Readers ask about matchbooks & Booker T. Washington

I get a lot of requests from readers about how much their matchbook covers are worth. This blog post offers suggestions on how to determine what you have and the market value.

Each Friday, I answer readers’ questions about items they own, helping them with the research on the history and directing them to resources to determine value.

Here are this week’s questions and answers:

I got two questions recently about matchbooks from people who came across my blog post about a matchbook covers collection sold at auction. Apparently, a lot of people collect them, or habitually pick them up and then put them aside. I used to do the same.

Question:

My folks recently gave me a grocery bag (plastic) full of matchbook covers they have collected in the past 40 years or so. Just wondering if they have any value, and who might be interested in looking at them.

Question:

I have a collection of old matchboxes I would like to sell. One is “Old Scotch Whisky Johnnie Walker.”

Answer:

The first reader probably has some pretty neat matchbook covers, similar to a batch I just saw recently at auction. Even with a quick glance, I could tell that the glass counter jar tucked under a table at the auction house contained some vintage covers.

I would recommend that you both take some time to go through your collections to see what you have that might be of value. Then head over to the website of the Rathkamp Matchcover Society, which offers a lot of information on matchbook covers and collecting them. You should educate yourself about your collections to avoid just giving your covers away for a pittance. The Matchcover Vault site offers tips to help you figure out the value of your collection.

The Rathkamp society has “want lists” of covers that collectors are interested in buying, a list of collectors from around the world and what subjects they’re looking for, along with a collectors’ forum. It’s not clear how up-to-date the entries are.

You can check prices on the web via Google. Or eBay (where you can sell just about anything, and may or may not get a good price).

Using the search words “Johnnie Walker matchbox,” I found several selling on eBay for about $5 to $11, and only one for sale on retail sites via Google (for $34.95). I also found other Johnnie Walker products for sale, including bottle openers, ashtrays, Matchbox cars and the whiskey itself.

The Matchcover Vault noted that you won’t get rich from your collection; most of the covers sell pretty low. I found more than 13,000 results on eBay (267 pages of listings). Some collections were selling for hundreds of dollars, and many others were not selling at all. The single most expensive covers were 1930s Diamond matchbooks with the rookie cards of early Hall of Fame baseball players on the inside flap.

Question:

How much is this book worth? I have the original book at home.

Answer:

The reader was referring to the book “Booker T. Washington: The Master Mind of A Child of Slavery” by Frederick E. Drinker, which I blogged about almost a year ago. Washington was a famous African American educator whose legacy is tied into the founding of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881.

The book was a 1915 memorial edition – a celebration of Washingto’s life – published not long after he died at Tuskegee.

The book was selling for less than $100 on several sites on the web. None of them seemed to have dust jackets, and they were in fair to very good condition:

Amazon.com – $50 to $90.

Alibris.com – $10 to $75.

Antiquarian Booksellers Association – $34.95

Ebay – a worn copy went unsold for $8.50 and another was for sale at $28.45.

As I always say, an item is only worth what someone is willing for pay for it at a given time. So, it’s hard to put a value on the book.

If you have more information that can help this reader, please write me in the Comments box below.