Coronet

For his birthday, the THC Sister presented THC with the February 1951 edition of Coronet, a mass circulation magazine (more than 2,500,000 printed that month!), published from 1936 through 1971, by the company that also published Esquire Magazine (which was actually a good magazine at the time).  It cost 25 cents.

Here's the cover and the contents page:

 

 The cover art depicts two young boys wrestling in imitation of what they are watching on TV.  Pro wrestling was big then.  In the late 50s, when our grandmother would come to sit us she would invariably turn on the TV to watch wrestling.  I remember seeing Bruno Sammartino and Gorgeous George.

The first of the two cover stories, "How Wild Are Small-Town Girls?", starts by informing us that:

"Judging by the headlines in many metropolitan newspapers, life in a 'typical American small town' is very immoral indeed", but then goes on to reassure the reader that "Actually, the widespread notion that delinquency flourishes more in small communities than in metropolitan areas is completely false".

After enlightening us with many examples of small town and metro area female delinquency, the article concludes that until the right steps are taken, "there will continue to be a certain amount of delinquency and immorality in America's small towns.  And so, too, will their inhabitants continue to be shamed by newspaper stories that exaggerate local conditions to lurid and shameful proportions."

Harpo Marx's affectionate profile of his brother Groucho provides a light contrast to the other cover story.  Harpo notes:

Groucho doesn't regard words the way the rest of us do.  He looks at a word in the usual fashion.  Then he looks at it upside down, backwards, from the middle out to the ends, and from the ends back to the middle.  Next he drops it in a mental Mixmaster, stirs it throughouly, and studies it again from every angle.  Groucho doesn't look for double meanings.  He looks for quadruple meanings.  And usually finds them.

The rest of the issue contains many interesting stories and glimpses into a largely vanished America.

And just as we see a TV on the cover, the magazine features three full page ads for the new entertainment center entering American homes.  You can take your pick from the three models featured below, a 16 inch "million proof television" from RCA Victor, the 17 inch "most beautiful ever" model from Admiral, or go big with the 19 inch "super life-size" set from GE which cost $499.95 or about $5,800 in 2023 dollars.