"If you want to invest, get older covers," Retskin said.
President Reagan's personal matchbook is worth $3 to $5 among hobbyists, but political collectors would pay more. This category includes out-of-issue covers for New York restaurants owned by Mickey Mantle and Jack Dempsey and the Holiday Inn in Joplin, Mo., during the 1960s and 1970s, when Mantle owned it. "So buy in the match cover side of the house and take it to the baseball card show and up your money there." Matchbooks with Hall of Fame athletes "will go for $50 to $70 apiece to sports collectors, while match cover collectors will pay $6 to $9," Williams said. Since matchbook collecting is a low-budget hobby, covers are likely to fetch the highest prices from collectors of memorabilia from other fields, such as sports, Hollywood and railroads. "It's still the cheapest form of advertising, but they're less and less available." "The everyday match cover is becoming more valuable because fewer are being made," said Joseph DeGennaro, who has a "moderate" collection of 100,000 covers in New York. At most, they would pay 5 cents to 10 cents for a standard cover with 20 match sticks, and $5 to $10 for a giant cover about nine inches long and four inches wide.īut such prices are likely to become a thing of the past, as match cover bowls at entrances to bars and other businesses retreat behind counters or disappear due to smoking bans and the popularity of disposable lighters. Traditionally, matchbook collectors or phillumenists, as they are called, traded items by mail or at meetings and conferences held by about 30 societies in the United States and Canada.
#Vintage matchbook values free
The books, made by the Diamond Match Co., were the first made for public sale, as opposed to free distribution as advertisements by businesses.
#Vintage matchbook values movie
A 1933 set of 10 covers featuring movie stars is worth about $280. Matchbooks dropped over the Philippines in 1944, with a picture of General Douglas MacArthur saying, "I will return," fetch about $160. Only one copy survives, with signatures by the cast.Ī 1927 cover honoring Charles Lindbergh after his solo flight across the Atlantic sold for $4,000 at an auction in Cleveland in 1991. in 1896 - reputedly the first ever produced - is insured for $25,000 by its owner, Franklin Mint. Prices will rise "once our price guide gets established and people realize there's more money in it," he said.Ī matchbook advertising the Mendelson Opera Co.
"It's not a value-oriented hobby at this stage, but it's going in that direction," added John Williams, coauthor of the book. "Cover prices are going up faster than any other ephemera now," said Bill Retskin, director of the American Matchcover Collecting Club and author of the first book listing the value of match covers. So don't be surprised if one day they turn into prized relics that collectors will pay lots for. Matchbooks, those throwaway souvenirs that you pick up at restaurants and hotels, are a dying phenomenon as smoking becomes more frowned upon.
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