My friend Randy Dotinga, a freelance writer who sometimes writes for voiceofsandiego.org, dug up the following ad while researching a story:

(click the image for a large version)

The ad, which ran in the San Diego Sun in May of 1924, tried to lure speculators into Pacific Beach real estate using some tactics that appear strikingly familiar to modern-day bubble watchers.

We have the talking up of current prices based on long-term projections of population growth:

…and the idea that more supply will somehow make the existing units more valuable (a misapprehension repeated for downtown San Diego in this last bubble):

…and, of course, the old "buy now or be priced out forever" gambit:

A single week! Wow. Better buy now. Or, in May of 1924, anyway.

Unfortunately, one technique that didn’t survive into the modern era was the use of a pointing finger to issue direct yet totally superfluous commands to the reader.

I am considering trying to bring back the CommandFinger by issuing useless directives of my own:

…or possibly to call attention to items of interest:

The potential uses are manifold:

Behold, my friends, as the CommandFinger returns to render its olde-timey wisdom unto the Modern Era!