• Copywork365
  • Posts
  • 7-FEB-2026 | Excerpt from The J. Peterman Company’s “Berlin. Somewhere in the '30s” Ad

7-FEB-2026 | Excerpt from The J. Peterman Company’s “Berlin. Somewhere in the '30s” Ad

Author

Dan Bogachek
February 07, 2026

The Vault from Copywork365

The swipe file is dead.

Literally, and maybe figuratively as well.

When I first started working on this project, I gave it the working title, Toolbox. The simple tagline was: the swipe file on roids.

But the more I worked on it, the more it became clear that this wasn’t just a box of tools. Calling it a swipe file wasn’t accurate, either. Roided up, or otherwise.

Because at its core, the swipe file is merely a collection of pictures or text. A pile, in other words.

This thing behaves more like a navigable map.

And no matter how much stuff you hoard into a swipe file, its contents are inert.

This, on the other hand, grows deeper over time. Its contents are living.

So, henceforth, this will be known as…

(This is just a placeholder, made with the help of AI.
So hit me up if you can make this more human & prettier!)

The Vault is an atomic copywriting database. As far as I know it’s the first of its kind, so that’s what I’m calling it.

It’s a database of world-class excerpts just like the ones we cover right here on the daily. Spanning ad copy, webpage copy, and literature.

Each excerpt is x-rayed and dissected to reveal what makes everything tick, how it works — on the most granular level. (Hence, atomic.)

It covers all the tools, techniques, and psychology we touch on here, but in their full depth. Making it easy to master these “devices” and then apply them to your own persuasive writing. You can even filter by author or brand to steal the secret sauce from your very favorite writers, copywriters, and brands.

Same as before, I’ve still got a forever deal for you.

If you join the waitlist below, you get exclusive lifetime access for an ultra-low flat fee when The Vault launches. (It’s looking like Q1 or Q2 of 2026.)

After all, a sweetheart deal is the least I can do to thank you for your support.

And as I’ve mentioned before, yes, I really do mean lifetime.

Even if the internet ceases to exist. I’ll toil day and night to make sure you receive a physical copy. With however many thousands of excerpts this accumulates over its lifetime.

Pinky promise.

Excerpt from The J. Peterman Company’s “Berlin. Somewhere in the '30s” Ad

Berlin. Somewhere in the ‘30s.

The champagne sparkle of the ‘20s was gone now; vodka and suspicion replaced it.

The little comforts vanished. Money was worthless.

Luxuries were unobtainable. Well, almost. You had to pay a price. You had to be willing.

October, just after four in the afternoon. A beautiful pale woman sits alone at a café; orders a meal she can’t afford. The signal does not come.

A waiter hovers; she orders coffee. He shrugs, goes inside.

Finally, the signal comes. Without eating, without paying, without the valise of military documents she came in with, she leaves.

She pretends not to see the British agent coming, pretends not to notice his cologne. He bumps into her shoulder, hard. The only thing she feels is the envelope, thick with money, in her hand.

An hour later she emerges from a shop wearing a jacket she’d stared at in the window forever, the one she’d nearly spent the rent money on. 🏁

  • Complete ideas > complete sentences.

  • Even in this story, you’re brought into the fold with “you.” Now you see yourself in the main character’s shoes — coincidentally when we’re focused on the pain.

  • Couplets of repetition for emphasis.

  • The big picture: a story about fantasy and desire. We love stories. Our heroine goes through incredible risk and sacrifice, and in exchange she gains the financial freedom to get herself whatever she likes. And the one thing she chooses? The dress.