Collections Carousel – Framed Novelty from Frank Kammermeyer, Bulk Agent in Pierz, Minnesota

This 3-in-one freebie – calendar, thermometer, pictures…everything needed to grace an office or home space – is meant to convey a message of providing for all a customer’s needs. Stay connected to the weather inside or out and be on top of your home or office schedule while relaxing your mind with colorful fall landscape scenes.

Premiums or novelties, those fairly inexpensive business advertising giveaways, abounded in the middle of the twentieth century. Companies producing the cheap advertising goods worked to attract an ever-expanding customer base, often incorporating two or more functions into their products. A business might be interested in purchasing the special combo in this particular novelty for its potential to appeal to a wide variety of customers. Some might care less about the thermometer but want the calendar. Others might be voracious about constantly checking the temperature and love the thermometer. Many might be solely turned on by the pretty pictures. Small, measuring only 4¼ ” x 8”, the piece is meant to easily find a space on any home or office wall.

Evidenced by how many premiums or novelties are still around and being offered to cultural resource collecting institutions like the Morrison County Historical Society, the at least modest success of giveaways must have made it worth their expense to many businesses.

~ Ann Marie Johnson, MCHS Preservationist