I thought I had a chance at this Northrup King Northern Grown Tested Seeds box at Saturday’s North Star Auction, but I’ll skip the middle part of the story and say it ended at $775 and I didn’t even get my hand up. One of the best vintage illustrations and designs I’ve seen, and also one of the best preserved. Magnificent!
Uhhuhuhuhuhuhuh… “Erect” Uhhuhuhuhuhuhuh…
“…the implement of detestable coquetry which not only betrays a frivolous bent but forecasts the decline of humanity.” – Napoleon Bonaparte on corsets
Would you like to know more about corsets?
Of corset you would! Here ya go! This too. And how about this?
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I have questions.
What is that tool/toy at the bottom of the ad?
The husband is totally cheating on her, right?
Is wearing white really the wisest choice here?
Fun facts:
Classic Trains has a nice assortment of Golden State Limited marketing materials.
Golden State’s later years were not quite so posh and luxurious.
And what good is Golden State Limited history if it doesn’t include tales of train robberies gone wrong and bodies found in drippy trunks?
Oh, now you want to learn more about Winnie Ruth Judd, AKA the Trunk Murderess, AKA the Tiger Woman, AKA the Blonde Butcher? I gotcha covered. Also, there’s a website named Murderpedia.
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Fin de Siècle (translation: end of the century) — Merriam-Webster has one heck of another definition for it:
“of, relating to, or characteristic of the close of the 19th century and especially its literary and artistic climate of sophistication, world-weariness, and fashionable despair”
Fashionable despair.
Fashionable despair and beef tea.
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AS USUAL.
“Let me know when we get to Mars.”
“We passed Mars ten planets ago, ma’am.”
This early cartoon/comic/illustration/panel is weird, wonderful and a work of art. It’s as if Jules Verne and Mark Twain had a baby, and I dig it.
The Artist is F.W. Read, but there is scant info online except for a few other pieces of work and that he/she studied in Paris at Académie Julian in 1891. If you know more, please let me know!
“Tonight we will enjoy only the finest of tastes and only the snootiest of laughter.”
— Preston Northwest, Gravity Falls
Fun fact: Just three years before this 1906 ad from Massengale Advertising ran, cocaine was removed from the Coca-Cola formula.
I thought I had a chance at this wonderfully odd Williams typewriter invented by John Newton Williams and the first typewriter where the typist could actually see what they just typed (Williams also invented one of the first helicopters and a 3-cylinder motorcycle). It was the first item up for auction. The typewriter went for $1,200. I did not have a chance.