Quaker Pack-O-Ten “Warplane Cards”
Quaker Oats Pack-O-Ten, F279-18, United States

• Series Title: Quaker Pack-O-Ten Warplane Cards
• ACC No.: F279-18
• Manufactured by: The Quaker Oats Company, Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Packaged With: Quaker Pack-O-Ten Cereals
• Number of Cards: 58 Total: 27 “Text” Backs, 27 “Plain” Backs “Sample” Backs.
• Numbering: unnumbered
• Card Dimensions: 2¼" x 3½" with rounded corners (Playing Card Format)
• Circa: 1957
• Checklist: Download

Overview

During 1957, the Quaker Oats Company of Chicago, Illinois, issued a set of 27 “Quaker Pack-O-Ten Warplane ” airplane cards. The set was very similar to the World War II era R112 sets issued by the Leaf Gum Company and the Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin. The cards were of the “playing card ” format with rounded corners. These glossy thick-stock cards measured 2¼ × 3½ inches. The fronts of the cards featured USAF and USN military aircraft from the mid-1940s through the mid-1950s. The Backs the cards featured a brief descriptive text about the subject aircraft.

Typical F279-18 “Quaker Pack-O-Ten Warplane ” card front.

Typical F279-18 “Quaker Pack-O-Ten Warplane ” card Back.

It appears that the primary marketing strategy that Quaker used to promote this airplane card set, was to include “sample ” cards in their “Quaker Pack-O-Ten Cereals ” boxes. The “sample ” cards were actual cards from the F279-18 set that were “over-stamped ” in red ink on the reverse side with the phrase: “SAMPLE CARD SEE OFFER ON BOTTOM OF THIS PACKAGE. ” It appears that were at least four of the “sample ” cards.

Typical F279-18 “Quaker Pack-O-Ten Warplane ” (sample card) Back.

Boeing B-47 “Stratojet” (sample card)

Consolidated Vultee B-36 (sample card)

Grumman F9F “Panther” (sample card)

Republic F-91 “Thunderceptor” (sample card)

Most likely, Quaker used the same format that they used for their 18-card “Braves of Indian Nations” card set offer shown below. It appears that a “sample card” was inserted into the “Quaker Pack-O-Ten Cereals” box. It does not appear that anything other than the “sample” cards were included in the boxes. Using the Order Blank from the box, plus 10¢ the young collector could obtain the complete “Warplanes” 27-card set via mail-order directly from the Quaker Oats Company. When the padded enveloped arrived from Quaker, it had a return address of: Pack-O-Ten, Box 712, Chicago 77, Illinois. A special thanks to Dan Goodsell of Mistertoast.com for the following “Pack-O-Ten” box graphic.

Typical Quaker Oats “Pack-O-Ten” Cereal Box

The F279-18 “Mystery Set”

Just when you think everything is under control, there always seems to be some unanswered questions. The reason we have two F279-18 “Warplane” 27-card sets listed is … there is an identical set of 27-cards with blank Backs. We' do not know the genesis of these cards. They might be “pattern” or “proof” cards from the printer or publisher, or just a set of error cards. During this era it was a common practice for a publisher to offer the same card set to more than one customer. A prime example of this practice is the “Aircraft Recognition Card“ PLC series. During the early 1950s, sets were issued by Carnation Corn Flakes, Hood Country Peach Ice Cream, 3-Minute Oats, Whitman Publishing and the Oak Manufacturing Company. All of these “Aircraft Recognition Cards” sets shared the same color photo/artwork. The Carnation Corn Flakes, Hood Country Peach Ice Cream and the 3-Minute Oats sets were borderless PLC designs with rounded corners. The Whitman sets were also borderless, but had square corners. However, the “Premiere Trading Cards, Airplanes” set was of a conventional trading card design with square corners and substantial borders around the airplane photo image. The Backs of the cards all had simplistic three-view OML (outer mold line) drawings of the subject aircraft, along with a brief narrative about the aircraft, and their product name. If anyone knows the history of the F279-18 “plain” Back set, please let us know.

Image Guide

Behind each of the “thumbnail” images lies a 600-dpi image of the card fronts and Backs.

Boeing B-47 “Stratojet”

Boeing B-50D “Superfortress”

Chance Vought F4U-5N “Corsair”

Chance Vought F6U-1 “Pirate”

Chance Vought F7U-1 “Cutlass”

Consolidated Vultee B-36

Consolidated Vultee XP5Y-1

Convair XF-92A (North American) sic

Douglas AD-3W “Skyraider”

Douglas F-3D “Skynight”

Fairchild C-119 “Packet”

Grumman F9F “Panther”

Lockheed F-90

Lockheed F-94A “Starfire”

Lockheed P2V-4 “Neptune”

Lockheed T-33 “Shooting Star”

Martin AM-1 “Mauler”

Martin B-51

McDonnell P4M-1 “Mercator”

McDonnell FH-1 “Phantom”

McDonnell F2H-1 “Banshee”

North American B-45 “Tornado”

North American F-86D “Sabre”

North American F-93A “Sabre”

Northrop B-49 “Flying Wing” Bomber

Northrop F-89 “Scorpion”

Republic F-91 ”Thunderceptor”

Checklist

We have included two versions of checklist: (1) the web version shown below, and (2) an Adobe^® Acrobat^® PDF 8½ × 11 inch format checklist.

References

1. Shupek, John A., Card images from the Skytamer Archive