Peerless Cloudy (Studio in Script) Set

Issuing Company: Peerless
Country of Issue: USA
Year of Issue: 1937-1941
Color/B&W: B&W
Number of Cards in Set: unknown (unnumbered)
Card Size: 1 1/8" x 2 3/8"
Issued as insert with what product: Came out of coin-operated weight machines

Notes: Checklist Incomplete. These cards can be identified by the following characteristics - they are in black and white, there is a star's picture is on a opaque clouded area within the photo field. The star's name is in script with the studio name below in script - both are printed diagonally. On the back, these cards contain a fortune on one side, "Collect Engrav-o-tints" or the name of the issuer on the other, and a space for a weight printout in the middle. In the Peerless copyright line, there is no "Ptd. In USA" at the end. There are usually no double thick lines in the middle surrounding the weight reading. Usually there is no Pat.1546553 at the beginning of the Peerless copyright line, but I have seen some with this.

There are some variations in this set. Two different Charles Boyer, Betty Grable, Jack Haley, Cesar Romero, and Gloria Stuart cards have been seen so far. I believe all of these cards were probably not issued together. There were probably at least two separate sets issued, or new cards were issued as the promotion went on. Since there is no way of telling these apart, they will all be lumped together as one set in this checklist.

Exact year of issue not known. Starting in about the mid to late 1930s, Peerless stopped printing the year on their date printouts. This was almost certainly to add time to the shelf life of their cards, as each set was often sold over several years. David York reports that he has a group of these cards with penned-in years listed on the backs from 1937 through 1939, with the most common being 1938. Some of the cards I have seen from this set contained a penned-in date of 1941 in the weight printout, so these cards were still being issued in 1941.

These cards were also issued in Canada by the Canadian Rhodes Mfg. Co., Ltd.

Thanks to Jim Wiehe, David York, Brian Horne, Jim Daugherty, and Keven Oates for help with this checklist.

Known issuers:
Generic - Collect Engrav-o-tints - Portraits of Movie Stars
Generic - Poker hand on one side of card - double thick lines for weight printout
Generic - Lucky Numbers Today
Generic - As a regular control of your weight retain this card (vertical format)
Generic - Series A with a number - quiz questions that are answered on the next numbered card
Bartells - Seattle's own drug stores
The Emporium - San Francisco
W. T. Grant Co.
Hale Bros.
S. S. Kresge Co.
Liggett's Drug Stores
J. G. McCrory Company
McLellan Stores
G. C. Murphy Co.
J. J. Newberry Co.
The Owl Drug Co.
J. C. Penney
The Rexall Store
Rose's 5-10-25c Stores
Sattler's
Walgreen Drug Stores
Can. Rhodes Mfg. Co., Ltd.

For some of the weight machine sets, unopened boxes have been found which shows all of the cards issued in the set with certainty. For this set, I have not seen any unopened boxes, so I'm having to piece together the checklist from surviving collections. One collection I have come across contained over 200 cards, with cards coming from both the Pat No. 1546553 set and 126 cards from this set. This indicates these two sets were issued back to back in the weight machines of the 1930s. This also sheds some light on the earliest cards that were issued in this set, since I think this set was probably actually two sets, with one set issued in the 1937-1939 period, and another a little later, maybe in about 1940-1941. Many of the cards from this collection were found in multiple copies, perhaps indicating that this collection contained most of the cards that were available from this set at that time. There were 48 different different cards in this group, perhaps indicating the set consisted of 50 cards. For those interested in the fortunes on the backs, all the cards of the same actor in this group had the exact same fortune.

From viewing another group of these cards, the missing two cards were identified as Frances Drake and Paul Kelly, making a full set of 50 cards. For this subgroup, the following cards make up a complete set:

Robert Allen - Columbia Pictures
Henry Armetta - Universal Pictures
Edward Arnold - Universal Pictures
George Barbier - Paramount Pictures
Mary Boland - Paramount Pictures
John Boles - 20th Century-Fox
Charles Boyer - Walter Wanger Productions (no Inc.)
Claudette Colbert - Paramount Pictures
Cora Sue Collins (no studio listed)
Gary Cooper (Paramount Pictures)
Larry Crabbe (Paramount Pictures)
Bing Crosby (Paramount Pictures)
Alan Dinehart - 20th Century-Fox
Frances Drake - Paramount Pictures
Irene Dunne - Universal Pictures
Stepin Fetchit - 20th Century-Fox
W. C. Fields - Paramount Pictures
Janet Gaynor - 20th Century-Fox
Jimmy Gleason - RKO Studios
Betty Grable - RKO Studios
Alan Hale (no studio listed)
Jack Haley - 20th Century-Fox (with hat)
John Halliday - Paramount Pictures
David Holt - Paramount Pictures
Jack Holt - Universal Pictures
Edward Everett Horton - 20th Century-Fox
Boris Karloff - Universal Pictures
Fred Keating (no studio listed)
Paul Kelly - 20th Century-Fox
Frances Langford - Walter Wanger Productions
Carole Lombard - Paramount Pictures
Edmund Lowe - 20th Century-Fox
Fred MacMurray - Paramount Pictures
Fredric March - 20th Century-Fox
Ken Maynard (no studio listed)
Herbert Mundin - 20th Century-Fox
Jack Oakie - Paramount Pictures
George O'Brien (no studio listed)
Warner Oland (as Charlie Chan) - 20th Century-Fox
Bradley Page (no studio listed)
George Raft - Paramount Pictures
Florence Rice - Columbia Pictures
Cesar Romero - Universal Pictures
Charles Ruggles - Paramount Pictures
Randolph Scott - Paramount Pictures
Allison Skipworth - Paramount Pictures
Sir Guy Standing - Paramount Pictures
Gloria Stuart - 20th Century-Fox (dash after "Stuart")
Evelyn Venable (no studio listed)
Peggy Wood (no studio listed)

There is one version of these cards that has a back with Series A and a number on it. The numbers for this set are as follows.

134. Alice Faye - 20th Century-Fox (looking straight ahead-black background)
135. Jean Hersholt - 20th Century-Fox

American Card Sets Sales List
American Checklists | Movie Card Website Front Page