This artifact consists of two printed cards from the Reading Automobile Club of Reading, Pennsylvania, dating to 1925. The first is a membership and emergency road service card issued to Mr. B. W. Reichert of 1139 Mulberry Street, Reading, bearing the membership number 3505 and the handwritten signature of the club secretary, Chas. H. Seitzinger. Printed on faded orange or salmon cardstock with rounded corners, the card documents the club’s affiliation with the American Automobile Association and the Pennsylvania Motor Federation, extending reciprocal service to members of affiliated clubs. The reverse side of this card or a companion instruction card, printed on matching stock, provides the club’s operational rules for roadside assistance under the emphatic heading “NO CLUB CARD NO CLUB SERVICE.” This instruction card lists nine specific conditions governing emergency service, including the requirement that members call the nearest listed service station from the point of breakdown, remain with the vehicle until the service man arrives, and provide their license number, name, and location. The rules explicitly exclude coverage for tire repairs, lack of gasoline, dirty spark plugs, or lack of chains, and limit service to passenger cars that cannot be moved under their own power. A thirty-minute time allowance for on-road repairs is specified, and any tow distance exceeding ten miles required payment at regular garage rates by the owner. The card also functioned as a voucher: the member was to pay the service man one dollar and surrender the card, which would be returned by the club. Both cards show visible wear consistent with age and use, including light staining, foxing, minor creases, and a small vertical tear near the bottom edge of the membership card. These items together illustrate the formalized infrastructure of early motorist organizations in the mid-1920s, when local automobile clubs provided essential roadside logistics and reciprocal arrangements across state lines, predating modern centralized roadside assistance programs. The detailed printed instructions reveal the practical challenges of early automotive travel and the contractual boundaries clubs established to manage liability and service expectations.
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