Your Information Resource for Vintage Baseball Cards
eNews Issue #14 (June 2005)          www.oldcardboard.com

Welcome to Old Cardboard, the most complete reference resource for information about collecting vintage baseball cards and related memorabilia.  More information about this eNewsletter and its companion website and magazine are found at the bottom of this page.

Contents:
1. Updated Auction and Show Calendar
2. 1940 Editorial Bruguera "Sportsmen" Ruth Card Reported
3. Latest Updates to OldCardboard.com Website
4. Smithsonian Panel on Old Baseball
5. NAXCOM Vintage Invitational II
6. T206 Uzit Find
7. Name That Place

1. Updated Auction and Show Calendar

The following is a summary of vintage card events coming up in the next 30-45 days. For the latest listings on all upcoming vintage card shows and auctions, see the Show and Auction Calendar on the Old Cardboard website.


OC eNewsletter Sponsor
June 2005
10NYC/Phone SportsCards Plus/Sotheby's Auction (auction highlight is contract selling Babe Ruth by the Red Sox to the Yankees; see website for details).
12-15Internet Henry Yee auction (1500+ lots on eBay: Focus on Yankees, vintage wire photos; see eBay auction site for details; to be posted starting June 5).
16-17Phone/Internet Lelands.com Auction (see website for details).
21-22Phone/Internet Collectible Classics CCA6 Auction (see website for details).
22Phone/Internet Grey Flannel Auctions (multisport; highlighted by 1930s Ruth game-used uniform; see website for details).
23Internet MastroNet's Classic Collector Auction (starts June 13; see MastroNet website for details).
23Phone/Internet American Memorabilia (see website for details).
24Phone/Internet Leland's Sports Auction (multisport; highlighted by Josh Gibson card from 1950-51 Toleteros set; see Leland's website for details).
24-26Chicago Sportsfest (Donald Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL; see website for details).
July 2005
12Internet/Live Hunt Auctions Major League Baseball All Star Live Auction (see website for details).
15Internet 19thCenturyOnly auction (see website for details; starts June 15; call 800-801-4399 for a free auction catalog).
27-31Chicago, IL The National Sports Collectors Convention (see website for details)

2.  Vintage Spanish Issue Reported: 1940 Editorial Bruguera "Sportsmen"

Several dozen vintage baseball issues from Canada, Cuba, Japan and a handful of other countries are familiar to most collectors today. Very seldom if ever seen, however, is a baseball-themed card that was produced in Spain before 1950. One such card was recently reported by Old Cardboard subscriber Fran Garcia Cubero from Valencia, Spain. The previously uncataloged card is of Babe Ruth and is the only baseball player card in the multi-subject set (see example at right).

According to Garcia Cubero, the card was included in a 12-card sub-series entitled "Figuras Deportivas de Fama Mundial" (World Famous Sportsmen). The series was produced in 1940 along with albums by Editorial Bruguera, a Barcelona-based publisher. The multi-album master set was named "Cromos Cultura," with the cards from the Sportsmen subset all contained in Album Number 5. The cards measure 12 cm x 8.9 cm (approximately 4-3/4-inches wide by 3-1/2 inches tall). The Ruth card is Number 12 in the subset and has a blank back. The cards were sold in packs. Each pack had several cards of different size that belonged to the different series within the Cromos Cultura master set. Usually the cards were attached to the album, so it is quite rare to find single cards in high grade.

The cards that make up the 12-card World Famous Sportsmen subset include:

    #1 Zamora (soccer),
    #2 P. Uzcudun (boxing),
    #3 Max Schmeling (boxing),
    #4 Primo Carnera (boxing),
    #5 Gorostiza (soccer),
    #6 Quincoces (soccer),
    #7 Joe Louis (boxing; example shown at left),
    #8 Max Baer (boxing),
    #9 Sangchili (boxing),
    #10 Alain Gerbault (nautics),
    #11 Campbell (car racing), and
    #12 Babe Ruth.

Note:
1) A collectors profile on Fran Garcia Cubero is planned for the Collector's Dugout section of Old Cardboard Magazine Issue #4 (Summer 2005).
2) For future reference, an Editorial Bruguera "Sportsmen" set profile has been added to the OC website.

3.  Latest Updates to OldCardboard.com Website

We are continually expanding the Old Cardboard website with more set profiles and additional checklists and set galleries. Recent (past 30-40 days) updates include:

Set Profiles have been added or significantly updated for:
Editorial Bruguera Sportsmen
1901-1927 M128 Police Gazette
1947 Sport Magazine Premium

Set Checklists have been added for:
1901-1927 M128 Police Gazette
1946-49 W603 Sports Exchange (by series by player name)
1946-49 W603 Sports Exchange (complete set by player name)

Set Galleries have been added for:
1946-49 W603 Sports Exchange

We will continue to update the website with checklists and full set galleries for additional vintage issues, so come back often to check out the latest additions. Any assistance from website viewers in adding new checklists and scans for card galleries is most welcome. Please send input to editor@oldcardboard.com.

4. Smithsonian Panel on Old Baseball

If you live in Washington DC or plan on visiting there next month, you may want to check out a panel discussion to be held on Thursday evening, July 14 starting at 6:30 pm. The gathering is sponsored by Smithsonian Associates and will be held in the Ripley Center (that's by the "Castle Building" at the Smithsonian Museum complex on the National Mall).

Participants in a discussion titled The Greatest Baseball Stories Never Told will include David Block, collector of early baseball memorabilia and author of Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game; John Thorn, an early-baseball expert and commentator on ESPN and the History Channel; Tom Shieber, curator, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum; and Frank Ceresi, baseball authority and former curator, National Sports Gallery.

Block’s book was reviewed in Old Cardboard’s February eNewsletter (#10) and an article contributed by Ceresi about the earliest known "bat and ball" card was published in Old Cardboard Magazine (Issue #2; page 42-43). We are told that Hank Thomas, a grandson of Walter Johnson and owner of the bat and ball card, will also be on hand with the card.

General Admission is $25 (SA Members, $20). For more information, contact the Smithsonian Associates at 202-357-3030.

5. NAXCOM Vintage Invitational 2 (VI:2)

In Old Cardboard eNewsletter #10 (February 2005) we reported the progress of NAXCOM's Vintage Invitational online sales competition, as well as the contest winner, Memory Lane, Inc. of Tustin, CA. The event was a success--so much so that a sequel, Vintage Invitational 2 (VI:2), has now been launched.

With total cash prizes of $14,500, the rules of the competition are patterned after the annual basketball "March Madness" playoffs. Each week (midnight Sunday to midnight Sunday, PDT), a pair of vintage dealers will compete to sell the highest dollar amount of vintage material (defined as cards and memorabilia produced before 1980), with the winner advancing to the next level of the playoffs. Top vintage buyer throughout the contest is awarded $1,000.

NAXCOM has nurtured the marketplace for baseball and other sportscards by following a model similar to that of the Wall Street securities exchange. Thus, buyers and sellers post "Bid" and "Ask" orders, respectively, with the gap between the two narrowing until a deal is made. Unlike other auction formats, items can be listed on NAXCOM.com without charge unless the item is sold. The company is using the contest to help stimulate more transactions for vintage (pre-1980) items. Because the contest should benefit both sellers and buyers of vintage material, it is one that Old Cardboard gladly supports.

With qualifying rounds now over, the VI:2 contest begins this week (Monday, June 6). We wish all contestants, including vintage sellers and buyers, much success in the competition, and will report from time to time the contest status and results on these pages.

Further details about Vintage Invitational 2 are provided on the NAXCOM website.

6. Uzit, Uzit Everywhere

It is well known among T206 collectors and researchers that example cards printed with the Uzit cigarette brand promotion on the reverse are among the most difficult of all backs. So it must have been an eye-popping event when Robert Lifson of Robert Edwards Auctions recently stumbled across a collection of 160 T206 cards.

To Lifson’s surprise, he found that an astonishing 33 cards--more than 20 percent of the total cards in the T206 group--displayed the much sought after Uzit label on the reverse. The cards, along with a number of other non-T206 rarities, will be placed in a future REA auction, according to Lifson.

Cards with the Uzit back are printed in a light blue and were distributed in packs manufactured at Factory 30, District 2 in New York state. The Uzit backs are only found with fronts issued in the 460 series.

The T206 examples were part of a much larger group of tobacco cards that were found still intact after being gathered by the original owner around 1910. Perhaps the most prized Uzit card has Ty Cobb featured on the front.

The collection also includes a T206 Walter Johnson card with a Lennox back, a couple of "red-Hindu" backs, and other rarities. There are also several Broad Leaf backs (three from the ultra-rare 460 Series and one 350 Series), a "red Hindu" back, and other rarities.

7. Name That Place

For all of you ex-military types out there: ever fly over this place? Perhaps you have even played ball on the baseball field strategically located at the center of the fortress.

It is an interesting fortress based on a modified pentagonal design (click on image for an enlarged view). The image came from a circa 1930 real photo post card.

First person to identify the fortress (send the name of the location to editor@oldcardboard.com) gets a free set of Old Cardboard vintage baseball type card gallery prints.

****************
Postscript: The fortress was identified almost immediately by Don Johnson as Fort Monroe, VA, located overlooking the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. It was named for President James Monroe. The fortress covers 80 acres. It was built 1819-34 by the U.S. government on the site of English fortifications erected in 1609 and 1727. Completely surrounded by a moat, the six-sided fort is the only one of its kind left in the United States. Fort Monroe was held by Union forces throughout the Civil War; Jefferson Davis , president of the Confederacy, was imprisoned there from 1865 until 1867. Long a U.S. army coast-artillery post and school, the fort became headquarters of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) in 1973.

Lyman and Brett Hardeman
Old Cardboard, LLC.

Old Cardboard, LLC. was established in December, 2003, to help bring information on vintage baseball card collecting to the hobbyist. Produced by collectors for collectors, this comprehensive resource consists of three components: (1) Old Cardboard Magazine, (2) a companion website at www.oldcardboard.com and (3) this eNewsletter. The Old Cardboard website contains more than 500 pages of descriptive reference information for baseball card sets produced before 1950.  Each of these set summaries has a direct set-specific link to auctions and a similar link to 's powerful search engine for further research. The website also includes a Show and Auction Calendar, an eBay Top 50 Vintage Sellers List, and much more. As a result, the Old Cardboard website makes a great "Alt-tab" companion for vintage card shoppers and researchers. Old Cardboard eNews provides current hobby news, upcoming shows and auctions, and updates to the website and the magazine. It is published around the middle of each month. For a FREE subscription to the eNewsletter, or for subscription information on Old Cardboard Magazine, please visit the website at www.oldcardboard.com. If you find this information resource helpful, please tell your friends. We need your support and your feedback. Thank you.