Vintage posters and other paper ephemera

[tonyb]

It’s a safe bet that I’m not the only one here with a weakness for old paper advertising and the like that has somehow survived far longer than it was expected to.

I’m generally less concerned with subject matter than artistic merit. And I’m also not hung up on condition. Indeed, I often prefer a poster show signs it was actually used for its intended purpose. Character, I call it. That rougher survivors can usually be had for a small fraction of the price of more pristine examples is icing on the cake.

 

[tonyb]

A cheaply produced advertising poster. I’ve seen other examples of it with different particulars as to date and location. It’s on very thin paper, so thin that it was a challenge to get it in the frame without tearing it more than it already is.

 

[St.Ignatz]

I remember Hoxie setting up at Haverford College every year. A high school friend actually left with them and became an animal trainer. Thanks for the flashback.

 

[tonyb]

I remember Hoxie setting up at Haverford College every year. A high school friend actually left with them and became an animal trainer. Thanks for the flashback.

About when was that? I’m trying to nail down the year of this one. The day of the week and date narrow it down some. But a quick search into the history of the circus doesn’t provide much clarification.

 

[St.Ignatz]

71 72 maybe for circus boy. Hoxie was from at least the mid 60's if not early.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
It appears the circus got its start in ’43, and survived on-again, off-again into the ’80s. I get the sense it was a low-budget operation when it had any budget at all.

The age of the circus as we knew it here in America, with large exotic animals and all, is in the past.

 

[St.Ignatz]

Toby Tyler was another small traveling circus that would pop up in the area. As a towerman on the railroad it was always fun when the big circus trains would pass the tower. If the new guy was gullible enough we would give them a radio and send them out to the bridge to let us know if the giraffes had their heads sticking out the roof hatch so we could stop the train. Never lost a one but I digress.

 

[tonyb]

Early- to mid-’50s, is my guess, what with the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser and the style of the cars.

This example is faded and has water damage. Better examples go for much more than I’d ever pay, unless through some miracle I came into a pile of money.

I bought it, framed, a decade or more ago from a junktique store in Tacoma.

 

[St.Ignatz]

As I recall your Hoxie poster may be pre 1970. The last I recall had a little bit of yellow in them. Always low budget no frills but fun. Take your valuables and lock the car. Ain't accusin' just passing on advice from my friend the animal trainer.

 

[tonyb]

These may be the sole surviving examples. For that reason alone they’re precious, if not in any monetary way.

 

[Bugguy]

Deadly Moonshine. Back in the early 70's, I was doing patient follow-up for the North Carolina State Health Department in Western North Carolina. As I was deep in the mountains, I was given these broadsides to distribute. I still have a number of the originals and have framed some for friends to hang over their liquor cabinets.

There are likely few, if any originals still around. However, I've been seeing copies pop up on Etsy along with "vintaged" wanted posters. From what I've learned, one of the remaining copies is in the library of the University of South Carolina.

I don't know how persuasive the posters were, but I was always told the impurities, like methanol, could lead to blindness. Maybe in distributing them I was p%%$ing in the wind, but I'm glad I hung on to them.

 

[EngProf]

Deadly Moonshine. Back in the early 70's, I was doing patient follow-up for the North Carolina State Health Department in Western North Carolina. As I was deep in the mountains, I was given these broadsides to distribute. I still have a number of the originals and have framed some for friends to hang over their liquor cabinets.

There are likely few, if any originals still around. However, I've been seeing copies pop up on Etsy along with "vintaged" wanted posters. From what I've learned, one of the remaining copies is in the library of the University of South Carolina.

I don't know how persuasive the posters were, but I was always told the impurities, like methanol, could lead to blindness. Maybe in distributing them I was p%%$ing in the wind, but I'm glad I hung on to them.

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The "lead salts" being warned against here come from cheapskate moonshiners who used old car radiators for their still components, instead of good-quality (and expensive) copper.
Great poster...

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Gordon Johncock edges out Rick Mears to take the checkered flag in a photo finish to the Indianapolis 500 in 1982.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Always a car enthusiast I've owned my share. Back in the 1980's I was personal friends with a Chevrolet dealer & I would go thru his promotional catalog & order up promo items I wanted to collect & thought might be good ephemera in the future.

The completely new from the ground up C4 Corvette was supposed to come out in 1983 during the 30th anniversary yr. I ordered several of these showroom posters from the promo catalog in late 1982. I still have them rolled & tubed just as they came.

The C4 was so late in production that they were all titled as 1984 models. There was never a 1983 Chevrolet Corvette produced & sold to the public. If only these posters were printed as 1983's as originally planned!

 

[Hurricane Jack]

The first tournament at Red's was in 1983, the last was 1985. Besides those entered in the tournament every road warrior in the country was there to play on the side.

As Blue Duck said to Monkey John in the Lonesome Dove series, "Let's gamble!"

 

[tonyb]

I don’t know that this is the sole survivor, but it’s the only one I’ve ever seen.

The paperback book accompanying the exhibit isn’t all that scarce (I happen to have a copy myself), but not so the poster.

Pardon the reflection.

EDIT: Just looked online. Found another example for the first time ever. Seller says it’s in VG condition. Looking for $220 OBO.

 

[tonyb]

This one, a Calder design for Braniff, 1973, isn’t hard to procure online, if you feel up to dropping a couple hundred bucks, which I wasn’t when I bought this one a few years back, for something like $30, as I recall. On the back is a sticker identifying it as a prize at a Braniff employees’ reunion some years after the airline ceased operations.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

A couple of guys I know were selected as extra characters & a couple were selected as "hand models" making the close in shots for the stars in The Color of Money. If I remember correctly they were told when to show up for 3 days of work, paid $2,000 plus a daily per diem for living expenses. And a lifetime claim to fame.

 

[tonyb]

Found this in a since-defunct vintage shop at least 10 years ago. I had long known of Hardeman (the building that had been its manufacturing plant still stands), but prior to coming across this I hadn’t known of their retail stores.

 

[dh66]

I got this from a flea market back in the late 80s. Paid $100 for it and an old Montgomery-Ward arch top guitar, which I also still have.