How Striking

Well once again I was going to post one way and have ended up posting another. Ah......

Topps released their first football set in 1949, a set of 100 small felt back cards that came inside penny packs of Varsity bubble gum:



I've shown the cards before but here is a front and back; the back was made of "felt", I guess to mimic a true pennant:





I am not here to dissect the set, that will be done another time. What derailed me today though was this scan:



The matchbook advertises the All America Football Conference, a competitive league that gave the NFL some headaches from 1946-49 before having some teams absorbed. One team that did not survive was the New York Yankees, itself an amalgamation with the old Brooklyn Dodgers team that found itself playing in Yankee Stadium in 1949. The Topps advertising is interesting but seems misplaced as it looks to be promoting the penny gum tabs that were still popular, albeit fading, instead of Varsity bubble gum. The "Don't Talk Chum, Chew Topps Gum slogan"was hanging on though.

The matchbook must have been produced before the season began as the six home games for the Yankees were their full slate. I can only think since the Varsity cards depicted college players, Topps did not think there would be enough interest among fans of the pro game to market their cards to the AAFC crowds, or perhaps the crowds were not too large. Anyway, I thought it was a neat item to share today.

Unmatched

Topps would use a variety of media to advertise their products over the years. In the World War 2 era, matchbooks were a simple and inexpensive way to gain exposure. Back when smoking was not taboo, I would think you could pick up a Topps matchbook at any candy counter or drugstore where Topps gum tabs were sold.

This one advertises their popular "changemaker" tab:



There are few different varieties of these but the above example is encountered often. Topps likely had a matchbook for each specific mint flavor in its main line. Here are two I found just searching on Ebay; Pepsin and Cinnamon would also have starred on their own covers. I am not sure if the Fruit tab would have been advertised as I suspect it was marketed more with children in mind than adults but it would not surprise me either if there was a corresponding matchbook.



When it came time to market some "ammoniated" gum, the design department got all panoramic:



Probably the most famous ad Topps ever put on a matchbook was created by Otto Soglow. It didn't take much more than a clever copywriter to morph "Loose lips sink ships" into this:



The catchphrase "Don't Talk Chum, Chew Topps Gum" was well-known back in the day. This example is hand dated July 18, 1944 on back, noted by a matchbook collector of yore I'm sure. There are some variations on all of these matchbooks I think; I have seen a variant of the Soglow cartoon, I just don't have a copy of it. Life magazine (and certainly other periodicals) ran a parallel series, here is one of the ads from February 1944 (a hybrid public service message/advert). You can find out more on these ads here.




The focus shifted a bit after the war ended and our returning fighting men had other, ah, concerns. The first one is a detail from a larger poster or possibly was designed for a print ad; Soglow is stretching out:



The second one shows an entire ad. Oh, you kid!



Those two are from an auction house called Period Paper, they have some really awesome stuff!

While digital imaging makes things like this blog possible, I am starting to feel nostalgic for how life used to be. Someday there will be no such thing as words printed on paper. What will an earnest archivist do then?