I was in Defiance, OH just this past weekend - my wife and I visited friends there on the way home from the SABR National Convention in Minneapolis. We had lunch with a woman we knew, and her husband who we met for the first time. When he heard about my interest in baseball, he said "you'll probably be interested in this story, then," and told me about the "Black Swamp" find. (but he didn't call it that - he called it the "Kissner's cards").
The story he told me (and he has known the family for years) has a bit of a twist to it, a bit different than what has been reported and discussed. He said the two sisters who lived in the house were real collectors/"pack rats", and that they collected anything and everything. Evidently the house was packed to the rafters, with everything imaginable. So, then he starts telling me about the TOBACCO baseball cards that were found - and that "most of them had never been opened." So I filled him in about the 1910-era cigarette cards, but warned him that if the cigarette packs hadn't been opened, they may well contain cards with birds or flags, not always baseball cards. Then he said " they weren't in packages of cigarettes, they were in packages of CHEWING TOBACCO!" (Evidently, a few packages were opened to see what was inside). When I expressed an interest in trying to see the cards, I was told that the family had "gotten in touch with some people in Texas who said the cards were authentic, and they're going to auction them off." So, that was my introduction to the "Black Swamp Find" - then all the publicity the past few days.
But, the family that found the cards had no idea what they were - all the press and hype has been about the E98 (candy) cards, but evidently the people involved mentioned cards from chewing tobacco packages (how stained would those be after 100 years?). So, perhaps some TOBACCO cards will also surface from this find!
My wife's grandfather owned a jewelry store on Clinton Street (the main street in town) in Defiance in the 1920s-60s, about two blocks from the restaurant that Karl Kissner owns. Kissner's is a beautiful place - a huge old wooden bar, pressed tin ceiling, etc. Looks pretty much unchanged from the 1910 era. Based on where Carl Hench (the fellow who saved the cards in 1910) lived and worked, I feel pretty certain that my wife's grandfather probably knew him. I wish they would have traded and collected together!
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