Friday 13 December 2013

Vintage Christmas catalogs

One of my favourite ephemera items to collect is antique catalogs. They are so much fun to look through and see how things and prices have changed over the years.


I try to keep my catalog collection to a minimum as they can take up too much shelf space. Some of those old Sears books were as thick as a phone-book.


  I have used some of the damaged books in scrap-booking and they can make pretty cool milestone birthday gifts. I gave a pile of 1950's department store catalogs to a friend who works in a nursing home. She uses them for all sorts of different activities with the residents and and I have been told the books always bring out memories. She does activation with Alzheimer patients and the catalogs have always been a positive tool. 


I recently discovered a few online catalog archives.

 Update : This site seems to be temporarily offline. I will leave the link up in case it reappears  Wishbook Web  - Before you visit this site, get comfy and make yourself a drink because you will be sitting for a while. This site has a ton of old Christmas catalogs. Sears, JC Penny, Eaton's,Ward's. They are scanned from front to back and date back to 1933. Great resource if you are looking for some vintage holiday inspiration. The site is the work of Jason Liebig whose Flickr page is a treasure on its own with pages of vintage advertising and scans of products of the past 




Love Radio Shack?  There is an archive of past catalogs at  www.radioshackcatalogs.com  starting with the first one from 1939. 
This site is really nicely done and the books can be viewed in several different formats. The site also has the Radio Shack computer catalogs going back to '77





















Thursday 12 December 2013

Wednesday 21 August 2013

1919 CNE Ad


Friday 31 May 2013

Friday 24 May 2013

Vintage Election Advertisements

I keep coming across old  Canadian election ads in my stash. Enough that I have a new scanning project for the weekend. The municipal ads from the smaller farming towns are my faves, O brother where art thou keeps popping into my head when I look them over.  Here is an election ad from 1942. Has there ever been a voter turnout like the one in this drawing?

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Thursday 23 May 2013

War Ads

I have started a new page for WWI and WWII advertisements.
Update: New ads have been added to Travel and 1900-19.

Wednesday 8 May 2013

UPDATE: new ads added to 1919 and 1920

1919 Ad for Kellogg's Corn Flakes from London OntarioLondon,

Vintage Canadian travel ads

I have started adding travel related ads. A big majority of them are steamship. You can view them here.