Old Gun Ads: How Did Colt Advertise Its Guns?

In this video we’re taking a look at something very rare, a pre-1911 catalogue produced by Colt. But it isn’t a catalogue to order guns from. Instead, it’s a catalogue to order gun advertisements from! Old firearms ad from this period are fascinating and give us an insight into who markets company’s were aiming their products at.

The catalogue includes illustrations of pistols and entire print ads which could be printed locally. It covers most of the commercial Colt line ranging from Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket pistols, to Colt Police Positive revolvers and Colt’s military automatic pistols.

*New fangled Colt automatics (Matthew Moss)*

The catalogue’s introduction explains Colt’s advertising strategy, saying:

“we advertise in the big national mediums to CREATE A DEMAND ON YOU for our arms; these advertisements are read by thousands of perspective customers IN YOUR LOCALITY, therefore YOU can obtain the benefit of SALE by local advertising.” It’s a sound enough strategy.

*My favourite ad, featuring Browning’s Colt M1895 machine gun (Matthew Moss)*

Only one ad includes a Colt product that isn’t a pistol. The ad above features an illustration which includes John Browning’s first machine gun, the Colt-produced Model 1895. It’s an evocative advert including revolvers, a semi-automatic pistol and the 1895.

*Colt Model 1907 Military pistols, the predecessor of the 1911 (Matthew Moss)*

One of my favourite parts of the catalogue covers Colt’s burgeoning automatic pistol line. This section actually helps us date the catalogue as there are no 1911s. It includes the Colt 1907 Military, the Colt 1902 Military, the Colt 1903 Pocket Hammer and the Colt 1903/1908 Pocket Hammerless automatic pistols.

*Some of the illustrations of Colt’s revolvers available for printing (Matthew Moss)*

The catalogue includes printable illustrations of the Colt ‘New Service’, the Colt ‘Army Special’, the Officers Model Target, the Police Positive Special, Police Positive and Police Positive Target. As well as some classics, with a full page of Colt Single Action Army revolvers.

*Some cutaway diagrams of the Colt Pocket Hammerless (Matthew Moss)*

The Colt advertisement catalogue is now part of our reference collection and we were able to bring this video/article thanks to the support of our Patrons. We have many more videos on important and interesting primary source materials in the works. If you enjoy our work please consider supporting us via Patreon for just a $1. Find out more here.

Check out videos on items from our reference collection here.

NEW PIAT Posters!

Our fantastic new PIAT posters were designed by the brilliant illustrator who put together our Advanced Combat Rifle colouring book last year! They feature a custom illustrations of the PIAT, the first has the immortal words “Bring up the PIAT” from the film A Bridge Too Far, while the second poster features a unique design featuring art influenced by the PIAT’s original manual – which has the caption – ‘Cocking the PIAT in the standing position’.

The posters are A3 art prints which are printed on 300gsm premium textured paper, which is great for framing. A3 dimensions are: 29.7cm x 42cm or 11.4in x 16.5in. Each poster will be numbered as these will be a pretty limited run! Both posters are available for £12 / $15.50 (plus shipping costs).

These are a great way to help support our work and I hope that you like the designs. Thanks guys!

Order here

Colouring the ACR Colouring Book

Hi guys, Matt has put out a couple of videos updating on the ACR colouring book we launched earlier this month. Below is the first of these showing how Matt coloured in his Steyr ACR.

In the second video Matt tackles the Heckler & Koch G11 and gives an update on the colouring book and the channel:

Thanks for watching chaps & thanks so much for your support in 2019, we greatly appreciate it. It’s been a busy year and we hope that you’ve all enjoyed our videos!

You can still pick up a copy of the ACR colouring book and the G11 sticker at www.armourersbench.com/shop. we’re very much looking forward to seeing your artistic sides when you send us some photos of your colouring to – contact@armourersbench.com.

We’ll be back soon with more videos!

Merry Christmas & happy holidays – Matt & Vic

Introducing the TAB Advance Combat Rifle Colouring Book!

The Armourer’s Bench are proud to introduce our very first ‘informative colouring (coloring) book’. Not only can you colour in the prototypes from the US Army’s Advanced Combat Rifle trials but you can also learn about the guns, how they worked, performed and the outcome of the trial as you colour!

Why a colouring book? Well, simply put, no one else has done one before! With the help of our brilliant illustrator, Lauren McInnerney, we put the book together to give you guys something a bit different, something fun!

We have a limited run of these little books and we will do our very best to get them our ASAP if you order them for Christmas.

The book includes detailed original illustrations of each of the four ACR guns: the AAI, Colt, Steyr and of course the iconic HK G11. The 8-page booklets are 8×6″ (or A5 sized) and are available now from our website for $6.00, plus shipping.

You can find them in our new shop, here!

All the funds raised from the sale of the books will go toward supporting TAB through 2020.

But wait! That’s not all! We also have some extremely cool new stickers available. These 4″ cutout vinyl stickers feature the TAB logo on an illustration of the G11.

And last but not least we also have a small run of TAB logo badges available too!

Tag: Illustrations