[Harp-L] 50 Cents & A Boxtop

[Peter Sheridan]

The ad for "50 Cents & A Boxtop" sounds like something I can recall from
the late 1940s or early 1950s. The harp was very likely a Kratt
product. I'm a couple of years older than Charlie McCoy, and I read a lot
of comic books back in the day, when a lot of them featured this kind of
ad, usually on the last page, or on the back cover. Also, back in those
times you could buy Kratt harps in a lot of places besides music stores,
actually anywhere there was a glass display case, like
in candy stores (which also sold comic books), restaurants, and even in
bars! (Yeah, I hung out with my Dad in a few of those in Western
Pennsylvania back then - times were different.)

 NOTE: In 1952 an ad appeared in the "Country Song Roundup" magazine
offering the following:
1) A full size professional hand tuned harmonica with brass plates and
bronze reeds to give it a beautiful tone.
2) "Hoppy's" unbelievable new simple method of playing the harmonica with
actual pictures to show you how.
3) Over 100 specially selected popular songs complete with words and music
marked with numbers.

The drawing of the harp accompanying the ad very closely resembles the
Kratt Brass
Band model which was offered to jobbers in 1955. All of the above was
available for $1.98, which fits right in with Smokey Joe's estimate of
"maybe $2.00".

This ad and many other vintage ads appear in Appendix E of my book "The
Quest For Tone In Amplified Blues Harp", available from me. Check out my
web site for this book and others, plus scads of harp-related items,
including harps, harp mics, CDs and tapes, plus selected guitars,
amps, pickups, tubes, parts and other musical ephemera. Many satisfied
customers, all over the globe, since 2001. Our motto: No order too small to
fill!

Pete Sheridan
Jukester's Harmonica Supplies
Vintage Harp Mics, plus...
www.petesheridan.net



On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 1:56 PM, Joseph Leone <3N037 at xxxxx> wrote:

> And here I always thought that a celebrity was someone whom was well known
> by being famous. Jeez was I wrong.
> smo-joe
>
> p.s. McCoy isn?t old enough to have been around when a harmonica (at least
> the ones he was playing) were only 50 cents. Try maybe $2.oo.
>
> > On Jan 7, 2018, at 11:37 AM, Gary Lehmann <gnarlyheman at xxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > I love that joke, "the four stages of celebrity".
> >
> > A celebrity, BTW, is someone who's famous for being well known.
> >
>
>