Generally, my interactions with ebay sellers have been excellent. But, of course, it was only a matter of time before I received some damaged goods.
Recently, I got a good price on three Willys-Overland Progressive Farmer Magazine Ads from the late 1940s off of eBay. However, the packaging was less than stellar; in fact, it was so poor that the package arrived like this:
Inside, each of the ads was torn in the same spot, meaning the USPS was a little too rough with the package (though I do think the seller’s poor packaging is really the primary issue).
Worse, the ads were wrapped in cellophane, without any kind of backing, making them difficult to remove without tearing the pages worse:
The good news is that upon being notified the seller refunded my money in its entirety and let me keep the fairly worthless ads. Still, I can eventually scan them and repair them in photoshop, some day.
And now for the Ads: This ad does not have a date on it, but given the “J” logo, I’d say it was December of 1945 or January of 1946, page 11:
This next one is from July of 1946, page 19:
This one is from May of 1947, page 49 (it also appeared in the May 1947 issue of the Country Gentleman Magazine):
And, this one, off of eBay, was published in the Progressive Farmer in September of 1950.
I will expand on the Progressive Farmer ads as I find more of them. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any kind of archive for old PF issues.
Dave
Some people just don’t care about the way things are packaged or the way they are handled anymore.Just as along they make a sale.
Very poor business.
Dave,
I have a couple of these ads, including the “Lower Expenses” one from Country Gentleman –
https://www.farmjeep.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/lower-expenses-ad.jpg
I use laminated copies as part of my Farm Jeep display at shows. My wife pointed out the women driving the Jeep pulling the baler is wearing a dress and female visitors always enjoy seeing it.
Sorry about the bad experience. These are great early ads and deserve to be preserved.
Barry,
It was a little disappointing to see these ads damaged as a result of poor packaging, but it’s not the end of the world. It was nice that they became free-to-me ads though. It turns out I already had one anyway.
Purchasing something I already have is becoming more of a problem: It’s easy to forgot what I own, so now I have extras of a few different items. But the, I can also see differences (such as the May 1947 ad above, which contains an extra banner on bottom of the Progressive Farmer ad (the “See the Universal ‘Jeep’ banner …. ) that’s NOT on the Country Gentleman ad of the same month/year).
FYI: I’ve got about 30 of these large magazine sized ads (from 1942-1950), so I went in search of a way to keep them in safe and in good condition (most of my brochures are in one of 13 standard 3 ring binders with plastic sleeves) … I found this 13×19 art portfolio that does a good job: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016ML7YE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I’ve been trying to get the newspaper delivered for the last 4 weeks. Driver can’t seem to remember to put newspaper in newspaper box by mail box. It’s hard to find anybody to do anything.
Bob, you still get a newspaper delivered? I didn’t know that was still around. Just goes to show you, for most people, (Not Me) reading is not valued.