BEST PET: You still have time to enter your dog or cat in The
Era’s pet photo contest. The deadline has been extended until
Friday.

The contest, which benefits our Newspapers in Education program,
garnered more than 150 entries last year and this year we hope to
have more.

Entry forms are appearing several times a week in The Era so be
sure to fill one out so Fido or Boots can get well-deserved kudos
as being “the best” of all our entries.

LIGHTING UP: John Sapko of 333 E. Main St. stopped by with
another one of those lighter-style match holder we showed you a few
weeks ago.

The brass holder has striking grooves on the bottom and a hinge
like a Zippo. It bears the engraving “Greenewald’s Bradford, Pa.”
on one side and “Outfitters for Men and Boys” on the other.

A lifetime collector of various items, John tells us he has an
original Austrian-made lighter like the one which inspired George
G. Blaisdell.

That lighter was given to him by an aunt when he was a boy.

We also heard from David J. Lamborn of Bradford after running
that photo. He writes, “In Saturday’s paper in ‘Round the Square,
there was an article about pocket match holders. As I am an avid
collector of match safes, I can tell you that they were patented in
1853 and were made of nickel-plated brass, brass, sterling silver,
German silver, gold and celluloid.”

“I have collected match safes for 30-plus years and have over
200 pocket safes and 250 desk and wall mount match holders, and
they are all different.”

TODAY’S QUOTE: “The first important financial advance for
newspapers came in 1451 when Johann Gutenberg … invented the
printing press which made it possible for a newspaper to cheaply
and accurately reproduce every single error thousands of
times.”

Today’s quote was said by humorist Dave Barry, 2001.

As always, our quote is courtesy of the Freedom Forum which not
only publishes a nifty desktop calendar but has a “Newseum” in
Washington, D.C., an interactive museum which is well worth a stop
if you’re in the capital.