Ma’s Antique Advertising
Where: 258 S. Main Street, Waynesville
Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday
More info: (513) 897-2000
WAYNESVILLE — Among the ornate, intricate, and even bizarre antique advertisements hanging in Ma’s Antique Advertising, a sign for Red Man Tobacco in particular seems to match the temperament of store owner Skip McWilliams.
An elderly couple sit together, with a wife handing her husband a bag of chewing tobacco.
“Chew all you want,” says the wife in a caption below the picture. “You won’t talk so much.”
Unique advertising and packaging from years past is the focal point of Ma’s Antique Advertising, located at 258 Main St. in the Scioto Square shopping complex. The store is the baby of Skip McWilliams and his wife Mary Ann and is the result of more than 30 year’s on antique collecting done by the McWilliams.
“This store is just a small part of my collection,” McWilliams said with a laugh as he gestured around the store, filled with classic signs and packaging from a by-gone era. “I figured I needed to get rid of some of it now.”
Besides the advertisements that hang on the walls, McWilliams store focuses on unusual tobacco products. The products McWilliams sells may not exactly be politically correct in a world that increasingly looks down on tobacco, but remains a fascinating artifact to a time when a good chew was a hobby enjoyed by many.
“A lot of the boxes and advertising on them were novel,” McWilliams said. “There were over 6,000 different kinds of chewing tobacco throughout history.”
How these pristine, complete collections came to be is a mystery, even to McWilliams.
“Sometimes stores would just close down, board up their windows and leave with whatever stock they had left still inside,” McWilliams said. “Years later, people came along and found it, left just like it was.”
McWilliams also carries other items he has found interesting throughout his years as a collector. One display case shows a collection of removable collars used for dress shirts in the early 20s. Another box hold gift boxes for hat stores that are shaped like miniature hats.
“These were like the gift certificates of their time,” McWilliams explained. “Inside the box would be a voucher for a new hat.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4544 or jmcclelland@coxohio.com.
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