So here’s the last of the pile of cards that I had gotten off of eBay over the last month or two. As promised, it is the oldest of the bunch, as well as being the oldest card in my entire collection.

1888 N2 Allen & Ginter Celebrated American Indian Chiefs Chief Striker

When I first saw this card up for auction, I think it was at around $2.50 or so, but with a long time left on it. I can’t remember exactly, but I want to say it was about 4 days left in the auction, or there abouts. I’ve always wanted an original Allen & Ginter card, regardless of the subject. Actually, although I would love to have an original Allen & Ginter baseball card, I would almost rather have a non-baseball subject, just because I always love the non-baseball subjects in the new Ginter sets. (Well, not always. I looking your way, Max Poser.) Anyway, long story short, even though there was a while to go in the auction, I threw down a $5.00 maximum bid and kind of forgot about it, not at all expecting to even get the high bid, nevermind win the card.

But win the card I did, and not for my maximum bid, either. I won this sucker for the tidy sum of $3.47. I guess I can thank those 2 blobs of missing paper right across Chief Striker’s face for that.

This card is from the Allen & Ginter Celebrated American Indian Chiefs set which was put  out in 1888. It is designated N2 by the American Card Catalog. The “N” is for 19th Century Tobacco cards. From what I’ve seen of ACC designations, the number almost seems arbitrary. I mean this set was from 1888 and is N2, whereas the famous Allen & Ginter World’s Champions set from 1887 is N28. This particular set apparently was also released in a larger size, maybe cabinet size, and that was designated N36. There are 50 cards in the set, obviously depicting famous American Indian Chiefs.

Also, 4 of the cards had error variations. I guess some of the images were printed with the wrong name. At some point it got fixed, however, and the error versions are scarcer. Yes, thats right, even back then card companies were making variations to confound completists, although I’d wager that in this case it was a printer or art department screw up rather than a marketing strategy.

I was reading a description of this set of cards on the Robert Edward Auctions site, and they brought up a really good point that really strikes me as interesting. They remind us that “it is fascinating to note that the great Indian chiefs featured were not ancient historical figures when the set came out, but then-current legends, and most (maybe all) were still alive when this set was issued.” I guess you sometimes forget things like that when you’re looking at the card 122 years after it was released. I wonder how much royalties the chiefs received for the use of their likenesses. I mean, the tobacco company must have offered the indians some sort of compensation, right?

Here we have the back of the card. Not a write up to be seen. Like all the original Allen & Ginter cards (and I believe tobacco cards in general), they never really put any info about the subject on the reverse. It was mostly either an advertisement for their fine tobacco products, or like on this one, a checklist of all the cards in the particular set. Seeing the back of this card makes me realize what a fine job Topps did in designing their versions of A&G. I’d almost go so far to say that the Allen & Ginter logos that Topps came up with are more old-tymey looking than the one on the back of the actual old-time Ginter card. Almost, but not quite.

I was a little bit disappointed when I tried to find some information on Striker himself. I guess he’s not as celebrated as Allen & Ginter tried to make him out. The little bit I was able to find out was a small paragraph from a book on Native American pottery. It was actually a caption for a photograph that wasn’t displaying.

“According to information on the reverse of the photograph, Striker was a Kiowa-Apache subchief from the Kiowa Reservation, Oklahoma. He was born ca. 1822 and may also have been known as Equestrian, Ta-Ho and Da-Ho.”

Another site had these image captions, without the images.

5. Ta-Ho. Equestrian. (Front.) Essa-Queta

6. Ta-Ho. Equestrian. (Side.) Essa-Queta
A sub-chief of his band. Age, about 50 years; height, 5 feet, 11 inches; circumference of head, 23 inches; chest, 45 inches.

I think that both sets of captions are referring to the same photograph. Although neither site actually showed the image, I tracked down what I think is the picture in question at a different site. It’s pretty clearly the photo that this card was based on. There was also one other photo of him on the same site. That was pretty cool to see, but I wish I could’ve found something more about him. When you type in “striker apache” in Google, 99.999% of the returns are about helicopters.

Tags: 1888 Allen & Ginter, Celebrated American Indian Chiefs, Chief Striker, N2
Filed Under: It Came from the 'Bay by slangon
1 Comment »

This was the second old school boxing card that I got off of eBay from the same seller as that Jack O’Brien. It’ too is from the T220 Mecca Champion Athlete and Prize Fighter set as well.

1910 Mecca Champion Athlete and Prize Fighter Series Young Erne

As cool looking as the Philadelphia Jack O’Brien card is, I really like this Young Erne one quite a bit more, mostly because it pictures him in an actual fight setting rather than just demonstrating proper gentlemanly fighting form against a green backdrop. I particularly like the inclusion of the crowd in the background. I really enjoy that guy in green right at ringside to the left of Young Erne, the one who’s hootin’ and hollerin’ and waving his top hat around. I didn’t think folks hooted and hollered back in 1910. I always thought they were more civilized than that. Especially when they’re wearing top hats.

I don’t know if you can exactly tell just by looking at the scan of the front, but when you look at it compared to the Jack O’Brien card, I think it’s fairly obvious that this card has been trimmed on the top edge. You can really see it when you look at how thin the white border is up top as compared to the sides and bottom. I can’t say I exactly care, since there’s so many other things about this card that would get me crazy if I worried about stuff like that. Aside from the trimming, there’s some pretty major league scuffing on the picture as well as rounded corners and some significant paper loss down at the bottom. Fortunately, the paper loss doesn’t spill into the name too much. If anything, having a trimmed card just helps round out my collection of various ways a card can be damaged.

Ironically, even though overall this card is probably in worse shape than the other T220 that I got in this lot, the back is actually much nicer. The other one was okay, it was just much more faded out than this.

As you can see, Young Erne’s real name was Hugh Clavin, and like Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, hailed from the City of Brotherly Love. At the time that Young Erne was fighting, there was another boxer named Frank Erne so the “Young” was added to differentiate the two. I’m sure if Young Erne just went by Hugh Clavin, there wouldn’t be any problem, but what do I know. Also, within Philadelphia, he was known as Yi-Yi Erne

While rooting around the web, I came across an obituary of Young Erne that does address his name a bit.

Philadelphia, February 29, 1944–Hugh Frank Clavin died here early today at his home from a heart ailment. He leaves a widow, Mrs. Jennie Clavin, a son, Pfc. Joseph M. Clavin of the US Forces, and three daughters, Mrs. Marie Bache, Mrs. Irene Hearon and Mrs. Edna Rosenberg.

He earned his first purse of $2.50 in a preliminary bout July 16, 1900 on the night that Terry McGovern knocked out Frank Erne in New York. He later fought McGovern, substituting for Frank Dixon, and took the name Erne. Clavin was known as “Young Erne” elsewhere in the United States but as “Yi-Yi” in Philadelphia. The name “Yi-Yi” came from the battle cry of the gangs in the Gray’s Ferry district, where Mr. Clavin was known as the champion rock thrower of his day.

Erne was credited with fighting more than 400 hundred bouts and beating several world champions. But this was in the no-decision days and he never held a title.

Mr. Clavin who would have been 60 on St. Patrick’s Day, sensed that the end was near at 1 o’clock this morning. Just before he died he whispered to his wife, “Set me up in my corner; I want to be facing them when I go.”

There’s a ton of info in this that I find absolutely fascinating. First off, the first purse he ever won was $2.50? I know that we’re talking 1900 dollars here, but doesn’t that seem awfully cheap? Cheap purses combined with him never holding a title makes me wonder why he stuck around for more than 400 fights.

Secondly, a lot of that paragraph about how he got his name confused me more than it helped, but I found the whole part about “Yi-Yi” pretty interesting. Having read a lot of history about gangs from the late 19th and early 20th century, it makes perfect sense to me that a boxer from back then would’ve gotten his feet wet in the gangs, but who would’ve thought that he’s also be “the champion rock thrower of his day”? Jack O’Brien might’ve been inducted into 3 separate boxing halls of fame, but he was no Champeen Rock Thrower, was he?

Lastly, when my day comes, I hope to God that I say something that awesome to my wife before I go.

Tags: 1910 Mecca Champion Athlete and Prize Fighter Series, Boxing, Hugh F. Clavin, Young Erne
Filed Under: It Came from the 'Bay by slangon
2 Comments »

I don’t care what everyone says. I’ll miss you and your awesome right arm. Just when I was learning how to spell your name correctly, too.

By the way, I can’t believe I only have one card of Frenchy as a Met scanned.

Tags: Jeff Francoeur
Filed Under: Mets News by slangon
No Comments »

On we go with this very long series of posts dedicated to all of teh cards that I’ve gotten off of eBay over the last few months but haven’t had time to write about before. If you recall, in the last post from this series, I mentioned that I was down to just a few cards, and since I don’t really have too much to blog about at the moment, I was going to stretch the posts to one per card. This is number 2 of those cards.

If you also recall from that last post, I mentioned that they were all vintage cards and I was going to work my way back from the youngest to the oldest card. I started off with that Peanuts Lowrey card from 1949, and now I am moving onto the 2nd youngest card of the bunch, which really isn’t young at all. In fact it is now one of the oldest cards in my collection.

1910 Mecca Champion Athlete and Prize Fighter Series Philadelphia Jack O’Brien

Here we have a 100 year old boxing card of one Philadelphia Jack O’Brien from the “Champion Athlete and Prize Fighter Series” put out by Mecca Cigarettes. These cards are designated as T220 by Jefferson Burdick and his American Card Catalog. Mecca is probably best known for their T201 Baseball Double Folders set, but they also put other, non-baseball cards in their cigarette packs. Between 1910 and 1912, they produced several Champion Athlete and Prize Fighter sets. Another of those sets was the T218 set. As you can see in that link, these cards had Mecca backs as well as backs that featured other cigarette brands made by the American Tobacco Company. The T220 set was made with Mecca backs or Tolstoi backs (although judging by the examples I was able to find on the interwebs, it seems like the Tolstoi backs were much rarer). The Jack O’Brien that I got is a Mecca back.

As you can see, the info on the back is pretty sparse. Oddly enough his name is not Jack O’Brien at all, but rather Joseph Francis Hagan. Even odder is the fact that he is the older brother of another fighter who went by the name Young Jack O’Brien. I guess there was not a lot of originality in the O’Brien / Hagan family. He beat the world light heavyweight champ, Bob Fitzsimmons with a 13 round TKO in San Francisco in 1905, but he “abandoned the title”, whatever that means. He also fought notable fighters Tommy Burns, Stanley Ketchel and Jack Johnson. He finished his career having fought 180 fights with 147 wins, 41 loses and 19 draws.

After retiring as a fighter, Hagan opened a gym in New York City, in the late 1920′s. World middleweight champion Harry Greb trained at his gym, and the only existing films of Greb in action are workouts and sparring with O’Brien.

O’Brien/Hagan was inducted into the Ring Boxing Hall of Fame in 1968, the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1987, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1994.

Tags: 1910 Mecca Champion Athlete and Prize Fighter Series, Boxing, Philadelphia Jack O'Brien
Filed Under: It Came from the 'Bay by slangon
No Comments »

Man, I always feel oddly worn out whenever I finish running a contest. I don’t know why. I mean, it’s not like it’s any more involved than writing any other post. Weird. Anyway, congrats to Travis of Punk Rock Paint fame on winning a complete set of the recently finished 2010 SlangKo Heroes of the Diamond set.

But I digress.

Where were we before we were rudely interrupted by that silly contest? Ah, yes. I was bragging about some cool cards that have been piling up on my desk recently that came to me via eBay. I was actually making pretty good headway with posting them, and now I’m actually down to just 4 cards that came from 2 different sellers. Since I don’t have a whole lot on my plate as far as blogging material, and a man can only write so many “Man, I Hate the Mets. Why Do I Still Bother?” rants per season, and because these last 4 cards are particularly awesome, I’m just going to do one post per card.

How to pick which one to start with? Well, they’re all vintage cards, so I think I’ll just start with the youngest and work my way back. Sound good? Good. Let’s go.

1949 Bowman #22 Harry “Peanuts” Lowrey

Eh. What’s that you say? I must’ve made a mistake? I said I was going to start with the youngest card but I’m starting with a card from 1949? Oh, there’s no mistake. This 61 year old hunk of pressed wood pulp with various shades of ink on it is indeed the newest kid on the block. I have to admit that it’s a pretty awesome feeling to know that you just spent about $10 on some cards and the most recent one is from the 40′s. And that’s with shipping.

The ’49 Bowman set was the second post-war baseball set released by Bowman Gum. Knowing what some of the Bowman cards after this looked like, I have to say that it’s not a terribly good looking set. Don’t get me wrong, I think this card looks really awesome, but the artwork seems to be a little lacking when compared to something like this.

Like I said though, I still like it. There’s something about the — shall we say lackluster hand coloring that I find charming. My 18 month old son can’t really hold a crayon the right way yet, but I wouldn’t put it past him to do a better job of coloring within the lines. I mean, just look at that hat.

More than it being a ’49 Bowman, what I really like about this card is that it’s of Harry Lowrey. He’s a prime example of what I love about this hobby. Of course I love getting cool cards of star players and all, but I really love it when I get an old card of someone I never heard of and through researching that player I find out all sorts of interesting facts.

A few months ago I was blissfully unaware of Harry’s existence. Then I had the opportunity to get his card from the 1953 Topps set. That time, that purchase had more to do with me really wanting a ’53 Topps card. His card was cheap at the time, and I liked that his nickname was “Peanuts”. Once I started to do a little poking around, I found that he’s a really interesting guy.

He was born in Culver City, California in 1918. Apparently, back then, Culver City was the heart of the emerging movie industry. His grandfather owned a ranch in town that was used as a location for a lot of the early Our Gang / Little Rascals films. Thanks to that connection, Peanuts appeared as an extra in a handful of those films. I was really hoping to find out exactly which Our Gang episodes that he ended up in, but I get the impression that he appeared uncredited, probably as someone in the background or something.

He also appeared in a few movies later in life, including Pride of the Yankees and The Winning Team with Ronald Reagan.

I tracked down an old issue of Baseball Digest online that had a story about Peanuts and his acting career. It mostly focused on Lowreys role in The Winning Team, I suppose because at the time the article appeared, Reagan was trying to enter the Presidential Race as a fringe candidate. Here’s what he had to say about being in the pictures:

“It was fun and you made nice pocket money. I guess Pride of the Yankees was the best one I had a part in. It was on a big budget. You see, they have a budget for them films, and you get a little extra if you have to slide or dive or say something. A slide might be worth a hunnert bucks. You might get three hunnert for saying a line.
I remember in The Winning Team they wanted a guy to make a diving catch in the outfield and roll over, and I volunteered for it, to get the extra money, see. But they let a stunt man try it, and he broke his shoulder.”

Just reading that, I could imagine him telling that story, giant wad of chaw in his cheek. I bet he had a pretty good laugh at the end thinking about that fancy pants Hollywood stunt man trying to make a diving catch and busting his wing. Ha! I find it pretty funny that he seemed way more interested in getting that extra “hunnert bucks” than being star struck at being in a big-time movie.

When he wasn’t busy playing a ball player in films, Peanuts was actually a pretty good ball player in real life. He was a particularly key component to the 1945 Cubs, who were the last of the North Side teams to make it to the World Series. Thanks to the Billy Goat, they lost that Series 4-3 to the Tigers. Lowrey hit .283 that year while driving in 89 in 143 games. During the World Series, he batted .310 in the losing effort.

After his stint in Chicago, Peanuts also went on to play for Cincinnati, St. Louis and Philadelphia. Later in his career he was much more of a bench player but known as one of the top pinch hitters in the league. In 1952, while playing for the Cardinals, he set a Major League record by getting 7 consecutive pinch hits (which has since been broken by Dave Philly, who hit 8 consecutive in 1958 and Le Grand Orange in 1983 as a Met). The next year he had 21 pinch hits, including five doubles, a triple, two home runs and 15 RBIs. Those 21 pinch hits were 1 shy of the then record. His overall average that year was .269, while his average as a pinch hitter was .356.

By the way, I love that on the back of this card Bowman lists his nickname as “P-Nuts” rather than “Peanuts”. Very gangsta. (I honestly never thought I would ever use the term “gangsta” on this blog. Just goes to show, you never know what’s going to happen.)

Peanuts hung up his spikes after the 1955 season when he played for the Fightin’ Phillies. He briefly managed in the minors after which he bounced around the league as a coach, making stops in Philly (Phillies), San Francisco, Montreal, Chicago (Cubs), and California (Angels). After reading the quote by him above, I can easily picture him explaining the nuances of the game to some rookie, with that same wad of chaw in his cheek and laughing at something dumb that rookie did.

Tags: 1949 Bowman, Harry "Peanuts" Lowrey
Filed Under: It Came from the 'Bay by slangon
1 Comment »

But you can’t pick the winners nose.

Here we go. We’re finally going to put an end to the Offical Condition: Poor First Anniversary Giveaway Contest, now that this blog is one year and one month old.

Now, as per the rules that I laid out way back when, if you were a follower of this blog, you would automatically get an entry. So these folks had signed up to be a follower, and therefore get one entry each:

Timmy Schenk
Ted Crinky Wrappers
Matthew Type 5
Sports Card Girl (Note: Why is she crossed out? Read this.)
Carl Crawford Cards
Mariner1
Shelliebee
AdamE (Thoughs and Sox)
dodgerbobble
Punk Rock Paint
Brian M
Hackenbush
Captain Canuck
Rod (Padrographs)
BA Benny
Don Sherman
jscott3668

Additionally, if you actually took part in the little guessing game that I presented to you, you were to receive one additional entry for every card that you guessed correctly. Here are the results from that.

Tim from the Great Sports Name HOF – 7 Correct
1958 – Frank Torre
1959 – Gus Zernial
1960 – Chicago Cubs
1965 – Dean Chance
1967 – Ken Boyer
1968 – Frank Kostro
1973 – Walt Williams

BA Benny – The Same 7 Correct
1958 – Frank Torre
1959 – Gus Zernial
1960 – Chicago Cubs
1965 – Dean Chance
1967 – Ken Boyer
1968 – Frank Kostro
1973 – Walt Williams

Dustin – 3 Correct
1958 — Frank Torre
1959 — Gus Zernial
1971 — Walt Williams

Matthew Type 5 – 4 Correct
1958 – Frank Torre
1959 – Gus Zernial
1968 – Frank Kostro
1971 – Walt Williams

Joe Kalicki – 1 Correct
1969 – Walt Williams

Travis Punk Rock Paint – 7 Correct
1958 – Frank Torre
1959 – Gus Zernial
1960 – Chicago Cubs
1970 – Walt Williams
1971 – Walt Williams
1973 – Walt Williams
1976 – Tom Hall

Nobody guessed all 14, but mostly everyone did okay. Everyone that bothered to participate got at least 1 right. Three people got half of them correct. Travis from the Punk Rock Paint Corporate Empire was the only one to guess that No Neck Williams was the 4 card superman. I find it slightly strange that 4 out of the other 5 people who were guessing thought I got 4 Steve Renko cards. I never even heard of Steve Renko until someone offered me his card in the Million Card Giveaway. And outside of the 2 posts related to this contest, I never mentioned him on this blog. Oh well, I guess that was as good a guess as any. Except that it was wrong.

Anyway, here is the final list that will be inputted into the Official SlangKo Randomizationator 3000-1A™, a.k.a. Random.org.

Timmy Schenk
Ted Crinky Wrappers
Matthew Type 5
Sports Card Girl
Carl Crawford Cards
Mariner1
Shelliebee
AdamE (Thoughs and Sox)
dodgerbobble
Punk Rock Paint
Brian M
Hackenbush
Captain Canuck
Rod (Padrographs)
BA Benny
Don Sherman
jscott3668
Tim GSNHOF
Tim GSNHOF
Tim GSNHOF
Tim GSNHOF
Tim GSNHOF
Tim GSNHOF
Tim GSNHOF
BA Benny
BA Benny
BA Benny
BA Benny
BA Benny
BA Benny
BA Benny
Dustin
Dustin
Dustin
Matthew Type 5
Matthew Type 5
Matthew Type 5
Matthew Type 5
Joe Kalicki
Travis PRP
Travis PRP
Travis PRP
Travis PRP
Travis PRP
Travis PRP
Travis PRP

I believe I said I would run that through Random.org 7 times. Let me go do that now. Hold on.

Okay, so after running that 7 times through, the top of the list looked like this:

So congrats to Travis. I will be in touch shortly to get your preferred shipping address. To the rest of you, thanks for participating and better luck next time.

Filed Under: Contest by slangon
3 Comments »

I guess it’s about time to stop dragging my feet and put an end to the Offical Condition: Poor First Anniversary Giveaway Contest. Here are the cards that I got from the Topps Million Card Giveaway.

1958 #117 Frank Torre

Joe’s older brother. Great looking card. I’m digging that old-timey Braves logo.

1959 #409 Gus Zernial

Ozark Ike, one of the most feared sluggers of the 1950′s. He actually hit the 9th most homers in that decade, ahead of the likes of Lary Doby, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, Roy Campanella, Hank Aaron and Ralph Kiner. He’s also a pretty awesome through the mail signer.

1960 #513 Chicago Cubs Team Card

This was actually the second card I got in the giveaway and I managed to hold onto it all that time. Not only does it fill a slot in the 1960 set I’m trying to build, it’s a high number short print and it’s a team card. Plus it’s not checked off on the back.

1965 #140 Dean Chance

A pretty sweet looking ’65. Did you know Dean Chance threw 11 complete game shutouts in 1964?
11!

1967 #105 Ken Boyer

Another notch on my ’67 Mets team set checklist.

1968 #44 Frank Kostro

Anyone want to play an easy round of Name That Stadium?

1969 #309 Walt “No Neck” Williams

The first of the 4 No Neck Williams’ cards I got in this batch. Yes, Walt was the guy who I got 4 of.

1970 #395 Walt “No Neck” Williams

The second of the 4 No Necks.

1971 #209 Steve Renko

What can I say? I like the ’71 set and I like them early Expos uniforms.

1971 Topps #555 Walt “No Neck” Williams

No Neck number 3. Look at the guns on that dude.

1973 #297 Walt “No Neck” Williams

The 4th and final of the No Neck quartet. This leaves me only needing the ’75 Walt Williams card to own all of his Topps base cards. Anyone out there got an extra?

1973 #445 Ken Berry

Another notch on the 1973 wantlist, even though I swore to myself I wasn’t going to start in on that set officially until I got finished with the 1960 set.

1976 #621 Tom Hall

A ’76 Met that I needed. Surprisingly, I only ended up with 2 Mets out of all these Giveaway cards. I guess since one of the contests was to gather as many Mets as you could, people were actually throwing fairly good deals my way for all the Mets cards I had amassed. I think at one point I had about 10 different Mets.

1983 #511 Tug McGraw Super Veteran

Well, I guess theoretically, you could make a case for this card being a Met. I’m not so sure that Topps would count it towards that contest though. Regardless, I count it towards my 1983 Mets team set, and this is actually the last card that I needed for that set. So good for me.

So there you have it. I racked up a few cool cards from the 50′s, a high numbered card that I needed for my 1960 set, a couple of Mets cards that I needed, a bunch of Walt “No Neck” Williams cards that I needed, as well as a bunch of other cool random cards. Overall, I had fun with the Million Card Giveaway and I’m pretty psyched about what I ended up with.

As far as the contest goes, I don’t think anyone scored 100%, but some people did rack up quite a few correct guesses and therefore quite a few entries into the 2010 SlangKo Heroes of the Diamond complete set giveaway. Between today and tomorrow, I’ll contabulate who guessed what and how many entries everybody got, run the whole shebang through the randomizer and come up with a winner.

Stay tuned.

Tags: 1958 Topps, 1959 Topps, 1960 Topps, 1965 Topps, 1967 Topps, 1968 Topps, 1969 Topps, 1970 Topps, 1971 Topps, 1973 Topps, 1976 Topps, 1983 Topps, Chicago Cubs, Dean CHance, Frank Kostro, Frank Torre, Gus Zernial, Ken Berry, Ken Boyer, Steve Renko, Tom Hall, Tug McGraw, Walt "No Neck" WIlliams
Filed Under: Contest by slangon
4 Comments »

1938 Gum, Inc. Horrors of War #29 Tokio Airman Attacks British Envoy

I briefly mentioned this card a few weeks as it was part of what I ended up scoring on eBay after I sold that David Price Pie in the Face SP. Although I was really happy with all the cards that I was able to get in that haul, this one might be my favorite.

There’s several things about this particular piece of cardboard that make me like it. First, it’s old. Although I have a handful of Goudeys and a T206, I don’t have a whole bunch of pre-war era cards, so getting a card from 1938 is pretty damn awesome. Second, it’s a pretty weird subject matter. Baseball themed cards are first and foremost my main focus, but I do like weird stuff. Thirdly, I’m a pretty big history buff, so a card that combines my love of history with sweet 1930′s style cardboard is aces in my book. Lastly, as a guy who grew up reading comic books and watching a boatload of television, I shamefully admit to being visually attracted to the cartoon violence of this card.

So what’s the deal with these Horrors of War cards anyway?

They were put out by Gum, Inc. of Philadelphia. You might know Gum, Inc. as the company that put out the various Play Ball sets from 1939 through 1941. They also put out a bunch of really cool looking non-sport themed sets over the years, including G-Men & Heroes of the Law, American Beauties, The Lone Ranger, Superman, Uncle Sam, Home Defense, War News Pictures and Wild West. At some point between 1942 and 1948, Gum, Inc. became the Bowman Gum Company.

The Horrors of War set appeared in 1938. The set initially consisted of 240 cards depicting scenes from The Second Sino-Japanese War, The Ethiopian War and The Spanish Civil War. Due to the popularity of the set, Gum tried to tack on 48 more cards that showed Germany and the beginnings of World War II, but these particular cards were not as successful and are therefore harder to track down. Supposedly, the idea for the cards was given to Warren Bowman by George Moll, who was a Sunday school teacher and owned the advertising firm that handled the Gum, Inc. account. Their goal was to “teach peace by exposing the horrors of war.” Apparently, being the good ad man that he was, George Moll knew a good slogan when he heard it.

A few Cards of the Moment ago, I had mentioned that I would love to see a book specifically about the Topps Art Department. Well, here’s another free book idea for anyone ambitious enough to follow up on it. I would also love to see a book about the product development teams at these various old card companies. I’m really curious to know if they took minutes at their brain storming meetings and if those minutes survive. I mean, if The Horrors of War was one of the ideas that they decided to green light, I would love to hear some of the ideas that got scrapped.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, one of the reasons that I really like this card is because I’m somewhat of a history buff. Any time I can combine my interest in history with my interest in moldy old cardboard, I’m pretty happy. Although I am fairly familiar with a bit of World War II history, I wasn’t very knowledgeable about the history of the other 3 conflicts represented in this set.

Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen was the British Envoy to China from 1936 to 1939 and was Englands representative in that country at the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. On the fateful day of August 26, Sir Hughe was driving from the capital of Nanjing to Shanghai to visit with the British community there. When he was about 65 miles outside of Shanghai, Japanese planes dropped 4 bombs, all of which missed the diplomats car. Then another plane swept in low and sprayed the car with machine gun fire, severely wounding Knatchbull-Hugessen and several of the other passengers in the automobile.

It’s actually sort of funny that when I was doing research for this post, I was having a little bit of trouble trying to track down any detailed accounts of the “Tokio Airman” attacking the British Envoy. I found plenty of references to it, but they were all just one or two sentence descriptions. The back of this card is one of the more detailed accounts that I was able to find.

Tags: 1938 Horrors of War, non-sport
Filed Under: Card of the Moment by slangon
1 Comment »

Or Recent eBay Scores, Part 5.

When you’re cruising around eBay, do ever come across those auctions where the starting bid is only $0.01 and you say to yourself, “Yeah, right. Like that’s going to sell for only a penny.”?

Well, a few weeks ago I came across a couple of cards that were starting at $0.01 and had no bid and 2 or 3 days to go. I thought they were cool cards so I threw down a high bid of a buck a pop. I was not at all expecting to win both cards for a penny, but wouldn’t you know it, I did.

2004 Cracker Jack Take Me Out the Ball Game Relic #TB-MA Mosies Alou

2004 Cracker Jack Take Me Out the Ball Game Relic #TB-JR Jose Reyes

I don’t think I need to explain at all why I got the Reyes card, but I’ve always been a big fan of Mosies, even before he came to the Mets. I always thought it was cool that he came from a family that’s been in baseball forever. I also just always liked his approach to the game. I think it was Keith Hernandez (if it wasn’t Keith, it was either Ron Darling or Gary Cohen) who said that if you woke Mosies up at 6 o’clock in the morning on Christmas day and put him in a batters box, he’d get a single.

I also just really like the card designs. Of course the 2004 Cracker Jack set is just a rip off homage to the 1914-15 Cracker Jack set, which is itself a really cool looking set. I think that Topps did an admirable job coming up with additional designs that fit well with the base design of the original cards.

These Take Me Out to the Ball Game cards are actually the same size as the original Cracker Jack cards, which was 2 1/4″ x 3″. The Alou card was in Group J which was inserted at a rate of 1:149 and the Reyes card was from Group D which was 1:223.

Not a bad deal if I do say so myself.

Tags: 2004 Cracker Jack, Jose Reyes, Mosies Alou
Filed Under: It Came from the 'Bay by slangon
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Rest in Peace, Bobby Thomson.

Both my old man and his old man before him were die-hard New York Giants fans before they moved out west. This dude was like Paul Bunyan in my house growing up.

Tags: Bobby Thomson
Filed Under: Baseball News by slangon
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