A Trip Through the Grocery Store

I thought it might be fun to take a trip down the grocery store aisle and memory lane. Here's to those of us that collect grocery and food product item matchbooks and matchcovers.

Aisle 1: Canned Foods

This is a nice Match Corp Of America cover advertising both Holleb's Coffee and Elberta Peaches. Of note is the spelling on the can of peaches: Usually we hear of Alberta peaches not Elberta. My guess is that due to the popularity and or price of Alberta peaches, Holleb's offered something that sounded similar. 

The Alberta and Georgia Bell are varieties of peaches that were popular in the 1950's and 60's. However, there are no longer any true Alberta and Georgia Bell peaches.  All yellow freestone varieties are hybrids derived from  Albertas.   All of our white freestone varieties are hybrids derived from Georgia Bells. From http://www.macspride.com/pages/FAQs.html

IGA, which stands for Independent Grocers Alliance has always produced nice covers, including this one for Sno-kreem vegetable shortening. 

Aisle 2: Pet Food

One well used cover for Calo Dog Food and one well cared for cover for Rival Dog Food.

Aisle 3: Candy

It's a little worn, but this is still a great full length 5 cent Butterfinger candy bar cover.

Caramel, peanuts, and chocolate make up the Dam Bar, for only 5 cents.

This cover advertising Gold Tip Gum is reminiscent of the big bubble gum cigars made int he 1970's and 80's.

Pep O Mint Life Savers candy. Still only 5 cents.

There's a lot of Old Nick candy bar covers out there but you only occasionally see this one, advertising the ABC radio show Counterspy (seen coast to coast on the ABC network).

There's nothing I don't like about this Reed's Butter Scotch candy cover from the late 1930's and early 1940's.

Topps peppermint and spearmint gum.

This nice D.D. Bean cover for Welch's Fudge goes above and beyond advertising a candy bar, it advertises a lifestyle- just look at that pipe sitting there.

Aisle 4: Bread

Colonial Bread is good bread.

A mid century Bond Bread cover. I bet that kid in the chef hat has a name- anybody know it?

Junge's Bread from Joplin, MO / Coffeville, KS. It seems like this type of paper always browns with age.

Another great cover, but it too has browned with age. Wonder Bread.

Aisle 5: Meat, Fish and Poutry

An older Ohio Match Chicken of the Sea brand tuna cover.

Orange Band wieners from Tampa, Florida.

The J.S. Hoffman Company, importers of O-R-B, Polo, and Hofco brand polish hams.

Star-Kist tuna. This cover is a little worn but the design, colors and typography are nice.

Wilson's Certified Ham.

I saved the best for last: Wilson's MOR Pork, an all-purpose meat. Similar to SPAM I assume.

Aisle 6: Health & Hygiene

This Goldblatt's Bond razor blades and shaving cream cover has a lot going for it. Great colors and nice typography make this one one of my favorite covers of all time. Imagine 10 razor blades only costing 19 cents...

Listerine antiseptic and cough drops, a perfect pair, just as the D.D. Bean cover states. 

Espotabs laxative. They really advertised everything on these, didn't they? 

This well worn Universal cover for Famos razor blades is pretty eye catching. A revelation in shaving...

This older Federal Match is for Speedway double edge blades. A bargain at four for ten cents. 

Again I've saved the best for last: Lavoris, the ideal oral prophylactic. This is an older cover, most likely from the 1930's. Did you notice it's called an oral prophylactic? Well get your minds out of the gutter, kids; it's not bottled birth control, it's a mouthwash, similar to Listerine.

From http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prophylactic

Prophylactic: adjective

1: guarding from or preventing the spread or occurrence of disease or infection.

2: tending to prevent or ward off : preventive.

Now you know!