By Ray Collet

Hello Readers, As I write this column, the weather forecast is calling for some snow tonight. I don't think it will amount to the snows that we used to get , when we had to walk five miles each way, barefoot, with snow up to our knees to school though. I told Gennell the other day that the reason we had deeper snows back then was because we were younger and shorter. It WOULD come up to our knees when we were four years old !

And none of us had backpacks with our school supplies in them,we were lucky if we had a book bag, or satchel bag. Do you remember the writing paper we had then? Blue Horse was the name of the tablets and loose-leaf notebook paper. The trademark was the famous Blue Horse of the Montag Brothers Paper Company in Atlanta, Ga. The company was established shortly after the Great Depression. Their sales were a little on the sluggish side until they launched a clever awards marketing program.
It seems like all of the stores, and even the school sold the Blue Horse products sometimes in the morning before the classes began. The paper sold for a nickel a pack and contained about 25 5-hole punched sheets, allowing it to be placed in two or three ringed binders. Each pack was enclosed in a small wrapper with the familiar Blue Horse head trademark in the middle. These trademarks were then clipped, saved, and later redeemed for prizes. Literally millions of Blue Horse heads were exchanged for cash and prizes making Montag one of the largest paper companies in the industry.
I recently saw an old Montag Brothers wrapper from 1953. It listed "50,000 Prizes For All You Lucky Boys and Girls." Products costing five cents counted as on trademark, and ten cent items were two. Participants were instructed to fasten the clippings in bundles of 50 or 100 before mailing them . Students sending in 20 Blue Horse heads received a beanie cap with the company logo; all other prizes required a minimum of 30 heads. We never actually had a chance to choose prizes, the number of heads mailed to the company determined the value of the reward. The labels had to be mailed in by June 15 each year, making it easier for the company to tabulate the results, award prizes and make plans for the next year's campaign.
The top prize was a Horse Head brand bicycle given to the 425 students sending in the most emblems. There was also 325 table model radios, 550 footballs, 550 zipper notebook cases, 1250 "surprise" awards, 20,000 bonus prizes, and 26,850 totaling 50,000. And the schools also were rewarded. Cash was offered to the 167 schools whose students sent in the most trademarks. Prize money included $100 for first, $50 for second, $40 for third, 25 for fourth, and $5 for fifth. The total amount of money dispersed nationwide by the company was $2025. Remember now, this was in 1953.....
Long about 1953, the Montag Brothers' once-famed, four-legged creature went to the glue factory. Today, in Atlanta, Ga. the only trace of the famed hoofed animal is a building still referred to as The Blue Horse.
I hope this brought back some memories to you, I am looking around for my bottle of ink and an old fountain pen to go with the "Blue Horse" Maybe by next week I can find one and do a little writing about our "old-time" writing pens. And if any of you know why the most popular pencil was called a No.2.....and not a No. 1, let me know.
Until next week, Ray