Zeenut Stories
 

After looking at the other Zeenut thread, I looked through the archives to see what, if any, stories I could find about the Zeenut cards being collected. Here's what I found through a cursory search online.

First, from 1929, the perils of pulling a Vernon player.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...f2ca070043.jpg

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Second, the thrill of pulling a rare card, though it may lead to violence.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...9ea0b8c5cc.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...365d38916e.jpg

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Finally, a group of old timers congregate at a bar to go through an old stack of Zeenuts.

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Thanks Mattsey...I have never seen those before, and from those columns it certainly feels like Zeenut cards were the West Coast version of what was seen during the T206 craze. A couple of the articles give a real good look at the dynamics of rare/star cards value and how highly prized they were on the kid street market.

Brian

Thanks for sharing!!!

Thanks Mike,
Great anecdotes, and much easier to track down these days with 'word search' than the old fashioned way...:)

So, from the second article, is Spider Baum a scarce card worth 50-100 commons in a trade?

You're not kidding, Mark! Research has gotten a lot easier over the last decade.

I wondered the same. I found another snippet where someone claimed to have traded 3 Baums for 1 Lefty O'Doul. I'd be curious to hear the relative scarcity myself.

Any idea what the year was of the Baum card?

None of the Baum cards are particularly scarce today. He was clearly high demand in the day, but likely a distribution issue for particular series' of cards. Some series of cards were only distributed in certain areas.

thanks
 

As a new collector of zeenuts, I really appreciate and enjoyed the stories.
thanks
Dan

As Mark said, the Collins-McCarthy company apparently distributed strangely so what may have been a "RAREY" in one part of town was not that in another part of town or city. For example I found a vintage collection of 1920's Zeenut cards several years ago and within the group I had only a few duplicate 1925's but of the 10-20 dupes in my group were several copies of Phillips and McCann, which in 1925 are VERY tough to find and I think even Mark needed them. Thus, the rest of California those cards were RAREY cards as described in the article but for whatever reason the area where the collection I had purchased were found they were apparently very common 1925's. Just funny distribution, there are other stories like that where a once rare card is found in quantity all of the sudden.

Ruf Neks?
 

The second post above mentions identical cards appearing in Zeenuts, Home Run Kisses, and Ruf Neks. HRK also had their own series; what about Ruf Neks?

Bill

The only year HRK had their own set was 1912, after that regular Zeenut cards were distributed in all 3 brands. From differing accounts either Zeenut was the most popular or the least (maybe different tastes in different areas?). But for my money back then I'd probably have gone for the Ruf-Nek's as I like chocolate and Marshmallow.

Rhett is completely accurate. The find that he made with multiple Phillips cards filled in a gap for me. I had never found a copy in collecting more than 30 years (at the time). Shortly after I traded with Rhett to acquire the Phillips, I picked up a collection with two additional examples of Phillips. So what was "rare" for me for over thirty years suddenly was common. That is what you learn collecting series like Zeenuts (Old Judge, Colgans, W-600,etc). Clearly like navigating a zodiak boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during a hurricane.

On the candy choices, depending on who you talked with and where they lived, Zeenuts (particularly prior to WW 1) or Ruf Neks were the favorites. Zeenuts were apparently discontinued around 1930 (hence the change from "Zeenut series" to "Coast League") when the candy was no longer profitable. Wholesale price in 1918 was $35 per thousand (3 1/2 cents a box). In the 30's a ten cent product from Collins was also included in the promotion.

When I encounter the ever vanishing baseball fans from the 30's, I ask them about "Ruf-Nek" photos and they all know what I'm talking about if they group up in the Bay Area.

That is a great article, thanks for sharing.

What a time to be a kid. I'd have been in those bleachers too.