The following is a summary of vintage card events coming up in the next 90 days. For the most current listings of additional vintage card shows and auctions, see the Key Events Calendar, accessible directly from the home page of the Old Cardboard website.

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September 2021
18	Austin, TX	Old Cardboard eMagazine Release (Issue #179; website).
19	Phone/Internet	REA Encore Auction (see website for details).
23	Phone/Internet	Sterling Sports Auctions (see website for details).
24-26	King of Prussia, PA	Philly Show (see website for details).
25	Dallas, TX	Heritage Sports Auction (see website for details).
25	Phone/Internet	Leland's Classic Auction (see website for details).
30-10/2	Long Beach, CA	Long Beach Expo (see website for details).
October 2021
3	Phone/Internet	Collector Connection Auction (see website for details).
9	Phone/Internet	Goldin Auctions (see website for details).
9	Phone/Internet	Memory Lane Auction (see website for details).
13	Phone/Internet	Clean Sweep Auctions (see website for details).
16-17	Long Island, NY	Long Island (Hofstra) Show (see website for details).
16	Internet	Brockelman Auctions (see website for details).
22-24	Chantilly, VA	CSA Chantilly Show (see website for details).
23	Dallas, TX	Heritage Sports Auction (see website for details).
30	Phone/Internet	SCP Auctions (see website for details).
November 2021
5-7	Wilmington, MA	Greater Boston Sports Collectors Show (website).
11	Phone/Internet	Sterling Sports Auctions (see website for details).
18-20	Dallas, TX	Heritage Sports Auction (see website for details).
25	Internet	Love of the Game Auction (see website for details).
28	Phone/Internet	Collector Connection Auction (see website for details).
December 2021
3-5	King of Prussia, PA	Philly Show (see website for details).
18-20	Dallas, TX	Heritage Sports Auction (see website for details).
5	Phone/Internet	Robert Edward Auctions (see website for details).
11	Phone/Internet	Goldin Auctions (see website for details).
12	Phone/Internet	Collector Connection Auction (see website for details).
15	Austin, TX	Old Cardboard eMagazine Release (Issue #180; website).
30	Phone/Internet	Sterling Sports Auctions (see website for details).

2. 1930 F278-50 Famous North Americans by Eric Eichelkraut

Front

Back

This "Famous North Americans" set produced around 1930 by the Post Cereal company was one of the very first breakfast cereal baseball card offerings.

But while the 32-card set features many famous early American personalities, it includes only one sports figure--that of baseball superstar Christy Mathewson.

The cards were designed to be cut from a the back of a cereal box. As illustrated below, the cards are printed in red and black with a black frameline around a drawing of the subject. The subject is identified at the bottom along with a brief 2 or 3-line caption. Dashed cut lines are also printed around the perimeter of each card.

All card backs are blank. Once removed from the box, there is no labeling on the cards to link them to their sponsor.

Example 10 Oz. Box (flattened; top and bottom tabs removed; click to enlarge)

The Famous North Americans set is not listed in the American Card Catalog (ACC). However, the ACC does reserve the prefix F278 to card sets produced by the Post Cereal company and does identify 26 sets produced by the company (assigned the numbers F278-1 through F278-26). By extension, the hobby number F278-50 has been subsequently added and is often used to identify the Famous North Americans set.

Small Format (2-7/16 by 3-3/16 inches)

Large Format (2-7/8 by 3-3/4 inches)

The F278-50 cards are known to exist in two different sizes. When measured from cut line to cut line, the smaller cards are about 2-7/16 inches wide by 3-3/16 inches tall. They were cut from a 10-ounce box of Post's 40% Bran Flakes.

Larger cards are also known that measure 2-7/8 inches wide by 3-3/4 inches tall and were no doubt cut from a larger box of cereal. The Mathewson cards shown here illustrate the difference in relative size between the two series. Both are displayed at approximate actual size.

Another set of similar design was also produced by Post for the Canadian market. The 36-card set is titled "Great Canadians" and is listed in the ACC as set FC4. However, the checklist for the Canadian series is entirely different and there are no sports figures featured on any of the cards. The Canadian cards are slightly taller and narrower and have more room at the bottom border to accommodate a more detailed bio of the subject.

An F278-50 Set Profile along with a Checklist of all 32 cards (Mathewson and Non-Sport) has been added to the Old Cardboard website.

C. W. Post and His Legacy

Post Cereal founder C. W. Post

Charles William "C. W." Post (1854-1914) is best known as founder of the Post Cereal company. However, he lived a life in the fast lane that was both enormously successful and fatally tragic.

After successful ventures at an early age into both farm implements manufacturing and real estate development, Post's workaholic approach to business resulted in debilitating mental breakdowns in 1885 and again in 1891. After recovery, he launched the Post company in 1895, which over the following decades produced a variety of breakfast cereal brands used in virtually every American household.

Looking West on Third St., Post City, Texas. According to a handwritten note on the front of the above postcard, the house in the left foreground was C. W. Post's modest quarters, which he occupied during his trips to the town that he founded in Garza County, TX. (postmarked 1911; click image to enlarge)

In 1906, Post invested some of the revenue from his cereal operations by purchasing a tract of more than 300 square miles, mostly in Garza County, Texas, some 25 miles Southeast of Lubbock. On it, he created a new "utopian" town, called Post City, complete with a hotel, schools, churches, cotton gin, a textile plant, a department store and more.

Today, more than a century later, the population of Post, TX is about 6000 people.

Tragically, Post's struggles with mental illness and emotional stress, along with a recurring stomach illness, surfaced again in 1914, when the cereal magnate took his own life at the age of 59 years.

Postscript (pun intended): Post's daughter and only child, philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post, inherited the Post Company along with her father's vast wealth. She directed the company in the 1930s during the time that the 1930 Famous North Americans card set was produced. Notably, in the mid-1920s, she also built the expansive and now famous Mar-a-Largo mansion in Mar-a-Largo, FL. The mansion was purchased in 1985 by Donald Trump. --LJH

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OC eMagazine Sponsor

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A PR3-8 Team Pinbacks Set Profile, Checklist and full Gallery of all 16 teams can be viewed on the Old Cardboard website.

BF8 Team Mini-Pennants

PB8 Mini-Pennants (about actual size; click to enlarge)

Like the pinbacks described above, each of these 16 Team Mini-Pennants represents a Major League team of the period.

The pennants are assigned the hobby number BF8 in the ACC). Each pennant is cut at 1-7/8 inches high and about 4 inches long.

The team name and a somewhat crude logo/graphic are printed on a felt background in one of several colors. The felt colors are always the same for a given team pennant. All pennants are unnumbered with blank backs. The Yankees pennant shown here is also the one pictured on the front of all boxes.

A BF8 Team Mini-Pennants Set Profile, Checklist and full Gallery of all 16 teams can be viewed on the Old Cardboard website.

F150 Player Mini-Pennants

Sometime in the late 1940s, a mail-in premium program was added to the "Double Play" Candy promotion that included a set of 22 mini-pennants featuring player portrait drawings.

As illustrated in the examples below, the mini-pennants of all American League players are printed in dark blue over ivory colored felt. Members of the National League are printed in red. Each pennant features a line drawing of the player with a facsimile autograph to his right.

Ted Williams (Red Sox; American League); All AL players printed in dark blue.
	Warren Spahn (Braves; National League); All NL players are printed in red.

The 22 player mini-pennants measure 1-7/8 inches high an 4 inches long (the same size as the BF8 team mini-pennants described above). They are shown here at approximate actual size; click to enlarge. All mini-pennants have blank backs.

The premiums included mini-pennants of twelve players from the National League and ten players from the American League. As might be expected from the Boston-based company, 11 players (half of the set) were members of Boston teams.

Of the remaining pennants, 3 players were from the Cardinals, 2 from the Tigers and just a single player each from the Cubs, Dodgers, Indians, Pirates, Reds and Yankees. The Giants, Athletics, White Sox, Phillies, Browns and Senators are not represented in the set.

Coupon Cards Used in Player Pennant Promotion (click to enlarge)

Under the mail-in program, a coupon card was inserted into the Double Play box that provided details for the program and how to order the Player Mini-Pennant set. Thus, the collector was to insert a 50-cent coin between two vertical slots die-cut into the card (see example at right; click to enlarge).

Collectors were instructed to print their name and address on the back of the otherwise blank card and "Send only 2 of these Cards and 50c" to the company offices in Boston. The 22-card set was then shipped via return mail.

All 22 players were also identified in a checklist printed on the insert coupon.

Curiously, the player mini-pennant set is often referenced with the hobby number F150. The F150 listing in the American Card Catalog, however, is for a much different non-sport set produced by Armour Franks. Further, although the player mini-pennants are not listed in the ACC, they do appear in the Sports Collectors Bible. To add to the confusion, however, they are listed in the SCB as set F510, not F150. If any of our readers can help shed light on this nomenclature nightmare, please do so! Meanwhile, we will continue to use the generally accepted hobby set number of F150 for the American Nut and Chocolate Company Player Mini-Pennants.

An F150 Player Mini-Pennants Set Profile, Checklist and full Gallery of mini-pennants for all 22 players has been added to the Old Cardboard website.

Nine-Inch Team Pennants

In addition to the pinbacks and mini-pennants promotions described above, the American Nut and Chocolate Company conducted a little known mail-in program that featured somewhat larger team pennants. They are not listed in the ACC.

Example of Nine-inch Team Pennant (displayed about 60 percent of actual size)

These larger premiums measure about 4 by 9 inches and, it appears, use the same general graphic designs that are found in the BF8 Team Mini-Pennant set.

Coupon-Cards Used in Team Pennant Promotion (click to enlarge)

The nine-inch Team Pennants were promoted with insert coupons similar to the inserts used to promote the F150 Player Mini-Pennants described above, and most of what we know about them is derived from the insert cards.

Two variations of the insert card are known (see examples at right). The layout for each is slightly different but both contain the same basic information. One is printed in red and the other in blue. In both cases a small example of a Boston Braves pennant is pictured.

Both inserts describe the premiums as "Large Felt Pennants" four by six inches in size. They can be obtained by sending "only 5 of these [insert] cards and 10 cents for each pennant." A pennant for each of the sixteen Major League teams was available.

The blue insert instructs the purchaser to send the cards and coin to the "American Nut and Choc. Co., 1042 Tremont St., Boston." The red insert, however, simply indicates a mail-in box number in Brookline, Mass. as the redemption address, without identifying the sponsor.

Both coupons state an expiration date of "10/21/49" for the redemption promotion, another clear indication that the ANCC promotions were well underway before 1950.

Sixteen-Inch Player Pennants

Finally, in addition to the four American Nut and Chocolate Company sets described above, examples of several even larger and extremely rare versions of the F150 Player Mini-Pennants are known to the hobby (see Earl Torgeson example below).

Sixteen-Inch Player Pennant Example (Earle Torgeson; about 1/3 actual size; click to enlarge)

The larger Player Pennants use the same artwork, but are printed in a much larger format a little under 7 by 16 inches. Pennants for only four players (John Sain, Warren Spahn, Earl Torgeson and Ted Williams) are known to collectors, and only one or two examples of each has been reported.

Based on this small sample, the 16-inch pennants use enlarged versions of the same portrait drawings as the F150s and follow the same color scheme (red on ivory for National League players and dark blue on ivory for American League players).

Unlike the other four ANCC sets, it remains unclear today exactly how the 16-inch pennants were promoted or distributed. Insert cards for these larger player pennants are not currently known to vintage collectors. Additional information from our readers about this ANCC subset will be much appreciated.

About the Sponsor (American Nut and Chocolate Co.)

Robert Novack ("Chief Nut" at ANCC)

In closing, it should be noted that the American Nut & Chocolate Co. roasted its first batch of nuts on Tremont Street in Boston in 1927. It continues to operate today as it approaches the completion of its first century of operation.

The business initially catered primarily to retail street vendors as well as the wholesale vending trade. Back then, a nickel would be deposited into a glass-globed vending machine, providing customers a handful of roasted nuts. The machines were found in many drug stores, supermarkets, restaurants, and barber shops throughout New England.

In 1967, the business relocated to the corner of West Broadway and C street in South Boston. The operation thrived, with a penny candy store in the front and roasting and manufacturing in the back.

Unfortunately, a water leak resulting in considerable damage led to the closing of the store, and a loss of machinery and memorabilia. Rochelle and Robert Novack purchased what remained in 2007 and moved the business to Boston's Newmarket Square where the company currently resides. Today, their products can be ordered online on the company's website.