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Here's some information from Wikipedia about Harry M. Stevens, the publisher of the scorecard shown two post above:
"Harry Mozley Stevens {AKA Hotdog man} (14 June 1855 – 3 May 1934) was a food concessionaire from England who has been variously attributed as the inventor of the hot dog, but has nevertheless been credited with being America's foremost ballpark concessionaire. In 1887 he founded Harry M Stevens Inc., a stadium concessions company which was based in Cranbury, New Jersey until it was acquired by Aramark on December 12, 1994. Harry Stevens was born in London in 1855 but had connections to Litchurch in Derby, England. He emigrated to Niles, Ohio in the 1880s. "On arrival in the States, he became obsessed with baseball and quickly made his mark by designing and selling the sport's first scorecard - a design still in use to this day. By 1900, Stevens had secured contracts to supply refreshments at several Major League ballparks across the US. He also began to sell scorecards to fans with the phrase: "You can't tell the players without a scorecard." "Stevens is credited with telling the story that at the home opener of the New York Giants on a cold April day in 1901 there was limited demand for ice cream. He decided to sell German sausages known as 'dachshund sausages.' When the staff ran out of the wax paper on which the sausages were traditionally served Stevens had one of his employees purchase some buns and had the staff place the hot dogs in the buns, creating what became known today as the hot dog. A cartoonist, recording the event, was reputed to have been unable to spell dachshund, so wrote hot dogs instead. The family has since acquired the original cartoon and has preserved it." Before the company was sold in 1994, if any one of us walked up to any big league ballpark in the country, a hawker would try to sell us one of Stevens' scorecards. If we bought any food from a concessionaire, we bought food from the Stevens Company. Like the Coca-Cola and Cracker Jacks Stevens sold, the company did not make the Team Photo Packs. Think about it. If the 48 card Bond Bread set was based on Team Photo Packs, where did the four pictures of the boxers come from? Something to think about. |
The 1947 Homogenized Bond Bread inserts and Cards and Photos from the era with like and similar pictures.
APPENDIX A – Part One (Working) The “1947 BOND BREAD and its "imposters"....show us your cards ? “ title of the net54ball thread started in 2009 by Ted Zanidakas got right to the point. At that time, numerous cards with pictures similar to the 48 cards of the 1947-48 Homogenized Bond Bread package insert card set had been misidentified as belonging to that set. The size of these other cards did not matter, nor did questions about whether they had rounded or square corners, nor did the fact that some had printed or rubber-stamped text or pictures on the back, nor did the thickness or toning of the paperstock on which they were printed. Now after a dozen years, we find that the convenience to the card marketplace for an easy identifications of can have value has fully distorted proper attribution of many of these cards. Many of them, including the cards of 1947-48 Homogenized Bond Bread package insert set, come from sets that are quite scarce, if not downright rare. The purpose of this Appendix is not to put names on these sets. That will be done in the body of this article as its parts are posted. Rather, this Appendix is an attempt to identify all of the issues that have been attributed in someway or another as a “1947 Bond Bread “ card or set. YOUR HELP IS NEEDED! Whether you agree or disagree with what is written in this appendix, please participate by posting in the thread your comments, criticisms and especially scans of any cards not already pictured that come from any set that could be misdescribed as “Bond Bread.” You will be helping us all. Even just the posting of a scan of one of these missing cards adds to the pool of knowledge. While the quantities issued of some of these various sets may be high, few cards have survived. Please, if you can just post any picture of one of these cards (front and back) by itself, you will create a record so that others years from now won't have to start all over again when perhaps the specific card you have is no longer available. The magnitude of the 1947-1948 Homogenized Bond Bread package insert issue demonstrates that General Baking with its Bond Bread (first baked in 1915) product promotion was no new comer to advertising. How many cards were issued can be be derived from a pre-War Bond Bread blotter promotion, which included the following blotter: https://i.imgur.com/TvC9f9M.jpg https://i.imgur.com/VYIC7WY.jpg?1 A million loafs of bread baked daily by 1940. If all loafs had one of the 48 cards of the 1947-48 Homogenized Bond Bread packet insert card, that's 1,000,000 cards used each day. At least, thirty million a month could have been inserted from about April 1947 into perhaps March 1948, with the promotion increasing the month volume of Bond Bread sales. That could be over a billion cards! Where they are? We do not know. Very few have turned up in over 70 years. Most of the known cards that can be accurately attributed are in the hands of those who took them out of the bread packages. When WWII started, the Bond Bread blotter promotion was shifted to picturing Navy Airplanes, a theme that was carried over into its then ongoing matchbook issues. Post-War, the blotter program shifted to picturing “Modern Miracles” and related topics. The 1947-1948 Homogenized Bond Bread package insert set appears to have been its next major promotion. What it did between 1948 and 1950 is not fully clear. We do know that beginning in 1947 Bond Bread began giving away the 12-13 (or more?) cards of its special Jackie Robinson set and that promotion continued to at least 1949. The Jackie Robinson 1947-48 Homogenized Bond Bread packet insert card would have been issued in 1947 to capitalize on the other Jackie Robinson giveaways and would be missed if not immediately available to fans. In 1950-1951 Bond Bread sponsored Hopalong Cassidy on the radio and issued 2x3 inch Hopalong Cassidy cards, one to each bread package like it had done with its 48 sports card set in 1947-48. Note that the bread package seal pictures Hopalong Cassidy. Over 30 bread package seals were issue, each with an individual number starting with the number "1." https://i.imgur.com/mm1Mvvj.jpg?1 To not overload an individual post, this Appendix is being split into parts, and will continue with the posting of Part Two. Please respond with anything you might want to say or show. Such contributions will be welcomed by all of us. Posting pictures is even better. Copyright 2020, by Michael Fried, P.O. Box 27521, Oakland, California 94602-0521 |
Michael - fun to see you diving in. Can I ask a simpleton's question?
Why are you attempting to (or perhaps successfully) copyrighting message board posts? I cannot for the life of me envision a scenario where someone is going to attempt to steal your intellectual property for their own gain, on a relatively obscure 70+ year old bread/baseball crossover set. feels a bit unnecessary. especially since most of the info you've provided has been aggregated from already publicly available documents. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the work/effort you're putting in, but we all have google (and Ted) to tell us this information. |
In the late 1960s, I acquired a lot of ancient holed cast coins of Korea from the estate of the grandchildren of a missionary who brought them back to the United States in the late 1870s. I spent over two years researching and identifying more than 3,700 hundred different ones. Only about 10% of them were known from the period of the several centuries they covered. I even make detailed drawings. Besides my extensive independent research, many collectors provided invaluable information and incite on the subject. I had thought we all understood that the work was soon to be published for benefit of us all, with the contributors receiving free copies of the final product. At the request of Edgar Mandel of Coral Gables, Florida, who claimed to have some significant information, I sent a near final working draft. In response, he published it as its author and offered it for sale at a high price. None of us, not even I, received a free copy for our contributions.
Copyright 2020, by Michael Fried, P.O. Box 27521, Oakland, California 94602-0521 |
The 1947 Homogenized Bond Bread inserts and Cards and Photos from the era with like and similar pictures.
APPENDIX A – Part Two (Working) 1. The 48 card set (44 baseball players and 4 boxers) inserted in 1947-1948 into Homogenized Bond Bread packages. Characteristics: 1. Printed on one side 2. White Paper Stock 3. Corners a. Some with very crudely cut/die cut rounded corners b. Most with distinctive die cutting, but not of the quality of playing cards The confusion with look-a-likes and the lack of ability on the part of most people and grading services makes it quite often impossible to tell one apart from another. True Bond Bread cards are actually quite scarce if not rare. If I was one who actually took a card out of a Bond Bread package or obtained it from someone I knew conclusively actually did, then I would take a small card-size piece of paper, give it a heading of “DECLARATION,” and put in the following text: “I, [name] declare under penalty of perjury that I [or if appropriate insert the following phrase: “acquired this card from [name] who”] personally obtained the attached card from a package of Homogenized Bond Bread.,” then date and sign. I would keep the declaration with the card. http://i.imgur.com/pPNpzVv.jpg?2 2. 1947 Team Photo Packs. Before and after WWII, real photographs of members of individual baseball teams were available from several sources in a variety of sizes, such 5” x 7”, 6½” x 9” and 8” x 10”, and usually were sold at ballparks, by mail, on some news-stands and in some variety stores. The envelope containing a team set could vary by publisher, and different team sets from the same publisher could vary in the number of photographs from 8 to 31. Most of the team photo packs had printed on the outside of the envelope containing them at least an identification of the team by its name or team logo. Some were dated, but most were not. It was not an uncommon practice to not change a previous year's team photo set if all of the players pictured in the prior year still remained on the team. That was especially true during the early post-WWII years of 1946, 1947 and 1948. Publishers of these sets could be the team itself, the maker of the Team Photo Packs sold by ballpark concessioneer Harry M. Stevens, or others. The printing and developing of the large quantity of photographs needed to supply the demand was no small task. The volume of photograph needed meant that the printing and developing would have begun long before the new baseball season started. Large photographic printing companies had machines that could print 10,000 glossy real photos from a single negative within an 8 hour day. A single team set containing 25 photographs could require the equivalent of twenty-five 8-hour workdays to produce. Of course, these companies had many more than just one machine to process negatives. Such machines ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except when down for maintenance), to recoup their high purchase prices. Sets of more popular teams sold in larger quantities than those of other teams. To be ready for a new season, the quantities of sets made for an individual team could depend on how many of the previous year's sets had sold or still remained. That was determined long before the new season started, with new printings in a sufficient supply to last throughout the season. The timing can lead to interesting mix-ups in Team Photo Packs. For example, a portrait of Joe Gordon in a Cleveland Indians uniform was included in the 1947 Indians Team Photo Pack, and he does not appear in the 1947 Yankees Team Photo Pack – the pack of the team he actually played for in 1947. The Bond Bread insert set and look-a-likes show Joe Gordon in an action shot in a Yankees uniform, and not his portrait in an Indians uniform. http://i.imgur.com/omRVEfn.jpg?1 Similarly, the following pictures are from the 1947 Team Photo Packs sold by Harry M. Stevens in ballparks. The Bond Bread insert set and look-a-likes show actions shots instead. Below are such examples of the portrait type photographs in the initial printing of the player's respective team photograph sets sold in the ballparks – Bob Feller (Indians), Ken Keltner (Indians) and Gil Hodges (Dodgers). http://i.imgur.com/JaZervd.jpg?1 A Duke Snider “rookie” is not in the Bond Bread set, but is in the Dodgers Team Photo Pack. He earned a tryout with the Brooklyn Dodgers during their Spring training in 1947. Snider played his first game with the Dodgers (and in the Major Leagues) on April 17, 1947, the second day of the season. In early July, he was sent down to the St. Paul Saints, but returned to the Dodgers at the end of the season in time to play against the New York Yankees in the 1947 World Series. In all, in 1947 he played 39 Major League games during the regular season. Timing is everything with production and distribution of products related to baseball. Snider's absence from the Bond Bread insert set could suggest the 1947 Dodgers Team Photo Sets were produced before Spring training without him, or were reprinted during the season because the existing supply did not meet the demand. Very few, if any of the glossy photos from the Team Photo Packs ever get misdescribed as “Bond Bread” photos. Yet, much of the discussion about the source of the photos used on the Bond Bread cards and their look-a-likes can only compound the public's confusion about what is what. I've seen complete, individual Team Photo Sets from 1946 through 1950 on the internet at prices from $50 to $250 or more, with some hipping certain individual players for more. We can all help clarify the Team Photo Pack issues. If anyone has a Team Photo Pack from 1946 through 1948 of any of the teams of players appearing on the “Bond Bread” insert set, please confirm that the picture in the individual teams set is or is not the same as that on the Bond Bread insert card. My limited access to such sets has led me to only the following identifications. I have used the word, “pix” to mean picture. NEW YORK GIANTS ------------------- JOHNNY MIZE (pix in the 1948 Giants Team Photo Pack) SID GORDON (not yet determined) LARRY JANSEN (pix in 1948 Team Photo Pack) SHELDON JONES (pix in 1948 Team Photo Pack) BUDDY KERR (pix in 1948 Team Photo Pack) WHITEY LOCKMAN (pix in the Giants 1948 Team Photo Pack) WILLARD MARSHALL (not yet determined) BOBBY THOMSON (pix in the Giants 1948 Team Photo Pack) Note: the Walker Cooper pix (not part of Bond Bread set) but discussed in this thread is in the 1948 Team Photo Pack BROOKLYN DODGERS -------------------- JACKIE ROBINSON (pix in 1947 Dodgers Team Photo Pack) REX BARNEY (Not in the 1947 Team Photo Pack) RALPH BRANCA (pix in 1947 Team Photo Pack) BRUCE EDWARDS (not yet determined) CARL FURILLO (pix in 1947 Dodgers Tetam Photo Pack) JOE HATTEN (pix in 1947 Dodgers Team Photo Pack) GIL HODGES (card is different picture than 1947 Dodgers Team Photo Pack) PEE WEE REESE (pix in 1947 Dodgers Team Photo Pack) NEW YORK YANKEES -------------------- JOE DiMAGGIO (same as Team Photo Pack) LARRY BERRA (same as Team Photo Pack) JOE GORDON (NOT IN Yankees Team Photo Pack, but in Indians uniform in 1947 Indians Team Photo Pack, he was traded by the Indians to the Yankees Oct. 11, 1946 for Allie Reynolds) CHARLIE KELLER (same as Team Photo Pack) JOHNNY LINDELL (same as Team Photo Pack) PHIL RIZZUTO (same as Team Photo Pack) AARON ROBINSON (unknown pix included in Team Photo Pack) BOSTON RED SOX ------------------ TED WILLIAMS 1947-47 Red Sox Team Photo Pack has portrait of Williams, not action shot as Bond Bread card) DOM DIMAGGIO (1947-47 Red Sox Team Photo Pack has portrait of Dom DiMaggio , not action shot as Bond Bread card) BOBBY DOERR (1947-47 Red Sox Team Photo Pack has portrait of Doerr, not action shot as Bond Bread card) JOHNNY PESKY CLEVELAND INDIANS --------------------- BOB FELLER (The 1947 Indians Team Photo Pack has a portrait of Bob Feller, not an action shot like the Bond Bread set) LOU BOUDREAU (1948 Indians Team Pack has portrait of Boudeau, Feller and Keltner, not action shots) KEN KELTNER (The 1947 Indians Team Photo Pack has a portrait of Ken Keltner, not an action shot like the Bond Bread set) GEORGE (BIRDIE') TEBBETTS (not yet determined) ST LOUIS CARDINALS ---------------------- STAN MUSIAL (not yet determined) HARRY BRECHEEN (not yet determined) ENOS SLAUGHTER (not yet determined) BOSTON BRAVES ----------------- JOHNNY SAIN (not yet determined) BOB ELLIOTT (not yet determined) TOMMY HOLMES (not yet determined) CINCINNATI REDS ------------------- EWELL BLACKWELL (not yet determined) JOHNNY VANDERMEER (not yet determined) CHICAGO CUBS ------------- ANDY PAFKO (not yet determined) PHILADELPHIA ATHLETICS -------------------------- EDDIE JOOST (not yet determined) PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES ------------------------- DEL ENNIS (not yet determined) PITTSBURGH PIRATES ---------------------- RALPH KINER (not yet determined) ST LOUIS BROWNS ------------------- VERN STEPHENS (not yet determined) Let's put an end to the serious “Bond Bread” debacle. Your contributions can help prevent collectors from being misled and paying too much for a mislabeled item, and can increase the value of other cards that have been cast aside as merely “Bond Bread” ones. Today, I saw on the internet a card called “Ted Williams Card From Bond Bread,” which is pictured below. [Ted said to “show us your cards.”] If I even said its the wrong picture, would I be saying too much? http://i.imgur.com/90KsJ4e.jpg?1 To not overload an individual post, this Appendix is being split into parts, and will continue with the posting of Part Three. Copyright 2020, by Michael Fried, P.O. Box 27521, Oakland, California 94602-0521 |
Bond Bread
Hello all, and thanks to the administrators for letting me in. Although I have used OldCardboard.com and PreWarCards.com extensively these past few months, I only discovered this site yesterday after doing a Google search for "Bond Bread Baseball Cards". I'm thrilled to have read this insightful discussion and thank Ted for opening the thread with his experience and insight and Michael (ABCToo) for his great research.
I did not collect many pre-war cards until this year; but now I love all of the great old issues, especially these and Exhibits cards with all of there wonderful black and white photographic images. In buying some cards on Ebay I have done research on PSA, the grading site. It seemed obvious that there is confusion about the Homogenized Bond Bread issue and classification/origin. This group has opened my eyes to what reality is. I agree with most of the analysis of what is, and what isn't a Bond Bread card. Ok, newbies first comment and/or question about the actual post: While I agree that many of these cards are infacto Rookie Cards of many of the ballplayers of the era, is it possible that this fact has been ignored because Bond Bread was not widely distributed throughout the USA in that era? It seems it may have been more of a regional bread and card distribution in the east coast areas (where admittedly most of the ball clubs existed in the 1940's). Please correct my assumption if this is inaccurate. Thanks |
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I much appreciate your post. To me, the Bond Bread insert set is a regional issue. I grew up in the Oakland area of California. In the late 1940s and into the 1950s, the three Big Leagues for me were the Pacific Coast League, the National League and the American League. We had no MBL until 1958, when two "regional" teams moved from New York, one to San Francisco and the other to Los Angeles. Today, the 1946-1950 Oakland Oaks bread sets are listed in many catalogs "Remar Bread Oakland Oaks." By 1947, the name on the bread packages changed from the baking company's name of "Remar" to their brand name, "Sunbeam." Being so young then, I had never heard of "Remar Bread," only of "Sunbeam Bread." To go to an extreme, you could ask why the "Bond Bread" and "Tip Top Bread" sets are not called the "General Baking" sets after the name of their baking company. Scott, I hope I'm not rambling too much, but you are right in raising the issue of what is a "rookie" card. In the 1980s as the "rookie" card hype and demand rapidly increased, many started or returned to card collecting because they could find quantities of current cards and sell them at outrageous prices. In new cards issues, manufacturers even began to replace journeymen players with untried rookies and special "inserts." It was even debated whether the Mark Maguire Olympics baseball card from the 1984 Topps baseball set was his "rookie" card because he did not play in the Major Leagues until later. Desipte the tens of thousands of a single card being graded, Wow! -- the demand and prices just grew, with "rookie" cards and special inserts still a main selling factor of new sets today. Well, if you can get that kind of money for a common card, what about the "rookie" cards of retired players, especially those in the Hall of Fame? But these weren't that easy to find as those few who had been collecting for years before had found out. Without an adequate supply to meet the hyped-up demand for "rookie" cards, what did they do? First, they dropped the idea that a "rookie" card had to be issued the first year a player played professional baseball (those playing in the minor leagues also get paid). Such cards just did not exist for too many players. Then, they sidestepped the idea that a "rookie" had to be the actual first card a player appeared on. No adequate supply of regionally issued cards existed to touch the "rookie" card demand for old players. Well, what are often considered as "the major" companies had had wide scale distribution of cards with sets including these players. And, obviously while not available in the quantities of "rookie" cards of the 1980s, "rookie" cards could be found and sold to meet demand. The Jackie Robinson 1948 Leaf baseball card fit the requirement. Though this card is not from his first year playing in the Major Leagues (1947 was his Major League rookie year) and was issued a year after his 1947 Bond Bread insert card and some of his other Bond Bread giveaways, in the parlance of the trade, the 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson card is his "rookie card." Scott, again thank you for your post. Keep them coming. I took to heart what you said. You've helped me understand just how easily a label can be put on something that has different meanings to different people. That's one of the problems in distinguishing Bond Bread package insert and giveaway cards from the many others erroneously labeled as "Bond Bread" cards. In the future, I will attempt to not label cards merely as "rookie" cards, but will identify them as either: (1) issued during the player's first year playing professional baseball, (2) first year playing in the Major Leagues, (3) first card issued of player, or (4) first card issued by set manufacturer. That's a lot more words than saying "rookie" card, but at least it won't be so ambiguous that somebody could think we're talking about something. Mike |
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The 1949 LEAF set is NOT a "1948 Leaf" issue. LEAF issued a Boxing set, Football set, and Pirates set in 1948. I collected all these cards as a very young fellow back then. The 98 subjects in the 1949 LEAF set were issued in two Series. The first 49 cards were issued in early Spring 1949. The 2nd Series of 49 cards were issued circa July - Aug 1949. Furthermore, this 2nd Series of cards were regionally limited to distribution only in the Boston area, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio (and perhaps the St. Louis area). I published an 8-page article on this set in the OLD CARDBOARD magazine (Issue #9). Check-it-out. So, please get your facts straight regarding these LEAF sets. TED Z T206 Reference . |
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I had intended to post a picture of what many call the "rookie" card of Jackie Robinson but nodded off. When I woke up, I did a bing search for a "Jackie Robinson rookie card" to get a picture and found Old Sports Cards blog article entitled “Jackie Robinson Baseball Cards: The Ultimate Collectors Guide” at https://www.oldsportscards.com/jacki...aseball-cards/ . Old Sports Cards said: "1948 Leaf #79 Jackie Robinson Rookie Card / Estimated PSA 8 Value: $45,000 / There is only one true rookie card for Jackie Robinson, and that is the iconic 1948 Leaf." Still in a daze, I adjusted my post and submitted it without taking time to even add a picture. Ted, after I read your post, I retraced my steps to understand what I had done. One of the next items in the search was a direct link to the PSA company's website: https://www.psacard.com/cardfacts/ba...nson-79/21593/ That webpage said: “This is the only true rookie card of baseball's first African-American representative and hero to all,” and showed the following picture. https://i.imgur.com/vLtvRIi.png?1 We both know the Leaf card was issued in 1949, not 1948. As I put in my response to Scott above, the use of a "rookie" label to identify a card is extremely misleading, and often used not merely inaccurately, but for profit. Even if someone thought that a true "rookie" card could only be one that was issued by a gum manufacturer (like Topps, Bowman or Leaf), the 1948 Swell Sports Thrills #3 Jackie Robinson would predate the 1949 Leaf card. Ted, if you could post a direct link to your OLDCARDBOARD article, I think many would appreciate it. I appreciate you keeping me straight. Thanks, Mike |
"Rookie"
I didn't want to misdirect the theme of this thread into another debate ...lol, but as it relates to the Bond Bread issue, I saw an Ebay listing this week that i thought was rather profound. It was for a 1947 Bond Bread Stan Musial (I believe) and the listing called it his "Pre-Rookie" card.
BTW...another "round corner" lot of Bond Bread, with a nice Jackie Robinson, sold for $899 this morning. With the Bond issue I have also seen several card grading companies lately that I have never heard of prior to digging into the sales of this issue. Since many here seem to have the experience and expertise on the Bond Bread issue, have any of you actually contacted any of the card grading to clarify the issue? Unfortunately there are so many existing graded cards that likely was mis-labeled previously it would likely be a huge embarrassment to them and their so-called expertise. Again historical usage will likely prevail, unlike poor Pluto which was demoted from Planetary status, despite decades of public "knowledge". Sorry for the ramble |
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