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Mr. Purvis - A friend and former employee of Jefferson Standard Broadcasting had a more colorful past than many of us knew. He had been a famous FBI agent who helped "get" John Dillinger and other bad guys in the 1930s, and then became a cultural icon on radio, the movies and a spokesman for a popular breakfast cereal. It was the era of box top prizes |
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Club Prizes - Photos of just a few of the prizes for members of Melvin Purvis' Junior G-Men and the Law-and-Order Patrol (see prize catalog below). By sending in Post Toasties box tops you could obtain rings, badges, guns, siren-whistles, decoder wheels, etc. |
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The Window Sill Give-away - a Post Toasties advertisement from 1937 in which Mr. Purvis and two of his Secret Operatives catch a thief. (It was an inside job, the chauffeur did it.) The bowls of Post Toasties they had consumed earlier probably helped. |
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The Secret of the Deserted Mill - Another comic adventure from '37. Mr. Purvis, Billy and Sally catch the "Marquette counterfeiters" before they "queekly" escape back over the border into Canada. Only then do they dig into some Post Toasties. |
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Melvin Purvis - Junior G-Men Detective game - A game from Parker Brothers. As kids played the game they "stopped at" real locations where the FBI had tracked, captured and sometimes killed some of the infamous gangsters of the early 1930s. |
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Prize Catalog - You could, for only 8 box tops, get a "handsome simulated alligator skin" wallet with an isinglass "window" inside in which you could display that photo of your secret heart throb, actress Ann Rutherford, although it was made to fit your Roving Operative's Secret Passport (3 more box tops—does it never end?). |
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Junior G-Men Manual of Instructions - If you don't know how to "judge and compare fingerprints," this is the manual for you. Were you aware that every fingerprint belongs to one of only four classes: whorl, arch, loop and composite? You cannot get this information just anywhere. It is stunning the secrets this former ace G-Man reveals. |
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Law-and-Order Patrol Secret Operators Manual - As a G-Man, Purvis learned a lot of tricks of the art of disguise: "Suppose you are being followed. You are wearing a cap which is dark brown. Now if you turn a corner quickly, shove the dark brown cap into your pocket and put on another of an entirely different color, you have an excellent chance of making a leisurely getaway." And wait 'til you read how to surround a house! |
