I have several Horrors of War Cards that are stamped with "Clayton A Minter Jr." on the back.



Best I can tell He is the son of the owner of Minter's Candies from Philidelphia and ran the company at some point.

Does anybody know if these were from his personal collection or perhaps cards submitted for a prize that were stamped before being returned.

Both Gum Inc and Minters were from the Philadelphia area.

Only thing I found on a Google search was a University of Pennsylvania obituary:

Clayton A. Minter Jr. W’50, Hawley, Pa., owner of a beer-and-soda distributorship and later a gourmet-food and cheese shop at Lake Wallenpaupack in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania; April 27, 1998. He had earlier worked in his family’s business, Minter Candies, for many years.

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Only thing I found on a Google search was a University of Pennsylvania obituary

The problem is he was at University of Penn in the 1950's and this card set came out in 1938, so it is unlikely that it was through his work that these came to be stamped. More likely they are from his collection. That said the card shown above is number 130, and if you look at the example of 130 and 129 on this link:

http://www.dekescollection.net/how3.html

you will see that stamping these cards for promotional reasons did happen. In this example 130 is a prize card but 129 look like it was stamped to make sure the owner new it was his, and in this case I think thats also exactly what happened with EriktheArchitect's cards.

What you have here is most likely an imprint by the card's original owner.

It's true Gum Inc. used imprints on selected HofW cards such as "You're Lucky--You Get A Free Package of Cards" (These were hand-stamped) Then there were the specially printed backs that promised "1000 CASH PRIZES to the 1000 children who send the nearest lists of 240 correct (Horrors of War) titles." Those special-backed cards were inserted in the packs and other Gum Inc products. So, you could consider these an ancient forerunner of the promo card.

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"1000 CASH PRIZES to the 1000 children who send the nearest lists of 240 correct (Horrors of War) titles."

Cards 1-48 had a small card number and the Tag line reads "This is one of 240 Picture Cards".
Cards 49-96 started the Large card Number and the Tag line reads "This is one of 240 Picture Cards"
Cards 97-216 Tag line reads "Save to get them all and compete for 1000 cash prizes"
Cards 217-240 tag line reads "Save them all, Ask your dealer about 1000 Cash Prizes. Additional Series Coming, Look For Them"
Cards 241-288 tag line reads "This is One of the Second Series"

I thought it might be his as a kid. If he graduated in 1950 at say 22 he would have been 10 when these cards came out. I have seen some cards of the era marked with redemption stamps and punched holes but did not find any in my collection.

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Interesting article about the Minter Bros:

HERE

An interesting piece. Ira Minter claimed that during prohibition, some former liquor dealers went into the confectionary business. No doubt it had been safer than being in the bootlegging rackets.

Nice article from 1927. All my searches turned up empty. Clayton Minter was 38 in 1927. These cards came out in 1938 when I am guessing Clayton Jr. was 10 or 12.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: EriktheArchitect,