Mickey mantle holiday inn specialists
 

Has anyone seen this variation matchbook?

IMO not a variation - faded.

No red no yellow? definitely not faded...no sign of any color
perfectly distributed throughout

Ben, Mike and I discussed when this popped up and came to the conclusion it was faded. The brown even looks a bit washed out and the red/yellow, from what I know, are the first to go with light exposure. It’s not a genuine variation (I’ve only seen one “one-off” variation in Holiday Inn matchbooks in about fifteen years of watching them).

100 % not faded
I have in hand...not a chance ..100% guaranteed

A side question. I do not collect match books. Does any company grade them ? If not do sellers rate them like cards , P, VG, E, M or similar ? How much of a “grade” would relate to just the cover, and how much to the inside ? Do all the matches have to be present for the book to be mint ? Does the number of missing matches affect the “grade” ? Would missing matches make the book “altered” ?

https://www.psacard.com/auctionprice...le%20matchbook
Here they are.

U have to take the matches out to grade

Thanks Larry. What about ungraded, better with the matches ? I was never even sure if Wheaties boxes were more collectible with or without the cereal :)

Larry, I'm with Chris and Ben. I thought it was just faded. Do you have a picture of the back and inside?

Al, as Larry said, PSA requires that the matches be removed. Ben has submitted some to Beckett and they do allow the matches to be kept in the matchbook. However, when they encase the matchbooks, they encase them with the matchbook closed. Therefore, any variation would be unidentifiable (Mantle Yoo-Hoo with the cap or book offer and Mantle Country Cookin' with the different addresses). For me personally, I don't buy matchbooks without at least some matches. I think PSA is performing a disservice requiring that the matches be removed. To me, that's like requiring the tab be removed from a Redman before they grade it.

Matches inside...red tip
Regular green interior
Yellow Green and Red are completely gone
No sign of them....no fading of the tan or brown
If there was fading you would see pink, light green light yellow
Fading does not make colors completely disappear
It alters the color

So there's no red printing on the back in the three rectangular boxes above the hotel layout drawing?

I'm no printing expert, but how would you print brown without yellow or magenta?

Regardless, it is interesting and having it in hand, gives you a better view than any of us.

Thanks for the response Mike. I was not wondering so much about variations in terms of the number of matches present or missing, but rather whether an ungraded collector would prefer to have the matches present of not ( maybe it varies by collector) and whether having no matches missing would command a premium over one with one or more missing

I have no idea why this worries me, but it does 😱

Still a faded matchbook IMO. There is red on the back (restaurant, cocktail lounge and swimming pool), and you can see red and yellow that has faded on the front.

Al, I collect with matches and without. I have not noticed a premium for either.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...9e514396e6.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...e204da62b4.jpg

It probably varies by collector but I prefer my matchbooks as close to original as possible. That said, I’d probably rather have no matches than one with matches missing.

I’m standing by my assessment of this one. Forgot about the red on the back. I’d love to see it next to another if you have one Larry as the brown on the front really does look faded out to me.

Sold it to mantle guy