Cover Gallery

Instead of having a theme, occasionally I'll just post a few covers that are noteworthy for their design or historical significance.

Up first is this cover for Cafe De Paree in Los Angeles. Dine and Dance covers are my favorites and even though I'll gladly put in my collection of them, it's a shame this one was bobtailed.

Great graphics on this Castles Ice Cream cover.

The leg of the letter K that turns into a baseball-like tail is the standout for this Kellogg Real Ice Cream cover.Ice cream is a health food, indeed.

I love these older Strike Rite Matches from Canada purely for the design no matter what the business is. I can always recognize them due to their unique illustrations and great colorways.

Feeling groovy? You will if you ordered any of the groovy products offered in these national covers. I totally need a dayglo zodiac poster and a few pop art pillows to spice up my residence.

Hoberg's Summer (and Winter) Resort is nestled among the pines according to this nicely designed cover.

This Hotel Cherokee cover from Cleveland, Tennessee has a damaged striker but is nonetheless very nice. 

Two hotel covers shown above, from the Hotel U.S. Grant and the New Crosby Hotel demonstrate effective illustration and type based advertising. I count seven ink colors on the Crosby cover and can't imagine the expense businesses went to to put out gorgeous covers like these.

A great photo based cover for the Lotus Cafe shows the host and a view of the front of the restaurant.

Two nice examples of older cut rate and drug store covers.

Montgomery Wards was a heavy hitter for many years and everything from toys to clothes to tools to stereos. This older cover is probably from the 1940's. Check out the reverse side that advertises floor paint (yes, floor paint).

Detail from the reverse side of the cover advertises Wards Certified Floor Paint.

Last up is this Roy Rogers restaurant matchcover from the 1970's. Roy's was always my favorite and I always stop when I see one. Their fried chicken is the best out of any of the fast food places in my opinion.

Signage from Roy Rogers.

Janet's MARVA Pool Party

Right to Left: Greg (me), Janet, Grant and Bill.

Yesterday afternoon MARVA member Janet Stout invited us up to her house in Essex, Maryland for a pool party. Grant, Bill, Jim and I were able to attend, as well as Janet's sister and her friend (I don't remember how to pronounce her name so I won't butcher it here, but it started with an R).

We had a fantastic cookout on Janet's patio by the pool and everyone enjoyed the hot dogs, hamburgers and Janet's homemade potato salad. I also particularly enjoyed the large, home grown tomatoes and sliced cucumbers with vinegar and onions (you won't find that just anywhere).

Janet's awesome salt water pool.

It looked like the day would be cloudy and overcast and possibly rain a  little, but the sun showed up just in time to bring on a fantastic afternoon spent outside. After eating, a few of us swam, a few of us talked and a couple of guys who will remain nameless fell asleep in the sun.

Janet also had some great covers saved for me:

We'll start this off two really interesting ones. The Hi-Ball Bar from Kansas City. This bar was directly across the street from the Kansas City Power & Light and I can just imagine how packed this place got after each shift at the power company. I particularly like the big H and little i dotted with a baseball.

The next one, Jane's Grill, is interesting for two obvious reasons: It's an older cover, most likely the 1930's and the name, Jane's Grill suggests a female owned business before many females were owning businesses. Here's where it gets interesting, the term Tables For Ladies has a pretty important meaning.Tables for Ladies:

"alludes to a recent social innovation, in which dining establishments advertised "tables for ladies" in order to welcome their newly mobile female customers. In the past, it had often been assumed that women appearing alone in restaurants or bars were prostitutes in search of business; now, dining on their own or with other women, they would be treated respectfully."

Source: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/31.62  (check out Hopper's painting, it's pretty interesting, too)

So here we have what might be a female run business, the socially innovative "tables for ladies" message, and a naked woman riding a... ahem, hot dog. Who knows, maybe ole Jane had a good sense of humor about it.

A few really nice matchcovers for men's clothing. Today it's polo type shirts, but back in the 1930's and 40's it was real shirts, what we call now dress shirts. The color and typography on the two Mark Twain covers is pretty fantastic.

A few more very nicely designed covers with excellent type and color.

I love coffee matchcovers like this. Why? Probably because I dig the old metal cans like this that they used to come in. These type of cans were so plentiful and cheap at Richmond's Bellwood flea market in the late 90's, I had a whole bunch of them. Anyway, these are some nice examples, great color, great type and I noticed that these ones have the little metal keys included in the illustrations.

Two matchcovers for two motels with the same name.Although the green The Surf motel cover is nice, it's the Surf Motel I think is the finer of the two entirely because of the wild 1950's architecture. 

The Surf Motel as it appears today.

A lot of these old places have been bulldozed and replaced with a Starbucks or Chipotle in some new, soulless type of building that has no character. However, I looked it up and the Surf Motel is alive and well in San Francisco.

Three nice covers from what were probably pretty swinging nightclubs in California, Alaska and Missouri.The Premier Club is probably the most interesting of the three as far as design. 

A stock cut girlie I've seen before.

This older cover for Airmate Hosiery is a major award of sorts.After World War II and nylon hose was again available to women in the U.S., I guess it needed to be advertised. This one takes the cake with a lady riding on an airplane, reining it in like musher on a dog sled.

This cover for King's is most notable for its unconnected script lettering and extra long descender used in the word "in". 

Also notable is this M.C. Escher-like woman who impossibly seems to be inside, outside, around and going through the martini glass all at one time. Reminds me of this:

Last up is this bobtailed Sigari Marconi cigars cover from at least the 1930's. 5 cigars for 10 cents? A true bargain.

Big Boy: Should He Stay Or Go?

I found a nice Big Boy postcard for $3 at the flea market this weekend. It's signed by the Big Boy himself. I like this highly stylized, airbrushed look. No mention of who the artist was, but that's typical for items like this. It's not a matchbook, but since Big Boy covers are pretty popular so I thought I'd throw it in.

Also included in the clear sleeve the postcard came in was this neat, unused Big Boy sticker. If you don't remember this, Marriott Corporation launched this advertising scheme in Fall of 1984, complete with commercials using A particular song by The Clash (I'll let you guess which one). Get your vote in by May 6, 1985, people.

Article from Cincinati magazine, May 1985. For the rest of the article, go here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Rx8DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=Big+Boy+should+he+stay+or+go&source=bl&ots=4njLUf01vx&sig=bKmnXAGStrcyxNgu4bYC3EcJoQs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1qzfU5r3CIqlyATPpIDQAQ&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

White Spatz and Lots of Dollars

Continuing my foray into gorgeous mid 1930's covers depicting the glamorous life of the obscenely rich, here are two other very nice covers I acquired at UES in Hagerstown this year.

The cover for the Tiffin Room is really something, isn't it? Less stylistic than the other covers, it still shows a very well dressed man in what looks to be a tuxedo and a woman in long red coat. It sure looks to me like they're either getting in a very fancy elevator or exiting one. A little google searching (which is pretty fun, actually) turn this up:

"This was the Wolferman (an upscale grocery from what I gathered) downtown store -- the first floor was the grocery; in the basement was the grill, and upstairs was the Tiffin Room" 

( from http://millysmuse.blogspot.com/2012/08/eating-as-child.html )

The cover for the Cafe Loyale is very stylized and similar to the Nikabob cover. It was a feature and has printing "Patented in Canada - 1932" on the back, which I have not seen before.

High Hats and Arrow Collars

Two gorgeous older covers picked up in Hagerstown at the United Eastern Swapfest this year. The first is for The Stevens Cafe Nikabob or Nikabob Cafe (there are several variations). One of my favorite recent acquisitions, the abstract design of the man with top hat and cane and woman with what's obviously a fur stole of some sort looks amazing on this mid 1930's cover.

The Nikabob Cafe, circa 1930's, located at 875 South Western Avenue in Los Angeles. The Nikabob Cafe got it's name from Nick __ and Bob Cobb of the Brown Derby and Cobb Salad fame. (From http://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_LA_Buildings_(1925%20+)_Page_2.html )

An add for the Nikabob with luncheon and dinner prices.

The next cover is for The Palomar Ballroom, also in Los Angeles, was built in 1925 and was "billed as the largest and most famous dance hall on the West Coast. The dance hall could accomodate four thousand couples". (From  http://www.100megspopup.com/ark/PalomarBlrm.html )

For more info on The Palomar, please visit http://www.100megspopup.com/ark/PalomarBlrm.html as they have lots of info and more images.

Thirty Strikes

There's a lot of nice looking and interesting thirty strike covers out there, and over time I've grown to like them and have picked up quite a few. Here are some recent ones I've picked up that I thought were interesting:

These classic 30 strikes from Miami would be right at home lighting a cigarette in the hands of early 1960's Mad Men execs fresh from a  tropical vacation. 

The Sea Breeze cover is a nice design and does well using only green and a few spots of blue. My favorite part of this cover is the blue ocean waves with white text inside stating "on the ocean".

The 30 Stick Lion Match for the Park Avenue Restaurant seems a little older, and the colors are very Miami-ish. A postcard from the World Famous Park Avenue Restaurant, shown below, looks like quite the snazzy place the grab a bite by the beach.

This cover for Pure-Pak Cartons is interesting in that it's not selling anything to the average consumer, instead advertising for the most likely new technology of using wax lined, paper milk cartons.

I've been collecting covers with old signs on them advertising for all sorts of things, and in this case, motels.

Two beautiful examples of 30 strike covers for the city of San Francisco and the Putnam & Thurston's restaurant.

A 21 Feature cover that's essentially the same size as a 30 strike, advertises a new way to ship eggs, in the Kys Padflat egg packing container. Great colors and nice graphics.

A 30 strike cover for White King Foam Action Cleanser fits nicely into my collection of product items.

Another 21 Feature cover (essentially the same size as a 30 strike) advertises the Fairways.

I was thrilled to find a cover for this older local motel in Northern Virginia. Along route 50 and route 29 in Fairfax there are two older motels, the Anchorage Motel being one of them. It has somewhat of a dubious reputation nowadays, but nonetheless, it's a nice cover commemorating one of the few (nautical) themed motels left in the area.

Careful kids! A google image search for the Anchorage Motel does return some Not Safe For Work images.