Posted By:
Josh Evans
Al is correct
This is one of a series of “character” pins made in the late 70s early 80s
I remember them being sold in souvenir shops in Manhattan back then
They were not just baseball players in this series but also entertainment figures like the Three Stooges and Humphrey Bogart (I think I still have the Stooges set somewhere)
I also remember them being sold buy a dealer by the name of Foster Pollock
Pollock sold more fake pins than anyone I know of at antique, collectible shows and Beatlefests back in the 1970s and 1980s
He used to lie about them being real which was not nice at all
I bought one of my first big deals from him in 1984 (I was 23)
It was an amazing collection of over 100 press pins going back to 1914
The deal was like $8000 (a mint back then) and I needed a family friend to put up the money, Woody Waga
Woody brought a gun along
I wondered who he thought was going to shoot him, myself or Foster, a dealer I had known since I was 10?
In a sad and ironic happening in this crazy business Foster was killed while coming back from a show in an accident in his van
The Reicher mounts full of pins came crashing forward in the collision and crushed him
He was essentially killed by his fake merchandise
True story
Josh