When's the last time your office or company had company matchbooks printed? Truthfully I don't ever remember seeing real estate company matchbooks. Since smoking's declined it can be tough to find a book of matches of any type.
Turns out advertising your company or your new development on a matchbook was the thing to do in the 1940s and 1950s.
I'm a lifelong collector of all sorts of things and a recent purchase combines two of my favorite things - old paper and real estate. While poking around a New Hampshire antiques shop I came across a large collection of matchbook covers, housed in a dozen scrapbooks. Though the collection is large it's only a fraction of the matchbooks the original owner collected. According to an old clipping in one of the scrapbooks this gentleman amassed over 12,000 matchbooks.
His scrapbooks grouped the matchbooks by subject - everything from dogs to butterflies, politicians to funeral homes, movie theatres, radio stations, record stores, drug stores, diners, dry cleaners - and yes, real estate - some 50+ matchbooks from real estate companies around the country.
The real estate matchbooks are a fun look back at advertising during the building boom in the years after World War II.
The covers that advertise developments are particularly fun. For $5 down you could have a Wise Home built on your land in North Carolina. $395 purchased an acre on Route 66 close to Albuquerque, New Mexico. And a lot in Florida, "Where it's June in January," could be had for $195.
These matches seem to date from the last time interest rates were this low because one book advertises "4 1/2 and 5% loans".
I have a soft spot for vintage illustrations so really enjoy the images of houses from the period. Many show a couple - the man in overcoat and hat, his wife in a dress - gazing at their dream home. 
It was a simpler time for sure. One company's matchbooks tout "Satisfaction, Reliability and Courtesy in Real Estate." Simple - but if we hit all three we're doing OK.
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