In response to Posts #213 through #217 about the Sport Star four box set sold on eBay, the pictures of three of the boxes show a small indicia near the opposite edge of the backs from the printed "No. 600." One of those indicias is inverted from the other two. In the picture of the fourth box, the indicia is covered by another part of that box. While the indicia shown in the scans appear to be Chinese or Japanese, they are not. They are merely the product of a low resolution scan of a poorly printed label. From those images, it appears that the indicia might read: "ANPS / 1947©". Can someone provide a clear picture of the indicia or confirm what it says?

Ted, your initial response to Post #213 is not a lapse of memory. You previously indicated that you never had a "Sport Star Subjects" set, a set issued with a different purpose than the 1947 Homogenized Bond Bread insert set. In the more than 60 years from these sets being issued and the start of this thread, many articles, pictures, and inaccurate listings of the cards in these sets and similar ones, have appeared. Most misdescribe the cards and sets as "Bond Bread." Those lists often erroneously included a card that could not have been issued in 1947 for numerous reasons. For example, the player was in a uniform of or identified as being a member of a team he did not join until after 1947. You, like many others, were led to believe what others thought was the year of issue of the "Sport Sar Subjects" set based on misinformation about it. There is no question about your memory of receiving cards inserted into Bond Bread packages. We are fortunate, you have kept alive the fervor of all of those who collected them back then. We are also quite fortunate that you have consistently attempted to correct the "industry" portion of the card collecting hobby to protect collectors from their abuses.

The poor guy who had built a collection of the 12 Bond Bread Jackie Robinson giveaways suffered a paper loss in value when many of those cards turned out not to be rookie cards, but rather issued in 1948 and 1949. All of those cards are still more scarce than the bread package insert cards. With the "Sport Star Subjects" set being dated to 1947, that means it contains many cards that were previously unrecognized as "rookie" cards, including a Jackie Robinson one.

In a future post in this thread, I will explain why the rounded corners of some of the cards in the "Sport Star Subjects" appear to be cut the same as those on some of the 1947 Homogenized Bond Bread insert cards. I will also explain why some of the cards in Bond Bread insert set have different cut rounded corners than cards of the same player in that same Bond Bread insert card set. Likewise, the "Sport Star Subjects" set has corner variations. That, and explaining the pictures and printing is taking time to put together, but it will be posted.

Thanks, Mike

Today, in searching for more information on Bond Bread cards, I found being offered on eBay the following item described as a 1947 counter top tent display. The sign says there was "bubble gum" along with the cards in bread packages. Can anyone explain this?

http://i.imgur.com/ajwrgZw.jpg?1

http://i.imgur.com/u7Z8afZ.jpg?1

Michael, I read through your two lengthy posts and maybe I am having a case of the Mondays, but I didn't see any information about the cards. Can you recap, in a sentence who you think made the various cards that didn't come in the bread packages?

I hear that. I thought maybe it was only me.

I appreciate that many may want just a quick name to label their cards by. But just thowing out a name is how the problem started over 50 years ago . . . everything became a "Bond Bread" card. It's taken over ten years for this thread to reach this point and still no real agreement on just what the various sets are.

For example, the perforated cards are not just perforated on 3 sides but also on two and four sides. I am reconstructing sheets to see if the baseball player side of those cards was printed in the same format as the Bond Bread package insert cards and the Sport Star Subject sets. To one who only collects baseball cards, the popularity of calling one of those cards by the player name and saying it has Cowboy or some other back may seem sufficient. But look at the three sided perforated card bearing the player signature that reads "Cid Gordon." To merely call it a perforated Gordon Card with a Cowboy back would be both a collecting error and financial mistake. The "Cowboy" pictured on the back is Gene Autry. There are more collectors of entertainment cards who avidly seek obscure cards of Gene Autry than baseball card collectors who can tell you who Sid Gordon is.

Some others of these "Cowboy" or "Westerns" backed perforated cards, contain stills of key scenes from some of the most popular movies of the day. At least one has printed in very small type the movie title and the names of the actors along with their key phrase from that scene, which, like "As may the force be with you" did from "Star Wars" entered into the spoken language of popular culture of the time. We either know what these cards are, or are merely holding them to pass off for profit.

I believe that without the background information being provided, the questions about these sets will continue long after the currently remaining facts about them are lost.

I was just mailed a card from a set I can find no record of. It has the same player picture as that player is pictured in the sets of the Bond Bread package inserts, Sport Star Subjects, Exhibits, and others. Like you, I too want to figure out what it is that I have. When it arrives, I will post pictures.

Thank you for understanding,

Mike

P.S. I need your help. Can anybody provide the actual wording of the printed small type not clearly shown in the pictures in Post #48 near the bottom of the left of the two backs pictured (not the back rubbered-stamped "Hess Shoes"). It appears to me to say something like: "A-N PICTURES SERVICE." Also in Post #216, the pictures of the backs of three of the four Sport Star Subjects set boxes show an illegible two line indicia which to me might read as "ANPS / 1947©." Can anyone provide what either of these two say? If you can post a high resolution scan of either, that would be better.

Thanks again,

Mike

I took the pictures from the Ebay listing, and blew them up, also turned them upside down to see if that helped decipher what is written. I'm not sure what it says. Maybe someone else can read it.

Thanks, David. I could see no better when I tried to blow up those box pictures. Perhaps, someone out there who has a box or other picture of the indicia would help us out by posting a scan? David, the Sport Star Subjects set box issues are not new to you. For example, in Posts #123 and #126 of 08-02-2016, you pictured a similar box for the "Navy Ships" set, that set and promotional material of it. Those pictures clearly show the box and promotional item are inscribed with the name of A.J. Wildman & Son of New York. It would have been easy to let it go at that. Your posts also explained why that was not the solution to identifying the Sport Star Subjects set.

I am a collector, but not just a collector of baseball cards. My analysis of what the box indicia say comes from when I was a teenager in the 1960s starting to build a postal history collection including 19th Century congressional free franking covers. I am just now in the process of selling that collection off. That meant I had to learn how to decipher many a scrawled hand- written signature that on its face appeared unreadable. I still cannot get them all, even though complete alphabetical lists and chronological lists of each two year session of Congress are readily available. Just like many of the sets and their cards lumped together under the "Bond Bread" label, we have pictures of some and descriptions of others, but that is insufficient to even adequately describe that we can hold in our hands or even see.

The next post in this thread of my articles on Bond Bread and associated sets will identify the copyright holder of the sports pictures shown in the many of those sets, and how that company not only had the facilities to reproduce 7,000 to 10,000 glossy photographs from a single negative in a day, but handled 100s, if not 1,000s of negatives daily, routinely distributing box loads of prints by train, truck and other methods. The attribution of the Team Photo Packs sold in ballparks will be made to that company based on the empirical evidence gathered, even though none of us saw what happened and we have no contracts or invoices identifying anything.

The 1948 Bowman set includes a cropped version of at least one of the pictures used in the 1947 Homogenized Bond Bread package insert set. That's 1948 Bowman #43 Bruce Edwards. Does the counter-top sign I posted yesterday which indicates each large loaf Bond Bread package would have both a Bond Bread card and bubble gum inside mean that the 1947 Homogenized Bond Bread package insert set should considered the rookie set of the Bowman Company? Even if it were the same gum as Bowman's, I don't think so. But anyone out there can help in identifying the sets by posting any information or comments they might have about the question of whether there was bubble gum inside the Bond Bread packages.

Thank you very much,

Mike

Mike

The source for the images in the original 1947 BOND BREAD cards (issued Summer 1947)….1947 TIP TOP BREAD, subsequent
similar cards (issued circa 1949), 1948 and 1949 BOWMAN cards, etc. are from the Major League (and Minor League) Stadium
issued Team Photo packs (examples shown here).
I have traced the source of these Photos to the Harry M. Stevens Publishing Co., who produced the Major (and Minor) League
Yearbooks since the early 1920's.

Some examples of the 1947 and 1948 Team Photo packs...…

https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...pixbbcards.jpg

https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...pixlindell.jpg

https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...obypaige_1.jpg



Harry M. Stevens Publishing Co.

https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...Program25x.jpg


TED Z

T206 Reference
.

Ted, you're are sure going in the right direction and know your stuff. In 1923, ACME Newspictures Service was founded to take over much of the Scripps' newspaper chain and syndicate's collection, processing and distribution of the newsphoto side of the business. What ACME does and how they got there is a longer story. The impact of ACME was glossed over in the discussions in other net54 ball threads about which cards of the Bond Bread Jackie Robinson special set are rookie cards. Those threads used the caption on ACME's photo pictured on one of those cards to establish it could not have been issued before 1949. For use in this thread, I am including here from one of those threads the photos of the card, the front of the ACME photo and its back which provided the details. Unfortunately, those pictures were posted before photobucket starting overprinting pictures and now have that overprint. If anyone can post them without photobucket's overprint, many of us reading this thread, as well as those engaged in the other threads, would be much appreciative. Thanks, Mike

http://i.imgur.com/okxvybi.jpg?1

http://i.imgur.com/RbKRGPE.jpg?1

http://i.imgur.com/gQXDMpt.jpg?1