The Rise and Fall of Jiffy Photo Baseball Card Photos
In the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Jiffy Photo booths were ubiquitous fixtures found across America. Operated by coin, these small photo booths allowed customers to quickly and cheaply take passport style headshots. During their peak, it’s estimated that Jiffy Photo booths snapped over 200 million photos per year. A sizable percentage of those photos ended up in the hands of young baseball card collectors as the tiny prints were the preferred photos for the early decades of modern baseball cards.
The Origins of Jiffy Photo
Jiffy Photo booths were invented in 1935 by Automatic Industries, a Chicago based company founded by Max Mann and William Sponable. Their revolutionary new photo booth took inspiration from early photo ID machines but streamlined the process to a simple coin operated design allowing self service photos. Users would sit on a small stool, place their coin in the slot, and have their photo automatically snapped within seconds as they looked straight ahead into the camera lens. The basic setup and process would remain virtually unchanged for decades.
Automatic Industries quickly realized the commercial potential and began aggressively installing their new Jiffy Photo booths across the United States. By 1937 there were over 2,000 Jiffy Photo locations nationwide including in drug stores, bus stations, department stores and other commercial areas with high foot traffic. The simplicity and low cost of 25 cents a photo made Jiffy Photos tremendously popular, especially with servicemen, teenagers and others wanting small photos for identification purposes.
Baseball Cards Discover Jiffy Photos
In the late 1930s, the fledgling baseball card industry was still in its early experimental stages. Many of the earliest modern baseball cards from the 1930s lacked photos altogether as producing and sourcing quality player images was still a major challenge. Entrepreneurs at the various baseball card companies soon discovered the abundance of readily available and affordable Jiffy Photos being produced daily could help solve this problem.
Beginning in the late 1930s, associates from companies like Goudey, Bowman and Topps would visit Jiffy Photo locations in major league cities, sometimes striking deals to buy bulk prints of local players. More commonly, they would simply purchase photos of interest as they came across them, routinely sifting through piles of freshly developed Jiffy Photos hoping to find images of ballplayers to feature on cards. Some resourceful players themselves would visit Jiffy Photo booths and obtain prints to then personally sell to the card makers.
Within a few years, the tiny Jiffy Photo prints became the de facto standard for baseball cards of the era. Their low resolution held up adequately when shrunk down to card size and more importantly, they provided a steady, easily accessible supply of photos when quality sports photography was still an emerging industry. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the vast majority of baseball cards relied on Jiffy Photo images to bring the players to life for young collectors.
Baseball Cards Help Jiffy Photo Thrive
The burgeoning baseball card boom of the post-war era brought a golden age for Jiffy Photo as well. With kids across the country collecting cards and swapping them with friends, the demand grew for updated images of their favorite players each new season. This led directly to a spike in Jiffy Photo use as card companies and players themselves needed a constant supply of fresh portraits.
In many cities, Jiffy Photo booth operators even learned the spring training and exhibition schedules of local teams in order to stake out locations near ballparks. Scores of players passed through, cash in hand, hoping to get their photo taken for card purposes. Sometimes the Jiffy Photo businesses went as far as to specially promote themselves to players and ballclubs as the best spot to obtain prints for the growing card industry.
By the late 1940s, Jiffy Photos had printed over 100 million portraits annually in the United States alone. Their small coin operated booths were common sights in any town or city with a professional baseball team. The unique partnership between Jiffy Photos and the nascent baseball card market helped both industries experience unprecedented growth through the following decades.
The Decline of Jiffy Photos
By the late 1950s technological changes began signaling an eventual end to Jiffy Photo’s dominance. Higher quality 35mm cameras became affordable to the average consumer while versatile polaroids soon after completely changed the functionality of instant photos. At the same time, professional sports photography was rapidly improving as well.
By the 1960s, most modern baseball cards eschewed the cramped Jiffy Photos in favor of larger, crisper images from professional photographers or polaroids. The lower resolutions that once sufficed now paled in comparison to the new standards. Still, some card producers held onto Jiffy Photos longer due to their established relationships and supply lines ingrained over decades.
As mainstream use declined throughout the 1960s, many Jiffy Photo booth locations closed down while others converted over to selling photo supplies or services. Automatic Industries, the innovators behind Jiffy Photos, actually survived into the 1990s before finally ceasing operations. However their iconic coin operated booths that once dominated corners nationwide had all but disappeared by the 1970s.
Legacy of Jiffy Photos
While gone from the modern landscape, Jiffy Photos left an indelible mark during their heyday. Their easy access and affordable photos served important identity and novelty purposes for over two decades. Most significantly, their role in providing the standard baseball card images of the late 1930s through 1950s helped foster the early growth of the hobby and brought legions of players to the impressionable young collectors just starting to amass sets.
In many ways baseball cards aided greatly in spreading awareness and use of Jiffy Photo booths across the country. Their unique symbiotic relationship highlighted how two rising forms of popular culture could amplify each other. Though technology ultimately made Jiffy Photos obsolete, their small coin operated stools remain embedded in the nostalgic memories of mid-century America and the roots of baseball card collecting’s golden age.
