Phone Company Santas – Dec. 8, 1962

A few days ago I posted a 1962 newspaper ad for Lee Furniture, observing that the Santa Claus artwork was somewhat ancient.

For comparison, here is a pair of 1962 ads for two telephone companies – the Elyria Telephone Company and the Lorain Telephone Company – that each feature Santa Claus artwork. Both ads ran in the Journal on December 8, 1962.

The Elyria Telephone ad has the somewhat realistic Santa illustration typical of 1960s clip art. Interestingly, the phone artwork looks suspiciously like it was grafted onto the bag of gifts.

The ad copy encourages shoppers to add an extension phones in the kitchen, "beside Dad's easy chair," in a teenager's room or any bedroom for that matter.

The Lorain Telephone ad features a much more modern and stylized version of Santa Claus combined with typical line art of telephones. The ad copy is simple and direct: "Of course I give color telephones – doesn't everyone?"

Looking back at both ads, it's ironic that the phones in those ads would still be usable today (if the house or residence has phone jacks, like mine). 

Giving a telephone as a gift would still be a great present today, but at a much greater cost (with the cheapest iPhone running for around $430, and the most expensive at around $1,700 bucks). And they have planned obsolescence built right into them (at no extra cost, of course).