Put me in the camp which does not consider the Bond Bread card ( portrait/auto facsimile) Robinson's rookie card. To reply to a statement above- I paraphrase- "Don't I consider a distribution in 18 major cities a nationwide distribution?". Absolutely not!!. Bond Bread distributed in 18 states and it's likely the early portrait card was released in a very small regional area ( Harlem, Brooklyn...) and it was only the subsequent cards over the next 2 years that were released in " major markets" ( well....18 cities)
If my dad couldn't walk down to his father's drugstore in Emporia, KS and get the card... or at least get one in Kansas City then it's not nationwide. Could he get a 48 Leaf or Bowman- yep and he did. Thats not to single out Kansas. There were
30 other states that Bond Bread did not distribute in ( Alaska and Hawaii were not states yet). Heck did they even have a factory west of the Mississippi??
To me the Bond Bread Robinson is a glorified/ expanded Regional issue. As a regional card collector- I'd better step up and get me one sometime.
Let me be clear- I'm not suggesting the Bond Bread card won't pass by the Leaf or Bowman issues in value or popularity. I have no idea of course. From MY perspective the Robinson Rookies are those absolutely beautiful, colored 1948 ( 1949) leaf and Bowman cards.
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