Mysterious Matchbook

Lucy and I were walking on a well-traveled street in the neighborhood when we veered off the sidewalk so that she could have a sniff. I glanced down to avoid stepping in any messes and saw a matchbook at my feet. It was neatly closed and, despite recent rains, completely dry. But what drew me to pick it up for closer examination was the vintage typeface and the old telephone number.

Intrigued, I tucked it in my pocket and took it home to investigate. My first thought was that it was some sort of promotional facsimile, but nothing I could find confirmed that theory. Cook is a tiny town between the Iron Range and the Boundary Waters in Northern MN, and as far as I could determine, Cook Motor Sales went out of business in 1965 when the owner, Theophil "Phil" Parzyck, died. 

The telephone number is evidence that this matchbook is at least 17 years older than that, though, because in 1947, everyone in the lower 48 states and Canada got a ten-digit number with an area code as part of the Bell Telephone Company's "North America Numbering Plan."

To find out a little more, I searched for that old telephone number on Newspapers.com. In addition to a few ads for the car company, I found a couple classified notices listing bear cubs and wolf puppies for sale (!). It turns out that there were no regulations at the time about keeping wildlife as pets, so it seems to have been a side hustle to supplement the auto sales and repair.

My research did turn up a few of these same matchbooks for sale on eBay. Priced at $8.95 a piece, they were labeled "NOS," which evidently means "new old stock," an oxymoron for sure. The seller offered assurance that they were authentic and in new condition, so I figured there must have been a stash of them somewhere that was recently discovered. Even so? The vendor is in Oklahoma. 

So, how this particular matchbook made it to a sidewalk in Virginia is still a mystery, but what a history it holds! And it makes a good story, too.