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June 12, 2010 5:50 AM

Remember that old car advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post...?

Sometime back in the 1950s the Saturday Evening Post -- at least, I am reasonably sure it was the Post -- ran a double-truck (two-page) ad for autos... might have been tires, I guess... It consisted of twenty or thirty small pictures of autos, all the same size, arranged in rows and columns. They were in color. When I was a kid I used to love to look at this ad. It ran numerous times.

While designing a web site for a local auto repair outfit it occurred to me that that old ad might make a halfway decent background, with its opacity dropped down to 7% or so.

But I can't find it anywhere on the intertubes and haven't got access to any old Posts. Can anyone help me out? The Post's website doesn't seem to have any advertising archives.

posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

I see you're in Doylestown. I recommend visiting Princeton's Firestone Library. The catalog lists several holdings for the Saturday Evening Post, and Princeton is pretty generous about allowing visitors access not only to the stacks but also to its electronic resources. You could save the image to a flash drive once you found it. It shouldn't take too long to browse through issues from the 1950s since you know exactly what you're looking for.

Penn also grants visitors access to the main library, but I don't believe as a visitor you can access the electronic databases.

Bucks County and Montgomery County Community Colleges might have electronic access to these issues, but I kind of doubt it. You could call them and ask.

Why not call the Firestone reference desk? The main number is 609.258.1470. The librarians are very helpful. I think Princeton is your best bet.
posted by vincele at 8:23 AM on June 12, 2010

If you can narrow down the time frame at all I'd be happy to browse some back issues.
posted by carsonb at 8:44 AM on June 12, 2010

Err, I mean I'll look either way, but it would help if you could give a lesser span of years or something.
posted by carsonb at 8:45 AM on June 12, 2010

I'll check the reference desk, vincele -- thanks. Good idea. Princeton isn't far from here, maybe half an hour.

carsonb, I can't be sure of the dates... I haven't seen the ad in a good fifty years, as far as I can recall. Of course I'd know it is I saw it... I suppose it would have been around 1957, but I couldn't pinpoint it any closer than that.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:25 AM on June 12, 2010

'57 was a good guess. I found the ad (for Goodyear tires) in the first 20 pages or so of the January issue. Got some decent scans, just need a few minutes to upload them.... later today.
posted by carsonb at 1:58 PM on June 14, 2010

page 1
page 2

My photo editing options at work are MS Paint, and it doesn't like me. These are compressed JPEGs; if you want I think I can email you the uncompressed TIFFs. Sorry they're not great scans, the issues were hardbound and I had some trouble seeing into the crack.
posted by carsonb at 4:57 PM on June 14, 2010

Ok, and hastily pasted together: Goodyear 1957

I'm pretty sure I can get a better scan of page 2... try again tomorrow.
posted by carsonb at 11:19 PM on June 14, 2010

Wow! That's it! Damn, this place is amazing. Thank you so much!
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 3:19 PM on June 15, 2010

I'd love to have the TIFFs... I can fix 'em in Photoshop.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 3:20 PM on June 15, 2010