Looking for a neat item to collect that doesn’t take up a lot of room? May I suggest vintage comic character pinbacks? They’re very colorful and have a wide range of values to satisfy any budget.
Old pinbacks are usually classed as either ‘litho’ (lithographed) or ‘cello’ (celluloid). The term cello can be misleading since many newer pinbacks are plastic coated but are often listed as ‘cello”. Beware of supposed “vintage” cellos which are actually recent plastic coated. There are many fakes out there, so learn how to tell the difference.
Popeye Pep Pin. The same face is also used on the Comic Togs series
The lithographed 13/16″ Kellogg’s Pep Pins comic series are probably the most commonly seen. There were also the Kellogg’s Pep military insignia pins & the larger airplane series, but here we’re just going to cover the comic character offerings. These comic pins were released in 5 series of 18 pins with Superman in each of the 5 series for a total of 86 different. To explain the Superman being a part of each series- the Superman Radio Show was sponsored by Kellogg’s Pep. These pins can be found for around $5-10 for the more common and up to $50 or more for the scarcer characters (i.e.: Phantom, Felix, Winnie’s Twins). “Kellogg’s Pep” is in blue on the reverse. Although you don’t see it mentioned much, there are back variations.
Joe Palooka Comic Togs pinback. This design is not seen on the Kellogg's Pep Pins
The Comic Togs series very closely resemble the Kellogg’s pins. Some of the pins are identical to the Kellogg’s except for the back that reads “Comic Togs”. There are some characters in the Comic Togs series that weren’t offered in the Kellogg’s set like Joe Palooka. Not much information is found on Comic Togs such as the characters and number of pins in the series. 15 have been documented so far.
Felix Evening Ledger pinback
Many of the newspapers from the 30s thru the 50s period offered comic character pins, usually to promote their color comic section. Some are fairly plain while others are quite colorful. Some of the nicest are those in the 1 1/4″ cello Evening Ledger series.
Captain Marvel of the Fawcett series of 10
The comic books of the 30s and 40s also offered comic pins. Fawcett Comics had a series of 10 pinbacks of their characters- Captain Marvel (& the rest of the family), Bulletman, Nyoka, etc. It should be noted here that some of the rarest of the comic pins came from the golden age of comics- the Flash and Wonder Woman from National Periodicals (DC Comics), US Jones Cadets, Captain Battle and others.
If you really want to impress others with your comic character pinback collection, don’t clutter it up with pins with rust spots, dents, heavy foxing, etc. Try to go for the best condition possible. With vintage pinbacks, like most collectibles, condition is king!
More on comic character pinbacks can be found on Mark Lansdown’s excellent website. A listing of the 15 known Comic Togs pinbacks can be found here. Hilandhall.com has a visual listing of the 86 Kellogg’s Pep Pins.
