"Inventions Wanted" in November 1968 Popular Electronics

I still enjoy looking through classified advertisements in old magazines.¹ Physical media, so little of it digitized, remains a portal into the past and a valuable archive. For my first look at the November 1968 issue of Popular Electronics, I'm checking out some of the Inventions Wanted portion of the classified advertisements at the back of the magazine.² 

• The Wall Street Invention Brokerage, which claimed "10 years proven performances," offered to develop and help sell ideas and inventions, patented or unpatented. "Our national manufacturer clients are urgently seeking new items for outright cash sale or royalties."
• Pioneer Invention Service, located on Broadway in New York City, offered inventors "free expert analysis" and, whoa, a "free invention certificate," whatever that means. Everything was "strictly confidential."
• Voron Electronics, located on East Mermaid Lane in Philadelphia, was seeking electronic or electrical inventions. The George Voron Company was, among other things, involved with "piped-in music," according to this article on Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia.
• Gilbert Adams, Invention Broker, of New York City urged inventors to "sell your invention for cash or royalties! Our client manufacturers eagerly seek new items. ... Financial assistance if needed. 25 years proven performances."

The Federal Trade Commission (which has been targeted this year by the Trump administration) has worked over the decades to protect inventors from those who might use deceptive or unfair practices to acquire their work and ideas. A 1980 synopsis of FTC decisions over the years states, "It is an unfair or deceptive act or practice for a seller of idea or invention promotion or development services to misrepresent, directly or indirectly, that potential purchasers will be provided with evaluations or appraisals of the patentability, merit or marketability of ideas or inventions."

In 1997, the FTC set up Project Mousetrap, which was aimed at identifying, prosecuting and fining firms that engaged in fraudulent or deceptive practices aimed at inventors. In a news release, 

"It is a fact that less than one percent of all new product concepts succeed in the marketplace," Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, stated that year. "Yet the fraudulent firms in this industry conclude, after a 'professional' evaluation, that virtually every new idea or product crossing their desks is patentable and has 'tremendous market potential.' They promise enthusiastic inventors that they can provide professional assistance in getting a patent and securing licensing and manufacturing agreements with manufacturers. Time after time, however, these firms lie to consumers about the sincerity of their belief in an idea and its marketability. Mark Twain once said that the name of the greatest inventor is accident. But it is no accident that these firms profit while the dreams of their customers die. That is their plan, and up to now, they have been very successful in perpetrating that plan. Virtually no consumers have even made back their investment, let alone any profit, from these companies' services."

We should be very thankful for the FTC.

Footnotes

1. See, for example:

• Classified ads from 1974 issue of The Monster Times
• "Fate" classifieds, August 1975
• 30 classified ads from the June 1971 issue of "Fate" magazine
• Some 1965 Amazing Stories ads were too amazing to be true

2. The rest of the Electronics Market Place classifieds include For Sale, Plans and Kits, High Fidelity, Shortwave Listening, Wanted, Tubes, Tape and Recorders, Repair and Services, Instruction, Personals, Government Surplus, Books, Authors' Services, Music, Musical Instruments, Rubber Stamps, Magnets, Photography — Film, Equipment, Services, Records, Hypnotism, Plastics, Educational Opportunities, Printing, Remailing Service, Business Opportunities, Real Estate, Stamps, Taxidermy, and Miscellaneous. Yes, taxidermy.

QSL card for Pioneers Radio Club of Tallinn, Estonia

OK, it's silly that this is my first QSL card post in nearly four years. Time flies! If this piques your hobby interests, please check out the QSL cards category tag to see more than three dozen past Papergreat posts full of vintage ham radio correspondence grooviness. 

This nifty card, UR2KAN, which details a communication on October 1, 1973, features the Pioneers Radio Club of Tallinn, Estonia, USSR. Tallinn is the capital and most populous city of Estonia, which parted ways with the Soviet Union's occupation in August 1991. These days, in a disheartening sign of the times, Estonia is bolstering its defense capabilities and practicing for evacuations in the event that murderous Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't satisfied with merely attacking and occupying Ukraine.

We're mostly left to imagine what the Pioneers Radio Club was all about, unless we get a miraculous visit from a commenter. The only hints appear on a webpage on QRZ.com, which discusses a slice of Eastern European ham radio history from the perspective of Boris Gavrenko, who was born in the Soviet Union in 1933 and much later came to live in the United States. 

He states, in passing:

"In 1961 I met the gang of UR2KAN - UR2KAW (then the club call of a Tallinn Pioneer Palace in Estonia). It was their support and guidance that enabled the opening of the UB5ARTEK (later U5ARTEK) - All-Union International Pioneer camp in the Crimea." 

 

It seems the Pioneers Radio Club may have been something of a youth group in Tallinn, but anything beyond that is a guess. But maybe someone will stumble upon this someday and tell us more.

Pamela & James Mason's 1949 cat book

Here's a rare book, The Cats in Our Lives, that I'd love to stumble across in an independent used bookstore someday. In 1949, famed actor James Mason (1909-1984) and his then-wife Pamela Mason (1916-1996, born Pamela Helen Ostrer and also known as Pamela Kellino), who was an actress, author and screenwriter, wrote about their many cats. James Mason illustrated the volume.

They were unabashed cat lovers, as detailed in this 2014 post on the Cinema Cats blog, which is still going strong and is well worth your time!

“We are just people who keeps cats, that’s all,” James Mason told columnist Earl Wilson in 1950, according to Cinema Cats.

We resemble that statement.

Here are some online reviews of The Cats in Our Lives:

• "Mason writes just as you would have expected to — easy to hear his speaking voice and slight smile as you read, and Pamela was fun to get to know as well. Their experiences were manifold and interesting. Tragedy and fun go hand in hand with pet ownership over a period of years and the Masons had more than their share of both all through the war and the last years of the 40s decade, traveling on train and steamship all over England and America while keeping up with their deeply loved cats." (Allan, on Goodreads in 2008)
• "The book itself is fun, and it was written during the early years of Mason's marriage to Pamela Kellino when they were young and happy, so it's a very light-hearted book and it's nice to see Mason's sense of humor. His illustrations are, as all of his drawings are, very sweet and stylized." (Kathleen on Amazon in 2013)
• "In some ways, James was more revealing of his personality and character in this book than in the autobiography he wrote many years later. He and Pamela take turns writing the various chapters and you soon get a great insight as to what life was like during WWII in England and how very differently cats were treated in those days. They also wrote about non-cat topics. James discussion of raising chickens during the war in order to provide eggs for himself and his neighbors is very charming and down to earth." (Meezer on Amazon in 2010)

The Masons' cats included Toy Boy, Tribute, Whitney Thompson and Lady Augusta Leeds. (We have a Lady Samantha Penguin, who has many other names too.) You can read a little more about The Cats in Our Lives and see some of James Mason's illustrations in this 2016 piece by Sadie Stein for The Paris Review.

Bonus: Some recent cat photos

from our household 

(maybe I should write book)

From top: Venus, Orange and Dusty

Big Boi (left) and his son Bandit in the sunbeams

Venus, looking very photogenic, with Joan's artwork behind him. 

(This is roughly as close as I'm ever allowed to get to Venus.)

Unofficial family member Mamacita, a neighborhood feral we've known since December 2021. She's the mother or grandmother of several of our indoor cats. She's spayed now (hence the tipped ear). Her feral son Creamsicle takes good care of her. She likes cheese.

Anthropomorphic food in 1948 Children's Activities recipes

Children's Activities for Home and School was a large-size (10½ inches by 13½ inches) staplebound magazine published during the middle 20th century by Child Training Assocation Inc. of Chicago. It seems that "Fun in the Kitchen," edited by Louise Price Bell, was a regular feature that showcased recipes submitted by children. (The guidelines do stipulate: "No recipe will be accepted for publication, however, if it is not accompanied by Mother's statement" the the recipe has been checked for accuracy.)

The recipes in the January 1948 issue of the magazine are accompanied by cute illustrations of anthropomorphic food by Sonia Roetter. (For more about Roetter, check out the sleuthing done by Rachel for a 2017 post on The Wandering Bunny blog.) 

The recipes and illustrations are pictured below. For search engine purposes, they are:

• Scalloped Potatoes by Evelyn M. Gavin of Lindsay, Montana
• Bran Muffins by Robert Ann Edgcomb of Ottawa, Illinois
• Tossed Salad by Sally Glensky of Tarentum, Pennsylvania
• Icebox Pudding by Pete Beltemacchi of Chicago, Illinois
• Rice Krispies Cookies by Betsy Pierce of Bismarck, North Dakota

Previous posts featuring anthropomorphism:

• "It's Time To Renew," according to this anthropomorphic alarm clock
• "The Owl and the Eel and the Warming-Pan" (1890)
• Vintage, punny get-well-soon card
• Freaky illustrations found within "The Story of Soil"
• Five groovy ads from the 1933 Furst-McNess cookbook
• 1960s Russian С Новым годом postcard ("Happy New Year!")
• Slightly creepy vintage Valentine's Day postcard
• Potentially unnecessary bonus image of a blender with a face
• Peachy little corned beef loaves and healthful cheese dishes
• Everything's better with anthropomorphism (1949's Plant Maintenance Manual)
• A fun "Merry Hallowe'en" postcard
• Happy Thanksgiving: Enjoy vintage anthropomorphic vegetables
• The one with the anthropomorphic light poles
• Anthropomorphic Bockwurst would be a terrible band name

When teenaged me tried to draw Cory Snyder

As I detailed in 2020, I was a big fan of MicroLeague Baseball as a teenager in the late 1980s. Using the "General Manager / Owner Disk," I created my own super team, called the Wallingford Smashers. For versimilitude, and because I never had a girlfriend during high school, I took the time to create a yearbook for each season of the Smashers' existence. (Yes, we're deep in The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. territory here.)

Anyway, I still have most of the yearbooks. For this one, I got creative and did my own freehand sketch of Cory Snyder, who in addition to being a Smasher in my fictional universe was a young slugger on Cleveland's real-world MLB team. That season Snyder batted .321 with 33 home runs and 81 RBIs for the Smashers, edging out Eric Davis for team MVP honors.

So this very poor drawing by me (sorry, Cory) completes the unlikely trifecta of Hideko Takamine, Toshire Mifune and Cory Snyder drawings on Papergreat. 

City of Wilmington, Delaware, scrip from 1862

Here's an interesting piece of U.S. currency history that was tucked away with some of my family's ephemera. It's a note measuring 5¾ inches by 2⅜ inches, with a value of 5 cents. 

It's dated September 1, 1862, and the text states: "Twelve Months after date the City of Wilmington Will pay FIVE CENTS to bearer in current funds when presented in sums of One Dollar. No. 2962."

There are two signatures at the bottom and two sketches of mystery women.

This is scrip, which is any substitute for legal tender. It was issued five months after the start of the Civil War, which went from April 1861 to April 1865. Coins were in severely short supply during the war. Many were hoarded because the metal used to make them had intrinsic value, and people had greater trust in coins than in paper currency. However, there was still a need for small change to keep the economy functioning, so these paper notes were created to take the place of pennies, dimes and nickels.

This one was never cashed in. So I reckon the City of Wilmington, Delaware, made a nickel off my family. Written at the top in pencil is Helen Simmons. Our family tree has a Helen Simmons Carey (1894-1957) and a Helen Gregg Simmons Chandler (1857-1913), the latter being my great-great-grandmother. I suspect this was hers, perhaps passed to her by her parents: Bauduy Simmons (1805-1882) and Ann Gregg Simmons (1811-1886).

Fabulous paperback cover: "The Word for World is Forest"

We don't get paperback covers like this much anymore! Search through the Papergreat archives for more artwork by Richard M. Powers. ... Also, apologies if some of the excerpts and review quotes are leaning into my depression regarding the state of everything.

• Title: The Word for World is Forest
• Additional cover text: "The mind-stunning science fiction masterpiece"
• Author: Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018)
• Cover illustration: Richard M. Powers (1921-1996), though he is not credited anywhere in the book
• Publisher: Berkley Medallion
• Year of this edition: December 1976 (fifth printing)
• Original publication date: 1972
• Pages: 169
• Format: Paperback
• Cover price: $1.75 (in very small sideways type)
• Back cover excerpt: "The planet Athshe was a paradise whose people were blessed with a mystical awareness of existence. Then the conquerors arrived and began to rape, enslave and kill humans without a flicker of humanity. The Athsheans were unskilled in the ways of war, and without weapons. But the gentle tribesmen possessed strange powers over their dreams. And the alien conquerors had taught them how to hate..."
• Dedication: "FOR JEAN Who Went Ahead"
• Excerpt #1: It was unbelievable. They'd all gone insane. This damned alien world had sent them all right round the bend, into byebye dreamland, along with the creechies.
• Excerpt #2: With a promise of peace they would withdraw all their outposts and live in one area, the region they had forested in Middle Sornol: about 1700 square miles of rolling land, well watered.
• Excerpt #3: "When he has done this, it is done. You cannot take things that exist in the world and try to drive them back into the dream, to hold them inside the dream with walls and pretenses."
• Rating on Amazon: 4.5 stars (out of 5). 
• Amazon review excerpt: In 2024, Royce wrote: "If we find life on other worlds, we will inevitably enslave its inhabitants, kill its inhabitants, or if they are superior, go to war with them. It’s just who we are. I hope we never find life elsewhere because I know us and it will end badly."
• Rating on Goodreads: 4.06 stars (out of 5). 
• Goodreads review excerpt: In 2020, Sean Barrs wrote: "I argue that it is an extremely important work of science-fiction because we could learn from it as a society. And this is why art is so radically essential. We have a distant future, and a distant alien world, we are dealing with intergalactic politics and racism across humanoid species, but the allegory is not too far from today. And that's truly terrifying."
• Blunt thoughts from Lawrence Burton, author of Crappy 1970s Paperbacks with Airbrushed Spacecraft on the Covers: "I realise that James Cameron's Avatar borrows from a great variety of sources — Edgar Rice Burroughs, Dances with Wolves, and the Smurfs to name but three — but it really feels like a massive [bleeping] chunk of it came from this novella, albeit with a few other bits bolted on so as to save the effects guy being stood around all day twiddling his thumbs and looking bored."

Graffiti on a secluded stairway in Catalina, Arizona

To change world takes one random act of kindness

Be kind!