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This advertising postcard for the M&T Tire Company at 4629 Troost was produced in the late 1920s and is an excellent example of advertising postcards of the day.
The hand-drawn, hand-colored image shows the “boyfriend” working feverishly with a hammer and a pry bar to separate the rim to install the new inner tube and tire.
The “girlfriend,” obviously not impressed with the boyfriend’s ineptitude, tells him in no uncertain terms, to get Goodyears or color her gone.
These days, the address on the card is the site of the Midland Hardware Store.
Changing tires back in the day was not for the faint of heart. Tools involved were usually hammers, pry bars (numerous, as seen in this postcard), gloves and usually a high tolerance for pain. Spoke wheels, common on most of the cars of that day, had bias ply tires that required inner tubes and a rubber flap that covered the inside part of the spoke wheels so the inner tube wouldn’t pop.
There were also rings that fit around the edge of the wheel rim that held the inflated tire on the wheel.
These rings could and did often explode off a tire with tragic consequences if it wasn’t seated correctly when the tire was inflated.
And if the inner tube was pinched between the tire and the wheel rim upon re-inflation, you started the process all over again…sadly.
The advent of modern wheels in the 1940s and tubeless tires have made things much easier.
Large trucks to this day, however, are still a two piece affair and are often inflated in cages to avoid locking rings flying off and causing all sorts of harm.
This postcard was mailed on July 13, 1928, to Mr. R.T. Dempsey at 4501 Holmes in Kansas City.
Michael Bushnell
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