that they have dissected from an old magazine... trust me, it's much more fun to flip through a complete vintage magazine and see hundreds of period ads all at once, a window into a certain place time and readership.
I know, I used to love going through those old magazines as a kid, often school art rooms would have lots of them for kids to cut up. Of course, now that I think about it, when i was really little those some of those magazines would only have been 10-15 years old. Wow.
posted by delmoi at 12:20 PM on July 12, 2008
I know, I used to love going through those old magazines as a kid, often school art rooms would have lots of them for kids to cut up. Of course, now that I think about it, when i was really little those some of those magazines would only have been 10-15 years old. Wow.
posted by delmoi at 12:20 PM on July 12, 2008
I've got a Flickr set of some old magazine ads. Particularly striking are ads for mail order firearms.
posted by Tube at 12:34 PM on July 12, 2008
posted by Tube at 12:34 PM on July 12, 2008
Tube - Yikes! A nation changed for $12.95 + $2.85 + shipping and handling!
posted by Ron Thanagar at 12:40 PM on July 12, 2008
posted by Ron Thanagar at 12:40 PM on July 12, 2008
So, on Metafilter, current advertising == bad, and old advertising == good.
Someone needs to add this to the wiki.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:46 PM on July 12, 2008 [1 favorite]
Someone needs to add this to the wiki.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:46 PM on July 12, 2008 [1 favorite]
> So, on Metafilter, current advertising == bad, and old advertising == good.
It's like tragedy that way.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:49 PM on July 12, 2008
It's like tragedy that way.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:49 PM on July 12, 2008
People buy old ads?? Is this a hobby like pylon spotting?
posted by tinkertown at 1:01 PM on July 12, 2008
posted by tinkertown at 1:01 PM on July 12, 2008
People buy old ads??
Not an ad, I bought a vintage cartoon of a woman's face. Presumably cut from an old ad, but it came out great in print and on the web, so it was worth the $5 to me after 2 hours of searching for just the right image. It's royalty-free, so I can use it on anything, which is not half-bad for that type of thing.
I could have gone to TuDogs and searched endlessly there too, but I was getting tired so I coughed up a fin.
But I can see why a graphic designer might buy an old ad if it suited their purpose and the Man was paying for it. Time is money, yanno.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 1:48 PM on July 12, 2008
Not an ad, I bought a vintage cartoon of a woman's face. Presumably cut from an old ad, but it came out great in print and on the web, so it was worth the $5 to me after 2 hours of searching for just the right image. It's royalty-free, so I can use it on anything, which is not half-bad for that type of thing.
I could have gone to TuDogs and searched endlessly there too, but I was getting tired so I coughed up a fin.
But I can see why a graphic designer might buy an old ad if it suited their purpose and the Man was paying for it. Time is money, yanno.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 1:48 PM on July 12, 2008
People buy old ads?? Is this a hobby like pylon spotting?
posted by tinkertown
I don't think it's that odd on the weird-collecting-scale. They are common enough at flea markets and antique malls. I've got a few I've picked up here and there, mostly because of art from people like Franklin Booth and N.C. Wyeth.
posted by marxchivist at 1:48 PM on July 12, 2008
posted by tinkertown
I don't think it's that odd on the weird-collecting-scale. They are common enough at flea markets and antique malls. I've got a few I've picked up here and there, mostly because of art from people like Franklin Booth and N.C. Wyeth.
posted by marxchivist at 1:48 PM on July 12, 2008
I don't think anybody's claiming these ads are "good", crash.
I think it's more that it's interesting to see how things were in earlier times, and that includes how companies tried to sell product to people.
That said, I can't help feeling a lot of these ads are a lot less insidious and obnoxious than the ones we have now. Maybe it's just because the language seems quaint to my 21st-century eyes.
posted by Target Practice at 2:16 PM on July 12, 2008
I think it's more that it's interesting to see how things were in earlier times, and that includes how companies tried to sell product to people.
That said, I can't help feeling a lot of these ads are a lot less insidious and obnoxious than the ones we have now. Maybe it's just because the language seems quaint to my 21st-century eyes.
posted by Target Practice at 2:16 PM on July 12, 2008
I once put together a lecture about medical advertising. I thought this ad, from a medical journal in the late 50's was particularly remarkable.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:12 PM on July 12, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:12 PM on July 12, 2008 [2 favorites]
That said, I can't help feeling a lot of these ads are a lot less insidious and obnoxious than the ones we have now. Maybe it's just because the language seems quaint to my 21st-century eyes.
The older ads are insidious and obnoxious, too.
That said, it's nice to see that we've made at least some steps forward.
posted by Stewriffic at 8:06 PM on July 12, 2008
The older ads are insidious and obnoxious, too.
That said, it's nice to see that we've made at least some steps forward.
posted by Stewriffic at 8:06 PM on July 12, 2008
NICE! I collect vintage ads (and websites that celebrate vintage advertising). Eat Liver looks especially good! I'm sure this has been on Metafilter before, but Plan 59 has a nice collection of advertising. The blog, Found In Mom's Basement, has a steady stream of quality advertising, and TJS Labs Gallery of Graphic Design is a nice resource, as well. You can search by year, product, or advertiser. It's great for research. And, of course, there's Modern Mechanix ('Yesterday's Tomorrow Today')!
And, there's always Flickr. I have a multiple sets of advertising, and many of my contacts have nothing but vintage advertising. Plus, Flickr has some of the best vintage ad groups around!
posted by Mael Oui at 10:00 PM on July 12, 2008 [1 favorite]
And, there's always Flickr. I have a multiple sets of advertising, and many of my contacts have nothing but vintage advertising. Plus, Flickr has some of the best vintage ad groups around!
posted by Mael Oui at 10:00 PM on July 12, 2008 [1 favorite]
Also, if you love advertising so much that you want it in book form, Taschen has a highly recommended series of advert books. They're edited by Jim Heimann, who has written, edited, or curated innumerable brilliant Taschen books. The series is divided by decade from the 1900s to the 1980s. I'm currently adoring the 1960s volume.
posted by Mael Oui at 10:23 PM on July 12, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Mael Oui at 10:23 PM on July 12, 2008 [1 favorite]
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posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:36 AM on July 12, 2008