Paul Marchant and Exhibit Supply Company?
 

Does anybody know whether longtime mail order dealer Paul Marchant is still around, and if so, how to get in touch with him? He bought the Exhibit Supply Company's sports card plates in 1980. I'm asking for George Vrechek, who is technically a member of this board but never goes on here. George is also looking for info on the history of the Exhibit Supply Co.

I can tell you that Marchant bought the company and its archives from the founding owner when the founding owner retired, then Marchant sold all the original art about ten years ago. Se he was the second owner. When Marchant auctioned off the original art, the winners got a short history of the company-- that's how I know. The only thing I don't retain is the founder's name.

Thanks for this, David. I passed it along to George Vrechek, whose response is below. If anybody is able to help him, let me know.

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Marchant bought from Chet Gore who took over (eventually) from founder J. Frank Meyer.
The other guys who might help me are Bob Schulhof, Sheldon Goldberg and Steve Reeves, but I can’t find them either.

Hi David,

Paul Marchant has on ebay store called Marchant Cards. George can try mail@marchantcards.com. I hope this works for him.

Jeff Alcorn

There are a lot of hobby publications that have a lot of ESCO information in them. Elwood Scharf (sp?) was the Exhibit expert back in the day. I have seen/read many of his writings...

Elwood Scharf
 

Leon is right about Woody. I knew him from the 70's.

I have all of his notebooks which includes checklists, the articles he published in The Trader Speaks etc..

Fred

Elwood "Woody" Scharf was a fine gentleman collector. He graciously reached out to me when I was a novice Exhibit collector through VCBC and gave me a great deal of information on the earlier cards. I still have my stash of correspondence with him somewhere.

I also have all of Scharf's articles in The Trader Speaks, as well as the series of supplements he did for The Ballcard Collector in the early 70s (about a 15-part series), with checklists and writeups on the various series of Exhibit cards. I'll let you guys know if George needs any more info.

I was hoping he would finish the Exhibit stories run before TTS folded but it didn't happen. I liked reading all those when I was putting my TTS collection together.

Could you post some of Woody Scharf's articles and correspondence sometime? I'd love to study them and learn more about his insights. Is he still with us?

I don't know if he is still around but I am pretty sure I have quite a bit of his notes and stuff. If I can dig them out I will post some soon. I imagine many other members have some of his writings too.

Update-Alas, I was mistaking and have only seen articles written by him over my collecting periodicals days. I have several old time collector's notes and letters but not his.

While the original art was sold, what about the company, what little is left. There must be some publication rights or the company name or something right?

I know I have all of his Trader Speaks articles on Exhibit cards and related issues. I’ve thought about posting them, but it’s a long series, with I think 30+ articles, and I don’t think he finished it before The Trader Speaks folded, as Dave H said. I have most, and maybe all, of his series of Exhibit card articles that were issued as supplements to Ballcard Collector in the early 70s. These are more detailed, including checklists, but they’re stapled into the center fold and would need to be removed very carefully. I’ll have to see whether I have all of those and how much of a pain it would be to remove them. Luckily Irv Lerner, whose run of Ballcard Collectors I have, does not seem to have been interested in Exhibit cards.

Scharf wrote an article for Ballcard Collector in 1970 with his memories of collecting 1933 Goudey cards when they came out. (Here’s a link: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=219310) That would imply that he was born in the early 1920s or so, which would make him almost 100 if he was still alive.