Vintage Graphic Art of Murder Manilia Paper Tobacco Labels from Uncle Daniel and Oren Scotten of Detroit.

Early tobacco printing "mock-ups" on manila paper for the Uncle Daniel company in Detroit, Michigan.  The engravings are fragile, as manila paper tends to eat itself.   It is usually given to children for drawings, but in this case it was used, apparently, to draw up snazzy graphics to market carcinogenic dried weeds to unsuspecting, ill-informed and trusting naives...not that Uncle Daniel knew, of course.  The tobacco companies didn't start obfuscating what their product did to people until much later.

Daniel was Daniel Scotten.  He was the uncle of Oren Scotten, a precocious young man who entered the tobacco business at sixteen years of age.  By the age of twenty-five, he owned the whole show.  The American Tobacco Company bought him out eventually, making young Oren a millionaire and major land owner in Detroit.   Scotten, who passed away in 1906, is now buried, it is fair to say, along with each and every single one of his customers. 

Mr. Scotten, who was not required to place warning labels on his lethal product, was a highly regarded businessman.  He was an Elk, the fire commissioner for a time, an art collector,  an avid hunter and although you won't see him reported as such, a murderer.  

Group of "Uncle Daniel" Tobacco labels on manila paper, circa 1900.  Collection Jim Linderman

CDV Photographer Trade Card Salesman Sample Photographica collection Horton Grand Rapids Jim Linderman

 

Photographer O. W. Horton of Monroe Street in Grand Rapids Cleans his Studio.  Circa 1855.

Orsamus W. Horton was one of the first daguerreotype photographers in Grand Rapids, MI.
Later he created Stereo photographs.  In 1916, on his passing, he was referred to as "Grand Rapids First Photographer" and was also the first to install a skylight.  He was also known as "Practical Photographer" and listed his location at "Foot of Monroe St."

Original Carte de Visite Photograph circa 1855 Collection Jim Linderman
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TOP VALUE ! Looking for Top Value?

Looking for top value?  Shoot, who ain't?  Trading Stamps can stretch your dollar, and just look at the perfect, clean world they come from!  Look really, really close and you can see the Top Value mascot, "Toppie" the frugal elephant painted on the wall of the redemption center, all dressed up in his tartan frock to represent value.  Top Value was located in Canton, Ohio

Top Value Trading Stamps Booklet Top Value Enterprises 1966  Collection Jim Linderman

BIG Gold Scam The Talk Show Host Gold Fraud Racket and Big Gold

You are probably better off buying gold from this fellow than an advertiser on your favorite conservative radio host's broadcast of unsubstantiated "reporting" for sure.  You don't have to look far to find rampant fraud.

Ask yourself this.  If you can make money on gold, why are the companies SELLING IT?  Are they doing you a FAVOR?  And if an "investment" in gold is the safest and best there is, what are the gold sellers buying with your money?  Snake Oil?

Sheesh...It is no crime to be stupid or to listen to putrid pundits on the radio...but bait and switch IS a crime and that's how those gold companies make THEIR money.  By tricking you into buying coins at inflated prices rather than bars at the going rate.  Once you call, your fears of global catastrophe ramped up to a feverish irrational scale by an overfed and over-rich talk show buffoon, you are prime meat to the bullion bilkers.  

Anyway, if those talk show hosts were as patriotic as they claim, they would tell you to invest in American T-bills rather than throwing your money away on scams.  Your country needs the support.

Photo: Collection Jim Linderman (Untitled, Anonymous Snapshot, No Date)

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Lucky Strikes Takes to the AIR Skywriting as a Technique for Increasing Brand Recall and Advertising Effectiveness

Looks like the breeze has started to "clutter" the Lucky Strike "message" a bit.

Skywriting has never been measured for advertising effectiveness that I know of. Certainly "brand recall" would apply here. That is the measure of effectiveness advertising agencies fall back on after the campaign is over and sales have not climbed one tiny bit.

"Hey Charlie? Did you remember what them skywritin' pilots put up there in the sky" "Ayup, sure do Gordy, T'was the Lucky Strikes"

Brand Recall!

What we do not know if either Charlie or Gordy went to BUY a pack.

Similar era photographs of a "ground team" working on market share for a competitor are HERE.

Untitled Original Photograph (Lucky Strike Skywriting Advertisement) No date Circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

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ABC Orchards Invents the Product Label RPPC of early Branded Produce

We routinely peel branding stickers off our fruit before eating it. Even chicken eggs are gently machine-stamped now, and individual products have had trackable chips packed with them for years. I suppose Gillette could now tell you which landfill contains the most cast off packaging from their razors. The QR box, the latest "sign of the beast" is already becoming as familiar as bar codes of the distant past.

There was a day when advertising was done by handwritten signs, and if the producer was feeling especially extravagant, a real photo post card. ABC should have put a patent on this idea instead of just a label on their apples.


ABC Orchards "The Home of the Lettered Apple" Advertising Real Photo Postcard circa 1925 Collection Jim Linderman

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TIME FOR NEW SHOES! The Circle of Footwear for Women

The Circle of Shoes Circa 1950 Hand-drawn and pasted copy for Department Store Newspaper Ad Collection Jim Linderman

New York City Trashvertising Drop Cards Sidewalk Spam Fake Dollar Bills and Vanessa Del Rio

There is nothing funnier than a fake wallet on a string. You know...old wallet, five bucks sticking out...busy sidewalk. Two kids on the end of the string behind the fence giggling as they wait for a portly gentleman to bend down for it. Construction workers used to do it on 6th Avenue and howl.

Today it would be more cruel than funny, as the latest studies have found a majority of us can't reach down anymore. Portly has become just plain fat. Today a good percent of the population wouldn't even see it.

If it wasn't juvenile and in bad taste, I would tell you a glued-down quarter is funny too.

The WORST ADVERTISING IN HISTORY used to plague New York City Streets in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Tiny leaflets folded to look like a twenty dollar bill with an ad on the back for a strip club, dial-a porn or some other shady, sleazy, cruddy business. Junior mobsters were hired to dump the litter as they walked down city streets, often at dawn, which allowed the tricky things to blow around a bit before commuters hit the streets.

I saw a few of the amateur thugs drop them as I walked my dog...creepy punks a step below the guys who would hang glue-slap posters for lousy dance clubs anywhere their paste brushes could reach. Sidewalk Spammers.

The one above happens to be an ad for dirty film called "Foxtrot" which starred Vanessa Del Rio. I used to have the pleasure of watching Vanessa swim and sun every day at the rooftop pool atop the Holiday Inn on West 57th Street between 9th and 10th Avenue. It was for hotel guests, but for a buck CBS employees (and a few favored folk) could use it and I sure did. Spending your lunch hour with a super-tan Vanessa Del Rio in a bikini was a whole lot more fun than eating a slice of pizza at my desk. I often got back a few minutes late. I am putting Vanessa's name in the title here in case she has a service scanning the web for mentions of her...why shouldn't Vanessa have a nice, sunny memory too?

Anyway, I remember seeing hundreds of these crooked, low-down miniature trick circulars strewn all over around Times Square, and will confess to having fallen for them a few times. As I recall, the city was trying to outlaw the practice through anti-litter laws and the department of sanitation...sure enough, an article ran in the NY Times in 1991 which coined the word "trashvertising" or "trash cash" and discussed efforts to ban them without violating any fugwad's "right to free speech."

Imagine my surprise (and disgust) to find they are still being produced. "Drop Cards" they are called and you will find purveyors on the web today. Slime.

"Drop-Card" miniature advertising leaflet, 1982 Collection Jim Linderman

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The Large, Light Airy Room Where Your Order Is Filled

Well, here are 30 Cincinnati jobs taken away by digital film. (Not to mention the fellas who worked in the dark, stuffy room where your orders were developed) We might also mention the folks who took your negatives to the post office, the folks who sold you stamps, the folks who filed your pictures by alphabet on their return to the shop (possibly sneaking a look at one or two of them) the check-out clerk you paid and on and on. When I see unemployment figures, I'm not so sure digital photography is such a good thing. When I see dwindling piles of the physical object to sort through at the flea market, I'm sure of it. (Univex film was popular around 1949, Bantam from the late 1930's to the late 1940's)

Photo Developing Inc. Advertising card c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman