Unfortunately I’ve not been in England in several years.. but next time I go, I will definitely visit The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising which is located in the Notting Hill section of London.
The Museum was opened by and is managed by consumer historian, Robert Opie, who at the age of 16 saw the need to record the history of the products around us. He has built the collection to all aspects of daily life – toys, magazines, technology, travel, souvenirs, fashion and design. He comments on the site:
‘When the thousands of pieces of our social history are assembled into some giant jigsaw, the picture becomes clearer as to the remarkable journey we have all come through’.
It’s interesting that over the years he has built the sponsorship of the Museum to include such well known brands as Kellogg’s, Cadbury Trebor Bassett, Twinings, pi global, Vodafone, McVitie’s and Diageo… many or most of which are European brands. He also has a number of what he calls “Brand Sponsors” such as Nestlé, United Biscuits, Marks and Spencer, Premier Foods, Tate and Lyle. (again, a number of European brands).
The current exhibition at the Museum is to celebrate the 250 years of Guinness. The exhibition highlights the very best of Guinness advertising, from posters and TV commercials to drinks trays and beer mats. He tells us that it was the genius of a Mr. John Gilroy with his menagerie of zoo animals that became the memorable face of Guinness posters.
An exhibition in January was sponsored by a company called Tesco, a UK-based international grocery and general merchandising retail chain, and focused on the topic “Waste Not Want Not”. It looked at how, during the war years, Britain had to conserve on everything from energy to commodities and raw materials… and the lessons learned from that. Of course recycling paper was a part of that… and Ephemera was certainly a part of the exhibit.
There are not a lot of pictures on the Museum site, but a blog entitled “Ragged Roses” did a review of the Museum recently… and you can see several of her picture from the Museum on the blog by clicking here.
Will I see you in England for an upcoming exhibition?
I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the encore it deserves.
Tom
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Technorati tags: Bonanzle, Encore Ephemera, Ephemera, The Ephemera Network, Packaging, Advertising, Kellogs
I recently listed, on eBay, a very old Dinky car known as the “Studebaker State Commander”. This particular item (Dinky number 24O) is somewhat unique as it was built by Meccano France… as opposed to the original British toy company that was established in 1908 by a gentleman named Frank Hornby. During the 1920s and 1930s it became the biggest toy manufacturer in Britain and produced three of the most popular lines of toys in the twentieth century: Meccano, Hornby Model Railways and Dinky Toys.
During the Second World War the Meccano factories were commandered by the invading Germans and used in the Nazi war effort, as well as production of model vehicles in the German Marklin range. Then, in the early post-war years the model vehicles were forced to be shod with metal wheels due to Nazi activity during the war which had virtually cut off supplies of rubber to France. Rubber tyres were not fitted again on models until 1950.
If you are more interested in the Studebaker line of cars.. than the Dinky toys, you may want to look at 
There are hundreds of pictures, and even some EPHEMERA ads for the cars during the war period. You will soon find that Studebaker was involved in more than just manufacturing automobiles.
There was a lot for me to choose from to show on this blog… but the one shown on the right perhaps caught my eye the most. How many of our readers remember the Nicaraguan Revolution? 
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