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| That red cellophane tab was the foundation of an urban legend |
Most of us are familiar with urban legends, those oft-repeated stories of a folklore nature that are handed down over the years and believed to be true – but have no real basis in fact. Most of the times, they're of a creepy nature and are merely entertaining. But it's all in fun and nobody gets hurt.
But sometimes, belief in an urban legend can have unhappy consequences.
Here's an example – what folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand refers to as 'the redemption rumor.' For decades, people collected and saved those red cellophane opener strips on cigarette packages with the belief that they could be redeemed for some useful medical device or services to help the unfortunate. It was actually a cruel hoax as it was simply not true.
It even made the front page of the Feb. 19, 1954 Lorain Journal, with a photo of some Lorainites and their collection of cellophane strips to donate.
"Stop saving the red cellophane strips from cigaret packages," the article notes. "They have no value at all.
"A check into the astoundingly widespread habit of saving the tabs revealed today that hundreds of misguided Lorainites have been accumulating the strips. Suffering from the delusion that they are worth money, or are exchangeable for seeing-eye dogs, March of Dimes donations, cigarets for hospitalized veterans and other charitable contributions, people in this city and others across the nation are avidly collecting the tabs.
"In an effort to track down the basis of the stories that a hundred, a thousand, a sackful or boxful of the strips will result in any of the above handouts, The Journal contacted representatives of major cigaret companies and Ohio veterans hospitals.
"The result: the tabs are valueless. The only victims of the cruel hoax are the blind and crippled who thought they could get a wheelchair or seeing eye dog for enough of the tabs."
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| Maybe Don Draper of the Sterling Cooper ad agency originally conceived a promotional rebate program involving the red tabs |
