Quote:
Originally Posted by the-illini
Good point - I am sure they were much less fragile 50-60 years ago. It is amazing how many survived in decent condition.
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Yeah, there seems to be a lot more of these out there than you would have thought survived all these years. The paper on some of the ones you come across are actually still in pretty decent shape and probably not much different than when they were originally issued. You probably could still safely write on some of them today if you really wanted. I think the trick there is how they were stored over all these years and what kind of heat and humidity they were subjected to.
Also seems like 10-20 years ago you would see a lot more of them for sale than you do now though. Could just be me, but I wouldn't be too surprised if a lot of these are sitting in private collections now. Great pieces, great images, and pretty much every star of the day in this one set. Plus they are 8" X 10"s so you get a really good, detailed look at these players that you usually only see drawings of on smaller sized cards.
My guess is that them being flat and thin actually helped them to survive. Figured people just stuck them in a drawer or an album, and then forgot about them. Cards are smaller in overall size, but thicker and maybe more difficult to stash in a drawer or stack and put away safely. They didn't have top loaders and binder pages like we do today to store our cards.
One thing I always thought would make a really great framed display was if you could find a nice copy of one of these old Sporting News issues, and put it alongside the M101-2 supplement that was originally issued with it. Never seen anyone try that before. Might have to look into that now............