1948 Plexiglas-Coke ad

I worked 35 years for the Rohm and Haas Company until they were bought by Dow Chemical in in 2009. Among other things, R&H invented Plexiglas and I had some involvement with various Plexiglas products during my career. There is a surprising amount of Rohm and Haas memorabilia on eBay and I do a search every now and then. What I especially like are Plexiglas ads. These generally fall into two categories. During World War II, Plexiglas was used for warplane canopies and you see a lot of ads featuring fighters and bombers proudly wearing their Plexiglas canopies. After the war, Rohm and Haas was successful in moving Plexiglas into architecture (like skylights) and into signage. Most of the 1950s and later ads appear in architectural and advertising magazines.

This ad is a particularly nice one in that it's an advertisement type ad, from the 1940s. And it appeared in the October 25, 1948 issue of Time Magazine.

It also features the Coca-Cola logo which is very collectable. And since it's in Time Magazine, the back of the page has some interest as well.

There is a little piece about Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.  According to Wikipedia, Shostakovich had been denounced by the Communist government in February 1948 for the sin of "formalism". The second sentence of the article makes a little more sense when you know this.

The page also features an ad for Smith-Corona typewriters that says about as much as one can say about changes in attitudes toward working women and changes in technology as one could say in a 3/4 page advertisement.

Vintage Rohm and Haas Magazine Ads

Many people collect vintage magazine ads. I don't but I worked for 35 years for the company featured in these ads. Rohm and Haas Company was a large chemical company with a 100-year history when it was bought by Dow Chemical in 2009. Although it was a pretty big company, most people did not know if it, unless you lived in it's headquarter city of Philadelphia. The company mainly sold to other industrial companies, not directly to the consumer market. One R&H product you probably know is Plexiglas.

This ad is from the January 1955 edition of "Chain Store Age". Rohm and Haas had invented the plastic it named Plexiglas in the 1930s. The company got a big boost during the Second World War when Plexiglas was the material of choice for aircraft windows. After the war, Plexiglas found a big market in outdoor signage, as the ad above illustrates. Plexiglas would find a lot of other architectural uses such as lighting and skylights.

The above ad is from the October 1959 edition of "Architectural Record". The next ad is from the May 1965 edition of the same magazine.

There is a surprising amount of Rohm and Haas memorabilia available on eBay and I've bought a number of pieces over the years. I've been looking more actively for ads recently and over the next few months I'll feature what I've found.

"Killer" ad

In 1971, Killer was just past his prime, although he still led the AL in rbis with 119. He also appeared in this advertisement for a new product from the Rohm and Haas Company, Plexiglas 70. I worked as a chemical engineer for Rohm and Haas from 1974 until 2009 (when the company was bought by Dow Chemical). I worked in research from 1974 until 1990 and for part of that time worked on developing new Plexiglas products. So I love this ad which combines my love of baseball with the company for which I worked for so long.This ad appeared in the December 1971 issue of Architectural Record. You've probably seen Plexiglas (and it is properly spelled with only one 's') in hardware stores but you probably didn't see the Rohm and Haas name. The company mostly sold directly to construction firms or to the retail market through distributors.

In the 1980's, Rohm and Haas had a series of similar ads featuring the Phillies Mike Schmidt. Schmidt was a natural fit since R&H was head-quarted in Philadelphia. These ads featured Mike shattering his bat on a sheet of another R&H product called Tuffak. Tuffak was made of a different material called polycarbonate. This sheet was much stronger than Plexiglas. I remember seeing the ads and wish I still had a copy. The story in the company was that no matter how hard he tried, Schmidt could not get a bat to break. He couldn't get the Tuffak to break either. So they sawed partially through the bat which promptly shattered on the plastic sheet. You could clearly see that the bat had been partially cut. As part of this ad campaign they commissioned, I think, Dick Perez, to paint a picture of Schmidt swing the bat at the sheet. I used to have a copy of this and I'm sure it is in my house somewhere but haven't seen it in years.

Quick Magazine

I have a small collection of "pocket magazines" which I got from my Dad. These magazines measure 5" by 4" and run about 70 pages. They feature news stories, sports, celebrity news, and lots of photos. Some of them are really "pin-up" mags with titles like "He", "Show" and "Tempo". One is called "People Today" and is very much like the current "People" magazine with celebrity news and gossip. I wasn't able to find anything in searching the Internet on these. The issues I have run from 1951 to 1961.

"Quick" was more focused on news stories. It was published by the same company which published "Look" magazine. "Look" was a large format magazine which competed with "Life" magazine. I can remember both being around my house in the 1960's and 1970's.

This issue was probably on the newsstands the week after I was born. It was an election year and I'm guessing by the coverage in this issue and several others that "Quick" favored Ike.The lead article was "Is it Sensible to Live On A Budget?". The answer in the first line of the article was no. But then the article went on to tell you how to set up a budget.

I suspect that this issue, if it was in a little better shape, might be worth some money due to the cover and the article about her inside.
This was very early in her career. "Can you live to be 100?". The article concludes that by the year 2000, many people would be living past 100. I'm not quite sure that's true.
The ads are fun to read. This was when big American iron was king. Look at this car. It looks like 6 people could sit in the front seat. 140 HP! "Red Ram V-8 Engine"! Makes me salivate.
I have no idea what this stuff was. All I could find on the Internet was people selling other Corn Soya ads. Apparently it was good for you.
Rich in dextrose! In the '50s, sugar was good for you.
Some baseball news. Click on the picture so you can read the story about the end of the 1951 baseball season. It took me a few seconds to realize why the manager of the Dodgers was wearing a cap with a "B" on it.
Something you don't see in magazines today, cigarette ads. The point of this ad seems to be that cigarettes are pretty nasty, but Old Golds aren't too bad.
Another thing you don't see in magazines, an ad for trains. My Dad, for a time in the 1940s, worked for the main competitor of Pullman, Budd Co. Does Boeing run adds suggesting that you fly more often?