Let’s rehash the Bond Bread controversy.

[Exhibitman]

I think we're getting a little circular and confusing here in regard to Exhibit Supply Company (ESCO) products, so let's just clarify:

1. ESCO made it own cards. See the Groucho original art and card in an earlier post. It did not contract for others' designs, like Aarco.

2. ESCO was not a commercial printing house. On occasion, it would specially print backs on its cards for commercial clients. Dad's Cookies, for example. The only known deviation from that is the Wrigley Field set of alltime greats made in the 1960s for sale at the ballpark. That was at a point when the company was circling the toilet and was desperate.

3. ESCO's main trade was selling vending machines and restocks for those machines. The cards had to fit the machines. It did not vary card sizes because [drumroll please] different sizes would foul the machine mechanisms. When ESCO acquired the card business of the International Mutoscope Reel Company (aka "Mutoscope") in the late 1940s, it reshot the Mutoscope designs to fit its machines. Here is a comparison:



ESCo on the left, Mutoscope on the right.

There are some 1950s ESCO cards with Mutoscope PC backs:



My hunch is that these were made with old card stock that ESCO had from its Mutoscope acquisition and decided to use; waste not, want not.

4. There is no way that the "Bond Bread Exhibits" were made by or for ESCO machines. The stock and size are wrong. I do not think they are Mutoscope products either, because the size and stock are wrong for those machines. There are many arcade-style cards that ESCO and Mutoscope did not make. Whether they were vendable in ESCO or Mutoscope machines is an open question. Some examples:




E282 Oh Boy Gum, a Goudey point-of-sale handout:





Coney Island Arcade, made to use in the arcade's many Mutoscope machines after IMRCo was kaput:



1962 Kennywood (Pittsburgh) Amusement Park:



Pacific Ocean Park (pirated ESCO design):



Anonymous 1920s design, poss. Philadelphia area: