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Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss
EDITED -- I reviewed a note from the previous owner that states the set was purchased from the estate of the late Bill Haber, who was an employee of Topps for many years and an early card-collecting pioneer. Among other things, Here is what I was able to find on Bill online:
"Bill Haber was a Topps employee for quite some time and wrote a lot of what appeared on the backs of baseball cards. He was responsible for bringing many Topps test and proof issues into the market as he was an early dealer; he spun some tall tales about the origins of these sets in certain cases, thereby obfuscating the real story but giving us raison d'etre here at the ol' Topps Archives."
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Congratulations, Ryan! Your E107 acquisition admits you to a rather exclusive fraternity, one that includes some of the most dedicated collectors in the hobby's history (Chris Sullivan, Lew Lipset, Scott Brockelman, the late Don McPherson among others, plus at least three people currently working on the set).
If, indeed, Bill Haber's E107s form the nucleus, your set has an incredible pedigree. As I recall, Bill told me he acquired the bulk of his E107s from a pioneer collector whose name I can no longer remember. And, it was my understanding that another hobby legend purchased the set after Haber's premature passing.
Bill Haber was much more than a Topps employee and baseball card collector. He was a founding member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and a peerless biographical researcher. Without Ancestry or the Internet he tracked down birth and death data for dozens of early ballplayers, filling blanks in the MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia (an earlier generation's Baseball Reference). He focused his card collection on E107, Colgan's Chips (E254 and E270), T210 and T209 because many of the players he "found" or was pursuing were included in those sets.
So, know that your E107 set has long been treasured. Please treat it accordingly.
B0b Rich@rds0n