Die-cut Cards From the North

Here's a card I recently uncovered while doing research for one of my other freelance jobs:

It's one of five sets (called "series" by its manufacturer) that have been lumped into the V304 catalog designation in the American Card Catalog. Issued during the 1936-37 hockey season, it was one of several sets released by O-Pee-Chee in Canada long before their affiliation with Topps. Of the five "series," this set was the only one designed with a die-cut that allowed the top of the card to be folded over to allow it to "stand" on its own. 

Fellow blogger 1967ers gets a little deeper into the set's design here.

They seemed to like the design, as they used it the next year for their only baseball set of the era:

I showed this card here last year, and explained the similarity with the 1934-'36 Batter Up set.

Remembering the Fallen

Today is Memorial Day.  Time to pull out this card from my own collection:

This is an E90-1 American Caramels card. It was issued during the same 1909-'11 era as the vaunted T206 set. The big difference between the sets was that one was issued inside tobacco products and the others were sold with candy. Though T206 cards are better known and more widely collected, it's believed that most E cards are much scarcer. For more info about the set, my website has a page devoted to the set.

But that's not why I love this card. It's not even the fact that it is now more than 100 years old (even though that certainly adds to its mystique). I love this card because of a very real and constant reminder. The player is Eddie Grant, who was the 3rd baseman for the Phillies here but also played with three other teams before leaving the game and starting a law practice. In 1917, Eddie Grant volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army when the nation entered World War One. He was given a commission as a captain in the Infantry and sent to France. The right is a photo of Capt. Grant in his other uniform:


On October 5, 1918 Capt. Grant was participating in a patrol to help rescue the famed "Lost Battalion" in the Argonne Forest. During that operation, he was killed by shrapnel from German artillery. This made him the first former major league baseball player to be killed in action during wartime. To me, the fact that I have a card from his playing days makes it a special part of my collection.

Today is Memorial Day. It's a day where we should stop for a moment and remember the sacrifices our fellow Americans have given to help us enjoy our Freedoms. Some, like Captain Eddie Grant of Massachusetts, gave their lives for the cause. And they should never be forgotten.

One Way to Get the Set...

Today's pictures were sent to me by a fellow collector and show the lengths Topps went to to get rid of its backlog of cards from 1951:

Later in the decade, a full set of Red Backs was "repurposed" into a game, complete with instructions and a playing field. At 29 cents for 52 cards and two pieces of paper, that was about the same price as the cards originally went for in their wax packages (2 for a penny). The plus side was that they didn't come with the awful-tasting taffy product.

The playing "field" is shown on the back:

Thanks, Al, for sending the image along. And for keeping the package intact. I know I'd be way too tempted to open it if it was mine.

Outfield Advertisments

A couple of weeks ago, fellow blogger 1967ers showed his 1969 O-Pee-Chee Johnny Bench card. Here's a Topps counterpart showing the exact same photo:

Since this was a posed shot during Spring Training, I look past the fact that he's appearing to pose as a catcher near the outfield foul line. With a catcher's mitt but no other protective gear. However, there would be better (and worse) pictures of Bench to come, so no use getting on him for his first solo appearance on a Topps card.   

However...being the observant person I am, my eye focused on this billboard above Bench's head:

It says "Village Inn Pancake House, We Never Close."

The Reds trained at Al Lopez Field in Tampa at the time, at the site of today's Raymond James Stadium. Although Al Lopez Field is no longer there -- like much of Florida, it's been bulldozed and rebuilt into something newer -- Village Inns are still all over the area. In fact, I ate at one in St. Petersburg just a few weeks ago.

There's no phone number or address given, so there's no way of knowing which location was being advertised or if it's still around. But it's nice to see something in a vintage card that is a link to something in my present.

1960s Topps Stamps Part 3

Seven years after including stamp panels inside their wax packages, Topps brought them back for 1969:

This time around, the set included 240 players. Using better pictures and coloring from their earlier versions, the company also developed a different design using a banner icon. They were evenly distributed by team, so the 24 teams had 10 players apiece. There was even a stamp album for each team:

It was more like a booklet, which featured sections for each player inside and several facsimile autographs on the back (a concept revisited with the unnumbered team checklists from 1973 and '74).

Instead of being inserted into wax packs along with base cards, these stamps were issued as a separate series in their own packaging:

The stamps were issued in perforated panels of 12, with 24 possible combinations of players. As you can see from the pack, one team album was also included in the package.

Topps used stamps later in the year with its football and hockey sets, too. The football stamps were issued along with the base set in 4-piece panels on thicker cardboard stock. The team album was also included. Those are covered in this post from 2010.

With the hockey stamps, they were actually designed to be placed on the back of the cards (and that concept was also used in the same year's O-Pee-Chee set).

Before the Mall...

Today's post features a card that was handed out in 1966 to shoppers in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh:

Back in the days before malls became the new wave for shoppers, there was the good ol' shopping center. Clusters of stores and restaurants would get grouped together to entice people to stop in one place and take care of several errands at once. In the case of East Hills, the different buildings were named after Presidents and the parking lots had the names of players on the Pirates, in order to help patrons remember where they'd parked.

In 1966, several stores in the East Hills shopping center distributed cards on Pirates players as a promotion to get people to circulate more. The blank-backed cards were skip-numbered; in fact, the card numbers corresponded with the uniform numbers of the player pictured. There were 25 cards in all.

In 1969, a mall opened in nearby Monroeville. As that mall gained popularity, many of the stores at East Hills shut down. Then, rising crime and vandalism in the neighborhood took care of the rest. Eventually, East Hills closed down for good, and a wrecking ball knocked it down in 2001. However, collectors have the 1966 East Hill Pirates to serve as a time capsule of a period where it was a thriving business canter.

Raining On a Parade

This card is one of the most well-known vintage cards due to its action, especially coming from an era where action shots weren't part of baseball cards:

However, when I look at it I see all sorts of wrong things: it definitely isn't a major league field (and looks like a municipal park rather than a Spring Training facility), the player -- rumored to be Phil Rizzuto -- is sliding the wrong way into second and the edges of the photo are underexposed for a set that lauded itself for its full-color photography.

Despite seeming like I've gone into full "Get the Hell off my yard!" geezer mode, I think it should be recognized as one of the first attempts to get some action into card photos. That was gutsy in 1953; even Topps didn't attempt to do that until 1971.