Friday, June 18, 2021

Cards and vintage things: Ted Lyons leads a '30s matchbook lot

 I picked up another lot of matchbooks from the '30's/'40s for pretty cheap on eBay. $25 for over 100 of them. The big reason why was this 1934 Diamond Match Ted Lyons. 85+ year old "card" of a Hall of Famer - yes!

Ted Lyons won 260 games, the most in White Sox history. Mostly for bad ball clubs - Yankees manager Joe McCarthy said Lyons would have won 400 games if he was a Yankee.

Almost as cool was this great Brooklyn Dodgers matchbook. As a New Yorker I love the subway instructions with the old BMT and IRT lines.

The back has instructions on how to win free tickets as well as a schedule. Unfortunately the striker was removed so I can't see what letter the matchbook had. It probably wouldn't matter, though, as the Dodgers no longer have their offices at 215 Montague Street I.n fact the building was demolished in 1962. The new building has a plaque honoring the Dodgers' signing of Jackie Robinson at that location. The schedule of Dodgers home games is from 1939!

Some other highlights from the lot including a couple of dated election matchbooks, 1938 and 1940 elections. "Sox" Johnson, what a great name for baseball.

Here are some other brands you may recognize.The Esso looks more like 1950s. Alka Seltzer would eventually come up with a better slogan than "Be Wise - Alkalize".








4 comments:

  1. Matchbooks are awesome pieces of history. That Ebbets Field one is my favorite.

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  2. I got my first baseball Diamond matchbook a few weeks ago. It's in great shape, though wasn't nearly as big of a name as Ted Lyons.

    The "Buck Rogers" book is interesting. It's got a lot going on!

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  3. Man, there's some really great stuff here. Nice-looking art on the advertisements in that last batch. Interesting that it's "Walgreen" instead of "Walgreens".

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