J. Oberwise & Company

In 1938, a 50-year-old employee of the City of Los Angeles named Joseph Oberwise purchased a bundle of Lincoln Printing Company coin boards and pasted his own information in red ink on white paper over the LPC publication statement. Thus did he enter the lucrative coin board business then sweeping the nation. The address given was for his own residence on West 29th Street in Los Angeles, and Joe Oberwise was now a coin dealer. This venture was a success, and he soon had his own line of boards printed. Unlike other publishers up to that time, however, Oberwise called his boards "Premium Cards" and listed on the back of each the prices he'd pay for completed boards. His business grew so quickly that he opened a store of his own at 1308 S. Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles. Less than a year later he relocated across the street to 1317 S. Vermont, where he would remain as a coin dealer until retiring in 1961. Joseph Oberwise was the second most prolific issuer of coin boards after mighty Whitman Publishing Company, and there are well over a hundred varieties, due to his frequent revisions to the backing paper text and imagery.

J. Oberwise and Company's list of Premium Cards ultimately included Indian Head and Lincoln Pennies; Shield, Liberty Head and Buffalo Nickels; Liberty Head (Barber) and Mercury Dimes; and Liberty Head and Standing Liberty Quarters. He also published "Collector Cards" for Jefferson Nickels and Washington Quarters, as these series then had no premium values. In addition, he offered undated cards for Half Dollars and Dollars. When Dansco (Daniel Stamp Company) introduced coin folders in 1939, Oberwise cut a scoring line into his boards the following year and provided instructions on how to cut the backing paper so that the boards would fold! He later added a line of purpose-built folders that were printed concurrently with the single-panel boards as late as 1948, and all are now highly collectable.

Joseph Oberwise in front of his shop at 1317 S. Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles, with his grand-niece and grand-nephew, 1941.

The first Oberwise boards were actually the products of local competitor Lincoln Printing Company, but its name was covered up!

The prices paid for completed collections appeared on the back of Oberwise's own boards, along with a guide book available for purchase.