"I'M THE GUY"
(AND RELATED)
CIGARETTE / TOBACCO PREMIUM PINBACK BUTTONS
HOME
(Enola Gaia)
Brought To You By:
Randall Whitaker
EGcomComm@aol.com
Copyright © 1999, 2001 Randall Whitaker
"I'm the Guy"
Non-"Guy"
Non-"Guy"
THIS WEB PAGE:
-
... is offered as a reference resource on the subject of these pinback buttons (in case anyone else out there happens to find them as interesting as I...).
-
... deals exclusively with the text-only pinbacks which I favor.
- ... owes a big THANKS to Robert J. Foster, Jim O'Hare, Richard Siegel, Gary Hill, and others who have provided information on these buttons over the years.
Sometime around 1970, I was browsing through an antique store in Tennessee. My eye was drawn to a faded red pinback button upon which was written the surreal caption: "I'm the Guy Who Put Whiskers on Catfish".
Well, I just had to buy it... Over the years, I found a few more such pins here and there in antique stores and at exhibitions. Finally, I just gave in and began collecting them in earnest. After about 30 years now, I've accumulated a collection of over 1600 specimens representing more than 500 distinct captions.
There are two types of "I'm the Guy" buttons. One type has the comic caption plus a cartoon picture (often a picture of a goofy character with no explicit linkage to the caption). Several cartoonists of the day (including Rube Goldberg, who originated the "I'm the guy..." catchphrase) drew the pictures for these pinbacks. Most commonly, these pictures are in two or three colors. Less commonly, there are black-on-white pictures (sometimes duplicates of others seen elsewhere (in later years?) in color). As I understand it, the rarest ones are those which are two-tone white-on-dark format.
Owing to their graphics, their colors, and the association with well-known cartoonists of the period, the cartoon pinbacks are quite "collectible".
However, I simply don't like them, and I collect only the second type of "Guy" buttons -- those with text-only captions typically printed in white letters on a darker colored background.
It was the cartoonist / humorist Rube Goldberg who coined the gag phrase "I'm the guy who...." circa 1910. As I understand it, this was a stock saying by a character in a comic strip Goldberg drew. The phrase became very popular, and Goldberg elaborated it over time. He was even co-author of a song entitled "I'm the Guy", whose lyrics were largely comprised of variations on this catchphrase.
NOTE: The cartoon at the head of this Webpage is based on the cover Goldberg drew for the song's sheet music.
These pinbacks were given out as premiums with the following tobacco products:
-
Hassan (cigarettes)
-
Tokio (cigarettes)
-
Perfection (cigarettes)
-
The Favorite (cigarettes)
-
Clix (cigarettes)
-
Obak (cigarettes)
-
Picayune (cigarettes)
-
Chesterfield (cigarettes)
-
Red Lion (chewing tobacco)
The Chesterfield brand is the only one to survive to the present day.
In the following subsections, the other issuing brands are briefly introduced...
With regard to the series featured here, Hassan issued 7/8" diameter pinbacks.
Tokio was also one of the most prolific issuers of the 7/8" cartoon pinbacks displaying comic art by famous cartoonists of the day.
With regard to this series of pinbacks, Obak was an issuer of 7/8" diameter specimens in red, blue, and green.
Clix issued 7/8" diameter pinbacks in this series.
Their cigarette packages went through multiple variations, as illustrated by the photos shown here.
In addition to issuing a wide variety of the 7/8" diameter specimens, Perfection is the only company known to have issued the limited series of 1.25" diameter lithographed pinbacks.
Pinbacks issued by Picayune are among the most rare specimens in this series.
Picayune-issued pinbacks are of 7/8" diameter.
Pinbacks issued by Red Lion are the rarest specimens in this series.
A Red Lion tobacco tag (shown at left) is much more commonly encountered than their pinback premiums.
Red Lion-issued pinbacks are of 7/8" diameter.
The vast majority of pinbacks issued in these series are approximately 7/8" (0.875") in diameter. A very limited series of larger buttons (approximately 1.25" diameter) were issued by Perfection Cigarettes (Factory No. 42, North Carolina).
I honestly don't know the time span during which these buttons (of either size) were issued. To the best of my understanding, Rube Goldberg coined the "I'm the Guy" phrase (at least as a popular catchphrase) circa 1910. That (one would think) would be the earliest year in which any pinbacks with that phrase would have appeared.
I've often wondered if the "non-Guy" buttons were already in circulation by that time. Similar comic sayings appeared on (black-on-white) pinback buttons issued by High Admiral and Sweet Caporal cigarette companies around the turn of the century. It is conceivable that the 7/8" buttons were already in circulation at the time the "I'm the Guy" phrase caught on, and that the "Guy" captions were simply added as time went on. It must be pointed out that some of the slogans appearing on the "non-Guy" pinbacks I collect appeared earlier on the High Admiral and/or Sweet Caporal pinbacks.
The 7/8" diameter buttons were issued in three colors. In decreasing order of number issued (i.e., increasing rarity), they are:
-
Blue (typically dark or navy blue)
-
Red (ranging from fire engine red to lighter shades...)
- Green
The 1.25" diameter buttons were issued in blue and red only. I don't know if one color was more common than the other (or even if there were different color versions of the same button / caption). All the large specimens I've seen were of one color per given caption, and most of these specimens were blue.
The vast majority of pinbacks issued in these series were manufactured by the oldest and largest producer of pinback buttons in the first half of the 20th Century - Whitehead and Hoag Company of Newark, New Jersey. A minority of these pinbacks were manufactured by Phelps and Sons.
Some specimens in this series (most particularly the 1.25" diameter ones issued exclusively by Perfection Cigarettes) do not indicate the pinback manufacturer on the back paper. In these cases, the factory listed would appear to be the cigarette factory which issued the specimen. This means that such specimens might have been manufactured by companies other than Whitehead & Hoag or Phelps & Sons.
The vast majority of pinbacks issued in these series are of celluloid construction - i.e., they have a printed celluloid face overlaid onto a metal back.
A minority of the 7/8" diameter pinbacks are of lithographed construction - i.e., the caption is lithographed directly onto a metal face. All the lithographed specimens of this size I've seen have been within the "I'm the Guy" series.
All the 1.25" diameter Perfection pinbacks I've seen are lithographed.
(BY CAPTION)
This document lists the pinback buttons by caption. See the individual Sections for details on the alphabetical arrangement of the listings.
Where there are variations (e.g., in phrasing or spelling) of a single caption, they are listed separately.
The listings are a combination of the buttons in my collection plus specimens cited in reputable dealers' catalogs and other documentation I consider reliable.
I'm not sure anyone is really certain how many of these buttons exist(-ed). The most complete documentary inventory I've ever seen listed a total of 359 known pinbacks (of all three varieties listed here). My own collection exceeds that number by a considerable margin, even though it (still) does not include some specimens listed in that cited document.
-
7/8" Diameter Buttons with "I'm the Guy..." Captions
-
7/8" Diameter Buttons (Same Series) with Other (Non-"Guy") Captions
- 1.25" Diameter Buttons (Perfection Cigarettes)
WITH CAPTIONS READING:
"I'm the guy who.../that.../ put...."
The spelling and grammar reflected in these listings are exactly as they appear on known pinback specimens (or as cited for those few I've never actually seen).
air in airships
ale in Yale
arms in the army
banks on the Wabash
bars in Bar Harbor
bars in the jail
bats in the Battery
battle in battleships
beams in moonbeams
beans in Boston
bells in Belfast
bells in Belgium
block in Block Island
bored holes in macaroni
bow in the rainbow
boy in boycott
brook in Brooklyn
broke the record
built the ark
built the Canal
built the pike to Pike's Peak
built the pyramids
built the subway
bull in Spain
bums in bumblebees
bunk in Bunker Hill
buns in bourbon
buns on bunions
butter in butterflies
buzzards in Buzzards Bay
cab in cabbage
came back
can in Kansas
cans in Canada
cantaloupe
cash in cash registers
cat in catsup
cats in catnip
cats in the Catskills
chat in Chattanooga
chew in gum
clams in the chowder
cloves in clover
coke in cocoa
collars in Colorado
con in bacon
con in Congress
cooked Dr. Cook
cough in coffee
cracks in crackers
cream on milk
crust on pies
current in electricity
cyclones in Kansas
dam in Amsterdam
descended from Adam
devil to sleep
did in didn't
discovered America
discovered baseball
discovered the East River
docked the doctors
doll in dollars
done it all (small print)
done it all (large print)
dots on the dice
dough in bread
dough in doughnuts
drum in drummers
dub in Dublin
dug the big ditch
dug the pit in Pittsburg
eats the dates on calendars
erected the North Pole
eyes in eyelets
eyes in potatoes
figs in figures
fire in firewater
flies in baseballs
flies in butterflies
fly on fly paper
foam on beer
fogs in London
force in the police force
found the fault in asphalt
found the oyster in the stew
frisk in Frisco
gas in gasoline
germs in Germany
gin in Virginia
gloves in Gloversville
go in Chicago
gold in the Golden Gate
graft in telegraph
grapes in grapefruit
guns in gunboats
guy in geyser
ham in Hamlet
hands on the clock
hats in Manhattan
heads on tacks
heat in the sun
held five aces
hips in the Hippodrome
hips on hurrahs
hobbles in skirts
hoboes in Hoboken
hoes in Idaho
holes in cheese
hook in hookworms
hop in hops
hops in beer
hops in grasshoppers
horns on the bull
horses in horseradish
hump on camels
I'm the guy
ice in the Arctic
ice in the Artic (sic)
Indians in Indiana
invented hot air
isle in Carlisle
jags in moonshine
Japs in Japan
joker in the deck
junk in junkshops
key in whiskey
kids gloves
land in Maryland
law in lawyers
leaps in leap year
licked the liquor
lime in the limelight
liver in Liverpool
made a barn dance
made a flush
made Long Island Sound
made the Board Walk
made the cape for Cape Cod
made the cat fish
made the cow slip
made the fuss
made the horse fly
made the key to Key West
made the moon shine
made the scales for fish
made the star light
made the wash stand
made William Tell
makes it rain when it rains
man in Manhattan
man in the moon
mark in Denmark
married Mississippi
might in dynamite
milk in cocoanuts
milk in the Milky Way
mill in Milwaukee
mosquitos in Jersey
mush in mushrooms
mutt in mutton
never told a lie
news in newspapers
noise in Illinois
noise in sound
nominated the president
notes in music
oaks in Oakland
oats in oatmeal
oil in oil cloth
OK in Oklahoma
one in none
onions in Bermuda
oyster in the stew
oysters in Oyster Bay
pains in windows
pay in pay day
pencil in Pennsylvania
pep in pepper
pips in pippins
poles on tadpoles
pop in popcorn
pork on the hog
port in Newport
prince in Princeton
raised the rumpus
rats in the Rathskeller
rest in restaurants
ring around the moon
rock in Rockaway
rope in Europe
rush in Russia
S in stung
saint in Saint Louis
salt in the ocean
sand in the desert
sand in Sandusky
saw in Arkansas
scotch in Scotchmen
sea in Seattle
settled the strike
shamrock in Ireland
shells on the seashore
shine in sunshine
silk in silkworms
sings in Sing Sing
snakes in Ireland
sneezes in snuff
speed in autos
speed in snails
sponge in spongecake
spring in Springfield
stamps on letters
stars on star fish
started pictures moving
started something
steam in steamboats
stickers on gooseberries
straw in strawberries
strings in string beans
tax in taxicabs
that saw the salad dressing
that started something
that strings beans
that's chief of mischief
tights on sausages
toads on toadstools
toes in tomatoes
took the ants out of the Giants
trot in turkey trot
trunks on elephants
tuck in Kentucky
Turk in Turkey
twinkle in the stars
wait in waiters
wall in Wall Street
warts on pickles
warts on toads
wash in wash stand
watched the fire escape
water in rain
water in stocks
water in watermelons
whiskers on catfish
wish in wishbones
won Cape Race
(7/8" DIAMETER)
from the same / similar series
The listings are arranged alphabetically by the first word in the entire caption.
A boob is an awful thing
Ain't he cute, he's only six
Ain't I the sunny boy?
All Hunkey Dory
All right, old sport
And he never came back
Any fool can work
Are you a Mason?
Ask me
Ask me something easy
Ask my name
Aw, can it
Aw, close up
Aw - come off
Aw, Kid McCoy
Aw, lean on your breakfast
Back out, kid
Be careful
Be reasonable!
Beat it
Beat it while your shoes are good
Believe me
Bring one
Call me early, mother dear
Call me up some rainy afternoon
Calm yourself
Can it
Cheer up
Cheer up! The worst is yet to come
Cheer up There'll be another day
Cheese it
Choke it off
Come across
Come again, I don't get you
Come off the perch
Come to life
Cut that out
Cut that stuff
Did you speak?
Did your father cut your hair?
Do it now
Do me no favors
Do you follow me?
Do you get me?
Don't be a quitter
Don't bother me
Don't care if I do
Don't get mad
Don't mention it
Don't say it just wink
Don't say yes to everybody
Don't smile if it hurts you
Don't spit in the walk
Easy money
Easy on the ruff stuff
Eh?
Every dog has his day
Every little bit added, makes a little bit more
Everybody works but father
Everybody's doin' it
Everybody's doing it
Excuse me!
Fade away!
Farewell, Claude
Fiddle up
Fire away!
For Auld Lang Syne
For he's a jolly good fellow
For the love of Mike!
Funny as a crutch
Gee - a pipin
Gee what a name
Gee what a nerve
Gee whiz! I'm glad I'm free
Gee you're a lucky guy
Get a horse!
Get on the band wagon
Get on the job
Get one
Get out
Get the hook
Get wise
Get your hair cut
Give it a drink
Give me liberty or give me death
Give that calf more rope
Go tell your mother
Going some
Good morning, Judge
Good night
Good night!
Good night! William
Hail to the Chief
Hands off!
Hands up
Has anybody here seen Kelly?
Have a care
Have a heart!
Have courage
Have you a sister
He flew the coop
Hello Bill
Hello! Bill
Hey! Quit that
Hire a hall!
Hit him with a brick
Hock it kid, it's got a beard on
Hold my hand till the car comes
Home was never like this
How about cher?
How be ye?
How old is Ann?
How's chances
I am busy
I am surprised
I call you
I could love a girl with money
I don't get your drift - snow again
I don't think
I feel as fine as a fiddle
I got cha, Steve
I had a dollar once
I have you Stephen
I love my own town but Oh, you Oshkosh
I love you
I make my own ice
I never flirt
I never worked
I should worry?
I want a home
I want to know
I went to night school
I will be a sister to you
I'd like to believe yer
I'll get your goat
I'm a bear cat
I'm a dazzler, are you?
I'm a happy guy
I'm all in but the buttons
I'm from Missouri
I'm married now
I'm on my way
I'm on to you
I'm one of the kids from Goat Island
I'm single
I'm stuck on you
I'm the boy
I'm the guy
I'm the butte from Montana
I'm the keeper of the Golden Gate
I'm yours until Niagara Falls
I've got my eyes on you
I've got your number
If time were money I'd be a millionaire
If you love me grin
Is everybody happy?
Is that your dog?
It can't be done without a makeup
It's a bear
It's a long lane that has no turning
It's a pleasure to have a friend like you
It's all to the mustard
Just like that
Keep it dark
Keep kool
Keep moving, you Tigers
Keep out
Keep the change
Kwit cher kicken
Lead me to it
Leave it to me
Lend me a dime
Let George do it
Let me tell you something
Let's be friends
Let's take a joy ride
Licked to a frazzle
Light up, your pipe's out
Looks like an early fall
Make a noise like a hoop and roll away
May I see you home
Maybe you think I'm happy
Me for the turkey trot
My foot slipped
My hat's in the ring
My wife won't let me
My word
Naw, I ain't married
Nice work, kid
Nix, on that!
No wedding bells for me
Nobody loves a fat man
Nobody loves me
Not on your life
Nothing to it
Now everybody is happy
Now will you be good
Nuff ced
O.U. chicken
Officer, call a cop
Officer, he's in again
Oh! Dry up
Oh! I just love work
Oh Joy
Oh, Mama
Oh my yes
Oh, piffle!
Oh! That mysterious rag
Oh, you!
Oh! You baby doll
Oh! You Cubs
Oh, you Giants
Oh, you Indians
Oh, you kid
Oh, you ki-id
Oh, you Pirates
On your way
Over the river for yours
Pipe the gink! Will yer
Pony up
Pretty nifty
Pull your head in
Put an egg in your shoe and beat it
Put that in your pipe and smoke it
Quick, Watson the needle
Quit yer kiddin'
R U Happy?
Right off the bat
Ring the bell, I'll buy
Roll your hoop
Sand your tracks your slipping
Say! Give us a knock down
SH-H Don't Wake Me Up
Shake 'em up
Shake it up
Shake well before using
Shop early
Short a nickel
Show me
Sic 'em Tige, they're city chaps
Sic him kid, he bit your father
Slam it - old boy slam it
'Smatter Pop
Smoke up.
Sneeze, your brain is dusty
So I see
Some class, eh?
Some class here
Some hitter
Somebody start something
Something doing
Stick out your ears, you're falling through your collar
Stick to it, kid
Sure Mike
Surest thing you know
Take a chance, there's two out
Take a fall out of yourself
Take a little tip from Dad
Tell it to Sweeney
Tell it to Sweeny
Tell it to the cop
That'll be about all
That gets my goat
That's a hot one
That's the least of my worries
That's what they all say
The booby hatch for yours
Them's harsh words, sport
There are others
There's a good time coming
There's a ring around the moon
They shall not suffer
They're after me
Think twice before you speak
This is on me
Thought I was broke
Tie the bull outside
Toot your horn
United we stand, divided we fall
U.R.A.J.
Vote for me
We won't go home "til morning
Well, I guess not, white hope
Well, what do you know about that?
What are you afraid of
What's up?
What's your right name?
Wheels! Wheels! Wheels!
Whisper It
Who are you?
Who's all right?
Who's your friend?
Whoever heard of you
Whoops M'Dear
Why should I worry?
Will see you later
Will you ever stop kicking
Wipe your chin
Y.R.U. sad?
Yep! Nothing to do till tomorrow
Yes, I will not
Yes you will nit
You are all right
You bet cher life
You get me nervous
You know me, Bill
You look the part
You make me tired
You poor boob
You're a lucky guy
You're a peach
You're crazy in the head
You're flying high
You're in the wrong pew
You're next
You're on, kiddo
You're talking through your hat
You're the candy kid
You're the goat
You're the whole show
You're wasting time
Your Treat Nit
Zip! Goes another nickel
(1.25" DIAMETER)
Pinbacks
All the 1.25" diameter specimens I've seen are lithographed (as opposed to celluloid, as are the majority of the 7/8" specimens).
According to an antique / collectibles dealer who's dealt extensively in these buttons, there are only 20 known 1.25" diameter pinbacks (as distinguished by caption).
However, his listing, combined with the 1.25" Perfection buttons in my possession, yield the following list of more than 20:
Be careful
Calm yourself
Do it now
Do you follow me
Do you get me
Excuse me
Get on the job
Going some
I got cha, Steve
I have you Stephen
I should worry
I'm from Missouri
Keep the change
Lead me to it
Maybe you think I'm happy
Officer call a cop
Officer he's in again
Oh! You baby doll
Oh you kid
Quit your kiddin
Roll your hoop
Show me
That'll be about all
The smoothest
There are others
To-morrow, to-day will be yesterday
"I'm the Guy"
Non-"Guy"
Non-"Guy"