Some of the most amazingly intricate wood and metal art ever produced was for toys. To measure up to those amazing standards the catalog ads had to be of equal brilliance — and they were! There’s something truly brilliant about the intricate line-art and fascinating body copy from times gone by. Here are 10 awesome antique ads from the late 1800s – to early 1900s:

Toy Pistols

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That’s a bad motherf… shut yo’ mouth!

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Board Games

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Alphabet Blocks

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Bicycles

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Trains

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Toy Animals

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Five down from the top left – I proclaim thee “crack dog”.

Erector Sets

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Sounds like there’s a joke in here somewhere, but this is a classy website…

Christmas Stockings

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What’s your favorite catalog ad? Comment!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Advertising, Inspiration, Print Design, Retro, Typography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.