ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9604010008
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ERDENHEIM, PA.
SOURCE: AMY WESTFELDT ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPARKLY, MULTI-MEDIA, and pop-up cards are now honored as art in Erdman's museum.
Forget black and white. Roy's Roofing & Spouting of Reading does its business card in gold with a hologram pattern that flashes.
Forget paper. Salem China Co. offers a saucer with a duck painted in the middle and the company name etched on the bottom.
Don't forget the marketing power of free samples. There's the dentist who produces the Floss Card, a piece of plastic with a string of the teeth-cleaning stuff hanging off the bottom. A glass company passes out glass rectangles; an adult exotic store attaches condoms.
For those slender calling cards most people stuff in wallets or desk drawers, collector Ken Erdman has bestowed another name: art.
Erdman, a 70-year-old marketer and collector, has founded a museum to honor the business card, a marketing tool he calls one of the most effective but least exploited.
``The business card is probably the least expensive and most often used form of advertising,'' Erdman said. ``It is kind of an extension of yourself. It's a little bit of giving yourself to someone else.''
In the Roanoke area, businesses and individuals generally pay $100 for an order of 500 cards, said Boyd Johnson, president of Jamont Communications Inc., a downtown Roanoke printer. But some orders have cost as much as $600, he said, when customers demand special materials - foil, plastic or wood - and several colors of inks.
"People always wonder why they cost so much for such a small piece of paper, but it depends on the complexity of what they want," he said.
They also should realize that a business card is the most scrutinized piece of printing for most firms and often is the only item with the employee's name on it.
A business card, said Johnson, is a first impression, an expression of self-esteem and "it's very valuable because it's one of the few things that customers hold on to."
But is it art? Yes, collectors say, although more than 90 percent of the 4.5 billion cards produced each year are simple black and white rectangles of paper.
Over the years, Erdman has collected about 156,000 standouts. Cards with photographs. Die-cut cards. Heat-sensitive cards that change colors. Cards made of glass, leather, china, mouse pads.
``A business card is really a great card when the person who receives it asks the question, `Oh. May I keep this?''' Erdman said.
His favorites sit on three shelves in the lobby of his business, a stone building on an out-of-the-way street just outside Philadelphia's upscale Chestnut Hill neighborhood.
There's Tuula Helariulta's card, a folded-over cutout of the front page of the Finnish journalist's newspaper with his name inside.
Writer Murry Raphel of Atlantic City has a folded card containing a pop-up typewriter inside. A page rolls out reading the words: ``Am I the type writer you're looking for?''
And Geoffrey B.W. Little, ``Sydney, Australia's smiling policeman,'' has taken law enforcement to new heights by passing out cards with his grinning likeness and the words: ``Smile, you're under arrest!''
Most of the cards are stuffed in drawers and photo albums in an alcove that resembles a doctor's waiting room. The museum has been open by appointment since January.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Ken Erdman and his assistant, Jennifer McNulty, siftby CNBthrough a sea of thousands of cards in his office. color.