Advertuesday? I think that should be nominated for Worst Portmanteau, 2012. However, what we have here are (vintage) advertisements, and it is Tuesday. The only thing that any of these ads have in common is that they all appear in the May, 1948 issue of Woman’s Home Companion. And that the magazine is too big to fit on my scanner, so rather than scans these are instead hasty photos, complete with uneven lighting and occasional glare. I hope you enjoy the look back! (Click each image to make with the biggering.)
Category Archives: advertising
Advertuesday!
Free Fire-King!
A Fire-King “Azur-ite” (pale blue) cup and saucer set, free in a box of oatmeal? YES, PLEASE. EAT ALL THE OATS.*

Mother’s Oats (Quaker) ad, Tri City Herald – Jan 17, 1952
*With great deference to Hyperbole and a Half, who I’m sure didn’t realize at the time that she wrote that line that it would become part of our lexicon. That, and the mental image of an attention-deficient squirrel on PCP.
Filed under advertising, collections, packaging, vintage
Not-Pie and OHMIGOURD SECTIONAL
Chapter One, in which Wink makes an experimental pie:
Yeah. Well. They’re not all winners. If they were, I’d have to blog more often. This is shoesandpie, after all. This pie is still a good idea, but the experimental crust requires [secret ingredient] and as that’s not something I often have access to, it may be a loooong time before I get a chance to make a second, improved attempt. Actually, the crust looks okay. It’s the straight-off-the-tapioca-box-label filling that didn’t impress me. I’ve never had luck with tapioca-thickened fruit fillings, but for some reason I keep trying them. Anyway, I’ll cut into the pie-soup tonight. I’m sure it will be a tasty dessert, just not a good pie. There are still plenty of cherries left over.
Chapter Two, in which OHMIGOURD THIS LIVING ROOM SET YES PLEASE.
Not only is one of the suggested configurations exactly what I’ve been wanting to do with my own sectional, but OH MY THAT UPHOLSTERY. And look! It’s CUSHIONIZED! I have no idea what that means, but I’m sold! My own sectional will continue to work just fine, but I really do need a sofa-seat-height corner table. So if anyone spies a Heywood-Wakefield jobbie just, you know, in a Dumpster somewhere, do let me know.
Chapter Three, in which Wink is still quabbling with Facebook:

I AM NOT TRUSTWORTHY. I AM FULL OF SPAM®. (I prefer Taylor Pork Roll, of course. I’m from New Jersey, after all.)
As best as I can tell—and this is from digging through the Help documentation on their site, not from any communication from them, because they haven’t sent me any—my account has raised some vague suspicion and needs to be verified. As I dig deeper to try to find some way to avoid giving them my personal cell number (they already have my email address and business phone number, why do they need my cell as well?), I find that I can work around that only by sharing either my Drivers License or Passport, or two other forms of photo ID. Given the trouble that Facebook has had in the past with actually deleting information that they claim has been deleted, I’m going to answer that request with a HUGE RED NO. A wonderful friend set up a temporary, disposable phone number so I can log back in, but I’m not comfortable with that. Not only does it just feed the beast more information, but it only proves that the information they’re requesting doesn’t do anything to verify that I’m actually me. The number isn’t mine, isn’t connected to anything of mine, and has nothing to do with me. So it verifies…what, exactly? In the interim, the page is still in a coma. It looks healthy to the naked eye, but there’s nobody behind the curtain. How long after the last post until somebody says, “Hmmm, I guess this shop very suddenly went out of business?”
Filed under advertising, diner pie, food, vintage
The Tale of the Curious Curio
Okay, so it’s not so much of a tale, actually. Unless you’ve “heard strange tales about mysterious looking Hands.” I came across this small ad in the margin of one of my old magazines (this one from 1959) and I’m intrigued by this…thing. The cost of $3.48 wasn’t exactly small change back then: according to my handy inflation calculator, that’s the buying power of a little more than $27 today. But hey, it does come in its own lambskin bag! I’m just as curious about the semi-random capitalization throughout the ad as I am about the curio. The only other mention I can find online of the P. S. Bureau Co. (not the U.K. utility company) is another ad, this time for a Perpetual Prayer Cross.
I can’t tell you much about this curious curio, but if I ever run across one, I’m gluing a pinback to it and wearing it as a “strange” brooch!
Filed under advertising, amusement, jewelry, vintage
In The Swim (1955)
Okay, okay, okay. I have a Pinterest account, right? And I see all the clever ideas and pretty things and want to repin this and that and the other. But I have this thing, this personal code of ethics, wherein I like to actually confirm the information in the caption before forwarding it on to my followers. Judging by the pins I find out have totally erroneous captions, I am in the minority in this way.
S’anyway.
I see this pin. It’s a scan of an old Maurice Handler swimsuit ad. Delightful, pretty swimsuits. But, as usual, the pin is lacking any useful caption and links to a Tumblr page with an equal dearth of detail. (Tumblr is even worse than Pinterest for the rapid-fire spread of misinformation. A total ABSENCE of information is better than WRONG information, though.) So I put on my Bunny Watson hat and start to do some sleuthing. Sleuth sleuth sleuth. I don’t find the specific ad that was pinned, but I do find the below ads, with very similar styles to those I was seeking, all scanned from the June 3, 1955 edition of the Lewiston (Maine) Evening Journal. Enjoy some fun in the sun!
If you want to read the entire newspaper, you can find it archived here. Thanks, Google!
Filed under advertising, fashion, vintage