http://www.trfindley.com/fltrainads/19580184.html
I read that Mr. Varney wrote his own ads.
Blatant, blatant, blatant: http://www.trfindley.com/fltrainads/19580183.html
ASTRAC:
http://www.trfindley.com/fltrainads/19630714.html
http://www.trfindley.com/fltrainads/19630715.html
Grab 'em and growl: http://www.trfindley.com/fltrainads/19630900.html
The average model railroad was 6 X 10 feet in 1963. Akane had a 4 or 5 year supply of the big ones.
As I recall, that Fleischmann ad is one of the ones that got Model Railroader magazine temporarily band from delivery in Canada, classifying it as a publication containing pornographic material, back in the late 1950’s!!!
CNJ831
Seems that you are getting a good sized collection going there. [:)]
Yep. Interesting times then----
CNJ: Ontario may have been the province that set that one up. We had a film censor board that was just a little over the top sometimes----[:-^]
What a trip down memory lane, particularly those Americas Hobby Center ads! I would pour over those in each issue of MR. Some years ago I was able to purchase some 1964 and 1965 issues to replace those of my own where I had neatly cut out the order form at the bottom of the ad. Yes who can forget the “spur deal” or the time four Revell yard buildings (two towers a shanty and a water tank) sold for 99 cents! … Actually, figure out a cost ratio then-to-now and you can see that those $99 brass articulateds, which seem so cheap to us, were pretty much in line with the plastic and die cast prices in the AHC advertisements.
As to the leggy lady in the Fleischmann ad – easily explained: Fleischmann was known for its large … flanges. I never heard the story about MR being banned in Canada – certainly this particular lovely appears to have done her duty by consuming plenty of good Canadian maple syrup on her pancakes – but there was another Flesichmann ad about that same time which featured, even more provocatively posed, Blaze Starr – a famous/infamous, and famously voluptuous, um, ecdysiast. That was a far more bann-able ad than this one. Perhaps the Germans who ran the company never heard of her. Fast forward into the early 1970s and Plastruct ads featured a young woman in a two piece bathing suit. What the connection with ABS plastic was, I never knew.
Thanks for linking us to these wonderful old advertisements. Let’s drink gin and eat red meat!
Dave Nelson
Well you can´t deny that Canadians have British influence, I recall one time when the British Customs impounded and destroyed a shipment of books titled “Rape on our coastlines”, it was about erosion…[:D]
http://www.trfindley.com/fltrainads/19580184.html
I read that Mr. Varney wrote his own ads.
Just to put things in perspective, that Varney Berk plus the Vanderbilt tender cost the equivalent of $419 in today’s dollars. No sound, no DCC. BLI is starting to look awfully reasonable.
What’s interesting is that the GN S1 from 1961 is a couple of dollars cheaper than the Varney Berk kit (when you throw in the Varney tender, which is a separate item). No wonder Varney quit the biz. They couldn’t compete with Japanese RTR brass on either price OR prototype fidelity.
And people wonder why I double up in hysterical laughter when the complaints start flying about the cost of the hobby.
Andre
I love these old ads too for the memories they bring - sitting with a fresh copy of MR and just lusting longing for those brass locos and other items (first word choice not good given that Fleischmann ad!). When I was a kid, I knew someday I’d have some real money and could buy that 60 dollar brass loco!
I agree with the post from Andre about the effects of inflation. When you push some of the prices from 50 years ago into an inflation calculator, today’s prices do look pretty good. This is a good time to be in the hobby - even though it doesn’t seem that way at times.
George V.
And you managed not to be on that “Soapbox” thread?[:D]
Another inflation calc site I was on had that Varney Berk calc’d out to $410 ---- [:-^]
Oh, I was on that thread.
Given that that $410 is pretty close to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, I would say that both sites were in agreement. Of course, I used the Vanderbilt tender ($9.00) rather than the rectangular tender ($8.00) in my calculation. That would account most of the difference since $1 difference in 1958 is almost $7.50 today.
Bachmann (Spectrum) sells the same style of tender as the Vanderbilt with an MSRP of $48. Inflation adjusting the Varney Vanderbilt tender gets you almost $67.
Andre
I was thinking exactly the same thing. My father’s cousin Don Howard was known to pay pretty well for a good mechanic back in those days (Don Howard’s Farm Equipment). The highest paid person on his payrole made $100 a week (before taxes)… That was $5200 a year. Of course the guy had been working there for about 20 years and was never going to make more than that. My father did the math for the farm and found out he had to make $1200 gross a month on the farm to break even with his costs. He was grossing around $1050, ended up with a “Chatel Mortgage” on the farm. My mom owned her own business (Beauty shop) that she made about $2500 a year with. That was how we payed the bills. Ah yes, the good old days (that never were and are no more). No way we could have been in that expensive a ho
I was thinking exactly the same thing. My father’s cousin Don Howard was known to pay pretty well for a good mechanic back in those days (Don Howard’s Farm Equipment). The highest paid person on his payrole made $100 a week (before taxes)… That was $5200 a year.
Back in the late fifties, there was an insurance company ad (may have been The Wausau) that touted life insurance for the average Joe who was making $82.50/week at the time before taxes. That pretty much puts the cost of that Varney Berkshire (plus tender) in a different perspective. People tend to forget what wages and salaries were like back then.
I tend to giggle a bit when people talk about how horribly expensive the hobby is today as well!
You only giggle? You’ve got a lot more self control than I do.
Andre
There were no credit cards and such as well during that period. OK well maybe some sectors started working towards that but generally anything that looked like a loan was sort of frowned on in some circles. One worked with what they had and saving was much more important then. IIRC the saving rate was somewhere near 8.8% in the late '60’s. My father worked as a psychiatric nurse in a regional hospital up here and I can distinctly remember the bi weekly budget meetings at night between mom and him. We had the American Flyer sets up here----still have one too—
Expensive is pretty dependant on perception----
Some of us remember reading these adds for the first time in a newly published MR.
And what’s even better is that my old Akane Articulateds are still running like Swiss watches and pulling everything on the layout that isn’t either nailed or glued down, LOL!
Yup, not bad for Antiques. [:P]
Tom [:D]
Seeing the prices back in mid-fifties I can see why I didn’t get into the hobby, I had $20.00 a month left over at the end of payday and you guys were out buying brass engines and whatever, what kind of money did you make??? by the way growing up pre-50’s we rented a house, my Dad never owned a car, we never went on holidays, I got 25 cents a week allowance, so you can see how the priveledged lived,even though they won’t admit it. At Christmas I was the kid looking in the window of the hardware store at the Lionel ladderback switcher roaring around the track , hoping, hoping----- was never to be.
Ah Yes,The 50’s!!!When Ward;Ozzie and/or Jim Smoked a Pipe and Wore a White Shirt To Work Every Day and June;Harriet and/or Betty Met Them At The door With a Martini and His Slippers While Wearing a Nice Dress;Pearls and High Heels Asking Him"How Was Your Day Dear??".
And One Saturday a Month He Took Wally and The Beav To The Local Hobby Shop And Let Them Buy The Latest Lionel or American or Marx Train Car and/or Accessory With Their Carefully Saved Up Allowance!!!*
(*I never really watched Father Knows Best enough to know what Bud Anderson did with his Dad.Ozzie Nelson,on the other hand,was too busy trying to make a buck off Ricky and David!!).
Or at least that’s what they wanted us to beleive!!!
What some might forget is that in the 50´s the amount of money spent on shopping and other expenses was WAY less than it is today. I know that my father used to save money for his hobbies, and even though it was “expensive”, he never found it unsurmountable as he didn´t have 1000:s of other expenses. He said that he almost had more money over in the wallet back then than he had 50 years later…
I started reading MR back in 1969. Brass locos at that time were at a price level of about $ 100 or 400 Deutschmarks - out of reach for most of us. Today, a brass loco is 10 times as much in $ terms, but only 3,5 times in terms of Deutschmark (using the conversion rate to the Euro) - yet still out of reach. Incomes have certainly risen above the factor 10 in those 40 + years, but our spending habits have changed. We spend a lot more on clothing and eating than people did 40 years ago, also housing has become a lot more expensive. Despite the fact, that a lot of consumer goods actually have become cheaper (including our hobby), we have less spendable income, due to this change in spending habit.
I tell you, decades past women were presented much more sexy (as in leggy) than presently (and I’ll be polite and not describe how they’re presented now.). A favorite photo featuring 8 attractive young women is on page 93 of Southern Pacific Passenger Trains, Volume 2, Day Trains of the Coast Line. The Southern Pacific used it to publicize its new Daylight passenger service. The lady holding the last letter (“T”) was a substitute. SP shop foreman Bill Terwilliger had suggested that his daughter Thelma be the substitute. Foreman’s daughter was forever after nicknamed Thelma Thunder Thighs Terwilliger by the SP shop crew.
Mark