1941 Ballantine Beer Coasters Set and Checklist
‘It’s In The Details’
| Title | Ballantine Beer Coasters |
| Year | 1941 |
| Size | 4 1/4″ in diameter |
| Images | Single-Color Ink |
| Type | Food |
| Number in Set |
3 |
1941 Ballantine Beer Coasters Overview
In 1941, Ballantine Beer produced a set of three coasters for various markets. Each coaster included headshots of two baseball players on a particular team.
Teams represented in the set were the Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, and St. Louis Cardinals. While six players are featured, none are Hall of Famers or even big names, really. The player combinations featured a pitcher and a catcher.
One side of the coasters featured the two players while backs included a short advertisement for Ballantine. The side with the players read, ‘At the game it’s’ before leading into the players while the other side read, ‘After the game it’s Ballantine Ale and Beer.’
The coasters were color coded but, interestingly, did not really match the team’s colors with a single color of ink used in addition to black. The Pirates’ coaster had yellow ink and black and gold theme to match appropriately. But the Dodgers coaster had red ink while the Cardinals coaster blue ink. Based on the fact that those colors correspond with the opposite teams, those could have been printed incorrectly.
Variations
While three coasters are generally listed in the set’s checklist, a master set would include a total of six. That’s because each coaster has two different variations.
The more common variation has a bold block style lettering for the phrases, “At the game it’s” and “After the game it’s.” A tougher variation has “At the game it’s” and “After the game it’s” in a cursive font with the appropriate color theme used on the coaster. These variations can be seen on the Pirates examples on this page.
While the cursive style seems more difficult to find, the variation is rarely noted. Both types of coasters are, frankly, somewhat difficult to find.
1941 Ballantine Beer Coasters Checklist
- Virgil Davis/Bob Klinger (Pittsburgh Pirates)
- Gus Mancuso/Lon Warneke (St. Louis Cardinals)
- Mickey Owen/John Wyatt (Brooklyn Dodgers)
Follow Pre-War Cards on Twitter and also be sure to like our page on Facebook.