The reason I collected it: Predicting the 21st century from a perch in 1929…

June 12, 2023 by · Leave a Comment 

Who hasn’t given some thought to what life would be like in 50 years, or 75 years. A few enterprising newspaper publishers have as well, and the Daily Mail of London, January 1, 2000 is a great–and quite rare–example.
You see, this is actually a newspaper published in 1928. This is a futurist newspaper. We’ve handled a few, but they are exceedingly scarce. It was printed based on their perception of what life, news, entertainment, politics, and culture would be like 72 years in the future. What is most intriguing is that this future date is already in our distant past, so it is interesting to see what people in 1928 thought life would be like in 2000. In general, their hopes would prove to be disappointing to any reader who might have lived until 2000.
From beginning to end, this 24-page tabloid-size newspaper is all about the future. It had to be an exhausting project, but it certainly resulted in a most intriguing addition to any newspaper collection.

Snapshot 1928… A couple in London is spotted in New York just a few seconds later…

May 24, 2021 by · Leave a Comment 

Impossible you say? I’ll let Wikipedia do the talking:

“On February 9th, 1928, Hartsdale became the birthplace of the American “Couch Potato” when the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird (1888-1946) transmitted the world’s first inter-continental short-wave television signal from a transmitter (call sign 2KZ) in Coulsdon, Surrey (a suburb of London, England) to his colleague O.G. Hutchinson in the cellar of Robert M. Hart, an Amateur Radio Operator (call sign 2CVJ) in Hartsdale, New York.”

And what was transmitted? A man and a woman… well, at least a “live” image of them, making them the first couple to been seen in two places at once. Most newspapers of the day reported this historic event, including the Chicago Daily Tribune shown to the right.

Snapshot 1928… If only they new of the pending storm???

December 10, 2018 by · Leave a Comment 

The following snapshot comes from The Chicago Daily Tribune dated November 21, 1928. If only they knew what was to come in less than a year, perhaps many would not have counted their chickens before they hatched.