Using newspapers.com to find antique car ads. Has it been done already?

[Billy Kingsley]

My brother has an account on newspapers.com and just for the heck of it I decided to have him do a search for the Octoauto. After finding several original sales listings by the company, I decided to focus on finding cars from my home state of New York. Many of the early cars made in my state I've never even seen a photo of, let alone an actual car, and since many are from the first decade of the 20th century, I probably never will. 

 

It's fun and in 20 minutes I've already had some success. Has anyone already compiled these somewhere? While it's fun, like I said, it's time consuming, and I don't need to reinvent the wheel...if someone has done the work already I don't need to do it again. My knowledge of antique cars is also somewhat limited and I'm sure people with more knowledge than I have would know other keywords to find things that I am unaware of. 

 

Here's one of my first successes, from an issue of the New York Daily Tribune newspaper from 1903.

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Billy Kingsley
Incorrectly attributed newspaper source. (see edit history)

[AL1630]

My library has a similar service, I love looking in there to find old ads, especially for cars. Of course, there's never been much of an auto industry around here so all the ads are for cars produced in the East, but it's still cool. I'll go track down a couple .

 

If nobody has a compilation of such ads, I propose that this thread become the "Newspaper Auto Ads" thread, and we can work together to make one!

[PFindlay]

There is a large collection of them here:

 

http://www.hifi-archiv.info/Auto-Werbung/

 

Otherwise, maybe you need to ask about ads for a specific brand or, as you say, from a certain state.  I've done a lot of research on Russell cars (Canadian, 1905 - 1916) and have posted probably all of their newspaper ads along with period photos, on my website:

http://antique.vccc.com/Russell.

 

Peter

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by PFindlay
added photo (see edit history)

[alsancle]

Billy,

 

I know a few researchers,  and they all have accounts on newspapers.com,  newspaperarchive.com  and the one in England, at least.

 

Yes,  great resource.   And you have spilled the beans on one of the ways I try to look smart.

 

A.J.

Edited June 7, 2021 by alsancle (see edit history)

[Trulyvintage]

Cool Beans 😎

 

 

Jim

[Walt G]

Someplace on here I mentioned that during the annual automobile shows in major cities, separate sections were printed about those shows . In these sections some had more then 20 pages on a larger format . This was done pre WWII era and the earliest I have seen was 1933-34 era. In areas with heavy population it was a great way to promote the auto show, and local dealerships would take advertising in them to note the new model/series they were selling. The stories about special bodied cars that would appear on a stand at that show written by the particular papers staff with photographs supplied by the automobile companies. Everyone read printed newspapers the as a major daily form of communication for news ( all prior to computers, internet, TV etc)

The best part is that the addresses of all the local dealers were listed and one can now go on line to see if the building is still standing. Many of the ads featured line drawings of the cars ( it was easier to work into the newspaper supplement, getting photos to print took more effort and time.)

Most of these special sections of newsprint were disposed of once read, few automotive sections were saved for any reason as the cars would be out of date with new models.  Just like automotive sales brochures - but those were saved more often due to the fact they were "pretty" printed in color , newsprint deteriorates so much more rapidly due to the acid content tin the paper, is affected by sunlight more etc.

[Billy Kingsley]

Good comments, thank you.

 

Walt, I was hoping you'd chime in. As usual you bring knowledge I wasn't aware of. I have not found any of those 30s sections yet as I've been searching mostly 1900-1910, but I did find a full page ad from the 1906 New York Auto Show. I'll post it when I get back to my computer. 

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong but the Russell car was made by the same company that supplies all the hockey equipment to so much of the sport today isn't it? I know CCM gets it's name from automotive production.

 

I've never actually seen a Baker electric in person...yet I've got several memorabilia pieces in my collection. Hopefully some day. Anything pre 1930s is rare for me.