Your Information Resource for Vintage Baseball Cards
  eNews Issue #111 (July 2013)         www.oldcardboard.com

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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. M116 Sporting Life Master Checklist Bumped to 400 Cards
3. Latest Additions to the OldCardboard.com Website
4. Bazooka Joe Celebrates 60th Birthday
5. News Briefs (A Digest of Recent Hobby Happenings)

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 most current listings on additional vintage card shows and auctions, see the Key Events Calendar on the Old Cardboard website.

Have an event that needs to be on the OC Calendar?
Email editor@oldcardboard.com.


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July 2013

12-14Chantilly, VA CSA Chantilly Show (see website for details).
18Phone/Internet Goodwin & Co. Auction (see website for details).
19Phone/Internet Goldin Auctions (see website for details).
23-25Phone/Internet Hake's Auction (includes baseball; see website).
25Phone/Internet Bussineau Sports Rarities (see website for details).
25Phone/Internet Sterling Sports Auctions (see website for details).
25Internet Sirius Sportscards (see website for details).
7/31-8/4Rosemont, IL National Sports Collectors Convention (see website for details).

August 2013

3Phone/Internet Small Traditions Auction #11 (see website for details).
7/31-8/4Rosemont, IL National Sports Collectors Convention (see website for details).
1Dallas, TX Heritage Signature Sports Collectibles Auction (see website for details).
2Rosemont, IL Legendary Auctions Live/Phone Auction (see website for details).
7-8Phone/Internet Clean Sweep Auctions (see website for details).
8Phone/Internet Huggins & Scott Auctions (see website for details).
8Phone/Internet CollectAuctions.com Auction (see website for details).
8Internet Sirius Sportscards (see website for details).
10Phone/Internet SCP Auctions (see website for details).
15-18White Plains, NY "East Coast National" (see website for details).
27Internet Love of the Game Auction (see website for details).
28Internet Bagger's Auctions (see website for details).
28-29Phone/Internet Legendary Auctions Live/Phone Auction (see website for details).
29Phone/Internet Sterling Sports Auctions (see website for details).
31Phone/Internet Small Traditions Auction #12 (see website for details).

2. M116 Sporting Life Master Checklist Bumped to 400 Cards


F. Smith (White Sox)
F. Smith (Red Sox)

Type 2 Back
Type 3 Back

An M116 card of Frank Smith labeled as playing for the Boston Americans (Red Sox) was recently discovered by veteran collector and Old Cardboard subscriber Brian Parker. The truly remarkable discovery brings the size of the Master Checklist (including all known variations) for the popular century-old set to exactly 400 cards.

Cards of Smith have long been known labeling him as playing wiith the Chicago Americans (White Sox) -- with both the Type 2 ("If you want ...") and Type 3 ("Over 300 Subjects") backs. This new discovery shows him with the Red Sox and a type 3 back (see examples at far right).

Significantly, the F. Smith Red Sox card is exceedingly rare--the only one ever reported in the vintage card hobby.

As M116 collectors know, there are 288 players featured in the set. The balance of the cards in the 400 card Master Set include variations in the background colors on the card fronts (24 cards), variations in card backs (80 cards) and now eight player-team variations (8 cards).

The eight team variations are found in cards of McQuillan, McConnell, Seymour, Bates and now F. Smith in addition to variation cards for three players (Beck, Lobert and Lord) that have been found in period ads but not yet confirmed by vintage collectors today.

Parker discovered the F. Smith team variation when he recently received a lot from a small group of M116 cards purchased on eBay. He was interested in the group primarily for other cards in the lot and did not realize at the time of the purchase the rarity of the Smith card. Only when he received the lot and compared Smith's card to one already in his collection did he realize that it was a rare team variation.

Had he not already had the F. Smith White Sox card, Parker believes that the variation may well have continued to go unnoticed. He recently suggested to Old Cardboard that our readers who have M116 cards in their collections may be well served to check their cards against the M116 Master Checklist to determine if they too may have yet undiscovered variations.

A Set Profile of the M116 Sporting Life set is provided along with a complete Master Checklist on the Old Cardboard website. The Master Checklist is sortable by the player's Last Name, Series Number and Team as well as the card's Relative Scarcity on a scale of 1-9.

Those interested in more details about the M116 set may wish to read (or re-read) veteran collector Tim Newcomb's comprehensive article "1910-12 M116 Sporting Life: A (Mostly) Pastel Treasure," in Issue #18 (Winter 2009) of Old Cardboard magazine. In addition to a thorough discussion of variations in both the fronts and the backs of the cards within the set, Newcomb's information-packed 8-page discussion provides never-before-published detail explaining the dates of issue for each of the set's major series. Further, he provides rationale for assigning one of nine levels of scarcity for each card in the set.


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3. Latest Additions to the OldCardboard.com Website

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

Set Checklists have been added for:
1926   Kut-Outs Giants/Yankees Die-Cuts
1938   R323   Goudey "Heads Up"

Set Galleries have been added for:
1938   R323   Goudey "Heads Up"

Updating the website with checklists and full set galleries for additional vintage sets is an ongoing project, so check back often to check out the latest additions. There are now many thousands of card images on the website and the list continues to grow every month. We welcome and encourage feedback with checklist additions, card images, error corrections and suggestions. Please send all input to editor@oldcardboard.com.

In addition to these additions to the Old Cardboard website, we continue to expand and refine our eBay Custom Search Links to make finding vintage baseball cards on eBay easier than ever. The results of these searches are continuously changing, so check back often to find the most recent listings.

4. Bazooka Joe Celebrates 60th Birthday

Book jacket (above) and unjacketed book (below)
When Woody Gelman, head of product development at Topps Gum, Inc. in 1953, hooked up with comic strip artist Wesley Morse, it marked the beginning of a long and highly successful run of Bazooka-brand bubble gum comics.

Thus, for the past six decades, "Bazooka Joe and His Gang" have been synonymous with bubble gum, providing a unique combination of cheap laughs wrapped around pink, sugary slabs of chew.

To help commemorate this long string of iconic mini-comics, Topps has produced a 224-page full-color compendium in horizontal 6 by 7-1/2 inch format. The compilation includes extensive essays written by the closest observers and participants in the production of the comics.

Perhaps of greater interest to our readers, however, is the source of the Bazooka Joe comics that are liberally used to illustrate the narratives of the book. As credited on the title page of the book, the comics used were "selected by and from the collection of Jeff Shepherd." A longtime subscriber of Old Cardboard magazine, Shepherd has contributed his knowledge as well as images from his collection to the vintage hobby (and to OC magazine) over the course of a number of years.

A large majority of the comics were of non-baseball themed. As shown at left, however, a few were. The leading block of each comic contained the "Bazooka Joe and his Gang" label and icon. Most were also followed by a "fortune" across the bottom as illustrated in both examples shown here.









In addition, as with the example at right, many of the comics ended with a promotion for a then-current Topps premium offer. Like the subject of the comics, most promotions were not related to baseball. The promotion in this example, however, was for a five-inch felt emblem for a team of the recipient's choice. The recipient was asked to either send "75 Bazooka comics and no money or only 15 cents and 5 Bazooka comics" for each emblem desired. The promotion on this comic expired on June 30, 1955.

Examples of two baseball-themed premiums promoted in the Bazooka Joe comics are shown below. They are a typical five-inch felt team emblem (Cardinals) and and a 5 by 15-inch pennant (Red Sox). Although obscure, both are highly prized by Topps collectors of 1950s cards, and both are discussed in some detail in Issue #13 of Old Cardboard magazine (see David Hornish, "Topps' 1st Decade of Baseball Cards, Part II: Novelty & Test Issues of the 1950s," OC Issue #13, Fall 2007, p.29).

We were particularly impressed by the full-color quality of the hardcover book--right down to the simulated bubble-gum binding and the matching pink edge coloring of the pages, making the unjacketed book resemble a giant slab of bubble gum. More than 100 classic comics are reproduced inside including the first series reprinted in its entirety for the first time. Contents also include jokes and fortunes along with rare advertisements, ephemera, photographs, artitst sketches and more.

The book was released by Topps in May of this year (retail: $19.99) and is available on Amazon.com. A Kindle edition is also available.

5. News Briefs (A Digest of Recent Hobby Happenings)

Vintage Pennant Price Guide Revised. Old Cardboard reader Mike Egner has revised and updated his "Vintage Pannant Price Guide (Baseball and Football Edition)." The first edition of the book was reviewed in OC's eNewsletter #70 (February 2010). Since then, the Guide has grown from 210 to almost 350 black & white pages with over 2,200 pennants pictured. Price is $19.99 plus $4 shipping; its also available in eBook format. Visit Mike's online Vintage Sports Shoppe for details and how to order the new edition of the book.

Custom eBay Searches Enhanced. For years, the popular Custom eBay Searches provided on the Old Cardboard website and linked to from the OC Home Page have provided an easy way for our readers to quickly search for vintage cards. There are now searches for nearly 150 vintage card sets organized into 20 major hobby card groups. We have spent considerable time over the past few weeks in revising and updating these searches to yield even better search returns and to reduce unwanted search results such as reprint cards and other erroneous or unrelated auction lots. Please take a look at these newly revised OC Custom eBay Searches. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions on how we might make these searches even more effective for vintage collectors.

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 fifty years ago or longer.  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.