Summer of ’86 and vintage catalogues & adverts

There always seems to be a multitude of catalogues in magazines and through the post but for good quality cast your mind back thirty years to the summer of ’86 and imagine the latest glossy DIY Superstore 64 page ‘Big Value’ catalogue has landed on the doormat, teatime reading at it’s best. The pages are full of special offers on gardening equipment, power tools and lawnmowers to fill the diminishing space in the shed. What’s more is that the store was open ’till 8pm on Saturdays (and 9 ’till 6 on Sundays in Scotland according to the catalogue) so ample time to go browsing and buy all the things we didn’t need.

As the following images from 1986 back to 1904 posted below demonstrate, manufacturers were eager to help us buy their products, a discount price, HP, Easy Terms or a Free Trial they were keen to sell and special offers are nothing new!

Catalogues selling garden machinery and equipment go back a long way, we’ll start with B&Q. As mentioned it’s exactly 30 years ago since their 1986 summer adverts (below) had special offers on the Qualcast Concorde mower at £54.95, Flymo Chevron at £99.95. and the ubiquitous Alko Shredder Compost -Star 1100 at £74.95. Aimed directly at the DIY market and with a captive audience they couldn’t go wrong. Larger images of these adverts can be found here:  Advert 1, Advert 2,

Heading back a decade into the 1970’s and the Argos catalogues of the day contained a varied range of gardening equipment, pictured below. On offer is the 1974 Wolf Earthbird cultivator powered by a 5hp Briggs and Stratton engine at £119  and the Suffolk ‘Super Colt’ mower at £33.00 (RRP £38.77). Bargains!

Littlewoods are a famous catalogue company and were selling lawnmowers and gardening equipment in their 1940 catalogue (image below). It was possible to buy a cylinder mower, wooden wheelbarrow with a rubber wheel or a roller that could be filled with water and all at tempting prices and delivered to the door. 

Currys who started out selling bikes (See Currys at the National Archives website) also sold lawnmowers in their 1955 advert below.  They also gave hire purchase terms, just as modern DIY stores give tempting prices in their catalogues it seems that hire purchase was also a good way to sell a mower. A Qualcast Panther could be on your lawn for 3′ 6 per week (image left).

Lawnmower sales and offers were countrywide as this advert (below) from a Falkirk newspaper in 1955 shows. A Qualcast mower or Suffolk Viceroy mower could be had on HP with weekly payments. I wonder if Qualcast gave incentives to their retailers to sell mowers on HP? 

But of course there’s nothing like a free demonstration for a manufacturer to get their machinery onto your property and your money into their bank account. The 1904 Ransomes advert (image left) was offering ‘All Machines sent Carriage Paid on a Month’s Free Trial’. Twenty years later in 1924 The Governor mower (right image) was offered with ‘Seven-day’s trial free of cost or obligation’ .  It also says that on the free trial ‘not an expert is sent with the machine’ which is a pity as the lady in the right image appears not to be in control of the machine whatsoever, a bit lackadaisical if you ask me. 

Andrews Lawn Edgers LTD challenged gardeners to buy a Spintrim in 1967 and use it for two weeks as a sort-of-trial, the catch being that the spintrim had to be purchased first. Clever advertising nonetheless.

Can you add to any of this advertising or high street retailers brochures?