Hildebrands Chocolate – 1900’s predictions for 2000.

Hildebrands chocolate card prediction for 2000 involving walking on water

Utterly perfect – Paleo-Future has a simply amazing post of a collection of promotional chocolate cards made in Germany by the cocoa company Hildebrand.  Created in the 1900’s, they predict life as they imagine it in the year 2000 – and there’s wonderful scenes both all too familiar and dissapointingly absent from our lives today.  From moving pavements and house pulled along on by a train, to weather machines, roofed cities and personal airships (oh, if that could just ‘take off’ I’d be inordinately pleased).

There’s really not much more I can add, except that it’s a perfect example of Steampunk – Victorian/Georgian era science predictions, where the technology changes but the society is unchanged.  I mean, simply the act of a stroll across the lake surface above, wishing others a good day, and even the horse has a balloon attached.  Perfectly implausible and wonderful at the same time.  Thanks to BoingBoing, Mr Hildebrandt (not directly related to the chocolate company in question, I assume) and Ms Nicole for pointing it out.  Just delightful.

  • IdB
    "Summer Holidays at the North Pole" ... heh heh heh ... who knew they understood the concept of global warming so long ago? :-)
  • Actually, from talking to my dad, it sounds as though we may indeed be the same Hildebrand(t)s! Never been prouder of my name :)
  • Fredrik Sandorm
    Pardon my deutsch. Two of those captions actually read "Wasserspaziergang" and "Schiffseisenbahn." I think maybe my head needs to be examined by some of those "Röntgenstrahlen."
  • Fredrik Sandorm
    Lovely. I decided to download the images in order to make a slideshow on my screen. The accompanying music? Kraftwerk's "Expo 2000" of course!

    Some lovely German compound coinages there also in the blackletter captions:
    "Schönwettermaschine"
    "Schiffeisenbahn"
    "Wasserspazierung"
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