The June, 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics featured a collection of buildable inventions to take to the beach, including this floating playpen, with four auto inner-tubes to prevent tipping. I love the playpen especially, because it has the look of the sort of device that produces incredibly sweet nostalgic memories in 99 percent of its users, and terrible memories of drowning tragedies (or near-tragedies) in the remaining one percent. — Read the rest

If a necktie that makes women do your bidding isn't your cup of tea, then how about this little number, "made from heavy awning cloth"?

THE DRIBBLE BIB (Nov, 1951)

As if pith helmets weren't stylish enough on their own, this 1949 ad from Popular Science features a beautiful pith++ version with a two-tube radio built into it, sporting the glorious moniker "Man-From-Mars Radio Hat." I mean, woah.

THE AMAZING NEW Man-From-Mars RADIO HAT (Oct, 1949)

70 year old Marvin Shearer, a "crippled inventor" from Akron, OH, spent the decade from 1920 to 1930 building an "educated clock" that chimed a different tune to commemorate "America's martyrs" through the day, for example, "the time of President McKinley's burial is marked by a playing of the old hymn, 'Lead, Kindly Light.' — Read the rest

The May, 1930 ish of Modern Mechanix featured this pneumatic tire-pump that appears to be a direct ancestor of the rowing machine: "The seat slides forward and backward on runners just as the seat on a racing boat does, enabling the operator to get a long, strong pull on the pump handle. — Read the rest

Who can resist a pitch for a "swept-wing" car with an "observation lounge?" Love the kid playing Machine Gun Kelly in the back seat.

Now! Swept-Wing Wagons with the OBSERVATION LOUNGE! (Feb, 1957)

This April, 1978 ad for the Bytemaster computer from Denver's Digital Group Bytemaster is a pretty fascinating look at the first hesitant tendrils of the personal computer, a year after the introduction of the Apple ][+. The form-factor prefigures the Kaypro and the "portable computing" revolution, but also shares some heritage with the ubiquitous radio-with-handle devices of the day, from boom-boxes to little kitchen models. — Read the rest

Back in 1930, Modern Mechanix reported on Charles Miller, of Portland, OR, who was rambling around the nation in a homemade mobile-home that included a plot of grass from his beloved hometown.

WHEN Charles Miller, of Portland, Oregon, found the wanderlust too much for him in spite of his love for the old home, he decided to see the world and carry his home right with him, too.

The "It's New" section from the Jul, 1960 issue of Mechanix Illustrated featured a particularly and delightfully demented grab-bag of innovations of the day, from a French electric monorail to a gas machine of anesthetizing large mammals.

FIRST successful gas machine for anesthetizing large animals is demonstrated on nag by Dr.

The Feb, 1930 issue of Modern Mechanix carried a story about Scaltiel, a stage-performer whose act revolved around picking pockets. Scaltiel claimed to have learned his trade after being inducted into a guild of pickpockets who tested him on a "bell-dummy" whose every pocket "was wired so that the slightest touch would result in the ringing of a bell, showing that the amateur thief was clumsy." — Read the rest

Here's a weird variant on the "loose lips sink ships" ads, from the Dec, 1944 issue of True.

"Too much 'gassing' is dangerous!" -says HI to HATT (Dec, 1944)

The Jun, 1977 issue of Popular Science featured this insane plan for a vertical shopping mall that used a kind of Ferris wheel to rotate customers past the windows of shops. Anyone know if this thing ever got built?

Cabs in this people-mover will whisk up and down on a continuous belt–something like a Ferris wheel.

Anticipating "The Graduate" by 20 years, the January, 1947 ad from Mechanix Illustrated asks, "Have you considered a career in PLASTICS?"

YOU MAKE THINGS-To give you practical experience in working with plastics, we supply handsome, colorful, rods, sheets and tubes of plastics from which you can if you wish, make useful, attractive creations.

Here's a delightfully dangerous HOWTO from the July, 1937 issue of Modern Mechanix giving directions for making your own tame lightning wiht a giant Oudin Coil. As Charlie Shopsin notes, "When even a DIY article from 1937 peppers its instructions with warnings, it's probably best to be very careful." — Read the rest

I love the design for this 1961 Saturday Evening Post huckster ad flogging condos built in the shadow of the burgeoning US space program: "How can you miss? Be one of the first to own prime Florida land right in the "path of progress" in the already established community of Port Malabar–only 32 miles south of Cape Canaveral. — Read the rest

While some of the techniques laid out in "Tricks of Short Change Artists," from the Oct, 1930 issue of Modern Mechanix may have shifted over the years, the principles remain largely unchanged. I could read about con artists all day long — I've only been conned once (that I know about), but I still reel with the knowledge that someone managed to pull off a trick that combined conjuring, social engineering, and connivery to separate me from a small-to-mid-sized wad of cash. — Read the rest

This 1929 Modern Mechanics HOWTO explains to young people how they can dig their own pirate's cave, complete with working fireplace. The author explains that mothers can allow their sons (yes, it was all pretty gendered back then in 1929-land) to build such a clubhouse without fear, because the design will prevent cave-ins. — Read the rest

This site collects vintage Soviet space and science illustrations; most appear to come from old children's books. They're eerily similar to American illos from the same era — both empires believing that they were rocketing to a space-age, hypermodernist, Tomorrowland/Rollerball future. — Read the rest

This 1979 Popular Science ad for off-brand "VideoBrain" home computers (Made in America!) for sale by bankruptcy liquidators is a great snapshot of the goofy optimism of the early days of PCs, before most people knew what they were and what they were for. — Read the rest

A breathless 1953 advertorial from America's power companies in the Saturday Evening Post predicts life in 1973, and, on the way, propagandizes against the government power projects that brought electrification to America's poorest communities:

There will be new ways of heating and cooling homes with the help of electricity.