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Posted By: Mike

Hi Glen,

Neat card! Much, much nicer than the ones below from a recent pickup. I started to get interested in the theatre theme on finding those strip cards advertised Kings Theatre and offering similar "matinee" coupons. They are on what look like W573 and W575-1 strip cards, though - a couple of examples are below.

I did a bit of research on Kings Theatre to try to figure anything out about the release of these ad cards. Access to historical archive of St Louis newspapers would shed a lot more light on the subject, but it seems like a basic story about the theatre and its history does come together from generally available sources online.

The evolving story is suitable for another thread, but in short the Kings was: built in 1912, converted from vaudeville to cinema in 1923, closed in 1929, razed in 1935. The lot was sold to an auto dealer during the war - a used car lot still stands there. (818 N Kingshighway, St Louis, 63108).

Here are a couple of the cards from the group.