Clint,
There is an uncanny analogue between the Mud Hen pins and the Jackie Robinson/Brooklyn Eagle pin. To the best of my knowledge there is no surviving Robinson pin with the letter "R" on it, because they could be redeemed for a baseball autographed by Robinson. These Mud Hen pins came in a loaf of bread, and could be redeemed for a ticker to a Mud Hens game. This set is not extremely scarce. I wonder if shoppers saved the pins instead of trading them in for tickets, or if after the season the Mud Hens front office decided to sell them or give them to fans instead of destroying them.
This set is one of four from the same era. The same bread company sponsored all of them. This first set was made in 1920 for the Toledo team, the second was made in 1922 for the Toledo team again, the third set was made in 1924 and featured MLB stars of the day, and this fourth set was from 1933. Your discovery provides the only known explanation for how at least one of these sets were distributed. I wonder if the other three sets were distributed in the same way. The three minor league sets typically sell for around $400 each. The MLB set typically sells for over $2,000. If the method of distribution was the same for all four sets, and the production runs were comparable, the higher price for the MLB set would not be based on differential supply. Additionally, the MLB set contains the fewest pins (10).
Is your scrap book item a page from a newspaper, or is there printing only on one side? As you can tell, it got my interest.
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