Wednesday, May 12, 2010

A Good Nights Sleep

More from the vintage Montgomery Ward's catalog, this time a selection of camping furniture.



This is intended for filler in prop documents, but I also like its utility as a historical resource. None of the gear would look out of place today, and in some cases the vintage stuff is superior in strength and durability.

6 comments:

Jo Asakura said...

I love vintage/old catalogs. I have a couple of ones from the early 1950s that I found in my parents attic when I cleaned house.

do you have a whole catalog physically or are there scans somewhere? I would LOVE to see the rest of this.

Propnomicon said...

@ Jo Asakura

I have the whole 1922 edition of the Montgomery Ward mail order catalog. I'll be posting scans of the gear that would be of interest to "Call of Cthulhu" and pulp RPG players as I work my way through the book. Once I'm done with that I was planning on repurposing some of the illustrations for faux vintage ads.

In case you didn't know, there are a number of vendors on Ebay that offer high resolution scans of vintage catalogs on CD.

Jo Asakura said...

i would love to see if there's any patent medicine ads in this :D

Charles said...

If you like traveling in more style check out this antique dealer who specializes in Victorian military campaign furniture and accoutrements. Things like folding beds and tables, traveling desks. Perfect for a well-financed safari
http://www.campaignfurniture.com/default.asp

Propnomicon said...

@ Charles

Oh, for the day I win the lottery. That campaign furniture is insanely gorgeous.

Charles said...

Yeah, same here. A couple months ago I also ran across a website where someone was recreating some of the collapsing chairs, but way beyond my budget... There's also a book "British Campaign Furniture: Elegance under Canvas, 1740-1914" that might be of interest. It's expensive so look for it through an inter-library loan