Larry Fritsch Vintage Postcard Lollapalooza

[deweyinthehall]

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=fritschcardsauctions&store_cat=0&store_name=larryfritschcards&_oac=1&_nkw=postcard

As many of you are probably aware, recently the Fritsch eBay store has been posted for sale thousands of vintage (some modern) postcards - more than a couple white whales have surfaced that have caused joy over at the OOTP forum.

I am largely a set collector, but I do maintain individual player collections of a few guys, and this hoard has several of each.

Question - from a 'baseball card' perspective, what do we make of these? They aren't listed anywhere I can see, but they are 'postcards', whatever cache that might bring, and they certainly aren't just a bunch of snapshots.

So 1) does anyone here know the origin of these? and 2) for collecting purposes, would you consider them required for player collection?

I know it's to each his own, but if I jump into this and grab the ones I would be interested in, where would I stop? If someone beat me to one, then would I have keep this on my wants list, not knowing if I'd ever see it again, or if it was even a one-of-a-kind issue...talk about First World Problems.

[Chris Counts]

They definitely meet the description of postcards, but they are too modern for me to have any trust in their value as a collectable, especially at $15 a pop. It's strange to see so many B&W images from the late 20th century, when just about everything was printed in color.

[Lucas00]

These are very confusing and have a long history with Rowe/Brace/Paulson/Elder.

I actually do believe there are some of these generic postcard backs that are genuine period postcards as early back as the 50s. Issued by teams themselves.

Straight up to start, any player pre 1930 (even pre 1940 but there are probably some exceptions of players who had long careers and possibly had legitimate team issues in the 50s with this generic back) is a "reprint" and not at all vintage. If you see a random common player from the 1920s you collect, and it has this generic Kodak back, sure you can buy it but just know it was made to sell in the 1970s-1990s.

If your goal is to only collect original period items (I'm talking the photo used matches the same year, or a few years give or take of production) then your guy better be old looking or a player from the 1970s-90s. Or you know and have researched it is a team issue release.


I collect Red Schoendienst, here is an example of a Postcard from 1958 that was printed and given out by the braves in 1958. The only thing I can notice is the separation line under the word card is slightly to the left of the D, while on later backs it seems to be slightly beyond the D to the right. Also there is no border. I am not sure if those are full proof ways to tell though. But if I had to guess they are.

Real from 1958
https://www.ebay.com/itm/125763453406?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=xOG0HyUOSK6&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=nq6H_WXsRxC&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

(And yes I just bought it, have been needing to for a while lol)

[JLange]

I have bought a few obscure players who may not have a Topps card showing them with my team (Cleveland). Not so interested in guys who are on Topps cards every year, but the obscure ones are worth the price in my book. These are the only cards I know of for some players.