I've many times wondered why those cards were hole-punched like that. This is far from the first grouping to have these holes, so it is not just one little kid back in the day run amok. Maybe they were good for a free ride at the fair, maybe they were redeemable if the kid collected signatures or did some other service? Neither of these is a very satisfactory explanation, but there should be one somewhere.
It also escapes me as to why these would have survived in such rough shape. It's one thing to put cards in your bike spokes or carry them around until they were worn and creased, but this just seems like overkill by someone who couldn't possibly see these as a collectible, right? I mean, why save something you seemingly have gone out of your way to nearly completely deface (in some cases literally)?
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If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other. - Ulysses S. Grant, military commander, 18th US President.
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