Hollywood's Mocambo Night Club

The Mocambo night club in Hollywood was a white's only club that sat on Sunset Boulevard and was as famous for it's clientele as it was for what went on inside. Errol Flynn famously punched Hollywood gossip reporter Jimmie Fidler after Fidler's wife stabbed Flynn with a fork. 

As I said it was a white's only club- that is until in the 1950's when Marilyn Monroe stepped in. In return for allowing Ella Fitzgerald to perform there, Monroe promised the club manager she'd sit front row every night for the first week. And she did. Read about it here: http://www.kplu.org/post/how-marilyn-monroe-changed-ella-fitzgeralds-life 

You just can't make this stuff up.

Here's a 1940's Lion Match cover from the Mocambo club. It was in a box of free stuff I donate to the club. I noticed the writing on the back and although a lot of covers were dated by collectors and souvenir hunters alike, but this seemed strange. There's a date and three different peoples handwriting on it. No, wait...those are autographs.

A little research goes a long way and after about 15 minutes of scouring google, I find out who the autographs belong to.

The top one is Bob Fesler, a future Seattle Rainer's pitching phenomenon whose warm up pitches were described as "rifle bullets" by The Times newspaper. He would have been 17 or possibly 18 at the time, according to the date on the cover, but he, along with his father were sports stars and very well known.

"Fesler became known as the ‘King of the Softball Pitchers,’” Duncan wrote. “Although the moniker wasn’t terribly creative, Fesler was something special. He not only had the fastest fastball, but he had six varieties of curve ball. He made opposing batters in his leagues look foolish at the plate."

For more info on Bob Fesler: http://sportspressnw.com/2129696/2012/wayback-machine-the-bob-fesler-experiment

The other autograph belongs to a then 25 year old Hollywood starlet named Geneva Gray. Gray has performed in movies such as "Gun Talk", released in 1947, in which she portrayed June Forbes, "Angels' Alley" (1948), and "Joe Palooka in Fighting Mad" (1948).

More, but not much, on Geneva Gray here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0336647/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

I like to think that Bob Fesler walked into the Mocambo with the very attractive Geneva Gray on his arm, someone saw them and had them autograph this matchbook, but it most likely didn't happen that way. 

One more thing: Why are the autographs so small and written across the short end and not lengthwise? My guess is that there were still matches in it when it was signed.

July 15, 1947 was a Tuesday and almost exactly 66 years ago today.

Military Covers

Military covers are some collectors specialties, so I won't pretend to know more than I do about them. I'm a casual collector of them and these few are interesting.

Even SNAFU knows VD can be prevented.SNAFU was a character created by Warner Bros. Leon Schlesinger's animation studio for a series of black and white "instructional" cartoon shorts during World War II. Not many people know this, but Walt Disney almost got the bid to create SNAFU for the US Military, but was underbid by Schlesinger's animation studio.

For a personal remembrance of these SNAFU VD covers, head over to: http://www.89infdivww2.org/memories/stearnssouvenirs2.htm

SEABEES cover from the Naval Construction Center located at Camp Endicott in Davisville, RI.

An unstruck U.S. Marines cover.

Department Stores

Someone once commented that they thought I had one of the nicest collection of chain department store matchcovers they'd seen. Before Wal-Mart drove out all the smaller department and discount stores, there were more stores than you could visit in a day in a given major metropolitan area. I liked going to them as a kid and enjoyed the fact that each was different in terms of design and layout. 

Heck's, Ames, Jamesway, Zayre, Kmart, Murphy's, Wards, Sears, Bradlees, Harts, Hills, Rinks and the list goes on. I collect only the ones I remember and leave the other ones out there for like minded collectors.

An older Montgomery Ward matchcover. I have quite a few in my collection, each one a different color scheme.

An earlier Sears matchcover that is particular to the Buffalo, New York store. I have not seen many of these, but I imagine they were stock designs and stores could have their city's name imprinted into the "XXXXXXX'S COMPLETE DEPARTMENT STORE" area.

An early 1960's Sears cover. I particularly like the design and colors of this one. Of interest is that SATISFACTION GUARANTEED OR YOUR MONEY BACK is visually larger than the actual Sears logo (which has changed since the previous cover, above).

Chevrolet's of the Late 1950's

One of the most iconic cars of the 1950's, the 1957 Chevrolet. Believe it or not, the 1957 Chevy came in 19 different varieties. Check it out, here: http://www.classicdreammachines.ca/1957-chevy-model-production.html

The next year's model of Chevy had a drastic change in aesthetics: The 1958 Chevrolet.

This cover from Willow Springs, Missouri advertises the general line of Chevrolet trucks for 1961.

Radio Station Matchcovers

WILM 145 AM broadcasting from Wilmington, Delaware.

Dubuque's Favorite Station, WKBB 1490 AM broadcasting from Dubuque, Iowa. 

WMFJ 1450 AM broadcasting from Daytona Beach, Florida. What a great older, 7-11 cover, too.

WMGM 1050 AM broadcasting from New York City with Ted Brown and that crazy Redhead.

 WMTR 1250 AM broadcasting from Morristown, New Jersey.

WPEN 950 AM broadcasting from Philadelphia, PA. Fantastic graphics on this one.

WPEN 950 AM broadcasting again from Philadelphia, PA.

WITH 1230 AM and 104.3 FM broadcasting (possibly) from Massachusetts.

WGBS 71 AM broadcasting from sunny Miami, Florida. There is no 71 on the AM dial, but radio stations began dropping the zero after some time, my guess being when the design of radios changed. Interesting there's also an ad for vending machines on this cover.

Matchbook Advertising Cuts

Some nice advertising cuts from some matchcovers I had.