Brooks 1947 Advertisement — The Name Everyone Looks For (Export Trader)

Two Brooks export advertisements of 1947, both from Export Trader, collected by the IceniCAM Information Service. The source file carries three sheets; the third is IceniCAM’s own branding and credit leaf and is not part of the artifact, following the pattern established for the 1932 Brooks catalogue and the two Raleigh records in this archive.

WHY THESE MATTER. They are the archive’s earliest Brooks material after the war and they sit in the ten-year documentary gap between the 1939 list and the 1950 leaflet, a gap post 1111 explicitly notes when it hedges the disappearance of Plyflex. Both are addressed to the export trade rather than to riders, and both argue the same case: that the quality of a Brooks saddle follows from the leather, specifically from the butt, the choicest part of the animal’s back. Neither prints a price and neither names a model, so they date the marketing language rather than the range.

Both are dated by a printed footer line in the periodical rather than by any statement of Brooks’ own, which makes the dating firm.

— Sheet 1, Export Trader, June 1947, page 182 —

[Full-page advertisement in black and orange on cream. A large photographic detail of a rolled hide fills the upper half, with an orange and black arrow leading down from it to a photograph of a finished sprung saddle, so that the material becomes the product. A block of small text runs down the left margin and a solid orange panel carries the name at the foot.]

THE BROOKS SADDLE is the finest in the world. Only leather from the choicest part of the back of the animal-what is called “the butt”-is used. Only the skill and knowledge of Brooks can produce a saddle of such superlative quality.

BROOKS

the name everyone looks for

J. B. BROOKS & CO. LTD., BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND

EXPORT TRADER, June 1947

— Sheet 2, Export Trader, December 1947, page 381 —

[Full-page advertisement printed against a solid orange ground. A photograph of a lightly sprung saddle sits at the head above the name in outlined capitals, with a second photograph of a fully sprung saddle below the text.]

BROOKS

The Finest Saddle in the World

Years of experience are behind the production of models most suited to overseas markets. Only leather from the choicest part of the animal’s back-“the butt”-is used in the production of BROOKS Saddles. The name and reputation of BROOKS are a guarantee of lifelong satisfaction.

J. B. BROOKS & CO. LTD. BIRMINGHAM 3, ENGLAND

EXPORT TRADER, December 1947