Encouraging repeat visits with freebies

Token gifts (today’s freebies), given to bathers as a way of encouraging return visits, seem to have been given by very few establishments, especially in Britain, where there was a preference for proselytising booklets—inherited, perhaps, from the religious tracts which were so common in the 19th century.

British items found have been limited to smoking accessories, lucifer boxes such as those given by the Imperial Hotel baths and Faulkner (Fig 29.26), and book matches, which were given away by baths around the world.

Bookmatches

I have only found two non-smoking-related gifts. The first is a most impressive baseball scorer presented to bathers at the Oriental Turkish Baths in Columbus, Ohio, and the second is a pen from the Turkish bath in Mason City, Iowa.

Baseball scorer
< Photo source currently unknown
Pen
This page adds images to illustrate free gifts
given by Turkish baths to encourage return visits,
mentioned on pages 313-4 of my book
Victorian Turkish Baths
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Book cover front

VICTORIAN TURKISH BATHS

by Malcolm Shifrin

Published 2015
by Historic England
in partnership with Liverpool University Press
Distributed in the US by Oxford University Press
ISBN: 978-1-84802-230-0

Comments and queries are most welcome and can be sent to: 
malcolm@victorianturkishbath.org

The right of Malcolm Shifrin to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

©  Malcolm Shifrin, 2015-2023