![]() ![]() They say a Lindbergh will never fetch that kind of money again. One Lindbergh was auctioned for $4,000 in Cleveland a year ago, but among collectors that's a joke. 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. The most valuable is the 1927 Charles Lindbergh cover. There are few matchbooks remaining from before the '30s and that makes many of the early ones valuable. 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 and trade with each other. A tobacco firm said no dice, but a rival, Bull Durham, gave Traute an order for 30 million matchbooks. 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 success of the ad was not lost on Henry Traute, a matchbook salesman for Diamond. Only one of these matchbooks is in existence and it is held in the Franklin Mint and insured for $25,000. 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 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. 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. There were once 30 or 40 small match companies. 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. "Trillions and trillions," guessed Bean, whose grandfather Delcie began Bean in 1938 in Jaffrey, N.H. 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 produced. Mark Bean, president of the American Match Council and head of D.D. 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. Pusey sold his invention to the Diamond Match Co. The paper matchbook was invented by Joshua Pusey, a Philadelphia lawyer, who also invented the roller coaster. One issue advertising Vicks salve had free samples attached. ![]() In World War II, they carried patriotic messages, like the one with matches shaped like little bombs that you struck on Hitler's derriere. ![]() Think of it and somewhere, sometime, it was probably advertised on a matchbook. 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. 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. Surely, when the historians get around to summing up the really important developments of the past 100 years, they will pay due deference to the humble matchbook. ![]()
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