Let’s Check Out Some Cool Vintage Advertising Displays

I’ve added some new items to my collection, and I’m also selling a few things.

As many of you know, I love vintage advertising displays. I’ve recently come across some really good ones, two of which I’ve added to my collection, plus I’m selling a few others.

Let’s start with the die-cut cardboard standee shown above, promoting various wursts produced by the Chicago-based meatpacker Fuhrman & Forster. I’d say it’s probably from the 1940s. (F&F went out of business in 1955.)

I love sausages and also love the look of this display — the typography, the illustration, the little individual sausage labels, the garland of frankfurters. But it has also been educational! For example, look at the third item from the right — Dewey ham. I’d never heard of that before, so I Googled it and learned that it is made like so:

Mildly cured, fresh pork loins are boned, matched, and tied tightly together in three or four places. Sixteen- to 18-in. lengths are placed in beef casings, wrapped with loops of seine cord, then smoked and cooked.

Sure enough, that’s what we see in the illustration! (Side note: The United States has also had at least one citizen named Dewey Ham.)

But the real eye-catcher, of course, is the tongue sausage. This too was new to me, so I once again consulted the internet and learned that tongue sausage is a type of head cheese featuring slices of pickled beef tongue. Unlike Dewey ham, tongue sausage remains available from various purveyors today. Not really my kinda thing, but I quite enjoy the illustration of it on the Fuhrman & Forster display.

I try to put vintage items in the appropriate room of the house, and a sausage display obviously belongs in the kitchen, so that’s where I’ve put it:

That toaster will be the subject of an upcoming IC post.

A very nice addition!

Turning our attention from the kitchen to the bathroom, I also recently acquired this excellent toenail clipper display:

The hyphenation of “toe-nail” is interesting.

I was puzzled by the word chiropedic at the top of the display, which I’d never encountered before. But hey, I’d never encountered Dewey ham before either, so I went back to Google. It turns out that chiropedic isn’t a real word and is more of a marketing term associated with mattresses. But the bottom of the display uses the word chiropodist, which is a synonym for podiatrist (i.e., a foot doctor), so I suspect that the word at the top was supposed to be chiropodic rather than chiropedic. Or maybe they were just going for the mattress/nail-clipper crossover market.

Anyway: I love the Trim logo, the illustrations, the little toenail-clipping tutorial, and the gleaming row of clippers. It fits in nicely on one of my bathroom walls:

Meanwhile, here’s a display I spotted on eBay. It’s priced out of my range, but it’s too much fun not to share with you:

(Photo by eBay user sweetlouisevintage)

According to the eBay listing, “When plugged in, the hammer swings back and forth and strikes the cup.” Unfortunately, the listing didn’t include any video footage of this phenomenon, so I contacted the seller and asked if they could shoot a quick video. They happily obliged:

That’s pretty cool (although I think it would be even cooler if they had oriented the hammer with the head at the top, instead of the bottom). Like I said, this item is too pricey for me, plus the hammering noise would probably get really annoying after a short while, but if you want it, it’s available here.

And Speaking of Things That Are Available…

That nail clippers display that I recently added to my bathroom was actually part of a double display that was produced in an easel-style format, like this:

(Photo by eBay user Mi80Baby)

I didn’t need both sides of the display, so I cut the two halves apart at the top hinge. One half is now hanging in my bathroom; the other half, which is pretty much identical to the one on my bathroom wall, is now available for sale. I’ve listed it on eBay for $68.99, but I can offer a slight discount to Inconspicuous Consumption readers. So if you’re interested in having your own display of “chiropedic” clippers, shoot me a note and I’ll hook you up.

As it happens, I also have another vintage display of Trim nail clippers (long story). This one has a different design, like so:

I’ve listed this one on eBay for $37.99 — but again, I can offer a discount to IC readers. If you’re interested, get in touch and I’ll take care of you.

I currently have a few other items up on eBay. If you’re interested in any of them, let me know. Thanks!

Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. You can contact him here.