Nowadays, midst of such travesties as Twilight and Harry Potter we’re used to seeing hints of the mystic but there was a day, not so long ago when all we had was Dungeons and Dragons. Not even the advanced edition, just the vanilla offering from TSR complete with kobolds with only half a hit-die. If you’ve ever rolled a natural 2o then you remember these halcyon days.
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| From Classic Ads – Books |
Filed under Books
Yesterday when we visited Popular Science in the 1970s, we found our magazine’s audience to be handy and practical people. Today we visit the Literary Digest over a century ago and the readers of this little publication have a lot of money to spread around. So let’s see what the richest or the rich were doing with their money in 1911. Cover price for this mag: 10 cents. That’s a modest $2.30 adjusted for inflation.
The cruise industry was alive and well. You could take a 78-day cruise for $325.
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| From Classic Ads – Travel |
Not feeling like cruising? How about the train or perhaps a trip to Cube, “A winter paradise”
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| From Classic Ads – Travel |
For those days when you’re not feeling up to traveling, there are plenty of miracle medicines to save the day including Sanatogen. 15,000 physicians approve, after all.
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| From Classic Ads – Misc |
How did our affluent readers make all their money? Manhattan real estate and 5% Municipal bonds, of course!
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| From Classic Ads – Misc |
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| From Classic Ads – Misc |
This was a time much different than today. When’s the last time you bought a book that advertised its weight let alone one that was 13 pounds?
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| From Classic Ads – Books |
When they weren’t investing or reading their really heavy books there was much luxurious food! This Cream of Wheat ad today would get someone firebut I post it here as a relic of an archaic value system that made this sort of thing not only acceptable but a good advertising tool.
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| From Classic Ads – Food And Drink |
Prefer your cereal cold rather than warm? Post Toasties…
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| From Classic Ads – Food And Drink |
…go well with a bit of sugar.
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| From Classic Ads – Food And Drink |
And the immortal Chiclet has been around literally forever. For sale at the “better sort of stores” the ad croons.
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| From Classic Ads – Food And Drink |
Lastly, the rich wouldn’t be the rich without a car or four. The Cadillac auto is a car for “discriminating motorists, those to whom price is only a minor consideration.”
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| From Classic Ads – Automotive |
Filed under Automobiles, Books, Food and Drink, travel
It’s hard to believe that 100 years ago it was fairly common to buy a set of books 4000 pages long. Now you can get this massive setdelivered to you by Amazon.com for the ripe sum of $100. Unfortunately this ad from the 1911 Literary Digest doesn’t tell us how much this huge set cost at the time but it’s fairly easy to suspect that it hasn’t appreciated much in value in 100 years.
Ridpath's History of the World - 1911
I’d suggest you order yours today. Where else can you go back to the dawn of history and hang out with Caesar and Rubicon? Not to mention, think how many flowers you could press between SO many pages?
Golden Oldie Ads 