Back in the day the basic method of advertising one's product was by print. Today it's radio and TV with some magazine and newspaper advertisements. That means a company would have to set up their advertising words and their graphics and take them to a media source such as a magazine journal, such as Sporting Life, The American Field, The Sportsmen's Review, a newspaper or a print shop where their advertisement was printed and placed in public locations like stores. The three main kinds of advertising that found their way into stores were posters, calendars and die cuts (see three example above). They also produced tins that had lithograph transfers on them.

For the sporting industry, a company such as Remington or Winchester or an organization like the ATA or the NRA, would have to commission famous sporting artists to paint hunting scenes and than produce the picture, called a lithograph, which was first used in 1825 in Europe where it was developed. This colored lithograph was the foundation of all pre-1930 colored advertising. It was a very expensive process and only the major gun and powder companies had the finances to pursue this kind of colorful advertising.

These old lithograph advertisements are prized by the modern day collector and can fetch thousands of dollars at auctions or private sales. I have copied some old black and white advertisement from some early sporting magazines that were published in 1899, 1900 and 1901.