Aurora Rolls Out The A/FX

The model car parking garage got Vince and I talking about diecast and slotcar scales. Naturally, the topic of A/FX came up, and I had to go look for an old ad.

I came across this one in the July-August '71 issue of Jack Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown - I think it was a reprint issue. 

It's full-page and it seems to leap off the page. I didn't own an A/FX slot car set, but this ad does a great sales job.

June 1974 and June 2012

[That's June 1974 on the left, and June 2012 on the right.]

A couple of days ago I was chatting on the phone with my friend vp. He told me he had a photo in the June Model Railroader Trackside Photos section (page 77), so I picked up a copy on my way out of town.

[Here's the centre-fold of each issue. That's a J. Harold Geissel drawing in the June '74 issue on the left.]

I had picked up some issues of Model Railroader from 1972 a few weeks ago and I'm still thinking about those old issues. The oldest June issue I have in my collection is June 1974. From the covers, you can see the difference in styles between then and now. The '74 issue has that strong '70s image orientation, and the 2012 has lots of textual call-outs. Although, it's interesting that both cover designs use the diagonal as the organizing element.

40 years ago in May 1972

I picked up four issues of Model Railroader from 1972 on the weekend. The January issue contained E. L. Moore’s Dollar Model article on how to build his Carolina Foundry, so I was happy with that find. The cover of the May issue was one of those that didn’t have any text on it telling the potential purchaser about what was inside. The image isn’t as visually striking as that on the October ’73 cover, but I’m always impressed by the calmness – and confidence - of these advertising free covers.

The inside back cover has this fun Atlas ad. I’m a sucker for these kinds of drawings.

Vintage Marklin Club

A very dynamic Marklin ad from the November 1985 issue of Model Railroader. It's built on the diagonal much like the Bachmann ad.

Vintage Bachmann Trains Ad

I’ve been thumbing through old issues of Model Railroader magazine just looking for interesting things. I came across this super-graphics style ad for Bachmann locomotives in the May 1980 issue. It reminded me of this AFX ad. Both are cool, but I suspect as far as persuasiveness goes, this style may be better suited to slot-cars than locomotives.