By Bill Grubb

ROGERSVILLE - A piece of Rogersville's history, the former International Playing Card & Label complex, is going on the auction block.
    The 166,964 square foot building and slightly more than seven acres of property on West Main Street have been ordered sold by the United States Bankruptcy Court.
    According to Cole Auctions, the firm handling the sale, a date has not been set by the court.
(Update:  The sale will be held April 2, 2009 at 11 a.m.)
    On September 19, 2008 a voluntary petition seeking Chapter 7 bankruptcy listing liabilities of $1,891,730 and assets of $872,953 was filed on behalf of the defunct printing company by Karl R. Geiger, president.
     Among the liabilities are claims filed by 10 former employees seeking a combined $70,480 as a "severance allowance pursuant to union contract."  Court records also list property tax payments of $35,528 owed to Rogersville and $70,958 owed to Hawkins County; $1,500 owed for administering a 401K account, $16,000 owed to Shorewood Packaging, of Newport News, Virginia;  $482,218 owed to the Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund; and $1,214,946 described as an "underfunded pension obligation" for the GCIU Pension Fund. 
    The court records list assets of $712,5000 for the industrial plant and real property, $40,021 in a checking account and $120,432 in accounts receivable.
    The former printing company dates back to 1926 when George L. Berry, president of the International Printing Pressmen and Assistant's Union headquartered at Pressmen's Home campus, used his position with the union to organize the International Playing Card Company. 
    His dream, according to a 1989 copy of the company newspaper IPC Press, was to establish two companies to put pressmen to work.  In addition to the card and label company Berry wanted to establish a second company, International Publishing Company, to produce magazines. 
    While the magazine printing company never materialized, reportedly because even Berry was not able to secure financing for the ambitious project, the playing card and label company gradually began to move from the drawing board to reality.
    The scheduled bankruptcy sale will actually be the second in the building's history.  In July 1927 Berry engineered the purchase of the former F. Y. Kitzmiller and Sons knitting mill, which produced socks and stockings.  The mill was in bankruptcy and the building was offered the highest bidder. 
    By 1929 the company began producing playing cards with a staff of approximately 20 workers.  The local plant became part of Dennison Manufacturing Company, of Massachusetts, in 1977 and the name was changed to IPC Dennison.  In 1992 the company was purchased by a local group.  Mundet International purchased a Phipps Bend location and the accounts and assets of Card & Label for $13,167,957.02 in 2006.  The Rogersville location was not included in that sale.