Johnson Smith Company

The Johnson Smith Company was a mail order business started by Alfred Johnson Smith in Chicago, Illinois in 1914. A competitor to the Ultra Products Company, it sold novelty products such as a spy pen radio, x-ray glasses and a pocket spy telescope. Its catalog also included guides such as Develop a He-Man Voice, Learn Self Defense and Beat Up Big Bullies, which was a re-sell of Precise Publications’ Forbidden Oriental Fighting Arts guide.

The Johnson Smith Company continued to do business into the 2000s until it was shut down in 2019, 105 years after its founding.

The print ads shown were published in:

• Sub-Mariner, Issue #59, 1973
• The Invincible Iron Man, Issue #132, 1980
• Tales to Astonish Starring the Sub-Mariner, Issue #14, 1981