Curious Bygone Days

Interesting items from the past

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Droll Stories, April, 1926

Cover by Ethel Plummer

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Percy Edward Anderson, Knapp-Felt Hats ad, 1929

Scanned from Taschen's "All-American Ads of the 20s".

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1930 Knapp-Felt Hats advertisement. Artist: Percy Edward Anderson

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Arbuckles' Ariosa Coffee trading card from the 1880s featuring Missouri.

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Do you see, You Mothers

Hmmm… that advertising slogan didn't age well.

Arbuckles' Ariosa Coffee was the go-to coffee in the Old West. In the 1880s, coffee was not a staple commodity. Having to be sold green, it had a short shelf life. It really didn't travel well.

Then two fellows came up with a method of coating the coffee beans with a glaze made from eggs and sugar, which made them last long enough to travel.

But they didn't stop there; they also added other incentives.

Every bag of Arbuikles' had a single peppermint candy, an "instructive, interesting, and Artistic Card," ie, a trading card, and on the back of the package, a coupon that could be clipped out, collected, and turned in for various items found in a catalog you could order from the company.

Gotta Have 'Em All!

"Dang! Cooky done saved up for a wedding ring, now alls he got to do is find a gal that will put up with his ugly butt." Said somewhere during a cattle drive in 1889.

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From the Aviation Book by Haywood Leslie Davis, 1918

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From the Aviation Book by Haywood Leslie Davis, 1918

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From the Aviation Book by Haywood Leslie Davis, 1918

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From the Aviation Book by Haywood Leslie Davis, 1918

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Simplicissimus a German weekly satirical magazine published from 1896 to 1944, then returned from 1955 to 1967

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Simplicissimus, a German weekly satirical magazine published from 1896 to 1944, then returned from 1955 to 1967.

Cover art by Thomas Theodor Heine

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Simplicissimus, a German weekly satirical magazine published from 1896 to 1944, then returned from 1955 to 1967

Simplicissimus, 1915, The Neutral America

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The Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum published in 1904. illustrated by John R. Neill.

The Gump, or life is like a box of... what the hell is that!!!

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The Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum published in 1904. illustrated by John R. Neill.

You know, I suspect that John R. Neill was just drawing what he wanted to, and not what Baum was writing there.

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Glinda the Good from The Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, published in 1904. illustrated by John R. Neill.

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The Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum published in 1904. illustrated by John R. Neill.