Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/26/1912-harrods-catalogue-scanned.html
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While their efforts at turning this into machine-readable text is the most noteworthy part of the project, I found browsing the resulting ebook files a little lackluster. The actual scans with original page layouts can be browsed on archive.org.
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What a joy to browse the archive.org version. “Perishable orders arriving on Saturday for districts more than 50 miles away will be shipped by passenger train.” Free of charge. Thanks for posting the link! I needed that today.
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Yeah, this is awesome. I guess I don’t have a way to view epub files on this computer right now.
The Internet archive scans are amazing. Random page click lead to great costume references.
Page 456 starts their “Gun Department”
Check out this Mauser! A young Han Solo might have flipped through this very catalog 
I love that it is “sighted for 1000 yards”. LOL - THAT is some optimism.
And the Colt 1911 was too new in 1912 - they have the “not quite there” Colt 1905 model.
FYI 5 pounds in 1912 is $575 in today’s pounds, which is $759 in US dollars - and a new 1911 from Colt is about that much (for a base model). Huh. The more things change…
Got a yacht? Get a saluting cannon!
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I like how the picture makes that Saluting Gun look like a cannon when it is closer to the size of a large pistol.
I kind of want to see the adorable little cartridges and ramrod it must come with.
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Aw… I didn’t look close. Yeah, its something you could keep on your desk. I can see some guy ordering it and clearing out a space on the Yacht - “warning, cannon area - stand clear”. And when he gets it, it’s just sitting there in all this extra open space…
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I remember reading somewhere that the price of a Winchester 30-30 has been about the price of an ounce of gold over the last hundred years
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A violent alternative to this bit of conventional wisdom, regurgitated here.
A long-standing rule of thumb among gold enthusiasts is that an ounce of gold should equal the cost of one high-quality man’s suit. (A fund manager I know in London argues that this goes back to ancient Rome, when an ounce of gold—allegedly—was enough to purchase a top-of-the-line toga.)
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“Fires 10 bore blank cartridges…”
That’s 10 gauge for Americans. Light load, I’m sure, but still not little. The club where I sailed had one much like that for starting races.
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Shades of Spinal Tap and Stonehenge!
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Hmmm…
Now that Winchester lever actions are made in Japan and of higher quality than in the past, they are only a little cheaper than the price of a ounce of gold.
I haven’t heard of that before, but sort of makes sense for some of the time… gold prices are more linked to demand and fears of the value of cash. Firearms typically are priced by the cost of materials, labor, and machines needed to make them.
And Zoolander.
“What is this - a cannon for ants?”
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I want some of the tonic wine made from finest crusted port, cocaine and ‘meat juice’.
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Love the recoil!
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