Captain America "Sentinel's of Liberty" badge, 1941-1942 2 2

[pemart1966]

I forget to mention in my post above that CA 5 makes mention of the fact that more than 10,000 have joined.

According to the House ads, the Charter of Membership would be sent to every club with more than 15 members.  The names, addresses and card numbers had to be provided.  

There are other ads telling readers that some have requested Charters but have not provided member information and reminding all that Charters will NOT be shipped without the requisite member information.   

Yeah, there could have been some Timely puffery in all of this BUT in the absence of any other period information, I'll accept what's said here as fact.

Agreed about the badge expense.  The change would not have been made unless there had been a reason.  

[sfcityduck]

On 4/21/2022 at 12:31 PM, pemart1966 said:

 

Yeah, there could have been some Timely puffery in all of this BUT in the absence of any other period information, I'll accept what's said here as fact.

 

Again, the cynic in me just views everything said by comic publishers, especially Timely/Marvel, as puffery.  The fact they said that there were already 10,000 members, just makes me think the membership cards started with the serial number 10000.  

Found another interesting set that sold on eBay back in 2016:

Handwritten envelope and a membership card numbered 13034.  This might support your view that they handwrote when they ran out of type writer ribbon or it might suggest they were both typing and handwriting addresses.  Thinking about it, I really doubt that Goodwin (cheap as can be) would have staffed up and bought a bunch of typewriters to send out badges.   

[pemart1966]

Oh...and I haven't ignored your request re the ad in Cap 4.  I looked at readcomicsonline and they show the same badge that I see in my soft cover Masterworks.  

As I said earlier, I'm not at all sure if that ad was in the original Cap 4 or just placed there by whomever did up the Masterworks vol.  Before I go through the machinations of posting it, can someone confirm that Cap 4 in the Masterworks soft cover does NOT show the version of the badge with which we're all familiar?  

Tx

[pemart1966]

On 4/21/2022 at 4:06 PM, sfcityduck said:

Again, the cynic in me just views everything said by comic publishers, especially Timely/Marvel, as puffery.  The fact they said that there were already 10,000 members, just makes me think the membership cards started with the serial number 10000.  

Found another interesting set that sold on eBay back in 2016:

Handwritten envelope and a membership card numbered 13034.  This might support your view that they handwrote when they ran out of type writer ribbon or it might suggest they were both typing and handwriting addresses.  Thinking about it, I really doubt that Goodwin (cheap as can be) would have staffed up and bought a bunch of typewriters to send out badges.   

I can't think of any benefit to Timely to start the card numbering at anything but 1.  It would make no difference to anyone.  The kids would have no idea how many numbers are out there or at what number the cards started and they wouldn't have cared.  Timely could say whatever they wanted in the house ads re membership numbers and no one could challenge them so there would be no need to start the numbering at anything other than 1.

It wouldn't necessarily need to start at 00001.  It could well have started at just 1.  

This was 1941.  There's a continent wide club BUT members were only talking with other members in their own neighbourhoods, at school, or within a couple of streets from where they lived.  That was about as far as their knowledge of card numbering would have gone.

Edited April 22, 2022 by pemart1966

[HistoryBuffalo]

Does anyone know what the most recent sale of a badge was? I saw quite a few on eBay going back to the middle of last year and one or two at auction but haven’t seen any in quite a long time.

[Cat-Man_America]

On 4/21/2022 at 7:12 PM, pemart1966 said:

I can't think of any benefit to Timely to start the card numbering at anything but 1.  It would make no difference to anyone.  The kids would have no idea how many numbers are out there or at what number the cards started and they wouldn't have cared.  Timely could say whatever they wanted in the house ads re membership numbers and no one could challenge them so there would be no need to start the numbering at anything other than 1.

It wouldn't necessarily need to start at 00001.  It could well have started at just 1.  

This was 1941.  There's a continent wide club BUT members were only talking with other members in their own neighbourhoods, at school, or within a couple of streets from where they lived.  That was about as far as their knowledge of card numbering would have gone.

I completely disagree from a marketing standpoint.  The higher number you start with suggests to those joining a stronger interest via larger club membership.  As a kid you're going to want to be part of a huge fan club, not a small one.  Given the reputation of Martin Goodman's shrewd and manipulative business practices, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he insisted on starting the numbering with 10,000. 

[pemart1966]

On 5/11/2022 at 8:25 PM, SkoBuffs99 said:

Does anyone know what the most recent sale of a badge was? I saw quite a few on eBay going back to the middle of last year and one or two at auction but haven’t seen any in quite a long time.

Last public sale that I could find was on eBay in mid February of this year.  Not too sure for how much but the asking price was $475 with a best offer option.  Private sales?  No idea.

 

[Robot Man]

Check with Hakes Americana’s completed auctions if you can. Nobody has sold as many of these as Ted has. 

[pemart1966]

On 5/12/2022 at 11:19 AM, Robot Man said:

Check with Hakes Americana’s completed auctions if you can. Nobody has sold as many of these as Ted has. 

I did earlier and there was nothing recent that I saw.