The illustrations below are the covers of two of the earliest advertising flyers put out by the Avalon Hill Game Company, and are reproduced in virtually full size, give or take an em. Typically for Avalon Hill, there is no date on either flyer, but both the addresses (East Fayette Street versus Harford Road) and the prices suggest that the flyer on the left is the earlier of the two.

The flyer on the left opens into four panels with dimensions of 12” wide by 6” deep (landscape orientation). The panel shown below is the cover. One panel, the back cover, is blank. The other six panels advertise Gettysburg, Tactics II, Verdict, Dispatcher, Management and U-Boat, all in flat boxes. The flyer is printed on a cream paper stock with dark blue ink.

The flyer on the right is printed with a dark blue ink, but on a more yellow paper stock. It unfolds into six panels with total dimensions of 6” wide by 18” deep (portrait orientation). There are 12 games advertised, all in flat boxes: Air Empire, Chancellorsville, Civil War, D-Day, Dispatcher, Gettysburg, LeMans, Management, Nieuchess, Tactics II, U-Boat and Verdict II.

All of the games in the earlier flyer sold for $4.95, except Verdict which sold for $3.95. In the later flyer, all of the games (including Verdict II) sold for $4.95, except Nieuchess and Civil War , which sold for $2.95.

There are a couple of notes I found interesting: First, in the later flyer, U-Boat, Management, Tactics II and Dispatcher all had ® registered trade marks. The status of the remaining games, and all the games in the early flyer, were “Trade Mark Registration Applied for” (T.M. Reg. App. for). Second, in the early flyer, the number of players for almost all the games was noted as “2 plus any number of assistants to each player”. This was replaced by “2 plus any number of subordinate commanders” in the later flyer. This subtle shift in terminology says a lot about the development of the wargame hobby.