Little piece of Americana...Here's How You Can Win a 1939 Chevrolet!

Hey Diggers, I was at an older park yesterday over in East St. Louis. It's a park I took Tony 2-Cent to when he visited last year. It's very trashy and has been Metal Detected plenty over the years. I was working a trashy area looking for for deep high tones. I got a penny/dime signal at 8 inches deep and popped out a little charm in the shape of a car. It was originally gold-plated and says good luck on the front with a 4-leaf clover and the words ROI-TAN on the back. I did some research and here's what I learned.

In 1939, the ROI-TAN cigar company had a contest where they would give away a brand new 1939 Chevrolet each day of the year. To enter the contest you had to send in 5 cigar bands and complete this sentence in 25 words or less: MAN TO MAN--SMOKE ROI-TAN BECAUSE...

Each day, the judges would read all the entries received the previous day and select a winner based on originality and sincerity. All of the non-winners were sent a gold-plated good luck charm depicting a 1939 Chevrolet. The slogan for the contest was Remember, an auto a day is given away!

This is what I love about this hobby we share. I would never have learned of this contest had I not found one of the charms! Here's some pics and thanks for looking. Best wishes and HH, Dave.

That's a great story and really interesting find, Dave! Very cool! Better than a plain Jane coin any day!

It cleaned up really well too. :yes:

nice story and find....i too like the hunt after the hunt!! i wonder how many roi tan chevys were given away

sfox54 link=topic=14560.msg152739#msg152739 date=1383256186 said:

nice story and find....i too like the hunt after the hunt!! i wonder how many roi tan chevys were given away

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It better have been 365 cars given away unless they wanted to get sued!

Nice story and a great find WTG |:cheering:

but.....did they get 5 reponses every day?

Nice small car-shaped charm from a cigar company you found in East St. Louis park. I like this tiny charm. I heard that East St. Louis is bad place to go out metal detecting. I wont go to bad high crime urban area due to its danger associated with the urban area. Detroit is another high crime urban area. I also wont go there.

coinMD64 link=topic=14560.msg152997#msg152997 date=1383581224 said:

Nice small car-shaped charm from a cigar company you found in East St. Louis park. I like this tiny charm. I heard that East St. Louis is bad place to go out metal detecting. I wont go to bad high crime urban area due to its danger associated with the urban area. Detroit is another high crime urban area. I also wont go there.

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I don't know who told you ESL is a bad place to go MDing. Everyone pretty much leaves me alone but I do keep my wits about me (like a grazing gazelle looks up every few seconds to look for lions).

Great post Dave! :clapping:

Very interesting story. The Chevy charm is a fantastic addition for your collection. thumbsup01