The Matchcover Storyteller

Editorial Comment)  I have a problem with the people who try to sell matchbooks and matchcovers who are not as passionate, as curious, as dedicated to the authenticity of these little strips of cardboard as those of us in the hobby.  Yes, I know we buy and sell on sites like eBay, but that is not my issue.  It’s really kind of an “us” vs. “them”  — “us” being collectors who know what we’re giving or getting, against “them” who are more irresponsible, or lazy, or I-don’t-know-what as they try to simply monetize something that often cannot, or should not be monetized to the extent that  —  Well, here’s my example:  

This front-strike, 30-strike matchcover is from (ostensibly) Jim Colosimo’s Café in Chicago.    The Café was a real place, but this is not its matchcover.  There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s start with the matchcover itself and pile on from there.

This matchcover produced by The Diamond Match Div. in Chicago is NOT from Jim Colosimo’s Café.  It’s a promo piece for The Gaslight Club on Rush Street in the Windy City.   It was first produced in 1954, and variations came out up to 1978.  Diamond Match, when asked years ago, had no records of it tohelp with the confusion.

Burton Browne was a Chicago advertising man.  In 1941, he opened The Sundown Room in a space next to his office and in 1951 converted it and expanded it into The Gaslight Club, a gay-nineties decorated palace. This matchcover was just one of the promotional pieces Brown used to highlight the period experience, and knowing that, we’ll come back to the cover in a moment.  Browne eventually opened Gaslight Clubs in Washington and Manhattan and two more in Chicago.  I believe there remains one left, at or near O’Hare Airport.  (Browne died in 1975.)

So, Jim Colosimo, his café and the rest:  Vincenzo Colosimowas an Italian immigrant, born in Calabria in 1878.  In Chicago, he was known as “Big Jim” or “Diamond Jim”.  Before the start of the 20th century, he was building an empire based on prostitution, gambling and racketeering.   In 1910, he opened Colosimo’s Café on South Wabash Avenue and it quickly became a “destination”.   In 1919, he and mobster Johnny Torrioopened The Four Deuces and hired an old Brooklyn friend as bartender and bouncer  —  Alphonse Capone.  It was Capone’s entry to that Chicago crime world.

With prohibition, Torrio wanted to get into bootlegging booze; Colosimo repeatedly refused; one thing led to another and on May 11th, 1920, he was shot and killed at his café.  A Brooklyn hit man was credited with the kill, but never charged or prosecuted.  A few suggest Capone himself might have done the deed.  The murder was never solved.   But it seemed to propel the Café to new heights of popularity.  It got a new owner and a new more elegant look becoming more of a luxurious nightclub (even as Al Capone now became the new Chicago crime boss).  Even a Vermont military college held a1925 dinner there, “wives and sweethearts included”.    Interestingly, in the 1940s, it became a cafeteria before being shuttered for good in 1948.

As for all these other names that fill this matchcover, both Al Jolson and the Isham Jones Orchestra are said to have performed at Colosimo’s.    The only researched references to them there come back to this singular matchcover, over and over.   On the back, it says “Vote For “Big Bill” Thomson.   You should know (as Burton Browne surely did) that Thomson was mayor of Chicago in that timeframe, from 1915 – 1923; was the last Republican to hold that post, and is considered (in part due to links to Capone) one of the most unethical mayors in American history!

Maybe the most interesting name on this matchcover is that of “Tex Guinan, M.C.”  Basically, Texas Guinan (1884 -1933) was a Prohibition-era actress, singer and entrepreneur who dominated the nightclub scene in the ‘20s and ‘30s.  She is best remembered for a string of clubs that catered to the rich and famous.  I can find no evidence that she M.C.’d a show at Colosimo’s.

(I will say that if you have covers for the Green Mill Inn in Chicago, look up her story, with gunfire and more!)

Which brings us back to this particular, this very specific matchcover.  It ain’t real.   Well, yes it is, but it ain’t what it purports to be!  And I think this is the important part.

If you go looking, everywhere you turn on the Interweb, you’ll find this matchcover being offered for sale as “vintage” and “authentic” and ‘rare”, and similar hype.

It’s selling  — and being purchased  — for big dollars, and the point is, it does not deserve most of it!   I mean, on the Interweb is a framed item featuring some photos, a facsimile of Al Capone’s signature and  — this matchbook!  Asking price? $2100!  Caveat Emptor!

To me, the striker, the staple, and even the material it’s madefrom are all wrong, all purporting to be from the very early 1920s.  It simply cannot be!  And it stuns me how many sellers (and buyers) either don’t know, or callously, don’t care!

There has been an on-line and Facebook proliferation of matchbook and matchcover sites. The focus of our hobby has new and growing fiscal interest.  Most sites seem to be purely related to sales and I’m sorry to say, too many of them are populated by too many folks who just do not know what they are dealing with.   I will say that those who come to the RMS Facebook Page are at least offered much more expert advice that we can only hope they absorb.

Finally, yes there are genuine matchcovers for Colosimo’s Café.   I’m not showing them here so as not to confuse the issue about this very nice, very real, but not-what-it-seems matchcover from another business in another time.  Yes it does have some value, but just remind yourself that you really cannot judge a matchbook by its cover!