Theme Thursday - Future

I am all over the place this week not really knowing what day it is, so it was a bit of a surprise to me when I started seeing submissions for this week's Theme Thursday, Future. I like to be challenged, but this one took some real lateral though and searching but I eventually found this motoring magazine from the early 1970's with what seems to feature the type of car people thought we'd all be driving in the future. It looks kind of space-agey, and clunky at the same time. I can almost imagine someone dressed in a glittery spacesuit getting out of the back door (mainly because in my recollection of sci-fi TV in the 1970's that's what everyone was wearing ... particularly in the U.F.O TV series).

Drive magazine, c.1972

Sepia Saturday 101 - over the hiils and fast away

Taking the car as the theme for this week's Sepia Saturday, I've rummaged through my vintage Motor Sport magazines and found this advertisement from the April 1959 edition. The advert is for the Austin Healey, with a backdrop of 4 tweed-suited, landed gentry, no doubt off for a jolly good time, probably involving a picnic rug and matching hamper, and using words and phrases like "rotter", "dash it all" and "come on ginger, don't be such a bad egg".

Vintage advertisement for the Austin Healey, c.1959

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

    

Theme Thursday - Gadget

I think I've just about managed to keep on theme for this week's Theme Thursday, 'gadget'. This is a paperback from Gerry Anderson's 1960's cult TVseries, Joe 90. I don't remember this series as well as Thunderbirds, but I do remember Joe being a bit of a 1960's Inspector Gadget.

Joe 90 and the Raiders, paperback c.1968

    

Vintage advertisement - Dyna Panhard, c.1958

I certainly can't claim to be a car expert, but I always find it curious when I come across a car manufacturer or make I've never even heard of before. In this case it's the Dyna Panhard. On researching I found out that in fact Panhard is one of the world's oldest car manufacturers, founded in 1891. The Dyna was produced between 1954 and 1959, with 140,000 models being produced. I don't know how many of these made it over to the UK, but presumably some did given that the advertisement boasts Now with right hand drive.

Vintage advertisement for Dyna Panhard, Motor Sport magazine, c.1958

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

    

Vintage advertisement for Sunbeam Rapier, c.1959

It's been a few weeks again since I posted to this particular blog, so to make amends here's a vintage advertisement for the Sunbeam Rapier 1.5 liter, from the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine.

Vintage advertisement for the Sunbeam Rapier, c.1959

More vintage magazines on my web site

Also, why not check out my vintage postcards blog or my vintage resources page

    

Sepia Saturday 89 - vintage advertisement for windscreen washers

I'm not theming for this week's Sepia Saturday but instead have selected a vintage advertisement from a 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine. The advertisement is for Windscreen Washers. What I particularly like about it is the authoratitive statement made, presumably by the ernest looking man with the glasses in the white lab coat, which says, "In my opinion nobody should be allowed on the road without one".

Vintage advertisement for windscreen washers, c.1959

    

Vintage advertisement for Seaside Bathing Tent, c.1926

Thought I'd share another fantastic vintage advertisement from my 1926 London Guide book. And given that (it's supposed to be) Summer, this one is for a Seaside Bathing Tent, providing Comfort and Convenience for Seaside Pleasures and Ideal for Family Life on the Sands. Certainly much easier than executing a delicate and dangerous manoeuvre behind a loosely tethered towel.

Vintage advertisement for Seaside Bathing Tent, c.1926

You may also like my vintage postcard blog or my vintage resources page

Vintage advertisement - Safety Clemak Razor, c.1926

Just time for a quick blog post today before I need to attend to some weeds in the garden. This is an advertisement taken from a 1928 London Guide book. It's for the Clemak Safety Razor, and boasts One Continuous Round of Satisfaction and taking only a minute to strop and a moment to clean.

Vintage advertosement for the Clemak Safety Razor

More vintage magazines and books on my web site ... and I also have a new page containing reviews and links to books about vintage

Sepia Saturday 85 - MG Magnette Mark III

Inspired by Alan's great photo in this week's Sepia Saturday, I turned to my vintage magazines collection to help me out. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for as I flipped through the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine, probably something classic with bumpers, when I came across this. It's an advertisement of an MG Magnette Mark III, and one of the reasons for posting this was that I had never heard of it before. A quick bit of research revealed that it was received to mixed reviews, so I'm assuming not many were made. On reading the description of the car, it claims to be 'freshly styled from bumper to bumper', so met my posting criteria on that count also.

Advertisement of the MG Magnette Mark III, Motor Sport magazine, March 1959

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

    

Vintage London Underground map, c.1924

I was leafing through a vintage guide book of London, searching for inspiration for a future blog post, when I came across a couple of maps that the book owner had obviously use to aid his/her trip around the city. The first was a cutting from the Daily Sketch newspaper from 1924 featuring a London Underground map. This one is A3 and quite battered so I'm still working out how to scan that one in. However, the second insert is a bit smaller, and although in 2 pieces and bigger than my scanner, I think I have managed to successfully merge the 2 parts of the map.

London Underground map, c.1924

What I love about this map, in fact all old maps, is looking at the places where the lines used to end compared to where they end today, where station names have changed, and also where stations have become disused. For example, the Highgate and Hampstead Line has been much extended, merged with the City and South London Railway, and has become the Northern Line. St. Mary's, Mark Lane, Brompton Road, Dover Street, Down Street, British Museum, Post Office, and Trafalgar Square, have all either been renamed, closed or merged with other stations. Some of these 'ghost' stations are still visible from passing tube trains whilst others are long gone. Keep a look out the window as you pass through the tunnels ... you never know what you might see.

    

Sepia Saturday 83: The Road to Sunshine

My plans for taking a day trip to the coast on Sunday seem to have been dashed by the weather forecast which appears to predict rain all weekend. Instead we'll probably end up going to London for the day and take in some museums. Depending on how many of the family come will depend on the mode of transport. Ideally I'd like to go by train as it's much less hassle, but the tipping point comes quite quickly when there's more people. Since a kid, I've always had a soft spot by railways but must admit to finding today's railways, stations and trains a little less romantic than when I was younger (although some of the recent restoration works at St Pancras and Paddington are looking impressive). But even the way train travel was described in the early part of the 20th century sounded idealistic and romantic. For my entry to this week's Sepia Saturday I'm trying to recapture some of that by sharing these vintage advertisements taken from a 1920's guide book.

As usual, more vintage magazines and vintage postcards on my web site

And it would seem that if the spate of recent TV programs and books is anything to go by, I'm not the only person who dreams of returning to the age of the train. Both Julia Bradbury and Michael Portilo have presented excellent TV series over the past few months. These are possibly still available on iPlayer, but if not the accompanying series books are readily available, and what's really excited me is that Bradshaw's 1907 Railway Map is also available ... all aboard.

;    

Something New in Motor Coaching

Whilst browsing through some vintage guide books, I came across this curious vintage advertisement. It's advertising something called the "Silent Guide" which boasts itself to be ...

A novel invention coupled with specially prepared itineraries for imparting and retaining information in a particular and pleasing manner about the many places of interest you may either visit or pass en route on your favourite motor coach tours.

I have tried to find some more information about this device, but have not managed to find anything at all. The perfect solution for not wanting to show one's ignorance of not knowing something, whilst at the same time not wanting to ask anyone.

Vintage advertisement, c.1922

    

More vintage magazines and vintage postcards can be found on my web site

Another installment of vintage advertisements

Following on from the positive response and great comments from my previous vintage advertisements post, I've decided to share a few more today. This is again from a vintage Picturegoer magazine, from November 1943. As with my previous post, the contrast between the advertisements is quite striking, with beauty products of the day along side war time austerity measures.

Picturegoer magazine, November 1943

    

More vintage magazines and vintage postcards can be found on my web site

Sepia Saturday 80: vintage advertisements

My poor vintage magazine blog has been a big neglected over the past few weeks as my attentions have been diverted to other things, such as my vintage postcard blog, and some optimisation of my own web site. So, for this week's Sepia Saturday, I've decided to search through my vintage magazine collection to come up with something. I didn't have to look through too many pages before I cam across something worth sharing. This page is taken from Picturegoer magazine, August 1944.

I think the contrast of advertisements is interesting. We can see entertainment, leisure and beauty on the left hand side, and savings, thriftiness and austerity measures on the right hand side.

I was however delighted to see that the film advertised, Two Girls and a Sailor is available on DVD ... although I was on dangerous ground with some of my search results !!

  

More vintage magazines can be found on my vintage magazines web page.

Theme Thursday: Gossip

Sometimes when I see a Theme Thursday theme, something leaps instantly to mind. This week however was not one of those weeks. Gossip has never been one of my strong points (or weaknesses). I'm nearly always the last to know what's going on in the office. My music and postcard collections did not come to the rescue this week either, but I did manage to find something in my vintage magazine collection which almost fits the bill. It's a section in 1 1945 edition of Picturegoer magazine called, 'Between You and Me by The Editor', and is probably the nearest thing to gossip I can lay my hands on.

Note to self - must try harder next week.

More vintage magazines and vintage postcards on my web site

Sepia Saturday 74: Beer, It's Lovely (vintage advertisement)

As Alan shared a picture of a plane for this week's Sepia Saturday, I thought I'd have a look through my magazines for something appropriate. Strangely the Royal Air Force, Air Mail magazines do not have many pictures of planes in them, however I can across this fantastic advert issued by the Brewer's Society.

Beer, It's Lovely !

The full text of the advert reads ... 

Beer and bowls

Our local has its own bowling green. Take it from me, you need your pint after you've had a hard game. People who've never played think it's easy, but it takes a lot of skill ... and a good bit of nerve too.

When you're relaxing -

BEER, IT'S LOVELY !

And who am I to argue with that fine sentiment.

More vintage magazines and vintage postcards on my web site

Another vintage Air Mail magazine, c.1963

Thanks for all the great comments on my last vintage Air Mail magazines blog post. I have a few more to share, starting with this one from July 1963. The front cover shows Association standards paraded at the War Memorial at Ostend. The back cover features an advertisement for The Great Escape, an all time classic film featuring Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough.

Front cover of Vintage Air Mail magazine, July 1963

Back cover of Vintage Air Mail magazine, July 1963

The Great Escape available from amazon.com ... and amazon.co.uk

  

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

Sepia Saturday 72: Vintage Air Mail magazines, 1960's

Firstly apologies to regular readers of this blog and Sepia Saturday who may be expecting another vintage Picturegoer magazine, but I've decided to take a break from these for a short time and share some other recent finds. A few weeks ago I came across these vintage Air Mail magazines, which is the journal of the Royal Air Forces Association. The magazines are quite specialist in nature and possibly only of interest to people connected with the Air Force, but some of the covers and adverts will almost certainly have a wider appeal. I think I still have the stamps advertised in the 25th Battle of Britain anniversary edition, although not on a First Day Cover. And for those of you wondering if there's any connection with Friday's Royal Wedding, there's not, although the Queen does feature on the 2nd cover, so that's close enough.

Front cover of Air Mail magazine, September/October 1965

Advertisement for First Day Covers for the 25th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain from Air Mail magazine, September/October 1965

Front cover of Air Mail magazine, March 1963

Back cover of Air Mail magazine, March 1963

As usual, more vintage magazines and vintage postcards on my web site

Vintage Picturegoer magazine - Alan Ladd, c.1943

Down to my last few of these Picturegoer magazine covers to share on Sepia Saturday, and this week's coverstar is US filmstar Alan Ladd. Once again this is not an actor with whom I'm familiar, but I have at least heard of a couple of his films, with his leading role in 1953's Shane probably being the most well known.

Picturegoer magazine, 10th July 1943 - front cover

Picturegoer magazine, 10th July 1943 - inside cover

Regular readers may wonder why I've used adverts from the inside cover rather than the back cover ... well, it seems that someone has cut out one of the adverts, or perhaps some sort of coupon, from this one. What struck me about the advertisements in this edition is that they seem in sharp contrast to each other, with government sanctioned adverts for war time austerity measures sat next to adverts for beauty products. But perhaps this is not hugely different from today when insurance adverts pop up during the breaks in kids' TV programmes.

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

Sepia Saturday 60: vintage photography booklets

I'm keeping on theme this week for my Sepia Saturday post and sharing some images relating to photography. Below are a handful of Focal Photo Guide booklets I picked up a few months ago. Not sure of the age but would guess early 1960's. The black and white covers with the red borders remind me of books I had as a child, which I'm guessing I must have inherited, where colour was used sparingly.

More vintage magazines on my web site

Vintage 35mm photography magazine, c.1965

Having posted various covers from Picturegoer magazine over the past few weeks, I've decided that today for Theme Thursday's 'face' theme, I'm going to share a cover from a different vintage magazine. This is the 35mm Photography magazine from August 1965. Think it fits this week's theme of 'face' quite well.

35mm Photography magazine, August 1965

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

Vintage Picturegoer magazine, c.1945, Ann Todd

I'm not theming this week as I had to prepare this posting in advance due to the inconvenience of it being financial year end this week, and all sorts of ridiculousness breaking out at work. My Sepia Saturday post for this week is another from my Picturegoer magazine collection. This week's posting dates back to November 10th 1945, and features Ann Todd as the cover star. Ann starred regularly in films for over 60 years from 1931 to 1992. Some of her more well known films include Perfect Strangers (1945), The Seventh Veil (1945) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947). Interestingly (well, to me anyway) was that she also starred in a 1949 film called The Passionate Friends. I remember a great song by the Teardrop Explodes called Passionate Friend from their 2nd album, Wilder, but can trace no link between the two. I did however discover during my research that the film was based on an H.G.Wells novel, so maybe the Teardrop Explodes song links with the novel.

As with all these coverstars, Amazon has a huge range of films featuring Ann Todd

Picturegoer magazine, November 1945 - front cover

And of course, no Picturegoer magazine feature would be complete without a view of the great vintage advertisments on the back cover.

 Picturegoer magazine, November 1945 - back cover

More vintage magazines on my web site

Vintage Picturegoer magazine, c.1943, Anna Neagle

Thought I'd share another of my recent Picturegoer magazine finds. This one is from May 1943 and features Anna Neagle as the coverstar. As seems to often be the case with these 1940's coverstars, I had not heard of her. A quick bit of research showed that actually she was a big name at the time, appearing in 10's of films between 1930 and 1959, including Goodnight, Vienna in 1932, Nell Gwyn in 1934, and Lilacs in the Spring in 1954, the latter co-starring alongside Errol Flynn. It looks like a lot of Anna Neagle's films are available on DVD, so perhaps it's worth having a few on the shelf to watch on a rainy Saturday afternoon in front of the fire.

Front cover of vintage Picturegoer magazine, c.1943

And of course, the vintage advertisements on the back cover of the magazine are also fascinating. There's quite an impressive selection here but my favourite is the one for Odol, top left corner, which reads 'Keep smiling, even if you're running with risks. But don't run risks with that precious Odol smile'.

Back cover of vintage Picturegoer magazine, c.1943

Theme Thursday - Paper

This week's theme, 'Paper', for Theme Thursday was a bit easier for me as I have paper absolutely everywhere. Whether it be in vintage postcards, stamps, books, magazines, I'll have it. In fact to some extent I was spoilt for choice. I eventually decided on a selection of paperbacks relating to another of my passions, Cult TV series from the 1960's and 1970's. Here are a selection ...

Check out my web site for more books and magazines and also vintage postcards

Vintage Picturegoer magazine c.1946, Googie Withers

Apologies - it's been a while since I posted here as most of my energy seems to get channelled into my vintage postcard blog and vintage postcard web site at the moment, where things were getting a little unruly and some maintenance was long overdue. Hopefully this Picturegoer magazine from 1946 makes up for it. This edition's cover star is the actress Googie Withers, and of course the back cover features the usual great vintage advertisements. It was interesting to read about her and great to read that at 94 she is still with us, despite a small faux pas in the UK soap Coronation Street in 2004 suggesting that she would 'turn in her grave'. Great to see that lots of her films are available on DVD.

Front cover of Picturegoer magazine, January 5th 1946

Back cover of Picturegoer magazine, January 5th 1946

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

Sepia Saturday 62: Norma Shearer, vintage Picturegoer magazine, c.1941

For my Sepia Saturday blog entry this week I've decided to go with the Picturegoer magazine again. The issue featured this week is from October 1941, and features a cover shot of the Canadian actress Norma Shearer and the usual great advertisements on the back. The 'Girls Who Cause Anxiety' headline is interesting and is about anaemia ... a headline like that in one of today's papers would be about something very different.

Front cover of Picturegoer magazine, October 1941

 Back cover of Picturegoer magazine, October 1941

More vintage magazines on my web site

Sepia Saturday 61: Vintage Picturegoer magazine, c.1945

I was delighted earlier this week to have stumbled across a handful of Picturegoer magazines from the early to mid 1940's, and thought they would make a good contribution to a Sepia Saturday posting. Issued every other Thursday at the princely sum of three pence, the magazine featured review on all the latest films, celebrity gossip, readers' letters, and of course some fantastic adverts. The issue I've chosen to share here is the one from 1st September 1945, featuring Arturo de Cordova and Betty Hutton on the cover.

Front cover of Picturegoer, 1st September 1945

Although the image on the front cover is striking, the adverts on the back cover are fantastic. My favourite is the one in the top left for 'Odo-ro-no', underarm deodorant, which comes in two strengths ... 'regular' which lasts for 7 days, and 'instant' which lasts for 3 days.

Back cover of Picturegoes, 1st September 1945

More vintage magazines on my web site ... and don't forget to also check out my vintage postcard blog and my in search of space blog

Sepia Saturday 60 - anyone want to buy a Roller?

Unlike last week I have actually managed to follow the theme this week for Sepia Saturday. This advert is taken from the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine and offers a selection of Rolls-Royce, Rolls-Bentley and Bentley cars for sale ... and all at not much more than an iPad would cost today. Some superb models here ... I wonder if any of them are still around today.

Advertisement for Simmons, 12 Rex Place, London W1, c.1959

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site