Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Matchless

Come with me to 1927, and specifically thumb through the pages of The Metal Agencies Co. Ltd or "Mac" catalogue. Okay, you may go back and dawdle over all the other fascinating things later, but first, take a look at this full page, colour insert for Beckett's Matchless Files. Now I will allow that nothing says reliable tooling like a sturdy arm, sleeve rolled up, grasping a file within the horny hand, right?


But what does an Art Nouveau style border in delicate yellow and blue say exactly...?

I absolutely love it; it's such a bizarre juxtaposition.

4 comments:

  1. Lovely!

    And only a nit-picking pedant would ask why the illustration shows a rasp, not a file. Perhaps the advertising boys thought the files looked too ordinary!

    AndyT

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  2. Ah, well... um, I believe it's not necessarily incorrect to view rasps as merely part of the wider file family.

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  3. Looks like they got Norman Bates to model for the picture there.

    Knife... file... whatever works.

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  4. Hi. Is this a scan? Is that catalog available online? Odd that they'd still be using Art Nouveau in 1927 ads--are you sure it wasn't 1907?! Love Art Nouveau.

    Jay

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Owing to vast quantities of spam this blog is getting, I'm afraid only registered users can post. All comments are moderated before publication, so there may be some delay. My apologies.