eBay Tuesday: Mohican Advertisement

It's probably no surprise that Munsey's Magazine declared the Mohican Hotel the "leading automobile hotel of Connecticut." After all, the publisher owned the building.

This week's eBay auction pick, offered by seller got2findit4u, is a reproduction of a full-page ad appearing in a 1914 issue of the magazine. "For the week-end, for the stop-over in the automobile tour, or for summer sojourn in one of New England's fairest cities, tourists will find at the Mohican Hotel...the standard of equipment and cuisine that immediately identifies a first-class metropolitan hostelry," the advertisement reads.

There is plenty of room to expound on the hotel further, and the advertisement takes advantage of it. It touts New London's location as a midway point between Boston and New York City and notes that a new bridge over the Connecticut River should make it easier for travelers to take a drive along the shore between the two metropolises. The hotel also boasted a fairly impressive range of services for drivers, including garage space, mechanics, a dining room for "automobilists," and gasoline. Beyond that, the advertisement makes note of nearby golf links, food prepared by a New York chef, and evening meal services.

The most hyperbolic statement of the ad, made just a couple of years after the Titanic was dubbed "unsinkable" no less, is that the hotel is "absolutely fireproof." Several subsequent incidents proved that this was a rather fallacious claim, as serious fires broke out at the hotel in 1932 and 1954. Of course, the building has still survived as one of New London's most iconic structures.

Munsey had the building made to house his printing presses in an attempt to avoid higher production costs in New York City. When this didn't work, he converted the building to a hotel in 1898, then a department store, than a hotel again. It now serves as housing for seniors and disabled people.

You might notice that the building in the advertisement seems a little off from the Mohican you know. That's because the original structure was only eight stories tall and the upper three floors were added at a later date. The next time you look at the building, you'll notice the divide as a change of masonry between the eighth and ninth floors.

Munsey launched Munsey's Magazine in 1889 and saw a dramatic increase in circulation after the price was reduced in response to economic difficulties. Munsey also had a role in the rise of "pulp fiction" with the launch of Argosy in 1896, and in 1929 Munsey's Magazine was enfolded into this publication and disappeared. Munsey had died four years earlier, having amassed a fortune of nearly $20 million; he left most of it to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The seller stresses that this advertisement is a reprint, but says it is a high quality color reproduction of the aged black-and-white original. The item will be shipped in a sheet protector from Leominster, Mass. The starting price is $8.50, with free shipping for first-class mail, and the auction ends at 7:33 p.m. on Wednesday.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.