Philipp Lenssen has launched Vintage Ad Browser, a Web site with 123,286 ads at its birth. The ads come from scans of printed material (books, magazines, comic books) and from online sources. You can browse the 53 categories (which range from Alcohol to Xmas) or search the collection for a specific word or phrase.

Note that these images are not necessarily in the public domain -- many are still copyrighted by the original company or artist. And the quality of the scanned ads can vary greatly. Nevertheless, the site is an amazing resource.

Here are a few selections from Vintage Ad Browser:

You may also want to visit a sister site, Cover Browser, which includes more than 450,00 covers of comics and books.