ICE COUPON BOOKLET, WAREHAM ICE COMPANY, MANHATTAN (KANSAS) 👉 c1920's 👈

Description

ICE COUPON BOOKLET,
WAREHAM ICE COMPANY,
MANHATTAN, KANSAS.
Circa 1920's
QUANTITY꞉
ONE vintage Wareham Ice Company coupon booklet, circa 1920s, printed in a patented Larawence P. Hardy indexed coupon booklet (the Hardy indexed ice coupon booklets are difficult to locate).
COMPANY NAME꞉
Wareham Ice Company.
ADDRESS꞉
417-423 S. St. Joseph St. (1919) and later 123 Napoleon Boulevard (1930s).
CITY, COUNTY & STATE꞉
Manhattan (Riley) Kansas.
TELEPHONE NUMBER꞉
350 (according to the 1919 Manhattan Telephone Directory, another company that H. P. Wareham owned).
BOOKLET PRINTED BY꞉
L. P. Hardy Company, South Bend, Indiana.
DATE ON BOOKLET & YEARS OLD꞉
Based upon our research and the 192__ date line within the coupon book, this booklet would be approximately 100-years old.
PRODUCTS PURCHASED꞉
Prepayment booklet for blocks of ice.
TYPE OF DOCUMENT꞉
Block ice coupon booklet, indexed.
GENERAL COLOR꞉
Cover is an off-white with red and blue inks.
MEASUREMENTS꞉
5¼" x 2¾" (13,4 cm x 7,0 cm).
NUMBER OF PAGES꞉
16 pages (2 "Received" payment pages, fourteen-pages of coupons).
NUMBER OF COUPONS꞉
56, (six-pages of four tan 25-pound coupons; four-pages of four ivory 15-pound coupons; and four-pages of four rose 10-pound coupons totaling 1,000 pounds of ice).
BOOKLET'S WEIGHT꞉
0.4 ounce, 11 grams.
SERIAL NUMBER꞉
From the “D” series.
EMBOSSING꞉
None.
SERRATIONS꞉
Coupons are serrated for easy removal.
TAXATION/REVENUE/OTHER STAMPS꞉
None.
CORNERS & PAGES꞉  Very good condition.  When we acquired these ice coupon booklets, they were in their original Hardy Company shipping container - thus, no dust, dirt, smudges, etc.
OVERALL CONDITION꞉
We were very fortunate in acquiring a quantity of these booklets in their original, Hardy Company shipping box.  These ice coupon booklets were never in circulation, and despite being 100-years old, are “new.”  You are purchasing ONE booklet.
ADDITIONAL NOTES꞉
ALL pages and coupons are present and intact.
GENERAL DISCLAIMER꞉
Due to the booklet's age, there MAY be some minor discoloration or "browning" along the edges, on the pages / covers due to their age / environmental issues.
ABOUT THE ITEM꞉
Ice coupon booklets were intended to be purchased in advance from the ice company (at their "current market price").  When ice was delivered, the homeowner (or business owner, such as grocers) would tear out the appropriate number of coupons to "pay" for the poundage of ice that was delivered.  This served several purposes꞉  The ice company received their money "up front" -and- the coupons kept the drivers from having to handle money or make change.  In the United States, ice booklet coupons were typically printed in denominations of 10, 25, 50 and 100 pounds.  In this particular booklet, there are coupons for 10, 15 and 25-pound blocks of ice.
ABOUT THE WAREHAM ICE COMPANY꞉
Harry Pratt Wareham and his brother William started an ice business in the 1880s (we couldn't determine the actual year the businesses were started).  One ice house was located on the west side of the old Blue River channel.  The other was upstream on a bend in the river southeast of Strong School. They delivered ice to homes in Manhattan. It was alleged that the horses pulling the ice wagons would stop on their own when they saw 'we need ice' placards placed in customers' windows.  The ice house had the capacity for 2,000 tons of ice and he sold up to 150 rail cars of ice to the Union Pacific.  Harry also had an ice plant 85-miles away in Lawrence, Kansas.  The ice business continued into the 1930s.
Harry was the first to recognize the need for a modern sewer system in Manhattan, Kansas and financed the construction.  In August 1893,  Wareham purchased Moore's Opera House.  He updated it with electric lights and renamed it Wareham's Electric Theatre. It was a busy place. Traveling shows played to huge crowds.  Wareham's Electric Theatre was the second theatre in Kansas to show movies.
In 1894 Harry Wareham and Charles Wood started the Wareham and Wood Telephone Company offering phone service for only a month for commercial service and for residential.  Wood later went to Chanute to operate the partnership's telephone system there.
Harry was part of the corporation that formed the Manhattan Ice, Light and Power Company. They got their city franchise in 1908 and for the first time ice was produced by mechanical refrigeration in Manhattan.  Ice for ice houses was typically cut from lakes and rivers during the winter months and stored in ice houses.
In 1911, Harry built the Airdome Theatre, an open air theatre next door to the courthouse on land later occupied by the Wareham Hotel. That same year he and several others formed the Oregon and Kansas Lumber Company.  But Harry still wasn't done. He built the city's first 4-story building (in two installments) positioning it between his Wareham Theatre and the Airdome Theatre.  Later, in 1926, the six-story Wareham Hotel was built on land that had been occupied by the Airdome Theatre.
On July 13, 1939 Harry P. Wareham died at the age of 73. Following a stroke, he had spent the last three-years of his life bedridden in the penthouse apartment of the Wareham Hotel.
Having sat in a dust-covered cardboard box for almost a century, these particular Wareham Ice Company coupon booklets were recovered from one of Wareham's downtown properties undergoing renovation.  What a remarkable find!
ABOUT THE COUPON BOOKS' PRINTER꞉
L. P. Hardy and Company (Larawence P. Hardy) was a printer of “indexed” merchandise and ice coupon booklets (U. S. Patent No. 554,182), duplicating sales pads, trade catalogs, mailing and display cartons (U. S. Patent No. 1,682,963).
According to an advertisement on Page 19 of the December 1917 edition of Ice and Refrigeration, "The troublesome, inaccurate cash deliveries system is rapidly becoming out of date. The Hardy Self Indexing Coupon Books eliminate all of the bad features of this system and guarantee profitable account handling. They simplify and protect accounts, eliminate complaints, errors and cash leaks, and speed up deliveries.  The Self Indexing feature saves delay and patience in detaching coupons.”  Hardy was sure to highlight the “self indexing feature” of his coupon booklets - - as his patent assured no other competitor could offer this feature.
The last mention we could find regarding the company was a 1929 Notre Dame Football Review printed by L. P. Hardy.   We were unable to determine what became of the company. Possibly it didn't survive The Great Depression.
DISCOUNTS?:
Absolutely! In fact,
we're offering two:
A bulk purchase discount for Buyers purchasing “two or more” of these ice coupon booklets at the same time and tiered shipping for domestic Buyers (please see “SHIPPING COST” below for clarification on tiered shipping).
SHIPPING COST꞉
Your shipping cost is calculated when checking out. For Buyer's residing in the United States or its territories, to keep your shipping cost as low as possible, the shipping cost is tiered:  The shipping cost for the first coupon booklet is .00... The shipping cost for each additional ice coupon booklet is only 60¢.  Tiered shipping more closely mirrors our actual shipping cost (so Buyers don't get gouged on shipping charges).  For buyers residing outside of the United States or its territories your shipping cost is based on “DIM” (i.e. weight, package size and destination). This item ships by United States First Class or eBay International delivery. Orders typically ship within one business day of your payment being received.