Vintage Racing?

[brian1961]

Eddie, Thank you, friend, for an amazing post. Fascinating. We can be happy for the guy who bought the box for only $40, since he offered those treasured Fast Freddie Lorenzen cards on eBay, of which you now own. As I wrote before, this affair has made for a great collector sea story. When you search for something for 20 years, the story is a good one.

I am very sorry to hear about Fred's dementia. He was so good for a long stretch. I vaguely recall during the first or second year of his comeback, in '70 or '71, he had a horrific crash that went on for several seconds. It was gruesome. He survived, but I imagine one of his main concussions would have happened in that particular accident.

SMTJOY---John Cobb was something else. I could go on and on about Mr. Cobb. One time at a gathering of British racing drivers, writers, and dignitaries, the esteemed Sir Malcolm Campbell was the main speaker. Well, by this time Mr. Cobb had obliterated Campbell's extremely hard-earned records with the Railton pictured in your Exhibit. Furthermore, Cobb had done some record-breaking in a 24-litre Sunbeam-Railton, such as the highest average speed for 24 hours, and routinely trounced all rivals in that exotic special at the Brits' beloved Brooklands track. Mr. Cobb was now the darling of the racing and record-mad British public. Also, John was a very quiet, unassuming gentleman who would not brag to save his life, while Campbell was a demanding, arrogant, extremely proud asshole. He was very brave, however, and he very much had earned the reputation he had as a Speed King. Still....

Well, at this moment I cannot recall the lurid details, but just the presence of Mr. Cobb in the audience so unnerved Sir Malcolm that he could not go on with his speech. I imagine John Cobb's records left Campbell seething with envy, and he flat out lost his composure and concentration.

One of the favorite models in my collection is a pretty rare, exquisite 1/43rd hand-built of John Cobb's massive Railton that I mentioned. Now that Brooklands is gone, Cobb will always have the lap record on that track--about 143 MPH!!. The tires were so slender, and he wore no seat belt, and of course stabilizing wings were a little over 30 years away----PURE DANGER. The great gentleman said driving that beautiful beast at Brooklands was like leaning out of a very tall building to see how far you could lean without falling.

Verbosity is setting in. Best go.

Again, guys, thanks for posting the Lorenzens and the John Cobb Exhibit ---Brian Powell

[Beansballcardblog]

After another T36 card was delivered yesterday, I wrote this post that I'd been working on in my head for a couple of weeks. Basically I talk about the frustrations of not knowing about my set and the limited findings I have so far on how many variations of each of the 35 cards there are. Just thought I'd share if anyone is interested.

Frustration in the Unknown

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by wvu_class_of_2001

After another T36 card was delivered yesterday, I wrote this post that I'd been working on in my head for a couple of weeks. Basically I talk about the frustrations of not knowing about my set and the limited findings I have so far on how many variations of each of the 35 cards there are. Just thought I'd share if anyone is interested.

Frustration in the Unknown

Interesting reading on your blog, Kin. I understand the point you are making about the lack of information regarding distribution with many racing sets. Baseball is king when it comes to card collecting, and the T206 set has tons of people interested in that set. But many of the more obscure sets suffer from the same lack of knowledge as racing cards.

My "best" or toughest baseball card is probably a 1949 Lummis Peanut Butter card of Willie "Puddinhead" Jones. The Lummis Peanut Butter set has been discussed numerous times on here, and there doesn't seem to be any real consensus as to exactly how the cards were distributed. Some collectors speculated that the cards were attached to the outside of peanut butter containers, while others have said they were handed out as a movie theater giveaway over a very limited time.

Racing really is lucky to have Jon Hardgrove as a collector. So much of what I know about various sets, I have learned simply be reading his posts.

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by brian1961

Eddie, Thank you, friend, for an amazing post. Fascinating. We can be happy for the guy who bought the box for only $40, since he offered those treasured Fast Freddie Lorenzen cards on eBay, of which you now own. As I wrote before, this affair has made for a great collector sea story. When you search for something for 20 years, the story is a good one.

I am very sorry to hear about Fred's dementia. He was so good for a long stretch. I vaguely recall during the first or second year of his comeback, in '70 or '71, he had a horrific crash that went on for several seconds. It was gruesome. He survived, but I imagine one of his main concussions would have happened in that particular accident.

SMTJOY---John Cobb was something else. I could go on and on about Mr. Cobb. One time at a gathering of British racing drivers, writers, and dignitaries, the esteemed Sir Malcolm Campbell was the main speaker. Well, by this time Mr. Cobb had obliterated Campbell's extremely hard-earned records with the Railton pictured in your Exhibit. Furthermore, Cobb had done some record-breaking in a 24-litre Sunbeam-Railton, such as the highest average speed for 24 hours, and routinely trounced all rivals in that exotic special at the Brits' beloved Brooklands track. Mr. Cobb was now the darling of the racing and record-mad British public. Also, John was a very quiet, unassuming gentleman who would not brag to save his life, while Campbell was a demanding, arrogant, extremely proud asshole. He was very brave, however, and he very much had earned the reputation he had as a Speed King. Still....

Well, at this moment I cannot recall the lurid details, but just the presence of Mr. Cobb in the audience so unnerved Sir Malcolm that he could not go on with his speech. I imagine John Cobb's records left Campbell seething with envy, and he flat out lost his composure and concentration.

One of the favorite models in my collection is a pretty rare, exquisite 1/43rd hand-built of John Cobb's massive Railton that I mentioned. Now that Brooklands is gone, Cobb will always have the lap record on that track--about 143 MPH!!. The tires were so slender, and he wore no seat belt, and of course stabilizing wings were a little over 30 years away----PURE DANGER. The great gentleman said driving that beautiful beast at Brooklands was like leaning out of a very tall building to see how far you could lean without falling.

Verbosity is setting in. Best go.

Again, guys, thanks for posting the Lorenzens and the John Cobb Exhibit ---Brian Powell

Thanks again for the comment, Brian. I am 43 years old, so Lorenzen's career pre-dates me. But I have been around racing all my life. My parents started taking me to local dirt-track racing when I was just a few months old.

I know that racing on the Cup series in the 1960s was a different time and not much emphasis was placed on running the entire schedule, but it is still amazing that Lorenzen's entire Cup career was just 158 races; he won 26 times in just those 158 starts.

I had previously read that Lorenzen was a close friend of Fireball Roberts, and that Roberts' death from a fiery crash at the 1964 World 600 was one of the reasons Lorenzen initially retired in 1967. I know Ned Jarrett also retired young, but it's hard to believe Lorenzen was just 32 years old when he initially retired.

Not a card, but information about his racing on a box for the diecast of Ronnie Peterson the "SuperSwede" I had this toy 40 yrs +,and the diecast is like new but the box not

The diecast

[brian1961]

Originally Posted by rgpete

Not a card, but information about his racing on a box for the diecast of Ronnie Peterson the "SuperSwede" I had this toy 40 yrs +,and the diecast is like new but the box not

Ron, thanks for posting your box and toy of the Super Swede, Ronnie Peterson. He and Mario Andretti were so dominating in 1978 when Mario won the F1 World Championship.

My favorite victory of Ronnie's involved a sports car race. He was among the team members for Scuderia Ferrari in 1972. That year was the first of two Ferrari ran its dominating 312PB. Each race Ferrari fought it out with their only main rival, Alfa-Romeo. Though the Ferraris won every race, the Alfas were superb, but just did not have the reliability of the Ferraris. A fabulous documentary of that 1972 World Championship Sports Car series was done by American filmmaker Michael Keyser, THE SPEED MERCHANTS. I have loved this on VHS, and need to update to DVD.

Love it, love it, love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ronnie is shown many instances, though not interviewed.

However, he and his co-driver won one of the toughest, most respected races on the calendar. It was the 1000 Kilometers of the Nurburgring, in Germany. This track was a little over 14 miles long, with an elevation differential of 1,000 feet from lowest to highest point. There were over 180 turns to each lap. It was one of the most challenging of all circuits in history, and often the one the driver's enjoyed the most.

It was also one of the most deadly.....

Like F1 Grand Prix racing, when it rains, the race simply continues, more dangerous than ever, though the drivers pit for rain tires of course.

Anyway, Ronnie and his co-driver beat the second place Alfa-Romeo by a little over 5 minutes. Their winning speed on that tough track was a staggering 105.57 MPH!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yes, it was overcast for part of the race, and it rained.

Ronnie Peterson---I salute your memory.

Thanks again, bro, for posting. Hope you didn't mind hearing more on Mr. Peterson. I own a few 1/43 models of the 1972-73 Ferrari 312PBs, and one of the Alfas. Love 'em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!

---Brian Powell

[brian1961]

Eddie, I'll check my Encyclopedia of Auto Racing Greats, by Robert Cutter, to see if there's any reason given why Freddie retired for the first time at 32.

Funny, I used an excellent story in Mr. Cutter's book to illustrate a point in my newly-released book on postwar regional / food issues, NEVER CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN. Yep, there was a story about early Ferraris that helped me with the key chapter on the 1953 Stahl-Meyer Franks Mickey Mantle!

I would have liked to do a chapter on the Lummis Peanut Butter Phillies. For the same reason you mention I decided against it. If it could be determined precisely how they were issued, I might have done one. What we needed was some former youngster from Philly who back in the day was "nuts about them" and made a lot of lifetime memories collecting them one-by-one to try to build a set. I never found such a person. Eddie, you know, there's a decent chance that the Lummis cards were available via both peanut butter containers and movie theater "free prize". Simply to get the word out to BUY MORE DELICIOUS LUMMIS PEANUT BUTTER!

Getting verbose again. Bye. ---Brian Powell

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by brian1961

Eddie, I'll check my Encyclopedia of Auto Racing Greats, by Robert Cutter, to see if there's any reason given why Freddie retired for the first time at 32.

Funny, I used an excellent story in Mr. Cutter's book to illustrate a point in my newly-released book on postwar regional / food issues, NEVER CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN. Yep, there was a story about early Ferraris that helped me with the key chapter on the 1953 Stahl-Meyer Franks Mickey Mantle!

I would have liked to do a chapter on the Lummis Peanut Butter Phillies. For the same reason you mention I decided against it. If it could be determined precisely how they were issued, I might have done one. What we needed was some former youngster from Philly who back in the day was "nuts about them" and made a lot of lifetime memories collecting them one-by-one to try to build a set. I never found such a person. Eddie, you know, there's a decent chance that the Lummis cards were available via both peanut butter containers and movie theater "free prize". Simply to get the word out to BUY MORE DELICIOUS LUMMIS PEANUT BUTTER!

Getting verbose again. Bye. ---Brian Powell

Great post, Brian. Maybe there was something else at play with regard to Fred Lorenzen's initial retirement, but i have read in the past that he was distraught at the death of close friend Fireball Roberts in 1964. Lorenzen ran only five races in 1967 and 11 races in '66 before retiring for the first time..

Author Art Garner came out with an amazing book in 2014 about the tragic 1964 Indianapolis 500 entitled "Black Noon: The Year They Stopped the Indy 500." The book is as good as the Amazon reviews would have one believe. One thing I did not realize until reading Garner's book was that the fiery crash at Charlotte that eventually claimed the life of Fireball Roberts occurred just six days before the Indy inferno that claimed the lives of Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald. Fireball Roberts clung to life for some two months after his crash at Charlotte.

During the final two months of his life, Roberts would occasionally have days during which he was relatively lucid. On such days, he repeatedly asked his wife and doctors who won the Indy 500 that year. Roberts' wife and doctors repeatedly told him that A.J. Foyt won Indy, but they never revealed to him that the race was marred by a massive fire or that Sachs and MacDonald perished in the race.

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Noon-Ye.../dp/1250017777

Retiring young was not completely unheard of among Cup drivers in the 1960s. Ned Jarrett was just 34 when he retired. I have seen various interviews with Jarrett over the years in which he expressed regret at retiring so young. At the time, many drivers believed that 35 was old for a racer just like it was for players in the stick and ball sports. Jarrett has said many times over the years that he wished he would have known that racers could still be competitive in their 40s and even their 50s.

I don't know if you saw this, but REA actually has a full set of Lummis Peanut Butter cards at auction right now. I figure those had to be assembled in 1949 and not in the decades that followed. PSA's population report only lists 13 total Lummis cards among all 12 players. I bought my Lummis Peanut Butter card (which used to be in Leon's collection) from long-time collector John Rumirez. As I exchanged PMs with Rumirez, he wrote me that he has been collecting for 40 years and still only has 9/12 cards in the Lummis Peanut Butter set.

There was a Lummis thread on here in the past in which a poster either remembered or was told many decades ago that the cards were distributed as a movie theater giveaway at the very least.

Last year's REA auction included a Richie Ashburn Lummis card (which is a rookie card for Ashburn). That card, while nicer than the Ashburn included in the set currently at REA, sold for $5,000 as a single card. I am interested to see where the REA set closes this year. Maybe I am way high or way low, but I'm guessing $10,000 for the set.

Lummis Peanut Butter Cards are rare as hell, but at least they are somewhat attainable to small-time collectors when they do show up. Felin's Franks cards are another great Philadelphia rarity, and they are completely out of my price range when they do show up. Huggins and Scott had a raw Felin's Franks card of Bobby Morgan that sold for $2,868 last year. REA currently has a Bobby Morgan Felin's Franks card at auction that is already at $1,200 with the buyer's premium. As I said earlier in the thread, that is one of the reasons I like chasing legendary rarities of racing cards or other non baseball cards.

[brian1961]

Eddie---

So much to comment on, my friend. Too bad we can't meet for pizza, but then the food would get cold as we'd become engrossed in our various topics of conversation.

Eddie, if you are unaware of this book, you simply must get a hold of a copy of FORD--THE DUST AND THE GLORY: A Racing History 1901 - 1967 by Leo Levine. It is now considered a "volume 1", since I believe it was expanded and a second volume written to cover post-1967 racing.

Eddie, this book is the definitive work on Ford racing of that time period. You would find an absolute wealth of info on Fast Freddie. I loved the book in high school, and of course it went out of print. After-market copies were hot and not cheap. I remember them running a hundred bucks, this being before eBay. Finally, the book was reprinted, amid much fanfare. The reprinted price was $40, I think.

My reaction---SOLD.

At this moment I cannot find my copy, but you would love the stories and facts that are jam-packed in that book. Fast Freddie's FORD era would all be covered in detail. Also, Ford's Indianapolis program, the Lincolns at the Carrera Pan Americana, and their massive FORD GT racing sports car program are covered in intimate detail. The latter was my reason for buying this very thick book. Freddie, just as Fireball Roberts, did not win championships; rather, he won a lot of big races with huge purses. I don't follow the PGA golf series, but they call the big tournaments "majors"; the Fireball and Fast Freddie were cleaning up back then on the far majority of the major races.

My advice to you, Eddie, is to go to your local public library. If they do not have the book, work with their inter-library loan service and get it that way. Then you can read and browse to your heart's content, to see if you would want to own your own copy. Me, I love to read and then re-read my favorite sections. I find myself doing this with my own book, NEVER CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN.

Yeah, I well recall REA's offering that gorgeous Lummis Richie Ashburn last fall. I had my son download a scan of the card. You know, REA has changed their computer site software. You cannot download a scan now, save for an out-of-focus image. Guess I cannot blame them. Regardless, those Lummis cards are something else. I well recall them being INTENSELY WANTED by the pioneer collectors. One reason, of course, is that they were collecting everything.

Can you imagine?

Anyway, I had to pick and choose, because though I got in on what would be considered today "the ground floor" of the emerging organised adult card collecting hobby, prices escalated quickly, and the regionals were often the first to spike sharply, given the old adage of "supply and demand". The supply even back then was minuscule, so it took the most prime of trade bait, or bigger and bigger bucks to consummate a deal. I simple didn't have the big bucks nor the connections---til later.

Now to dear Ned Jarrett. It was Ned who courageously risked his life to pull Fireball Roberts from the inferno his Ford had become after it flipped over at Charlotte.

I vividly remember the Ford book I previously discussed going into why 1964 was going to be a very dangerous year. After 1955, the year 1964 was the worst. Besides the Fireball Roberts accident, and the horrific worst-looking-ever accident at Indianapolis, early in the year two-time defending NASCAR champion Joe Weatherly lost his life in an accident at Riverside. Then late in the year, '64 Indy 500 pole-setter Bobby Marshman crashed to his death at an Arizona track testing a car, as I vaguely recall.

Racing fans today cannot begin to truly understand what it was like when I was a child in the 60s, and before. A top racing star or two were bound "to get it" during the racing year. I refer collectively to racing sports cars, Formula 1, Indianapolis, and NASCAR. Of course, the cars were as much the stars as the drivers; hence, that is why I've collected 1/43rd models of them for over 50 years, along with books and videos covering the history of the races, cars, and the drivers.

Here I go again. Sorry. Best regards, Brian Powell

Originally Posted by brian1961

Ron, thanks for posting your box and toy of the Super Swede, Ronnie Peterson. He and Mario Andretti were so dominating in 1978 when Mario won the F1 World Championship.

My favorite victory of Ronnie's involved a sports car race. He was among the team members for Scuderia Ferrari in 1972. That year was the first of two Ferrari ran its dominating 312PB. Each race Ferrari fought it out with their only main rival, Alfa-Romeo. Though the Ferraris won every race, the Alfas were superb, but just did not have the reliability of the Ferraris. A fabulous documentary of that 1972 World Championship Sports Car series was done by American filmmaker Michael Keyser, THE SPEED MERCHANTS. I have loved this on VHS, and need to update to DVD.

Love it, love it, love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ronnie is shown many instances, though not interviewed.

However, he and his co-driver won one of the toughest, most respected races on the calendar. It was the 1000 Kilometers of the Nurburgring, in Germany. This track was a little over 14 miles long, with an elevation differential of 1,000 feet from lowest to highest point. There were over 180 turns to each lap. It was one of the most challenging of all circuits in history, and often the one the driver's enjoyed the most.

It was also one of the most deadly.....

Like F1 Grand Prix racing, when it rains, the race simply continues, more dangerous than ever, though the drivers pit for rain tires of course.

Anyway, Ronnie and his co-driver beat the second place Alfa-Romeo by a little over 5 minutes. Their winning speed on that tough track was a staggering 105.57 MPH!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yes, it was overcast for part of the race, and it rained.

Ronnie Peterson---I salute your memory.

Thanks again, bro, for posting. Hope you didn't mind hearing more on Mr. Peterson. I own a few 1/43 models of the Ferraris, and one of the Alfas. Love 'em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!

---Brian Powell

Not at all Brian, Thanks for that information about Ronnie

[Marslife]

Hi Kin!

loved your article!

I collect other non sports & sports sets that are found with Hassan and Mecca Backs. I suspect the T36 Master set would consist of 100 cards:

Mecca F30 - 25 cards
Mecca F649 - 25 cards
Hassan F30 - 25 cards
Hassan F649 - 25 cards

good stuff...

Cliff