Back in Time, Day 3

 

Continuing the celebration of The Market Report's 10th year!

Each month of 2026, I'll be posting a different special feature to celebrate my 10th year of writing this blog. Last month, we took a look at my favorite posts of 2016-2020, and in January, we investigated the history of A&P and its other brands. This month, let's spend some more time on the past with a look at some memorabilia today along with this week's historical photos and first memorabilia post.

Today, in our final memorabilia post, we'll be looking at matchbooks (which we've seen before). These were all purchased at an antique store in downtown Gloucester, MA.

The apostrophe has since been dropped from Gristedes.

Elm Farm has an extensive ad for Bonded Meats inside this matchbook.

Given that the antique store was in Gloucester, I wouldn't be surprised if these came from right in town. The Shaw's in Gloucester was previously a Star Market...

...and I don't know if it ever had a pharmacy (it now doesn't), but perhaps some area Shaw's had an Osco pharmacy in it.

Later, here's a pretty recent matchbook, Signature Home, which if it was purchased at a Shaw's or Star Market would date it to 2014-2018 or so, when they consolidated Signature Home into Signature Select.

A wonderful Stop & Shop matchbook, probably also from the Gloucester area.

And that's all for memorabilia! Tomorrow's a look at what's coming up next as we continue north through New England. Stay tuned!