TCMA past and present...
 

Hey guys, Andrew and Mike Aronstein here. This is our first post :) .

We're in the car on our way up to Cooperstown right now, discussing my father's T206 collection from the 1970's, the Wagners he owned, and other stuff that boggles my mind about his time in the hobby.

Anyway, just wanted to say hello and introduce ourselves to the forum. If anyone out there has any questions regarding collecting in the 70's and 80's or would like information regarding TCMA sets, reprints, SSPC cards, or anything else we can help with, feel free to let us know.

Yes, TCMA still exists to this day! Though they are now published through Photo File, we continue to produce the 8x10 Induction Day Cards found in Cooperstown every summer. In-fact the reason for our trip today is to deliver our 2014 cards of Maddux, Glavine, Thomas, and the three managers being inducted.

Bit of a drive, but the scenery is nice and we get to talk collecting :) .

Welcome aboard guys, I enjoy your sets. Nice products.

Welcome to the forum, guys!! Glad to have ya'll on board. We all LOVE to hear stories of collecting from the past so will be eagerly awaiting some when ya'll have the time. My only question is "what took ya so long to find us?" :)

I know there is a ton of TCMA stuff out there , and I have heard great stories, but really most of the post-war cards are beyond my realm.



Have a safe trip today and once again, welcome!!

edited to add, I agree with Rich, it's great to see hobby pioneers write in the first person.

newbies
 

welcome aboard the board!
would love to hear your stories about the ancient days.
all the best,
barry

Welcome...I had quite a bit of TCMA "Stuff" in my collection as a kid and still have a good deal of it here and there. Looking forward to some great stories.

Welcome aboard! I remember your dad so well from those 1970s shows at the Union Center in Greenwich Village.

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/...thticket-1.jpg

Welcome aboard.
JimB

Always great to see hobby pioneers speak in the first person.

Welcome to the board. The TCMA minor league cards have really bailed me out of over the years in my Indians streak, letting me get players that otherwise wouldn't exist.

The Japanese set was especially helpful as you just so happened to print it in 1979, the one year little used Red Sox and Indians LOOGY Rick Kreuger pitched in Japan which created his one and only card

Welcome, Mike & Andrew! One (of many) questions...
 

Welcome, Mike and Andrew! It's been a pleasure following and dealing with Mike since the early days of TCMA - actually pre-dating TCMA when Mike headed up SCFC (pre-1970). The TCMA commemorative sets certainly filled a collecting void during the days of virtually Topps-only and today hundreds of hobbyists appreciate having sets such as 1936-37 New York Giants, 1942-49 Play Ball, Stars of the 1950s and 1960s and, of course, the comprehensive "The 1930s" set of 500+ cards, among many, many others including minor league sets which Mike's company produced by the hundreds.

Which brings me to my question: Why was Babe Ruth not included in "The 1930s" set?

A final, personal note: Mike and TCMA were among the biggest boosters, 1973-74, for the 20-issue run of Sports Scoop magazine and went on to produce his own collector periodicals - helping keep alive our great hobby. Thanks, Mike! We collectors owe you a great debt of gratitude.

Best regards,
Steve Mitchell

I remember as a kid (and my brother), that my mom got us something from Sear for Xmas and it was a starters kit. It came with a binder and sheets and bunches of cards (tcma)
I still got it till this day, sits in my closet. It was those 'immortals' set, I think there were 3 versions in the collection. Havent touch it in years and years...I do remember looking thru it and say look at these old people...yeah it the Babe, Lou, and etc.
This is what got us into the hobby of collection cards. Thank you Mom.

Awesome! I have a few TCMA sets scattered throughout my collection and am all ears if you guys want to get into your history.

This article I cut out of my dad's INCOME OPPORTUNITIES magazine in 1975, I have saved all my life. It is about how Mike Aronstein started TCMA. It's a quick easy read and you'll love it.

Mr. Aronstein found plates of older baseball players from an antique shop, and hence began the corp.

Love the paragraph in which it is explained he paid $300 for Goudey Lajoie, and $250 for a T206 Plank, and that he pays top dollar. Who would have imagined today's prices?

I used to have some TCMA stuff when I'd buy sets from Renatta Galasso in the late 70's-early 80's. Welcome and enjoy your road trip!

Great to have you here!

I learn new stuff all the time, and a couple weeks ago I learned something related.
Went to a stamp show and looked through a big collection of baseball covers. And came across one from TCMA. I never knew you did covers too.

I've got a few cards, and like the sets. I especially like the large set with the puzzle back. As time goes by I come to appreciate them more than when they were new.

Steve B

Good to have you aboard.
Always liked the TCMA '50's & '60's sets from the late '70's

http://www.qualitycards.com/pictures/16512804.jpg

I have several of these and it looks like TCMA was involved with the catalog in some form? There are quite a few different TCMA items for sale...

I had to block out the address label as I believe the collector/subscriber is still living, at least somewhat recently, at the same address, 35 yrs later :)

Tcma
 

A few things....

Hi Mike! Glad to see you here on the Net!

I got my Wagner "through" Mike in the early seventies!

Anyone know what TCMA stands for? I do, but I'll let others post.

Mike held one of the first collector get together's at his home in 1969/70. Not sure of the date. Just recall I was a Sophmore in college at the time.

He gave each of us a sheet of uncut cards and we all "autographed" the sheets on the reverse as a keepsake. See below.

Those signing were:

Bill Haber, Crawford Foxwell, Bill Zekus, David ?, Nate Cohen, Tom Dischley, Dennis Graye, Mile Jasperson, Yours truly, Bruce Yeko, Irv Lerner, Dan Dischley, Mike, Bob Jasperson, Bill Mastro, Tom Collier, Bill Himmelman, Jim MacAllister and Myron Aronstein.

I also previously posted a photo entitled 5 guys with a Wagner in the seventies.

Top L-R: Mastro, Nagy, Haber. Kneeling: Mike and yours truly.

Good Memories!

Fred

I have a TCMA-related question that I've been dying to know the answer to for years. Do you have any information about this card or the set it came from? I am a Tom Seaver collector and have never seen another one of these. It has a copyright date of 1985 and a credit line to TCMA at the bottom right. The back is blank.

TCMA The Card Memorabilia Assocites. TCMATomCollier Mike Aronstein. My guesses.

Hey, guys. Thanks for all your enthusiasm regarding TCMA Ltd. We're going to respond to everyone's comments individually and hopefully answer your questions! Here we go...

(This is Andrew typing, but I'm partially dictating for my father).

Interesting question, and to be honest we don't have a great answer. There was definitely a Ruth glass negative in the find that the set was created from, but it could be that we used that image for so many other sets we decided not to use it, or it was mistakenly left out. Most likely not a conscious decision :) .

Doing those cards was fun and we were growing, that era was an exciting time for TCMA. We wanted to do more Japanese sets but unfortunately, it didn't work out.

Doing cards of obscure players, guys who played in one game, etc. was part of the fun for us :D . My favorite was Manuel Onis from "The 1930's" set, who was 1 for 1 in his major league career.

Thanks so much for your comments, Steve. I definitely recall your name but it's been a long time. I think we met way back when, and I seem to have a picture of you in my mind but it's a 40 year old picture :eek: .

We definitely will :) .

Was that in the early to mid 80's? If they are the kits I'm thinking of those were done by us through a company called CMC, or Collectors Marketing Corp. Located in Manhattan on 27th Street and 12th Ave. Incidentally, this was also the building where George Matesky "The Mad Bomber" stored his explosives.

Amazing that a copy of that article still exists! It's mostly accurate. I do have to read it over more closely but some of what's in that article needs correcting. I'll try and delve into that more tomorrow.

We did a LOT of covers. One series was called "On This Day in Baseball History," and we did a set of autographed covers of baseball events, with CMC (Collectors Marketing Corp). Among others.

In 1998 we got into covers quite heavily when we produced covers through Photo File that were offered for sale in USPS locations across the country. Most of those were matted with a photo. We did those until around 2006.

Yes, we produced Baseball Advertiser :) . It was printed at Yorktown Printing on their web press. 4 times a year IIRC.

Hi Fred, great to see you're here! What a photo! The missing name is Dave Zemsky, from the Bronx, and I still have my copy of the uncut sheet :) . I'm still very friendly with Bill Himmelman and see him quite often.

What I think (and will confirm in our archives when I can) was that this was an insert/stiffener for an event cover. It was part of an autographed event cover series featuring various players.

Great to see you guys here! I've already enjoyed reading what's been posted so far.

I always liked the SSPC sets and especially liked the team sets like 1960 Pirates, 1927 Yankees, 1919 White Sox & 1955 Dodgers (with their postcard sized team pictures), All-Time team sets...

Looking forward to reading more.

Collecting the 1963 Topps set.

Myself and Tom Collier with our Cracker Jack reprints. Not sure of the show. 1972?

I've been wanting to write up something of a genealogy of modern minor league card companies, as there seems to have been a lot of convergence of companies (or at least brands) from 1987-1993. How did the TCMA to CMC transition come about regarding the minor league sets produced in the late 1980s? I notice the 1987 cards all have TCMA/CMC copyright lines. TCMA is nowhere to be found in 1988, but in 1989, some (all?) of the "CMC" team sets all say "TCMA CARDS" at the top on the reverse.

I'm not sure of the exact chronology but TCMA wasn't doing well at the time and CMC was, so we formed a partnership of sorts. Eventually, CMC was bought out and TCMA was left to continue on it's own. This process happened over the course of maybe 3 years, after which we started mostly dealing in 8x10 photos.

Welcome....
 

Wow:eek:...look forward to your posts!

Thanks for the answer regarding the "missing" Babe Ruth in TCMA's The 1930s set
 

Andrew & Mike...

Thank you for the response. I have wondered about this for quite some time and will pass your response along to the several collectors we are assisting in the completion of their TCMA The 1930s sets - including one fellow who resides in Switzerland! (He loves the set and is willing to pay the shipping/insurance costs.)

Again, thanks for the reply and have a great time at Cooperstown!

Best always,
Steve Mitchell

I]

The first sspc set i purchased was the 42 card set. I believe Jeff Morey took a lot of these pics. Is Dave Zemsky still around?

IIRC Jeff Morey lived in Syracuse and he shot only AAA players for us. It's been a long time but most likely it was Bill Hongach who shot many of the players for the SSPC set, and Rick Cerrone (former Yankees PR Director) may have shot some as well.

Welcome aboard. I met TC at a show in Laurel Maryland in about 1975 and always looked forward to seeing him at shows. I was 14 at the time and he was always willing to share his knowledge with me. Your Dad I met at the Gallagher's shows Starting in 73 again a very nice man who was a real asset to Baseball card collecting. Glad you are part of Leon's wonderful forum.

Regards
Jonathan

Well I'm not sure this is do-able but is it possible to post a list of every set that TCMA produced? I've always thought they price guides merely scratched the surface.

We do have complete lists for the Minor League sets, and I *think* I saw a rather extensive list of the other sets in our archive last week. Will have to double check on that and make sure it's what I think it is. If so, I'll be sure to scan and post up for everyone :) .

One of my favorite facts about TCMA (this is Andrew typing, not Mike) is that we did the Roy Hobbs prop cards for The Natural in 1984. Did have an uncut sheet around here but it's currently MIA:

Andrew- that last piece is awesome. I love when there are the printers colors and marks showing on pictures and lithographic items. Thanks again for sharing!!!

I've enjoyed this thread - welcome to the board!

My parents got me the Baseball's Greatest Hitters, Sluggers, Pitchers series when I was a kid and I studied the backs of every one of them. As a 12-year-old, that was about as close as I was going to get to owning a Cobb or Gehrig card. I remember really being in awe of the guys who were in BOTH the Hitters and Sluggers sets.

A few years later I picked up a box of cards at a yard sale and when I got home I realized I had complete sets of the 1919 Chicago White Sox and the 1946 Boston Red Sox, along with a lot of other various TCMA cards and 1970s Topps cards. I always loved the Ted Williams card from the '46 Red Sox set (pictured below).

Good work!

Just came across this article about the origins of TCMA, from 1975. Enjoy :) :

http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...g=2755,3714538

Always been a fan:
 

TCMA products have always caught my attention. I'm not sure exactly how many I personally own right now, but I consider them some of my favorites.

In reading the exchanges in this thread, it does my heart good to see someone who has been so very entrenched in the hobby and has kept their passion for both the hobby and the game. Bravo.

I have never understood how companies like yours survive with all the licensing restrictions involved with marketing any professionally-based sports products. It must be frustrating, but I am glad to see you still pushing forward.

I look forward to any new product you decide to create.

How did licensing work with TCMA?
 

Given the current state of the various licenses for producing products featuring MLB or MiLB players and team logos, what was the licensing environment like in the 1970s and 1980s with regard to both the minor league sets TCMA produced, as well as the various historical sets?

Well, Topps had a license from MLB and TCMA did not, which is why they filed a lawsuit against TCMA in 1975/76 when the SSPC set was released.

Deals with the Minor League teams were reached individually. This generally consisted of providing the teams with half the print run of their team's card sets so they could be given away or sold at the games.