Christmas Season 2014 Post #2 - Classic Christmas Music and Advertising.....

During the Christmas season, HR&J enjoys and publishes a nostalgic look at this festive time of the year and takes a little detour from the "mostly car and local history" information that you usually see here.  You may see a vintage car or two however.  We hope you enjoy it.

The following are a few vintage pop Christmas sheet music covers...ones I'm sure you'll all remember.  When I was a kid taking music lessons, these were my favourite pieces to play over the holiday season.  I would purchase them from my music teacher or from Heintzman's Music store on the corner of Syndicate and Victoria Ave. (long gone now) or from Coran's music store further west on Victoria Ave.  The top three I still have today.

CLICK ON ALL PICTURES TO ENLARGE

Click on Jimmy Boyd below to hear "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"

Then click on Bob Hope below to hear "Silver Bells" from "The Lemon Drop Kid"

These next two images are from a 1954 Esso brochure (thanks to Dave Howarth).  Many Esso retailers would have the identical brochure and put their stamp or print on them.  This one shows Esso Triangle Service which was on the corner of Fort William Road and Memorial Ave back then. The photo scans show the front cover in and out, the music pages then the back cover in and out.

The rest of the photos are mostly magazine advertisements from the earlier part of the 20th Century which I hope will tweak a memory.  My grandmother had a Victrola something like the one in the following advertisement....I wonder where it went.  They are both advertising the record players for Christmas........

You could not talk about Christmas advertising and not have at least one of Sundblom's Coca Cola Santa ads........this very colourful example was printed in numerous magazines through the years.

If you were in the money back in 1928, you may by your wife a new Silver Anniversary Buick, as THE Gift for the Christmas season.

...or if you weren't well off, you may purchase your wife or child a pair of Barney & Berry skates for Christmas.

If your great-grandfather purchased a RAY Camera back in the early 1900's into the 1920's, you would have one of the rarest cameras in your possession.  This particular ad shows that Fryer Studio sold these at one time.  This camera is worth hundreds of dollars today.

The next ad shows the late President Ronald Reagan advertising Chesterfield Cigarettes during his acting days.  Mr. Reagan actually had Alzheimer's disease and died from Pneumonia, not from lung cancer as some people think.

The 7UP bottling company always had some of the most colourful magazine advertisements, and this next one is no exception....with the famous green bottle, the swimmer/diver on the side and a total of 7 bubbles on either side of the 7up logo.

To the right is a very interesting health insurance ad saying that you could have an "easy mind" and spend more at Christmas knowing that you have insurance....

Last but not least is a tongue in cheek ad saying that after you make every one else happy at Christmas, you need to make yourself happy and purchase a new Colt Revolver.....WOULD YOU???...well maybe...the world is getting rough out there, but leave it 'til after Christmas, and don't put one under the tree.....

Thanks for checking out Hot Rods and Jalopies.....watch for more Christmas posts soon!!

Christmas Season 2014 Post #1....supporting Tuberculosis through the Christmas Seal Campaign in Canada from 1903....

The upcoming Christmas Season brings a different twist to the Hot Rods and Jalopies blog pages....we get nostalgic, don't you??  FIGHTING TUBERCULOSIS WITH CHRISTMAS SEALS from 1903....

.....At the beginning of the 1900's tuberculosis was a greatly feared disease, and its harmful effects on children seemed particularly cruel.  In 1903 Einar Holbell, a Danish postal clerk developed the idea of adding an extra charitable stamp to mailed holiday greetings during Christmas.....the money being raised could help children sick with tuberculosis.  By 1904 the world's first Christmas seal was issued with over 4 million sold in the first year in Danish Currency 0.02 per seal.

The campaign then spread throughout the Scandinavian Countries and into Europe and continues to be popular today.
.......and in 1908, the campaign had reached other countries including Canada.  Interested people in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario began Christmas Seal campaigns to build and support sanatoriums, as tuberculosis hospitals were called back then.

 The Toronto Globe came promptly to their aid and in early December, began running daily stories on the front page giving news of the campaign.  The column was bordered by holly so that readers could easily spot it.
The above stamps are not from my own collection but the ones in the three next groups are.  My mother saved some of the stamps from her teen years and into the war years after she was married and my father was in the service.  Be sure to click on all groups and individual prints to enlarge them to screen size.

Click on above group to enlarge

Click on above group to enlarge

One story in the Toronto Globe told how the children of 58 Toronto schools had sold 10,000 Christmas seals.  Another issue announced that out of Regina, Saskatchewan another paper, the Regina Leader had written to say its staff would sell the seals and send the money back to the sanatorium being built in the Muskoka region of Southern Ontario.

This next group from 1953 to 1961 was an Internet find.

From Saint John, New Brunswick, the Rev. G. A. Moore wrote to say that he and other volunteers would sell 6,500 and send the money to Toronto for the Sanatorium.

The two very colourful advertising posters above are from the early part of the 20th century and the one below from 1952 give a serious reason to buy and use Christmas Seals.

Continuing with the story from above - That first year, the Toronto campaign brought in $6,114.25 and Hamilton citizens gave $1,244.40 during hard times.  Year by year other cities across Canada tried the Christmas Seal campaign as a means not only of raising money but of creating the awareness that tuberculosis could be controlled.

Finally, in 1927, it was agreed that the Christmas Seal Campaign was to be the official method for tuberculosis associations to appeal to the public for funds.  A national seal was established.

There were many creative means used to advertise the purchase and use of Christmas Seals such as these milk bottle caps from the 1940's.

......and also these milk bottle neck rings.

Christmas Seal campaigns have played an important role in public health.  At first the money raised was used for the new and badly needed sanatoriums.  When these were established, Christmas Seal funds were used for TB prevention.  The seals have paid for millions of Canadians to have chest X-rays of tuberculin tests.  As a result, thousands of TB cases were discovered before the disease had spread to others.

On a sad note - Hopes that the disease could be completely eliminated were dashed in the 1980's with the rise of drug-resistant strains.  TB cases in Britain, numbering around 117,000 in 1913, had fallen to around 5,000 in 1987, but cases rose again reaching 6,300 in 2000 and 7,600 cases in 2005.  Due to the elimination of public health facilities in New York and the emergence of HIV, there was a resurgence of TB in the late 1980's.  New York had to cope with more than 20,000 TB patients with multidrug-resistant strains.

In response to this resurgence, the World Health Organization issued a declaration of a global health emergency in 1993....every year nearly half a million new cases of multidrug-resistant TB are estimated to occur worldwide.....

Consequently...continued support is needed.

Here is a typical advertisement by movie and television stars supporting the purchase and use of Christmas Seals.  

..........The Lone Ranger and Tonto.

.......and finally....did you know...................

Thank you for watching and supporting Hot Rods and Jalopies.  Look for more Christmas Season posts soon.

ARE YOU READY?....the "REAL" WINTER is on its way...prepare your wheels for freeze-up....

This is a little deviation on what we normally do on Hot Rods and Jalopies.  I was always fascinated by vintage advertising and have quite a collection of it on my own PC.
There are literally hundreds of brands of Anti-freeze to keep the coolant in your car from freezing in the winter months including all the major oil company brands.  The most well known is likely "Prestone"....I will cover a few others as well as some obscure ones here...... so without further adieu HR&J presents "Anti-Freeze".
If you're nervous driving around highways and freeways in the Winter months today in your modern automobile....just imagine what it would be like back in the 1920's and 1930's when many of the cars on the road didn't even have an interior heater, or even side window glass or snow tires.

Love the '32 Ford Coupe with the cardboard over the radiator to warm things up a little!...CLICK ON ME TWICE!

The Ghost of Winter Freeze-up!!

"Prestone" is a brand of Anti-freeze  originally made by Union Carbide.  Several varieties of Anti-freeze are sold under the Prestone name, in addition to radiator additives, such as stop leaks.  The Prestone name is also used for other automotive chemicals including windshield washer fluid, lock de-icer and gas line antifreeze.

Check out this wonderful billboard "Prestone" advertisement from the 1930's in Vancouver, B.C.

....Click on all ads and photos to enlarge.

1930's Billboard ad from Vancouver, B.C.

War-time Prestone Advertisement!

1930's Prestone Magazine Advertisement!

These are great old winter photos.....Here's a 1938 Buick ploughed in while the family was watching a movie back in Boston in 1940.....hope he installed his "PRESTONE".

Here's one more "Prestone" magazine advertisement from the early 1950's.  The art work was incredible and the price was reasonable.

SUPER PYRO anti=freeze was made by U.S. Industrial Chemical company in the 1930s and claimed that for only $2.00 you could protect your car from freeze-up for the whole winter long.  Click-on to enlarge.

The Aflac looking duck was used by the Zerex company way before the insurance company....as seen here.  

Zerex was manufactured by DuPont Chemicals.  They claimed back in the 1970's that if you punctured a can of Zerex anti freeze that it would seal itself (do you remember the TV commercials and claims?).  DuPont pulled the ads because of court cases due to a variety of false advertisements, and not just for anti-freeze.

A 1940 magazine advertisement for "Trek" anti-freeze.  Trek was manufactured by the National Carbon Co. Inc. from New York.  This ad appeared in a Canadian publication called Liberty Magazine.  Again, the graphic art is wonderful with the 1939/40 car shown.  The price was only $1.00/gallon or .25 cents a quart.

 "Thermo" anti-freeze here was manufactured by an odd named company called "Publicker Commercial Alcohol Co." in Philadelphia, and was also sold for only $1.00/gallon.  Commercial oil companies like Texaco here and many others had their own brand names.  This Texaco one was called "Texaco PT" which only stood for "permanent type".

Another brand name was "Hot-Shot"....produced by "Gooderham and Worts Limited" in Toronto and Montreal, Ontario Canada.

Another post snow storm winter shot taken somewhere in North America in 1922.  The first car has some side curtains but note that the second car is totally full of snow...and we complain today....LOL!

This final photo shows a bulk drum of Anti-freeze sold by the Fort Motor Company in its day for .25 cents/quart.

Hope you enjoyed our beginning of winter post on Hotrods and Jalopies.  As of this date, Hotrods and Jalopies has had over 206 thousand hits......Please keep coming back for more!!