So Pal Brook came across one of these at the local swap meet, and brought it by the shop for me to take a look. This pinback button featuring Tarzan was a giveaway at the Valley Federal Savings bank, Tarzana branch, in 1982:
…which, as you can see, still retains the somewhat worse for wear explanatory letter.
Here’s a closer look at the button and its Hal Foster artwork:
Interesting that there’s no mention of the specific connnection between Tarzan and Tarzana (that the area was built upon the site of Tarzan creator Edar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzana ranch), but maybe that’s just common knowledge amongst Tarzana residents of the time. I know I wouldn’t forget that!
Even though this button giveaway was in 1982, the buttons themselves were produced in 1975 “in a limited quantity” it says there in the letter. That has me wondering how many were made versus how many were given away at the bank and under what criteria. Did you get one for opening an account? Making a certain size deposit? Just for walking in the door (which would eat up the button supply right quick, I’d imagine).
Looking on the eBays revealed several similar Tarzan buttons from the time period, nearly all of them being offered for…optimistic pricing. One lot had the button pictured above, include with a button with art by Russ Heath. I don’t know if multiple variations were offered via this bank giveaway, which would have required different letters identifying the different artists and seems like more bother than it was worth to them.
Anyway, no idea if that bank is even still around…Google searches seem to suggest “no,” and I doubt even if it still existed, there’d probably be nobody there to call and ask “hey, can you tell me about those Tarzan buttons?
Regardless of its specific origins, it’s still a neat item that at no time did I say I was going to sneak into Brook’s house and take, you’ve got nothing on me, copper.
