Smokey Bear Remember Only YOU can prevent Forest fires – Keep America Green Matchbook Magnet (MM114)

Even if this wasn’t a bestselling image, which it is, I’d have saved it for my friend Michael M who is utterly mad for Smokey. I like the squirrel in this image – he seems skeptical, his little eyes are kind of narrowed at us.

This whole campaign began when the United States emptied out most of its firefighters as they left to fight in World War 2, making the potential forest fires far more dangerous because there were almost no firefighters.  The bear himself was named for Smokey Joe Martin, a New York City firefighter who lost his eyesight and suffered horrible burns during a daring rescue in the city.  The actual bear who inspired the campaign was only a cub.  The firefighters nicknamed him hotfoot Teddy because, terrified and orphaned, he climbed a tree during a forest fire and survived.  But he was badly burnt on his paws.  A park ranger and his wife, Ruth and Ray Bell, took the little cub home and saved his life, caring for him themselves.  People found out about the cub and letters from all over the country began to pour in asking about the cub.  Once the cub was a celebrity, the forest warden made a deal with the fire chief – he would allow the chief to use the bear, and to rehome the bear, but only if the fuzzy celebrity was used to prevent forest fires.  Both sides kept their word.

The image you see is exactly what we used to produce the magnet. (We include 1 free GypsyFaith sticker per order.)

All GypsyFaith magnets are double the strength of a normal refrigerator magnet; this magnet will hold several pieces of paper to a surface without sliding. The surface is textured, so it does not scratch. We developed it over a period of several years with our production partner in China. It took us a long, long time to get to this PVC product. Our intention, as we developed this product, was to make it as durable as our handmade magnet products were when we first began selling them more than 14 years ago.

Images used to make our magnets are scanned at 9600dpi resolution, reduced to 960dpi for production.

SIZE: This magnet is exactly 1.835 x 2.362 inches OR 4.66 x 5.999 cm (It is about the size of the original matchcover.)

PACKAGING: This magnet is packaged in a hard plastic container for retail sale, then we place it into the mailer.

It ships in a hand addressed, postage stamped padded mailer.

*We ship First Class US Mail for our customers domestic and international; for domestic orders the ship time is approximately 7 days.

We do not expedite shipping. Cost for shipping, as well as tax, is calculated at checkout.

$1.50

500 in stock