During the 1890's Benjamin Holt and Daniel Best both were working on their individual steam tractors for use in farming. They were separate companies. Holt's first steam track-type tractor was introduced in 1904. In 1906 he produced his first gas track-type tractor. In 1925 the companies merged to form the Caterpillar Tractor Co.  In 1931 the first Diesel Sixty rolled off the assembly line in East Peoria. Caterpillar tractors played an important role in both wars assuring the movement of men and materials.

Here are some ads:

First, a 1921 BEST Tractor:

Some Caterpillar Models:

1920

1925 ad noting the merger:

The 1931:

There has been a crazy run Locomobile ads lately which makes me wonder. When I first started selling on eBay I had a collector buy all my Locomobile ads for a book he was writing. Then, things slowed down for the old Locomobile.

I still posted them tho because how crazy is it to ride around town in your LOCOMOBILE!

The Locomobile was produced from 1899 to 1929. They began with steam cars but were deemed unreliable so they began to experiment with the gas engine in 1902.

Here is a 1902 Locomobile Stanhope B:

Here is great one from a 1902 Country Life showing the Locombile in Japan:

Locomobile became known for well built, speedy luxury cars. Here is the 1907 Runabout:

And, in 1908 Locomobile became the first America car to win an International motor race, the Vanderbilt Cup. The model that won the cup was a 1906 (not these, tho):

Here are some happy guys and gals in their 1908 model:

Here is a 1920:

Durant Motors bought Locomobile out and then phased them out in 1929. I might buy a Locomobile if I could? How about you?

It is fun to find a family member or your family business in an old advertisement. At least a couple of times a month, I hear from a customer that their uncle, father or grandfather owned the company in one of our vintage ads.  Or, that the ad features their family endorsing a product, like Lux Soap. Some families have a famous relative, a movie star from the 20's or race car driver.

I had one gentleman call me that his father, a Midwestern bottler, was in a Ford advertisement, and no one in the family even knew until he came across it on eBay.  What fun!

A great web site for preserving family memories and including the vintage ads as part of the story is Afterglow Media. Check it out, pretty cool.

And now, some family business ads:

The owner of Afterglow Media has a family relationship with this company.

Who out there is related to Owen Curd, Dr. Pepper Bottler, Owensboro KY?

And, what about all those babies? They grew up to be someone's mom, dad, aunt, uncle...like little Betty Jane Fivel of Galveston, TX:

In 1863, Angelo Mariani added coca leaves to wine to create Vin Mariani. The ethanol in the wine extracted the cocaine from the coca leaves creating cocaethlyene. This substance was a powerful mood altering beverage endorsed by actors and actresses, authors (Ibsen, Zola, Jules Verne, Dumas, Doyle), composers (Massenet, Gounod, Faure), royalty (Queen Victoria, King George I of Greece, King Alphonse XIII), President McKinley and 2 Popes: Leo XIII and Pius X.

Vin Mariani contained 6 mg cocaine per ounce of wine, but the version to be exported to the US contained 7.2 mg per ounce to compete with the higher cocaine content of similar drinks in the US, including Pemberton’s French Wine Cola.

Pemberton marketing his coca wine until 1886 when Atlanta introduced Prohibition. Pemberton replaced the wine in his recipe with sugar syrup creating Coca Cola, the great “temperance drink”.

The ads:

From an 1899 Review of Reviews:

From an 1898 Life, seems it will cure everything:

From an April 1902 Theatre magazine:

Actresses endorse:

Sorry for the delay in getting these together. Work happens! Have a great weekend.