The 1947 Homogenized Bond Bread inserts and Cards and Photos from the era with like and similar pictures.
APPENDIX A – Part Five (Working)
5. Perforated printed two-sided cards with Sports, Hollywood and Cowboys pictured.
UPDATE
My last post on the perforated dual sided cards was Post #269 on June 10, 2020 above. Again, I have reconstruct one of the two sheet of 24 cards in this set and am working on the other. Each sheet has one adjoining left half and right half of a back that when read together states: “46 / TRADING CARDS / ASSORTED SUBJECTS / SPORTS . HOLLYWOOD. COWBOYS / AN ELGEE PRODUCT No. 4575”. The description is sort of a misnomer. Each sheet of 24 cards is printed on both sides with 46 pictures (subjects) and two backs, so that together, the two sheets have 92 pictures (subjects) and 4 backs.
Many simply identify these cards by the printed name of the baseball player or movie star and indicate the back as a “Western” without providing any illustration. That's an easy way and misses the fact that the unlabeled pictures include John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Genie Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and other top stars, who at the time the cards were issued were becoming more popular and more readily identifiable by just an unlabeled picture, than the named person on the other side. I have identified many of the Cowboy (Western) pictures from both sheets as coming from publicity stills of some of the top grossing Cowboy movies of the era. The unlabeled cowboy pictures on the cards can be of the entire publicity still or cropped from it, and show the cowboy pictured in the same pose and cloths as on the stills.
Most of the unlabeled cowboy pictures are from 1945-1947 movies, except at least three from “Red River” that was filmed in 1946, copyrighted in 1947, and released on September 30, 1948. Before the initial 1947 scheduled release of “Red River,” Howard Hughes sued “Red River” producer Howard Hawks over copyright infringement. That and additional editing delayed the actual release until 1948. It is possible that the publicity stills from which the cards are based were available in 1947 for those who wanted to license the use of “Red River” images, but it is still uncertain if 1947, rather than 1948, was the actual date of issue of these cards. A smart set manufacturer would want the latest in his set to drive sales, with first printings a trial to see how big the demand. The fact that these cards are not readily available suggests that a second, third or subsequent printing was not made. The problems with wide circulation of and demand for the cards includes picturing John Wayne (at least twice) before the public saw his performance in “Red River.” John Ford, who worked with Wayne on many films including Stagecoach (1939), was so impressed with Wayne's “Red River” performance that he is reported to have said, "I didn’t know the big son of a bitch could act!"
To date this set and complete reconstruction of the second sheet, I need identification and scans of the opposite sides of cards for which I currently cannot identify. I have no pictures. Below are such cards. These pictures may include both the front and back of a card, but I have not yet been able to associate the two together. Any help will be appreciated.
I've changed the scan from original post as I obtained some of the information the original sought and that is explained in the next post.
Thank you,
Mike
Copyright 2020, by Michael Fried, P.O. Box 27521, Oakland, California 94602-0521