Old Advertisements

Let's take a look at some old advertisements

From The Chicago Tribune, April 28, 1949, page 31

Old Advertisements

Playing through an old baseball season is one thing; immersing yourself in the time period is another.

One thing that can help us understand and feel the spirit of the times better is looking through old newspaper advertisements.

I encountered quite a few interesting ads the other day, and thought they might be interesting to share here.

1949 Television Ads

The postwar era saw a boom in new technology throughout the United States. It appears that television sales boomed, both in cities and in more rural areas.

I thought that was surprising when I first read it. I’d always associated the rise of television in the United States with the early and mid 1950s, not with the late 1940s. However, looking through these newspapers has shown me just how prominent television was.

From The Chicago Tribune, April 28, 1949, page 10

This advertisement is from a Chicago store named Mandel Brothers. We’d think of a 10-inch screen today as being incredibly small, of course — certainly not “big” as this advertisement proclaims.

These would have been quite expensive, by the way. Per this CPI inflation calculator, $239.95 in 1949 is the equivalent of $3,033.05 today. No wonder buying one of these was a big deal.

Now, I’m not quite sure what to make of this one:

From The Chicago Tribune, April 28, 1949, page 20

Is that really a 65 square inch picture? How big would this unit have been?

You could even get a career in television, if you wanted:

From The Chicago Tribune, April 28, 1949, page 22

This kind of reminds me of some of the YouTube-related advertisements I’ve seen these days.

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Bowman

I wasn’t able to find any baseball card advertisements, but I did find a few related items of interest.

This advertisement appeared in several newspapers around the country throughout 1949:

From Evening World Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), June 10, 1949, page 29

I’m really puzzled about why the $50 reward for information on using the coupon fradulently was written on the face of the coupon itself.

Now, Bowman was pretty clearly trying to reestablish the bubble gum market, which lagely collapsed during World War II. That’s why there were comics like this:

From The Atlanta Constitution, January 11, 1948, page 75

This article from later in 1948 explains a bit about the state of the industry at the time:

From Springfield Leader and Press (Missouri), August 23, 1948, page 16

There are also a few articles about some early Bowman controversies that I’ve read about in books on the hobby:

From The Decatur Daily Review, March 22, 1949, page 6

And this dispute, largely forgotten, received widespread (though mostly sarcastic) coverage:

From The Buffalo News, May 4, 1949, page 7

Sadly, I was still unable to find any actual baseball card advertisements from the late 1940s.

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Baseball Guides

And now comes my favorite part.

I’ve often wondered when the old baseball guides were first available. It seems that they were generally available in March of the next year.

This, for example, comes from March 18, 1908:

From The Reading Times, March 18, 1908, page 8

Here are a few other Reach advertisements:

From Nashville Banner, March 21, 1908, page 9

From The Tacoma Daily Ledger, April 1, 1908, page 7

And this one appeared in many newspapers around the country throughout that spring:

From The Fort Worth Record and Register, May 5, 1908, page 9

Spalding also issued a guide, of course:

From St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 19, 1908, page 14

And here’s another example:

From Vicksburg Evening Post, March 23, 1908, page 3

And finally, here’s a little bit of both:

From The Sentinel (Carlisle, Pennsylvania), March 24, 1908, page 4