Treasured Matchbook a Venerable Centenarian

Surely, when the historians get around to summing up the really important developments of the last 100 years, they will pay due deference to the humble matchbook.

The matchbook, you say?

Of course, that fragile thingamabob that was so ubiquitous that the phrase “Close Cover Before Striking” became the most-printed phrase in the English language.

That little accessory has recorded foibles of the nation; its products, its candidates for office, its recreation, its sports heroes and movie stars.

Now the matchbook is celebrating its 100th birthday, one of the most popular advertising mediums of all times, as well as the feisty chronicler of each passing decade,

Think of it and somewhere, sometime, it was probably advertised on a matchbook.

A book of matches is not only handy for lighting cigarettes, it provides emergency toothpicks and a place to write down the phone number of the girl or the fellow on the next bar stool.

In World War II they carried patriotic messages, like the one with matches shaped like little bombs and you struck them on Hitler’s derriere. One issue advertising Vicks salve had free samples attached.

Phillumenists, or lovers of light, are the collectors of matchbooks, and for the most part the historians.

The paper matchbook was invented by Joshua Pusey, a Philadelphia lawyer, who also invented the roller coaster and a coin-operated device to attach to opera glasses.

Pusey sold his invention to the Diamond Match Co. for a reputed $5,000, a rather princely sum in those days, and was paid an annual retainer of $5,000 until his death in 1906.

Mark Bean, president of the American Match Council and head of the D. D. Bean and Sons, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of paperback matchbooks, says it would be virtually impossible to guess at the number of matchbooks ever produced.

“Trillions and trillions,” guesses Bean, whose grandfather Delcie began Bean in 1938 in Jaffrey, N.H.

The industry is now on hard times, hit harder by the disposable lighter than the anti-smoking sentiment, although the latter is reflected in President’s Bush’s refusal to have his name engraved on the official White House matchbook.

Bean says probably 30 billion matchbooks were produced in 1976, a bumper year, or 120 million a day. Today, there are probably five billion produced annually, or 20 million a day.

There were once 30 or 40 small match companies. By World War II, these had been consolidated into about 20 companies and today there are only four in the United States and one in Canada, Eddy of Pembroke, Ontario, which essentially produces for the American market. In fact, it produced the official White House matchbook until some sharp-eye noticed “Made in Canada” in small print.

Besides Bean, the other U.S. companies that actually produce paper matchbooks today are Lion Match in Chicago, Atlas Match Corp. in Euless, Tex., and Bradley in Frankfort. Ill. Other companies, such as Superior, a former manufacturer, now sell and distribute paper matches, as does Diamond, the largest manufacturer of wooden matches in the United States.

The first known use of the matchbook as an advertising medium came in 1896 when the Mendelssohn Opera Company had no money to advertise its performance at Carnegie Hall in New York. The troupe was enlisted to snip out pictures of the two stars, paste them on the outside of 200 matchbooks and print the information about the engagement. The hall sold out.

There is only one of these matchbooks in existence and it is held in the Franklin Mint and insured for $25,000.

The success of the ad was not lost on Henry C. Traute, a matchbook salesman for Diamond. In 1902, Traute sold 10 million matchbooks to the Pabst Brewery after he had a lithographer put one of the Milwaukee beer company’s ads on a cover. The next time out he didn’t fare so well. A tobacco firm said no dice, but a rival, Bull Durham, gave Traute an order for 30 million matchbooks.

Traute’s next bright idea was to have the proprietor give the matches away, with the prospect of doubling tobacco sales.

There are probably 3,000 to 5,000 serious matchbook collectors in the country, people who attend conventions, auctions, belong to the 30 or so clubs, trade with each other, specialize in types of covers, as well as subject matter, and take over rooms in their homes to store the albums in which they have organized their treasures.

There are probably another million collectors who don’t know they are collectors. They’re the folks with brandy snifters and fish bowls full of matchbooks, souvenirs really, atop the dining room furniture. Many a serious collector started out that way.

Bill Retskin, editor of Front Striker Bulletin and a man who wrote his master’s thesis on matchbooks, says the average collector is usually a blue-collar man, between 55 and 60, “a real middle-America type.”

There are few matchbooks remaining from before the 1930s and that makes many of the early ones valuable.

The most valuable is the 1927 Charles Lindbergh cover. It was believed to have been set out at a dinner for 200 select guests at the Astor Hotel in New York to honor the aviator after his trans-Atlantic flight.

One Lindbergh was auctioned for $4,000 in Cleveland a year ago, but among collectors that’s a joke. They say a Lindbergh will never fetch that kind of money again. For years it was believed there were only two Lindberghs in existence, then six, later 10, and now they “are coming out of the woodwork,” says Joe DeGennaro, president of the only national match cover organization, the Rathcamp Matchcover Society, founded in 1941.

Retskin believes that while the collectors have millions of covers, they probably represent about 2% of the match covers stuffed in attics or old furniture.

Despite the early Pabst and Bull Durham, there is a dearth of early covers. There is a 1920s cover honoring a homecoming at Worcester (Mass.) Polytechnic Institute, a 1923 cover for the USS Sirius, a Navy transport ship, and a handful of others from that era.

Many credit the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair with really sparking the hobby. The variety, the sets, and the quality were so good that people took them home and kept them.

The men of World War I also mostly used the wooden matchboxes from Europe and it was not until World War II that the War Department, as well as other advertisers, pushed the patriotism angle and armed the GIs with paper matchbooks.

The most valuable of the World War II covers, one owned by DeGennaro, is one dropped behind enemy lines in the Philippine Islands with a picture of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the immortal words: “I shall return.”

In addition to the matches produced by the War Department and recreation departments of individual units, the advertisers were also firmly behind the patriotism sweeping the country. A typical cover might say “Joe’s Haberdashery” on one side and Buy War Bonds on the other.

Another has a big shoe coming down atop caricatures of Mussolini, Hirohito and Hitler. Match covers stressed security of factory workers, plane spotters and the recycling efforts.

Bill Thomas of Winter Park, Fla., former Navy pilot and collector of military covers, says the men in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts had matchbooks promoting their units or squadrons and in Vietnam there were a lot of girlie matches welcoming the GIs.

None of the collectors are aware of match covers surfacing during the Persian Gulf War. The GIs did bring back matchbooks from some of the fancy hotels in the Middle East, but there seems to have been nothing produced that said “Desert Storm,” or “Desert Shield” or “Gulf War.”

Collecting did not get into full swing until the late 1930s or early ‘40s when two national clubs began. Only Rathcamp survived and the first regional club, the Empire Matchcover Club, was formed in 1945.

There are also specialty clubs for those who collect specific categories: hotels, restaurants, warships, bridges, and similar items. Others collect types of covers, midgets, jewels, contours, novelty matches, and the like.

Boyle, 48 and president of Empire, is considered a newcomer by those in the 70 to 90 age group, the men and a few women who lived through the eras the match covers reflect.

Even collectors with millions of covers grab handfuls at restaurants, funeral homes, girlie clubs. Even the most sophisticated, who may not bend over to pick up a penny, will bend over to pick up a discarded matchbook.

The condition of the cover counts, even among the rarest. Although the collector “shucks” the cover by taking out the matches, one where the striker, the friction part, has been repeatedly used is less valuable than one grabbed years ago by a nonsmoker and never touched.

The details of the old covers are striking in visualizing an era. One from the McAlpin Hotel in New York, presumably from the 1930s, advertises a room for $2, $2.50 if you want dinner. The Plymouth Hotel, also in New York, has a similar cover: two nights for $4.50.

The specialty clubs have their own rules and regulations. Take the girlie club, for instance. A pretty face alone just won’t do it. And no copping out with a mermaids’ tail. Not to fear, mermaid lovers. There is a specialty for that, too.

Even the girlies are subdivided. There are those done by two famous artists of the day, George Petty and Alberto Vargas, and they were used to advertise all manner of products. There is also some hard porn, the 900 number collections.

Ralph Arnold, historian for the Rathcamp Society, says there are probably more than 1,000 specialties.

“Your imagination is your only limit,” he says. Some people collect matchbooks with their names on them, some collect dogs, others collect only Scotties and still others collect only miniature Scotties.

Collectors also have their own vocabulary, words such as manumark and saddle, striker and feature, midgets and contours, jewels and jewelettes, shucking and bobtail.

Barnes, who has more than 1.5 million covers, has knocked down one wall in his house to enlarge his hobby room. He remains circumspect when the only daughter still at home inquires about the fate of her room when she moves out.

The woman with the largest collection is Evelyn Hovious of San Francisco. She is in her 90s and other collectors say she has well over 5 million covers. She once bought a new house because she needed more space for storage.

Once her garage was burglarized and the robber knew which albums were valuable and which were not.

“This was someone who knew what he was doing,” says Boyle. An artist, Boyle belongs to about six other clubs besides the Empire. He collects old diners, girlies, World War II, and many covers he just finds aesthetically attractive. Boyle, because he specializes, has about 30,000 covers.

DeGennaro, a 46-year-old CBS executive, specializes most strongly in world’s fairs and early radio and television in his collection of about 40,000 covers. He has covers promoting famous old radio serial “The Shadow,” and Disney, along with a lot of World War II and historical covers. He has about 40,000 covers.

Boyle, a bachelor, has some of his prizes framed. One is from Leon & Eddie’s, a New York night spot which had 10 different covers, each showing a different part of the club.

The gimmick was that if you collected all 10 and added a quarter you could get an “autographed copy of the song that made Eddie Davis famous--’She came Rollin’ Down the Mountain.’ ”

DeGennaro, who lives in a two-bedroom apartment with his wife and son--neither of whom share his interest in the hobby--stores most of his displays under the bed. He has built three cabinets in his living room to hold his albums, as well as all the awards he has received, blue ribbons as well as pieces suitable for hanging, the most recent replete with a clock.

He admits that it drives his wife crazy.