Pre-War cards shown on TV/Movies
 

Not sure if this has ever been discussed. I started watching Seinfeld re-runs again for the first time in like 5 years. The "Muffin Top" episode was on yesterday. A scene in that episode takes place in George's office when he works for the Yankees. Now, I would not have noticed this 5 years ago since I wasn't collecting back then, but on the wall of his office hangs what looks to be a T205 NY (american and national?) team set. Not sure if they are real or reprints, but I thought it was pretty cool to see a Matty (my wife didn't get as excited). Has anybody else noticed pre-war cards on display in any TV shows or Movies?

Stand by Me (1986)
 

Not pre-war but thought I would add this one. You can see a '58T AS Mantle and a 60T Berra in Gordie's brother's room for a split second.

http://i62.tinypic.com/14t07cm.png

If you watch closely, the cards on George's wall change from episode to episode. I've seen a 33 Goudey Lajoie and 52 Topps among dozens of other cards. All are reprints, of course.

If I remember correctly, Ralphie has some cards stuck to his head board in A Christmas Story. I think one is a Reulbach T206, which would make sense since the story was based in Chicago.

Also remember seeing some baseball cards in Robin William's office in Good Will Hunting. I never looked close enough to see if any were pre-war cards.


Jantz

I remember there's a Lou Gehrig card in the Goonies movie, when they find Chester Copperpot. It's not a period card though, I can't remember exactly what it looked like.

Nevermind, Just found it:

There's also some in the treehouse in the Sandlot movie...

There are a few displayed once in a while in "Blast From the Past." (of course).

The odd thing is the Gehrig card was issued decades after the death of Chester Copperpot. Honestly, how hard could it have been to locate a '33 Goudey for that one scene?

That's a framed display of reproductions... mostly (if not all) HOF. My wife had bought me one on skymall about a dozen years ago.

In the early 80's there was an episode of "Hart to Hart" where the whole show revolved around cards. I think the case involved a murder and theft and a high stakes game of flipping (flipping your cards off the wall to the ground, you keep whatever cards it lands on.... we played this as kids sometimes). I remember going to my local card shop after it aired and everybody was talking about it. It was pretty exciting stuff at the time.

.

Do you really want to debate the suspension of disbelief for The Goonies? :)

They are 05's. First column cicotte and chance second column kaiser, tinker huggins, collins mouth open, third ?, speaker, matty, ? fourth ? I think


Ps beaten to the punch on the Bonnie's rant. Damn.

Great call on the t206 stuck to the headboard in A Christmas Story!

Welp, I found it on youtube. I couldn't sit through the whole thing, but if you have some time to kill here's the whole episode in 5 parts. If nothing else, check out the beginning of part 1...

part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7N33cWbvgU

part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qljOUpBEnj0

part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJugBfsHjHw

part 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NZ1XJePe7U

part 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw3U9_DGiNI

There is also an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show where his son is playing with 1961 Topps cards.

There are a couple episodes of The Wonder Years with card appearances. The show was based in the late 60's but filmed in the late 80's. One episode they got it right and used '69 Topps. Another one they goofed and used '89 Topps.

In the Natural, there is a scene of sheets of 1941 Playball Roy Hobbs cards being printed.

I just watched this episode. Pretty cool and funny at the same time. Very nice selection of cards, mostly 1950s. To sum it up: kid inherits card collection, Mr. Hart calls local card shop and dealer (without looking at the cards) estimates the collection to be worth $250,000, collection gets stolen by mean relatives, collection gets sold at the National which was conveniently that weekend, mean relative buys weapon at show (old bb team jackknife) and stabs the buyer so he can't identify mean relatives, Mr. Hart wins back collection in a flipping contest that lasts all night and all is well in lala land......

phew! Take a peek at it, pretty goofy with some cool cards strewn throughout the show. 1952 Mantle also that is worth $3000 at the time (1975). Another goofy aspect is the cards are referred to as Mint but they are constantly thrown around like firewood and then flipped in an all nighter so that part is pretty funny.

Thanks for linking this show.

peace, mike

another funny episode...
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mtuy_GHM9s

Check out this 20 minute episode of "War at Home" episode called "Breaking up is hard to do"

synopsis: dad gives collection to son, son finds best card (Reggie RC) and posts on Ebay after air brushing out defects to make it look mint, show does split screen of son watching RC go sky high while at same time, the dad is bidding on the RC because its better than the one he just gave his son! :eek:
Too funny! He ends up winning the card on Ebay and his funny quote at end is "I just won a card.....that I already owned!", his son says that its ok not to pay.....but he will leave negative feedback if he does not!:D

Very funny lines in this episode but the cards are actually a little box of commons that they really never show the fronts of. Cool nonetheless.

peace, mike

Major League
 

20 posts before Pedro Cerrano's locker gets a mention?

Link


"From left just above Jobu, that’s a 1984 Donruss Eddie Murray Diamond Kings card, a 1968 Topps Game Roberto Clemente, a mystery card, a 1971 Topps Willie McCovey, a 1954 Topps Hank Aaron rookie card and a 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson."

There is an episode of Who's The Boss, where Tony gets one of his own cards and I think they used a 1982 Fleer card, recognized the back. It definitely wasn't the right set

How bout the movie "Mask" with Eric Stolz and Cher? Rocky Dennis was huge into the Dodgers and cards.

A few others
 

Rainman

Diminished Capacity

Yanksfan09 - That card right above the boy's head in your post looks to me like a 1989 Pacific Mel Harder card.

Jantz

I would have posted a pic of my crib but I hadn't read the thread yet!

I'm pretty sure Stephen kings needful things depicts a baseball card or two...the book describes a honus wagner if my memory serves me.

In "Rainman" Dustin Hoffman's character is a baseball fan and has several cards on his wall in his bedroom.

I believe there's a Ruth RC in Pride Of The Yankees.

" Willie Keeler ? Are you kidding me ? " Was the famous line from Happy Days when Richie tells Potsie that Willie Keller really is in the Hall Of Fame .

I think there was an episode of Castle that was centered around card theft.

Tom C

Re: Pre-War cards shown on TV/Movies
 

I just watched this episode of Pawn Stars last week. Guy walked into the shop
with a nice collection of autographed 1933 Goudey's. Here's the YouTube link:

http://youtu.be/C9agglrXu9U

Enjoy!

ErikV

It was a '55 Topps Koufax.

(Or was it? Muahaha.)

Tom,
You're totally right. I remember that one. They called them "cards from the '30's" but I believe they used '41 Play Balls.

Wow, I'm a dork.

Never noticed those in the background, very cool.

Now, whenever I'm watching TV, I'm looking in the background for pre-war cards. I think I need help. I was watching Good Will Hunting this weekend. In the scenes that take place in Robin Williams office, you can see a poster or something of famous cards. You can't really tell from this pic, but when I was watching, I could make out a CJ Shoeless Joe and a '34 Goudey Gehrig:

a phony one if I remember correctly

Stephen King's Needful Things was a 56 Mantle that the kid gave his soul for.

TV shows
 

There is an episode of MacGuyver that is all about baseball cards. It even has Reggie Jackson in it. There was an old episode of Dennis the Menace that had a Koufax Rookie. And an episode of Star Trek TNG that had an artifact from Earth (1962 Topps Roger Maris).

Enlarged T206 Cards in a Movie
 

I cannot recall the title or subject of the movie, but I do believe it was a biography produced maybe five years ago. Perhaps FDR? Anyway, it had by far the greatest baseball card scene ever . . . a child was waiting for the war (WWI) to end so his dad could return home. There he was with a stack of T206 cards, going through them and, I think, even saying that he only needed a couple more to complete the set! And the ones they showed, as I recall, were major HOFers like Matty, Cobb and Big Train. It was so gratuitous and had absolutely nothing to do with the plot that I figured the director had to be a vintage collector himself. The only thing out of place was that they had enlarged these cards to where they looked to be about the same size as the tall boys of '65 Topps football. Coolest baseball card scene ever!

There is a scene in A League of Their Own where one of the women, when meeting the Tom Hanks character for the first time, tells him that he is her husband's favorite player and asks him to autograph his baseball card... and Hanks rips up the card and throws it on the floor.

Just noticed...
 

on the Paul Milander mini-series within CSI: Las Vegas that the card they use to get his fingerprints from when he was a child was on this card:
http://img.comc.com/i/Baseball/1974/...eb39&size=zoom

The Hallmark Channel has a series called "When Calls the Heart". Its sort of a "Little House" look alike set in a Canadian mining town. One of the episodes last fall centered around a young boy who was good at finding lost things. He eventually found a missing piece of evidence to help the local Mountie solve a crime. At one point the kid is going through his pocketful of treasures and he drops a T206 Wagner on the ground. Good touch since the show is set exactly in 1910! I laughed out loud when I saw it and my wife thought I was nuts.

2 Examples
 

Feature film "Memphis Belle" showed some '41 Playballs. The afore mentioned 'Diminished Capacities" shows a T206 Wildfire Schulte and takes the viewer to a card show where Ernie Banks is the signing guest. Looked like a nice show!

There's also a 1888 Goodwin Champions (ball players) reprint set displayed similarly to these T205's in the hallway outside George's office. You can see it in the episode where Kramer gets the birthday card signed by the Yankees framed and Paul O'Neil has to hit two homers to get it back from the sick kid. They can also be seen in the episode where Jerry accidentally squirts Grapefruit juice in George's eye and he keeps squinting/winking and in the episode when George eats the Kung Pow chicken and is sweating when being questioned about stolen Yankees equipment. Love Seinfeld. Pretty sure I've seen some pre-war cards displayed in "Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia" bar as well.

Did anyone mention that old movie, "Mask," yet? Rocky wanted to get his hands on a Rube Walker card. Part of his 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers collection, I believe.

"Mask" was mentioned, but I recall a 1973 Munson being place on his headstone after he dies. I also want to say his cards are pinned on his wall in sandwich baggies. It has been 25 yrs since I have seen this movie, I could be making it all up, but I think I am right???

Just for clarification, and maybe someone already mentioned this, the framed poster in or near George Costanza's office at Yankee stadium is a poster produced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it features a selection of cards from the Burdick Collection that is housed there.

An episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had Jake Sisko bidding on a 1951 Bowman Willie Mays to give to his dad on his birthday. When he didn't win it in the auction, he spent the rest of the episode trying to buy it from the guy who did win it.


Steve

In a classic second-season episode of The Fugitive (1963-67), a very young Kurt Russell, in his guest-starring role as Lt. Gerard's son, hides in Dr. Richard Kimble's car when the good doctor-on-the-run flees a police dragnet. The kid eventually reveals himself and he and Kimble agree that he won't try to make a run for it -- but in order to leave a "trail," the boy secretly starts flipping his football cards out the car window. When Kimble catches him, he confiscates the remaining cards ... then strikes up a conversation with the kid, who laments that he's never been able to pull a Johnny Unitas. In the final scene of the episode, after Kimble is back on the lam and the kid has been reunited with his parents, there's a close-up of the doc slipping a Unitas card into an envelope addressed to young Mr. Gerard.

Cards on Seinfeld
 

Goodwin Champs and T205's on the "Top of the Muffin" episode