In Celebration of Historical Machinery Brochures

Do you, or did you ever collect sales brochures featuring construction machinery? If so, there is a great Facebook group for you!

While browsing Facebook over the weekend I came across this excellent group, which I feel would be of great interest to our followers, called Old Machine Sales Brochures where scrolling through the photos, it really was like a trip down memory lane.

As a youngster I too was a keen collector of brochures myself, and it was a regular occurrence for me to be sending letters to the likes of Cat dealers Bowmaker and Leverton’s, and manufacturers such as Hymac, Priestman, Liebherr and JCB to name a few, asking if they would send me some material, and in most cases, they were kind enough to despatch some.

Many of the brochures ended up posted on my bedroom wall, where most young lads would have posters of footballers or popstars, for me it was Caterpillar’s and JCB’s such was my sad addiction to the yellow iron.

But in all honesty, it wasn't a bad thing, a healthy interest which has held me in good stead for later life, especially doing what I do today.

My favourites we nearly always Caterpillar excavators, and most of the brochures seen in this post I had in my collection at some point in my life. Just like the die cast model collectors, I know there are many of you who follow the Digger Man Blog who collect brochures too, so what was your all-time favourite?

Photos in this post credited to Daniel Foged.