Friday, June 6, 2008

Great source for vintage fountain pen advertising


Yesterday I was doing some background research for a project at work - looking at the development of a few consumer brands during the last century. In doing so, I stumbled across an amazing resource, The Times Online Archive. If you are not already aware it seems that the Times has scanned in and digitised every single issue from 1785 to 1985 - 200 years worth of newspapers. They've obviously had some very clever opticial character recognition software which means the whole content is searchable too.

I did a search on "Parker 51", as you do, and was presented with an overwhelming number of results for the 1940s and 1950s. Clicking on one of the links takes you to a scan of the relevant page of the Times, allowing you to pan in zoom around. Instantly, I had access to look at some wonderful original adverts, like the Margaret Lockwood advert below from 1956.



Have a look and do a few searches. You need to register, but its very worthwhile. I think I may be busy for a while!

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