Posted 10 years ago
Pencil-nec…
(104 items)
Whitman Publishing did a series of kids' Pop-Up books back in the mid-30s called "Magic Action" books. This example, "Bobby Bear" is a story of a teddy bear (inexplicably named "Bozo" - not Bobby - throughout the story) who gets carried away by a gust of wind and has a series of adventures before successfully finding his way home.
These titles show up quite frequently on ebay and usually sell for $30-50 in good condition. This one, which I purchased online from a bookseller's shop, is different, though. And that's my mystery....
On two pages, children's hankerchiefs are pasted into the book as shown in the photos above. These hankies have scenes & characters from this book!
Now, I am no expert on Whitman's business model, but am pretty sure hankerchiefs were not a big part of it. So the question is, where did these come from and did some company make a line of them featuring cartoon characters? I have inspected several other examples and have never seen any indication that those books ever contained such items pasted into them. I have come across one other hanky that was trademarked by Terrytoons for one of their lesser marque characters, but that was from the 50's.
Has anyone else encountered this type of item - in books or loose - before? Any info to add?
