Comic Book Matchcovers

I was lucky enough to find both of these covers on a grab table at Keystone on Friday morning. 

Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle were both comic books by Paul Terry, whose company Terry-Toons also made cartoons. This cover must date between 1942 and 1952 as "Terry-Toons" comics were only produced by that name during that time. Later versions made in the 1960's were known as the "New Terry-Toons".

The second cover is for Archie comics and as it says on the matchcover, everybody loves Archie.

These covers for various Harvey Comics titles were also from the same grab table at Keystone last week. I had two of these in my collection and was surprised to find three new ones to add to them.The funny thing about these covers is that no matter how many times I run into the two most common covers (Babe Ruth Sports and First Love) I have never once seen either in decent or unstruck condition. I imagine these types of magazine and comic book matchbooks must have been given away at newstands.

From left to right: 

Black Cat

Babe Ruth Sports and Sad Sack

Joe Palooka, Little Max and Humphrey

First Love, First Romance and Love Problems & Advice

Fun Parade and Buddies

Rev. Christopher Sullivan. O.M.C. and the Trailer Chapel

I purchased this late 1930's Merchants Industries cover from Marc Eddleman at Keystone last week and he noted how neat it was to find a matchcover for a camper. I put it in my stack and went on searching through his dealer table. It's not til a few days ago I notice that this cover doesn't advertise a camper dealer or a brand of campers; instead it's a cover for Rev. Christopher Sullivan, O.M.C.'s trailer chapel. Part of the Franciscan Missionary Crusade to China, Rev. Sullivan traveled over 12,000 miles across China with it. I was able to dig up a little bit of history regarding Rev. Sullivan and his trailer chapel:

From The Guardian, December 4, 1937:

From the Post-Crescent, June 24, 1938: 

The Rev. Christopher Sullivan. O.M.C., Franciscan missionary to China, who is pastor, physician, mechanic and electrician for the trailer chapel, appears at the left, while Father Meagher is shown at the right. The trailer opens at the side to reveal the fully equipped altar while the steps which are let down from the side of the trailer form the altar steps. 

From The Guardian, March 7, 1941:

Trailers

A few more covers I purchased at the Keystone-Lehigh Swapfest last week. These all have trailers in common. The first two are botgh covers for dealers selling pop-up campers. I love the design of the early ones as seen in the silouette of the first one. The third one on the right is interesting in that company sold cushions and mattresses for campers.

I've never heard of Campostella trailers and there's nothing to be found about them on a quick scan through the internet, but these  trailers look pretty nice. The cover bills them as "house trailers" and I take that to mean they were more like mobile homes than camping trailors. Interesting nonetheless.

Typewriters on Matchcovers

Two interesting typewriter covers I found at the Keystone-Lehigh Swapfest last week. You can tell that the one on the left advertising Royal typewriters is much older, but they both appear to be from an era before electric typewriters were made.

Calculators

A couple of interesting calculator matchcovers I acquired at the Keystone-Lehigh Swapfest last week. It's pretty amazing how far technology has evolved after looking at these.

Religious Matchcovers

Occasionally I find matchcovers regarding religion. They're very interesting and you don't see too many of them.

Strike at the Seat of Trouble on eBay

We've all seen the famous Hitler spot striker matchcover where you can strike at the seat of trouble by striking a match on the seat of Hitler's pants, but this lot of them, including the original box came up on eBay recently. There's ten full books, features I might add, and the seller is asking $1500 for. That's $150 a piece by my math. According to the box itself, it was shipped with only ten full books (10 match packs, 150 laughs).

The two things I find interesting in this auction is 1) The box they were shipped in is included, which I have never seen and 2) These matchbooks were features, each match bearing the image of a bomb.

I have this cover in my WW II patriotics collection, but never realized that it was a feature.