Anyone collect 1934-36 Diamond Matchbooks?
 

Show us your matchbooks!

About a year ago, I saw a listing on Ebay in the UK for 2 1934 Diamond Matchbooks. They were something I'd never seen before and it piqued my interest. I did a bit of digging and they're pretty cool but still reasonably priced.

I've been slowly adding to my collection since then. I now have about 35.

Here's some of my matchbooks. The first 6 are near mint with the matches still intact.

....let's see some others.

Just looking briefly through the internet, they are all over the place, price wise, but many of the stars are very reasonable. Here is just one example of many I found:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/313479151353

They are pretty darned cool, aren't they?

I agree James.

There doesn't seem to be much love for the matchbook here though. Come on...there bound to be a few eccentric collectors amongst our midst who chase these.

Hey, collect what you like, that’s what it is about. Nice.

These are pretty common and can be found for football and hockey as well! Condition like anything is key, finding ones complete with matches can be rare. I like them - due to the fact they are cheap pre-war items I can resell to collectors at a good price.

Jimmy

Those are very nice. The black borders are tough to find. I need green and red.

I shared these hockey matchbooks over on the hockey thread. Recent "Philly Show" purchase for five bucks each. Added them to the baseball and two football matchbooks I already had.

https://i.imgur.com/PCoTuC2l.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/drNNZDkl.jpg

My only baseball example is part of my pro football players who played MLB set.

Charlie Berry was one heck of an athlete! A star football player for the Pottsville Maroons who very likely would have been a HOFer if he had continued to play pro football. Instead after two All-Pro seasons, he focused on playing baseball and later became an MLB umpire and an NFL referee. He is the only man to have officiated the World Series, refereed the NFL Championship and refereed the College All-Star game in the same year. He is in the College Football HOF.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-no?authuser=0

jeff

I always thought the matchbook route would be an inexpensive but challenging avenue to pursue to obtain 1930's players. But I had to narrow things down somehow, and items like matchbooks, pins, stamps and postcards had to be pushed aside so that cards could remain my main focus. Here are my 3 examples. Good luck on your quest.

Brian

Matchbooks as a general collecting (sport, non-sport) is an interesting area. As shown, these issues include other sports-- hockey, American football, etc. I had a few sets way back when.

I have near complete sets on baseball and hockey and acquired most of them from legendary collector Frank Nagy when he had his auctions.

That sounds like an amazing collection. Any photos?

I have quite a few Cubs and quite a few extra Cubs. Also a few 37 and One 38 Bears. There was a fellow on here that sent me a checklist a number of years ago. Don't know if I still have it or not. Will look.

I also pickup Cubs matchbook from time to time

A few years back, I purchased some sets and wanted to see how PSA would grade them.

Here's what a page from a complete 1935-36 set looks like in a binder. :)

Complete set being a relative term, since there are both year/text and color variations to the 'base' 156 matchbook set.

Interesting. I'm curious what the grading scale is for matchbooks.

Any idea what brought the grade down to a 3 for the Mungo and Root? They both look better than a 3 to me.

Love the Diamond Matchbooks. Have about 75% of the 1934 silver border set, about 75% of the 1935-36 main set, missing one of the 1936 "team on back" set, and have a complete 1936 Cubs team set. Only have a few of the 1935 black border set though. I know they are supposed to be shorter printed and less available than any of the other Diamond Matchbook sets, but you can always find a few on sale online, and I can never seem to justify paying the markup that most sellers seem to place on them over the other Diamond Matchbook sets. Diamond Matchbooks are a niche market to begin with, and have a fairly thin collector base it seems. And you rarely see them being sold through auction houses, but when you do, they are generally being sold in lots and not as individual matchbooks. Another indicator of their lower demand in the hobby. I simply can't justify to myself paying the higher prices seemingly always asked for the black border matchbooks, and thus don't have anywhere near a complete set.

Whenever you can find a complete matchbook with all the matches still in it, I think that is super and somewhat rare to find. I don't think complete matchbooks with all the matches still in them sell as high as they should, again an indicator of the lower interest and demand level overall. I actually have about 20 complete matchbooks with all the matches still in them in my collection, including a 1934 silver border Ducky Medwick, a 1935-36 main set Chuck Klein, and actually two complete 1935 black border matchbooks of Casey Stengel.

Over the years have also come across some Diamond Matchbook covers that appear to have never had the matches inserted to make an actual matchbook. Just the unused matchbook cover itself that has never been bent and folded. Probably someone from the factory that made them just took home some of the unused covers. That is very rare also. Anyone else out there seen or have any of these unfolded, unused Diamond Matchbook covers? Unfortunately I don't have one myself.

Another question for you other Diamond Matchbook collectors then. When collecting, do you have to have the striker still attached to the matchbook cover, or are you okay with it even if it has been removed? Personally, I don't want them unless the striker is still attached, but often see them for sale online with the strikers removed.

And lastly, anyone collect or even seen autographed Diamond Matchbook covers? I've only got one myself, an autographed 1934 silver border matchbook of Eugene DeSautel. Got to believe there are others, though have to admit I don't really ever remember seeing any other autographed matchbook covers out there.

Great thread about another seldom discussed issue that is way underappreciated and undervalued in my opinion. Whenever you can find them in really nice shape, they are great looking with wonderful images and short bios. My favorite of all the different Diamond Matchbook sets is the 1934 silver border set. Not sure why, just something about the silver border sets them off for me. And speaking of the the 1934 silver border set, the checklists I've seen have always included a silver border matchbook for Wes Ferrell. However, in recent years there had been some questions about whether or not such a matchbook actually existed for him. So, anybody here seen or have a 1934 silver border Diamond Matchbook of Wes Ferrell? I'm guessing it may not exist.

Although just a Cubs guy I do have quite a few. I would like with matches but I agree they are difficult to find that way. Thus I prefer with striker attached but will get one without if I need it for my Cub collection. I enjoy, although get a little frustrated, trying to figure out the 36 type 2 Cubs black and brown ink ones. Trying to buy these on line is really difficult.

I have never seen an unused one and it would be fantastic to find one. I have also never come across an autographed one. Suspect not many people thought about getting these autographed as cards were more prevalent.

Have a few 34 Silver border but only one black border.

In my earlier post I mentioned a person who helped me out tremendously with the checklists and found his name. It was Charles Specht. This was back in 2013 and, if he is still around, I would consider him to be the most knowledgeable person around regarding Diamond matchbooks. Unfortunately I only kept one of our correspondence emails.

I have the 1936 Cubs set (U3-2) in green and in blue. Looking for a red set.

Thanks Jim, would be great to hear from this Charlie Specht and see if he's aware of a silver border matchbook of Wes Ferrell actually existing.

Wish I could remember where I had seen that unused/unfolded Diamond Matchbook cover. Seem to remember it was a silver border matchbook cover and don't think the black material for the striker had been applied yet either. That could have been the reason the cover never got used then because it would have had no striker.

The black borders are always going to be more expensive, so guess I'll have to suck it up one day and pay more for them when they do come up for sale.

Collecting only complete matchbooks with matches in them would be super, but doubt you could ever complete the larger Diamond Matchbook sets that way. And besides, displaying or storing the matchbooks with all the matches still intact is a bit tough. When you just collect them without the matches they fold out nice and flat and can easily be put into binders with the plastic pages, like the one earlier poster showed in a picture of his set in a binder. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some collectors would shy away from complete matchbooks with all the matches still intact for that reason alone.

Good luck with your Cubs collecting.

Were you referring to something like this one I found that is on ebay?

Brian

That is a great looking "proof".

That is it! For some reason I think they never got the material that is used for the striker applied to the matchbook cover, so then they couldn't use it to complete the matchbook by putting the matches in. With no striker you couldn't light the matches and the matchbook itself would not be usable. Can't remember ever seeing one of those for anything other than a silver border matchbook. An interesting piece for someone that collects these Diamond Matchbook covers to possibly look to get. Thanks for posting the image off Ebay. I assume the item has not been folded as a normal matchbook would be also.

Also went and looked up the Ebay item, seller is asking a pretty steep amount for that Dean matchbook!!!! Don't think I've seen any Diamond Matchbook with a four figure asking price before. Ouch!

Jim,

I don't think it is technically what the regular card guys would call a proof. As I mentioned before, I believe that in the process if making the matchbooks they ran it through some machine that would apply the black material that became the striker for the matchbook. My guess has always been that somehow there were some sheets or whatever of these that were run, but then the striker material didn't get properly applied so that when they cut them to get to the individual matchbook covers, they couldn't go back and apply the striker material by hand, or they just didn't bother because it wasn't worth the time and effort to do it by hand. And then rather than just throw out these unusable matchbook covers, I wouldn't be surprised if someone at the plant that made them just took some of these scraps home to give out to kids and family. They are still showing the ballplayer and his bio, and therefore still somewhat collectible, just not in a complete matchbook form. Maybe calling it an uncomplete or unused scrap piece would be a better term. Kind of like what the T206 collectors get when they have a card that is missing one or more of the colors that should have been on it, if that makes sense. In this case the matchbook is missing the striker material though, not a color. Does that make any sense?

I've got sets or near sets of most of the baseball issues, missing a 2-3 in a couple of sets. Agree the prices are all over, I've found the best strategy is to buy a large lot when it comes up and sell off any dupes.

Agree, most collectors may want just a couple of these for a type collection so won't go after a large lot of them. Seems when you buy a large lot of them you get an even better price per matchbook as well.

Bob, that makes a lot of sense to me. I agree that calling it probably an unused scrap piece would be a lot better term. I would use that term rather than unused because the striker material hasn't been applied. Thanks. Jim

Makes sense. I threw in the word "unused" since they never completed putting the striker material on the cover and then didn't use the cover to finish making a completed matchbook.

I try to do the same. I find that buying in lots of 10 - 20 seems to be the sweet spot.

That proof looks nice but there's no way I'd consider paying anything like $1,000 the ebay seller is asking for it.

To the question about whether I'd buy them without the striker attached, the answer is yes (assuming the price is low to reflect that). But my preference is to have the striker intact.

I've found a few checklists online. But the TCDB seems the most complete. You'll find the checklist for the 5 different series here:

https://www.tcdb.com/Search.cfm?Sear...ww.tcdb.com%2F

Buying the matchbooks in lots is definitely the way to go. Am wondering if the surge in prices since the pandemic started may begin to dry up such lots for sale as sellers assume prices on all pre-war items have Jumped up and we start to see matchbooks sold singly more than ever because of that.

Same thing I thought regarding the Dizzy Dean scrap/proof/unused matchbook cover, no way anyone will pay $1K for it. I could maybe see a couple hundred from a Dean collector, but doubt much more than that.

I prefer them with the striker attached myself. Often seems when you find one being sold without the striker that it was removed by just tearing it off. Leaves on uneven and very damaged look to the matchbook, which I don't like. The majority of these matchbooks you see for sale do include the striker though, so should be no problem finding them with strikers attached. Much cleaner and consistent look that way. To me, buying a matchbook without the striker feels like buying a card with a missing corner.

Thanks for the checklists link. Noticed their 1934 silver border checklist also includes Wes Ferrell. The old SCD catalog checklist for these silver bordered matchbooks also included Wes Ferrell, but added a notation that the existence of one for him was now questionable. That tells me it likely doesn't exist then. In the past, especially when Bob Lemke was editor of the SCD catalog, when you questioned SCD about the existence of an item on a checklist, I believe they would look to find an image of it somewhere to prove its existence, and also check with collectors to see if anyone had or knew of an existing copy of the questionable item. Absent finding proof of the checklisted item existing, they would update the checklist in their next annual issue and note that item's existence was now questioned. This would open the question of an item's existence to the entire collecting community to see if anyone did know of the existence of the item. And if no one ever came forward with proof the item did exist, SCD simply left the existence questioned notation on the checklist going forward, on the off chance that a copy of the questionable item did turn up one day. You can check out the 1910-11 S74-1 white version silk checklist in the SCD catalogs to see what I mean. There are 5 silks that have never been found that really don't belong on that checklist. My guess as to why someone may have originally included Wes Ferrell on the 1934 silver border checklist is because his brother Rick does have a silver border matchbook out there, and it was mistakenly assumed they wouldn't have a matchbook for the one brother without also having one for the other brother. Just a theory.

Made another nice little pickup of silver boarders and 34-s with all but 1 book full with all 20 matches. I bought them just for the CUBs and HOFs.

Side view

Great pickup John. Trust you got them at a good price.

Great pick up, congrats.

Those look great. I love that they have the full matchbooks. Really nice pickup.

I'm waiting on 12 matchbooks to arrive from a recent auction. I'll share photos when I finally get them in hand.

They're fun and a great player collector adjunct. I pick them up at paper fairs and postcard shows when they come up in clusters. They definitely missed the mark with no Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx or Greenberg. The football guys are hardcore with some of the HOFers since there were very few football sets back in that era. The hockey ones are also really interesting and loaded with HOFers. I picked up a near set several years ago in a collection I bought. I have a few, bit no scans of the baseball:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Nagurski.jpg
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Conacher.jpg

Thanks Bob
I did get a great buy on those, just luck I guess.

Great to see a thread were matchbooks get some love. Also impressed that some here are so close to complete sets.

Keep the stories and pictures coming.

Not sure if I've ever posted these before or not. I can't recall too many threads about matchbooks. Can't really add anything to the conversation either, as I know very little about them. Here are the only two I own.

I know there is also a blue version, but I have yet to track that down.
Not sure if any other colours (red, maybe?) exist.

<img width="250" align="left" src="https://www.collectorfocus.com/images/show/georgegibson/baseball-cards/48004/1934-u1-matchbook-green" />
<img width="250" src="https://www.collectorfocus.com/images/show/georgegibson/baseball-cards/48005/1934-u1-matchbook-orange" />

Cheers,

Richard.

Correct, the 1934 Silver Border matchbooks came printed on red, green, blue, and orange paper/cardboard versions. It is not known if you can actually find matchbooks of every single player in the set on all four different colors.

Hey Bob, can you elaborate on "paper/cardboard" versions, please? I've never heard about this before. Are you saying there are/were different 'stocks' used for the actual matchbook? Is only orange available "paper" and "cardboard" or are all four colours?

Thanks,

Richard.

My mistake in how I presented that. There aren't different paper AND cardboard versions. I was just referring to possible different ways people may look at the stock the matchbooks were made out of and how to some, rather than referring to it as very thin cardboard, they may think of it as very thick paper instead. My bad, sorry for not being more specific. The "versions" I was referring to was for the different colors, not different matchbbok material.

The matchbooks are pretty cool collectibles. They haven't too sought out in the past but with everything going stupid in price, collectors may be picking these up as a way getting a cheap fix. These were probably part of the final frontier of cheap baseball collectibles, but soon they'll be like everything else.

Here I was thinking that I was the only one that collected these! I’m not actively chasing them, but I gladly buy them when I find them in the wild.

Here’s the few that I’ve found so far.

OH! Ha. Thanks for clarifying Bob.

+1

I really like your Lon Warneke. Seems to be in nice condition. I found my way to the matchbooks when I noticed a listing for a Stanley Hack Matchbook on Ebay in UK in 2020. It not often that I find something like that in the UK and it was going cheap. I'd never seen or heard of them before but it was just too interesting to pass up.

I found out about them and started to slowly build my collection. I now have 65 of them. I really enjoy them. Maybe one day they'll become a hot item, but for now I enjoy the fact that I can picked them up pretty cheap. :)

No idea how many I have, probably somewhere between 15-20 in the piles of stuff. A some baseball, mostly football.

I started picking them up specifically because of the Portsmouth Spartans and the affordability at the time. I collect all Detroit sports and am a glutton for punishment enough to be a Lions fan.

Thanks! The Warneke, Davis and Hartnett were found locally (along with a T205 McGraw) during an old house demolition by a building contractor.

The others I have been finding here and there. I missed out on a football one recently but I'd collect those too if I could find them.

Not too hot...

I've looked at these too and wondered how easy to find they were. My kids wouldn't really know what to do with a match book I don't think. Course they rarely see anyone even smoking...big change from the old days.

Trying to keep thread going as long as possible.

Newest pickup is (2) black boarder, matches full, Casey Stengel books in nice condition.