Brooks c.1935 Advertisement — Saddles, Best for Riding

A single-leaf pictorial advertisement for Brooks saddles, printed in full color, undated.

The scene is a country lane outside a thatched cottage with a leaded window and a plank door. In the foreground a young man in an open-necked shirt and dark trousers stands over a bicycle, one hand resting on the saddle and the other tucking a folded map or guide into the flap of a large black saddlebag. A bedroll in a tan cover is strapped across the top of the bag. On the road behind him two riders are moving away, both with loaded bags on their carriers, the further of the two in a red jersey and cap. The trees are in autumn color. Across the foot of the sheet runs a black band carrying the wordmark in red and the selling line.

BROOKS

REGISTERED TRADE MARK

SADDLES

Best for Riding

[No date, no List No., no imprint and no printer’s mark appear anywhere on the sheet.]

A note on the date. The file arrived in the collection named for 1934 and for holdalls, and it is neither demonstrably 1934 nor a holdall advertisement. Nothing printed on the sheet gives a year. The evidence that places it is internal and stylistic: the wordmark is the interlocked form with the underscore rule and the words REGISTERED TRADE MARK beneath, which is the mark used through the 1933 to 1938 catalogs; the touring luggage shown is the large carrier bag of that period; and the illustration style, the clothing and the color printing are of the middle 1930s. The sheet is therefore recorded as circa 1935 on estimated basis rather than documented. It should not be cited as evidence for any specific year, and the 1934 in the original filename is not treated as provenance.

The scan is a small one, about 545 pixels across the sheet at its embedded resolution, and the image in this record is presented at about two and a half times that. The lettering in the foot band reads cleanly. There is no fine print on the sheet to lose.