First October Spooky Mystery Pick Up Thread

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Posted By: Paul

I just received these in the mail from Rhys. (Thanks, Rhys.) There was a thread about the Jimmy Foxx quite awhile ago, and the group was stumped. If anyone has any more educated guesses, they would be appreciated. There's obviously a bit of additional information in the scans. First -- great players. Second, they were clearly issued in strips. Third, the uncut strip has just a touch of green along one edge. Some of the others have a touch of red along the edge. The backs are white, but underneath the white layer is a standard cardboard color layer. They are fairly thick and stiff. They measure about 1 1/2" x 1 7/8".

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Posted By: Draper

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Posted By: Scott Sarian

If you ask nicely, I bet GAI would slab these as 1932 Goudey proofs...

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Posted By: Jim VB

Scott,

I'm sure you're correct. It is Monday, after all, so they should be open soon.

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Posted By: Paul

Draper, what is that? It looks like someone glued them to that notebook because some are peeling off.

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Posted By: Steve

Very cool, but I wonder if these were cut from a page and glued to the card stock.

There appears to be printed text on the dog eared portion of the Terry. Also, the images are seperated by red and black spacing.

Paul, are you able to read through the stock if held to a halogen light?

Added photo, twice

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Posted By: Rhys

For some reason I had thought someone determined these were cut from a Calendar or something. I got these in a scrapbook and soaked them out so I doubt they are paper glued to cardboard after the fact or the old glue would have seperated. I brought them with me to the National and I had many people look at them with no guesses or concrete sources of where they came from.

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Posted By: Paul

Rhys, you may be confusing these with the orange border manager cards from the 1930s. Those were confirmed to be cut outs from a calendar.

Steve, mine have no text on the back. I saw the text in Draper Maynard's scan and was wondering about that. Because my Mel Ott is torn so badly, I can get a clear look at the structure of the stock. The bottom layer is white, the middle layer is cardboard color. The top layer is a bit tougher to judge, but I think it is also white. If I had to guess as to a "non-card" theory, my guess would be that these were cut from the cover of a board game.

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Posted By: Fred C

Paul,

Just because the picture on the cover shows a pair of scissors didn't mean you had to cut them off the cover. I bet the whole sheet is worth more than the sum of the parts...

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Posted By: Butch & Co.

Paul, interesting theory -- but for whatever it's worth, they're not from any board game we've ever seen, and we've seen almost every one of 'em from the 1860s onward. Um... almost every one. Ya never know...

Baseball Games
http://members.aol.com/Butch7999/Baseball.htm
(soon to have a new address)

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Thanks PAUL

About 2 years ago I posted my mysterious Foxx card.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/153652/message/1167962058/Mystery++Foxx+card




And, it has remained a mystery until now. My Foxx card is on a stiff, blank-backed grayish cardboard.

So, now can we find out some more information on these (year, manufacturer, etc.) ?

TED Z

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Posted By: Butch & Co.

Seems curious (to us at least) that if the images were cut from a box or display piece, the "rosters" wouldn't match up.
This set of whatever-it-is had at least 21 images -- 11 of them are common to both Paul's group and DraperMaynard's (Averill, Cronin, Earnshaw, Gehrig, Hubbell, Lucas, Malone, Ott, Ruth, Terry, Wilson), but five are unique to Paul's group (Foxx, Gehringer, Grove, Lazzeri, Simmons), and five unique to DraperMaynard's (Berger, Frisch, Goslin, Schumacher, Waner).
The Ott-Malone-Averill-Earnshaw vertical strip is common to both groups, while Paul's Hubbell seems to be an orphan from the vertical strip on the right side of DraperMaynard's notebook.
Just stating the obvious, but maybe it suggests something.

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Posted By: leon

Not to go too far off topic as these were a mystery until about last year....they were considered some sort of 1935 Unc manager cards until I found this calendar....Subsequently I saw another calendar for sale...

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Posted By: Paul

Ted, mine have a white back, not a gray back, but there is a gray layer under the white back. Maybe mine were glued to white paper.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

I'd bet that your cards were pasted on a white printed page (as is evident with the Terry card
in the album scan).

OK, this is what we know so far.....

21 cards on stiff cardboard with grayish backs

A 1933 issue.....I base this on the fact that Hack Wilson is identified as on the Dodgers.

The Album is a World Series Scrapbook (made in Canada) issued during the 1933 season.

I have been unable to find any more info to solve this mystery....has anyone else come across
anything ?


T-Rex TED

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Posted By: Paul

I will post a scan of the back of my torn Ott card this weekend so that you can see the white and grey layers.

I'm still unclear about why there is a solid black bar all the way across the horizontal group of cards glued to the scrapbook. Where did the extra black material between the cards come from?

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

It's not just a black bar, but there are also red bars between the player photos...it's just hard to see because that notebook is also red.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

It looks to me like these mysterious cards were printed on a 25-card sheet. We have 21 cards
accounted for; therefore, 4 are missing.

And, it appears to me that this "Scrap Book" album is an associated piece with these cards. If
so, then I am curious......why are these items a Canadian product ?

Furthermore, are they somehow related to the B/W V-type sets of the early 1930's ?

TED Z

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

Ted - I don't think your assumption about the 25-card sheet is correct. First, if you look at the strip that runs vertical posted above (not the one glued to the scrap book), there are 6 cards connected top to bottom. We also can assume that Cronin should appear on top of that strip, but its cut off (this is evident by looking at the left side of the scrapbook where the vertical cards appear Cronin, (then cut) and the strip appears Ott, Malone, Averill, etc). Then, if you look at the strip of cards connected that run horizontal on the top of the scrapbook, there are 5 card connected beginning with Cronin. Even assuming for a moment these are cards and were printed on a sheet, we know that there is at least 7 down (beginning with Cronin and ending with Wilson) and at least 5 across (beginning with Cronin and ending with Goslin). This would make a minimum of 5 rows of 7 cards in each row, or a minimum of 35 on the sheet.

Even assuming that I'm incorrect about Cronin appears on top of Ott, from the pictures posted above, we have a vertical strip of 6, and a horizontal strip of 5, which would make a minimum of 30 cards. Either way, there are more than 25.

Do you agree?

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Posted By: Pennsylvania Ted

I overlooked that vertical strip of 6 cards. But, I will be "one up on you" by suggesting a 36-card
sheet (6 x 6).
My guess is that Ott of the vertical strip was connected to the left of Cronin of the horizontal strip.

What do you think of that ?

TED Z

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

Sounds good by me.

======================================
For the premier online souce of information on baseball-related cigarette packs, visit http://www.baseballandtobacco.com

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Posted By: Paul

Any thoughts on why the left edge of my uncut strip is green, while some of my other cards have red on the right edge?

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Posted By: Paul

Here is a scan of the back of the top of my uncut strip (the Ott card). You can see the white layer of the back surface, the grey underneath, and then a little more white underneath that. The white surface is smooth and non-glossy. In the scan, there is a portion of the white layer that appears a little darker than the rest. It does not look that way in person.

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Posted By: Paul

I was looking at Lot 995 in Hunt Auctions' current internet auction, and it immediately reminded me of these mystery cards. I'd post a link, but something seems to be wrong with their website right now. Anyhow, lot 995 is a promotional piece for warbonds. My mystery cards obviously were not cut from this particular promotional piece. But there are enough similarities to make me wonder if my cards might have been cut from a similar piece.

Any thoughts? I'd still like to believe my cards really are cards, but that may be a losing battle.


Edited to add: Hunt's website is back up and running, here's the link:

http://www.huntauctions.com/phone/imageviewer.cfm?auction_num=59&lot_num=995

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Posted By: Paul

Here's the actual image of Hunt's war bonds piece.

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Posted By: Paul

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

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Posted By: leon

I dislike it when good, well intended questions go unanswered but arguing gets a thousand people posting. Oh well....The first thing I noticed was the Foxx photo isn't the same on the large sheet as is the individual card above. We need to get by that first, imo, then continue the debate. If that is what you are speaking of? regards

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I personally feel there is nothing to debate here. These are magazine cutouts glued to cardboard. The magazine is most likely from 1933 judging from the list of World Champions glued to the notebook. The turned up edge of the peeled photo that Draper posted above shows words on the back.

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Posted By: leon

After looking at the upper notebook I agree with Dan. Cut outs glued onto cardboard...

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Posted By: Paul

The pictures certainly could be cut from a magazine, but they don't have the same high quality as most magazine photos I've seen. Maybe a cheap magazine? And why such a quick consensus this time on the magazine photo theory. Last time the board didn't seem to lean in that direction.

I understand the Foxx picture is different. They are all different. It's just that the overall design and proportions of the pictures in the war bond piece seemed similar enough that I thought another war bond certificate might be the source of my "cards."

For what it's worth, here is a re-post of some of my cards/pictures/whatever:

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Posted By: leon

If this last posting of cards? is the way they look then they also don't have the gold line between the pictures. I can't imagine, if there were different war bond pieces, they would be that different...but ya never know. We have seen so many different cut out ad pieces that's what I think of first when I see these kinds of mystery cards, or maybe printers scrap if they look like a known set. These don't resemble a known set though. regards

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

They weren't even selling War Bonds in the early 1930s. I can see on a few of yours Paul that same red along the edges that are on the magazine cutouts above pasted to the notebook. If I had to bet my life I'd say these are the exact same cutouts. Some kid made his own cards probably 70+ years ago.

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Posted By: Paul

I've got no doubt these are the same thing that Draper posted glued to that scrapbook cover. But I'm not sure why it's so clear that Draper's were cut from a magazine.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

They're paper thin, you can clearly see printing on the back of the Terry where the paper is flipped up...IMO that leaves little doubt that these are cut from a magazine or other item in which they were not meant to be cut out.