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Showing posts with label Punchboards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Punchboards. Show all posts

Punchboard or Punch Card Printing Block Lucky Ben

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In the old days, this would have been called a printer's block, but more specifically, this is a piece used to print punchboards.  Colorful, poster-size games of chance once popular in taverns.  Actually, anywhere a crook could make a buck.  A player would purchase a chance, then punch the board to see if their rolled up number inside awarded a prize.  They are illegal now for the most part.  Guess who got his start in organized crime peddling "chances" in this rigged game?  A very young Jack Ruby.  Mob-run punchboards in Chicago. 

Lucky Ben Punchboard Printing Block  Circa 1940 or so.  Collection Jim Linderman

Punchboard Scam Easy Money (Keyhole of PROFIT) Girlie Glasses






Twice the fun in every drink you pour! Why? The amazing Key Club (a division of Bear Sales) has figured out a way to serve your guests a fully dressed show girl on the outside, but when they peer through the "keyhole" glass, they see her "hidden talents" through the swill!

Now it wasn't enough for the Bear company to shill the glasses...they also ran a punch card scam! A gambit as old as time, yet as contemporary as Bad Bernie Madoff! Punch one, pay one cent. The next "contestant" punches two, he pays two cents. Each scam nets the card holder a minor fortune AND his own complete set of show girl glasses, yet only one "winner" gets the prize...a lousy set of see-through drinking glasses.

I wrote about "punchboards" before. This is the first time I have seen the scam illustrated in a flyer.
Somebody had a "Hidden Talent" all right...a talent for scamming rubes with the promise of ice cubes. One thing these show girls are showing is how easy it is to use the promise of a curvy dame to line your pockets. Click to Engorge...every "secret" is revealed!

Now most of these scams had been busted and found out by the 1950s, but guess who persisted in shilling them right into the 1960s according to Punchboard.com? One Jack Ruby. You might have heard of him.


One-sheet come-on for a punch card scam. Circa 1960. Collection Victor Minx


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