We haven’t had an opportunity for retro Big Profits in a very long time, so here are some terrific ones from 1946:
-Mr. Luck has some Amazing New Magic Dice for you! You can do “amusing tricks” and have all kinds of fascinating fun – full of quotation marks, that is. You will exert “control” and do “magic” tricks – Mr. Luck is hedging his bets, I suspect. And look, he is from Chicago! Of course. Longtime readers have been to Chicago many times before – you can click that Retro Chicago tag at the bottom of the post for more of this kind of thing (I ought to get a tag cloud going, or something to make it easier to navigate here, I know! I know!)
-And who doesn’t love a grab bag? Sounds like a birthday party right there. This Radio Parts Grab Bag will be ideal for all your – um, Radio Parts Parties. Marko guarantees that this will be “an experimenter’s dream.” Oh boy, let the fun commence. And Marko - he’s from Chicago too!
There is more Chicago at the end…so we will just notice in passing that:
-Your hand will succeed in pointing when it gets that Business Mail Order Catalogue. It’s from Opportunity Department 41 – I guess they finally got it right. But what happened to the other 40 departments?
-That hand will go on to make Gems with the Gem Maker and have “a profitable adventure” (hopefully not in the machinery, please be careful!)
-And then you can spend some downtime reading about how Kit C. Vickrey keeps Profitable Rabbits – they are making gems and selling things by mail, no doubt. Clever of them.
But finally – back in Chicago, you can get yourself a mysterious-looking Instructograph. It will teach you some code and it is “always ready” to give you lots of confusing homework. Sounds great, right? Comes with headphones and strange coil-like bits that will confuse you even more. You may even forget that you have no idea what sort of code the Instructograph is teaching you.
From Popular Science, March 1946.
The radio parts grab bag would be perfect for very small children. Lots of fun shapes to choke on.
I'm glad Our Friends in Chicago are keeping busy!Re the Code Learning gizmo, I thought you got your own personal Enigma Machine with it. Then I realized it was a tape player. How disappointing.
Bill – Yes, what a good thought!Tori – I was thinking of you when I wrote this, I knew you'd appreciate it
Oh…and I guess that thing IS a tape recorder. I really couldn't tell, I don't know why…