Todd Franklin posted a picture of a pretty gorgeous comic book vending machine (I'm not gonna swipe his photo... click through to check it out) today at his blog, Neato Coolville, and this prompted me to go hunting to see what else I could learn about it. A bit of poking around turned up this:
The drawing shows a smaller cabinet than Franklin's specimen; I'd be curious as to whether it was offered in multiple sizes for different venues. My investigation found only one other US patent for a vending machine that specified comics as opposed to just magazines in general, that being one issued in 1964 to a Ronald William Searle (no, not that Ronald William Searle, though I have no idea if there's any relation) of Christchurch, New Zealand. Here, for the record, are all the magazine vending machine patents.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
1974 Wonder Bread Trading Cards Mystery
Over at Misce-Looney-ous, Jerry Beck has been asking for info on some Looney Tunes cards apparently included in packages of Wonder Bread in 1974. He's got five, and he'd like to know the total number in the set, and any other info anyone might be able to offer. I can't say how many there are, but I can make it all a bit more mysterious. I have two; this one:
...and, surprisingly, this one:
...and, surprisingly, this one:
While it's certainly true that these were both in the category of "Things that are owned by Warner Communications, Inc.," such commingling of their properties was pretty unusual at that time. I got this card maybe twenty-five years ago and assumed it was part of some unknown set of DC cards until a few years ago when I found the Cool Cat card. I'm still not ruling out the possibility that these were just two different sets issued the same year, but they certainly seem to be part of the same thing. The lettering matches, and the artist here is clearly not accustomed to drawing superheroes (I like the way that Supie looks like Victor Mature). So... that's all I have to add to the puzzle. Anyone else want to chime in?
Labels:
1974,
Cool Cat,
Looney Tunes,
Superman,
trading cards
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